Pablo Mari: Pros and cons of an unknown centre back

by .

The dust is starting to settle on the Pablo Mari signing (which hasn’t been confirmed yet) and there’s lots of back and forth about the validity of the hire.

There are two camps. One that says we should be happy we’ve just signed a Copa Libertadores winner. The other that thinks the standard of football over there is for chumps.

I don’t really know where I stand on this signing.

For me, I have a few worries.

  1. City and Arteta passed on him for 3 years and let him go for sub £1.5m and no one in Europe came in with a deal longer than a year.
  2. The Brazilian league is much slower than the Premier League, it is easier to stand out there.
  3. He looks quite slow, which isn’t ideal in a league that is more intense and has players like Traore destroying careers on the weekly.

I also have a few, ‘well, this could be interesting’

  1. We are not City, they have an outrageously high threshold for talent. Being ‘not good enough’ for a team that was dropping 98+ points in the league is no shame
  2. Players grow, especially centre backs. Name the best centre backs in the world at the moment, most of them are in their late twenties early 30s. Pablo is 26 years old, about prime time to start showing what he’s made of.
  3. He looked mighty fine against Liverpool’s best starting 11, keeping all the pace monsters quiet by reading the game like peak-Maldini.
  4. We are skint. Arteta has picked up a piggy bank filled with air. So you can bitch all you like, but unless you know a cheap centre back that’s available now and willing to join, then we really are bumming around at the bottom of the barrel.
  5. He’s a winner. He won the biggest trophy in South American football and he played a big role in it. Flamingo played a daring style of football that captivated the world, Pablo ran a high line, he made his lack of pace work, and he led like a warrior.
  6. I don’t mind curveball signings. It’s what we need to be doing. Sometimes they work, sometimes they fail. Remember, Arsene Wenger made a living out of ‘who the fuck’ signings way back when. Remember Gilberto? What a game-changer that was. Remember Néstor Fabián Caballero? Of course you don’t, he played 1 game.

I think we’re basically in a ‘shut up and support the player’ space.

To clarify the comments on agent hanger-ons yesterday. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t engage with Super Agents, it’s often unavoidable. Look at Dortmund and what they had to do to bring Haaland to their team. What I’m saying is we shouldn’t be letting these people set the agenda for us, and we shouldn’t be asking players and managers to switch agents to land moves to Arsenal, as is alleged by Phil Costa with the Ukrainian guy, and what seemed to happen with Unai Emery.

Arturo Canales is a name that comes up again and again. He should never have been allowed to influence Arsenal on who the new manager should have been post-Wenger, yet he was. Was he also advising Raul to give Emery a new deal? Was he the one lobbying for Emery to stay on longer than he did? Who knows… a proper club is not swayed by anyone outside the brain trust installed to advise it.

‘WOULD YOU COMPLAIN IF IT WORKED’

Again, a dim counter-argument. Outside the fact we’re sitting in 10th after investing £200m in the squad, being led by agents or a coterie of outside advisors has not helped many of the major clubs. You need look no further than Manchester United to see what opening your world to the whims of people with vested interests in themselves can do to a prestigious operation. As a fan, you should want your football club to have elite internal talent that can make decisions about talent without the outside nudge of an agent looking to move bodies around their network. Liverpool are case in point. They are not run by outsiders. They are run by an elite crew of world-class people that inform their decisions on cutting edge data. You can doubt some of the players they sign, but never the reasons why, because there will always be a robust rationale as to ‘why.’

Same couldn’t be said as to why we signed Dennis Suarez last season, right?

Hopefully, our Technical Director is of a modern mindset, and this deal is about his understanding of the Brazilian league. Hope, hope, hope.

Right, BIG GAME tomorrow as we have the chance to redeem ourselves in the FA Cup against Bournemouth. Can’t wait. See you in the comments.

P.S. Talking of the comments section. We need to do better. Keep it to the football because stealth red cards are coming out with 6 match bans. Trolling, incessant arguing of old points, or just being a bitch are all cardable offences.

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G8

Marc
it’s really the chicken or egg casuality dilemma 🤣

Valentin

Cesc, “Arsenal history with Sanllehi etc shows we’ve got that balance pretty nice with Martinelli, Saliba and Guendouzi as your youth buys, players like Torreira out of nowhere, players like Leno which were well thought out and reasonably priced” Except that Raul had nothing to do with most of the signing you mentioned. Martinelli was the result of Cagigao our Spain and South America scout. Saliba, Guendouzi, Leno were due to Sven. I still blame Sven for Leno when there was cheaper and better option available at the time. I will concede that Torreira is likely to have been a… Read more »

Dissenter

Marc
We drive a LOT more here though, a lot more than most other developed countries
Cheap gas, super comfy gas guzzling cars and good roads…makes driving part of America culture.
I can understand using a chopper on a week day in LA but the roads are not busy on a Sunday morning.

Bojangles

Yes Pedro ACLF was written by Yogi. A sad loss for the Arsenal community. He had a very good writing style. Never missed one of his blogs but he had been sick for the past 6 to 9 months, last post was the review of the Everton game.

RIP Yogi.

Marc

Dissenter

What’s the average miles annually driven by an American out of interest?

I always thought that if it was a long journey yanks would take an internal flight.

Dissenter

Valentin
“Saliba, Guendouzi, Leno were due to Sven.”

You’re just speculating
You don’t think Cagigao had a hand in ALL these transfers? He has been one of our stand-out scouts for a long time, long before golden boy showed up.
Saliba was signed 7 months after Sven left yet you still gave Sven credit for his transfer. At this rate, you’ll be crediting Sven for transfers we make in 2027.

Marc

Valentin

You have a massive issue with Sanllehi and no amount of signings that are good by him or Sven signings that are proven to be poor will ever change your point of view.

Cesc Appeal

‘Except that Raul had nothing to do with most of the signing you mentioned.’

That’s exactly the point I was making. In your eagerness to jump on any perceived praise of Sanllehi you’ve missed the point and supported what I was saying.

You also have to stop passing off that you have internal knowledge of Arsenal’s workings. We know for a fact those players arrived. Who drove them, who negotiated them, who closed them you don’t know for the majority.

End of.

Marc

Dissenter

Pedro and Valentin will give Sven the credit if Saliba works out – if he turns out to be fucking useless he’ll suddenly become a Sanllehi signing.

Marc

Cesc

Actually I can tell you for a fact that Sven had nothing to do with closing the Saliba deal.

Cesc Appeal

‘Saliba was signed 7 months after Sven left yet you still gave Sven credit for his transfer.’

Emery found a note stuck to the underside of his desk Mislintat left. Common knowledge, come on.

Also conveniently misses out the fact Mislintat was responsible for Sokratis and Mhkitaryan.

Everyone is going to have hits and misses. Everyone needs to have an input in our transfer business. Like I said, it’s the everything is black or white that is the issue.

Dissenter

Marc
I can’t say for certain. it does vary depending on the region. In some densely populated built up metro areas like NYC and Chicago, the public transpiration is good enough to survive without a car.
In most of the other densely populated areas like Houston, LA and Atlanta, driving is essential to survival. When I lived int LA, I drove 120 miles daily and that was nothing compared to the norm.
The town planning approach they used in the 50’s revolves around surbabia – that is changing though because people are moving back to the city centers.

Marc

“Also conveniently misses out the fact Mislintat was responsible for Sokratis and Mhkitaryan.”

What about Lich?

Cesc Appeal

‘Actually I can tell you for a fact that Sven had nothing to do with closing the Saliba deal’.

Haha.

That’s fair.

Probably our well connected and experienced negotiator got it over the line despite competition from Spurs and City. Pesky connections and experience.

Habesha Gooner

Juventus labouring against an out of form Napoli is a little weird.

Cesc Appeal

‘What about Lich?’

Forgot that one.

Add to that to another of his misses.

Get ready for the slew of comments defending Mislintat which will again completely miss the point.

Valentin

Pedro is right in that the rate of accident for private jet and helicopter is much higher than commercial planes. A friend of mine spent 15 years in the French army and got her helicopter license. She said that contrary with private plane the issue with helicopter is not so much pilot competence than maintenance crew competence. She flew in Africa and in the U.S. for celebrities and executives, but the worst maintained helicopters were in the U.S. Only very rich people can afford helicopters in Africa, so they don’t skimp on the maintenance, but in the U.S. there is… Read more »

Dissenter

Marc, Cesc
I like to believe we use a team/committee approach for transfers, that’s why we have so much role diffusion in the job titles. There’s a lot of overlapping responsibilities so no one person gets the credit or ought to take the blame.

Mislintat publicly stated that we wanted MORE control, the club [Raul] refused and Sven moved on.

Cesc Appeal

Dissenter

Agreed.

That’s the way it should be.

Multiple options on the table, multiple opinions, multiple skill sets.

Dissenter

The US does not skimpy on helicopter travel.
Anyone who has a basic knowledge knows that helicopters are one of the most unstable ways to travel by air.
It doesn’t take much for a helicopter to lose lift and lose control, especially flying across hills and small mountains.

Dissenter

Sarri’s Juventus being put to the sword by a Napoli in crises.

Marc

Dissenter

I agree with your take on the committee approach to transfers and how we want to move forward.

My issue is this lie that is peddled about how under Sven we operated on a data driven approach but the number of players we signed who had previous with Sven is laughable, we also never signed any of these unknown diamonds he supposedly renowned for.

Valentin

Cesc, Sven tried to recruit Saliba the year before, so we can safely said that he knew of him. Raul negotiated so well that he ended up with a worst deal than he started the negotiation. The only point Saint-Etienne had said they would not budge was the 1 year loan. We offered more money and still did not get him. Romeyer said that he was willing to accept £20 millions for a 1 year loan. We ended up paying £30 millions for a 1 year loan. Regarding the Sokratis recruitment, Sven wanted to recruit Söyüncü but Raul insisted that… Read more »

Dissenter

Marc
Mislintat’s best moment for Arsenal was helping to sign his Dormund players – Mykhi and Auba. That remixing of old time hits was his first contribution to Arsenal.
All it did was worsen out situation because we ended top making our top 4 higgles paid players in TWO positions. It was insane because not even Wenger nor Emery would play all four on the field at the same time.
It was mismanagement of epic proportions.

Dissenter

* top FOUR highest paid players in TWO positions.

Marc

Dissenter

I agree – when we got Sven I really thought we’d got a guy who’d start bringing in players along the lines of Vieira, Anelka etc. Fact is despite a few on here’s claims to the opposite Sven’s influence will be nigh on non existent in a couple of years.

Valentin

Dissenter, I don’t think that we have issue with overlapping role and title. I think that it was more fundamental than that, we had conflict on the method of scouting and the type of players. Agents approach is only useful for well established players. Hidden gems will not have well known agents, most of them will use a family member as agents. So the contact approach is irrelevant and inefficient in those cases. Even Martinelli success story was not done as part of a grander plan. Martinelli was supposed to join the U23 and not the first team. He is… Read more »

Cesc Appeal

‘Mislintat’s best moment for Arsenal was helping to sign his Dormund players – Mykhi and Auba’. Exactly. Talk about a contacts approach. We all wanted BvB 2.0 here, not literally aging BvB players he’d recruited previously. His first load of players were Lichtsteiner, Sokratis, Mkhitaryan, Aubameyang, Leno, Guendouzi, Torreira. 1 was a data buy, 1 was known from his time in Germany, 1 was a good youth scout, 1 was an oldie freebie, 3 were previous players 1 of which was marquee. You look at this summer. Martinelli, Saliba, Ceballos, Luiz, Tierney, Pepe. Real mix of players and a mix… Read more »

Dream10

Szczesny looking shaky right before the knockout stages of the CL start.

Marc

Cesc

When you say one of Sven’s signings was data driven do you mean Torreira?

KAY Boss

Valentin, I feel you’ll find it difficult to appreciate whatever good Raul does. Signings can be hit and miss. And also, you seem fixated on Pepe and wish he never succeed so you’ll drive your ‘I told u so mantra’.

Nelson

“Nature has a way of rewarding the average Joe, it seems.”

Suddenly, i feel safe. Thanks!

KAY Boss

Come to think of it,why is it that some here denigrate the competitiveness of other leagues and their competitions yet always want to sign the best talents coming from there. Especially Africa and South America.
Pedro I’m surprised re your comments about the quality of the Copa Libertadores. Quite disappointed bro.

Cesc Appeal

Marc Yeah. I think it was Emery that wanted N’Zonzi or a big man in midfield but the club used data to find someone as close to Kante as possible and so Mislintat drove the Torreira signing. That’s one of the reasons it irked me so much when he took his naturally sourced hair conditioner and oat milk and ran off in a strop because his say wasn’t final. He’d got his way before over a manager and remember that managers are more in line for flak than DoFs or the equivalent. So he wanted total say on transfers and… Read more »

Tom

PedroJanuary 26, 2020 18:03:37
Newcastle United about to get a £200m cash injection when MBS buys them. How depressing.
————

Depressing because of the cash injection they might be getting or rather because of where the cash may come from?

Will MBS upon taking over replace the two seahorses in the New Castle crest with two bloody bone saws I wonder.

Marc

Cesc

Actually the angle I was pushing was more along the lines of Torreira went to the Qtr finals of the World Cup in the summer we signed him.

He wasn’t exactly unknown in the world of football.

Dissenter

Cesc
‘Really silly to keep bashing Sanllehi. The irrational bashing of Nuno, for example, continues because of his association with an associate of Sanllehi. Next to nothing said about him as a manager. A contacts approach had worked out pretty well for Wolves. If Pedro took his talk to Wolves fans they’d probably laugh in his face.”‘

Excellent point
Wolves are one of the clubs that keep getting almost every transfer right. They get these players that are ready made for their style of play at a cost that’s unbelievable.
The super agent connection does have it’s advantages.

Cesc Appeal

Marc

We were onto him before that.

There was a worry in the fan base that his showing in the World Cup would mean we’d lose out.

But data had led us to him before that as being comparable to Kante.

If Cagigao or contacts or data or someone could pull us an athletic, physical, powerful CM that would be great.

Cesc Appeal

Dissenter

Wolves are one of my favourite teams to watch outside of Arsenal.

Not only has their contacts approach helped them on the field but of the players they brought in would now sell for a heck of a lot more.

Dissenter

Sven may be a good scout but he proved at Arsenal that his forte was not in the executive office. At BVB, it was Micheal Zorc, the legendary sporting director that did the chess level planning. Mislintat was just the scout, a damn good one. He came to a club that had just bought a striker for 50 million and had just extended Ozil on a massive contract. What was the first thing he did after offloading several players for money. He oversaw two transfers for exactly the same two positions and spread significant wages on two more players that… Read more »

KAY Boss

In other words, if we have more contacts approach, we may be a better club both on and off the pitch. And we could be buying better players on less money (Haaland) and sell them for fortune ( Coutinho).

Dissenter

Pedro “Sven left because he didn’t like the way Raul operated in the transfer market. Question his tenure, his beautiful hair… but to fight the data approach because of his time here is exactly the sort of attitude the CEO of Statsbomb was railing against a few weeks ago. I’m not so sure about that Mislintat has hinted that he left because he didn’t have as much control as he wanted. Raul is not the suffocating boss you’ve been depicting here. How do I know? ….because he didn’t hijack the responsibility of appointing the first manager of his tenure from… Read more »

Cesc Appeal

‘might not be apparent now, but it will at some point.’ Obviously. If you’re allowed to just present negatives with limited to no evidence that suit your argument. Shit signings = Raul Good signings = someone else who you label as sauce. You’ve already been on the wrong side of the argument with one executive before. ‘but to fight the data approach’ Again, you’re making up an argument to make it easy for yourself. No one is rallying against stats. Our approach shouldn’t wholly be stats, it shouldn’t wholly be contacts, it shouldn’t wholly be one scout. It has to… Read more »

Cesc Appeal

*Mislintat started having a hissy fit because they didn’t want a player he suggested

Dissenter

Pedro
Was the acquisition of Auba driven by “data”?
That was the very definition of a contact driven purchase. The player was available since the summer of 2017. Even then BVB bossed us, extracted a maximum transfer fee from us and put the responsibility of getting Auba’s replacement on us.
It was Arsenal [Dick Law] that convinced Granovskaia [Chelsea CEO] to release Michy Batshuayi on loan to BVB and purchase Giroud from us.

Cesc Appeal

‘You can take my narratives how you like, but I suspect they are better informed than ‘he was a little bitch’’

Again.

You just take out what you want to make life easy for yourself.

Pretty pointless carrying on with you.

Dissenter

CA
Chill out
It was this time last year, exactly late January 2019 that you had a similar disagreement with Pedro …and stormed off in a huff.

I like having you around, just let it go.

Tom

The defence of Nuno is something else, for all the plaudits, he’s spent 180m next in his first two seasons in the EPL (with the home advantage of a super agent pulling levers) and he’s managed 4 more points than the worst Arsenal team of the last 20 years so far this season. Low-balling with your ambition there chaps. —————— He’s spent 180m but from what level? Surely it makes a difference when you add a 180m worth of talent to a top six PL club as supposed to one that just got promoted , no? He’s also even on… Read more »

Jamie

Ramsey had no business being offered a £400k a week deal anywhere but China.

No sympathy whatsoever for Juve, who will be saddled with him for at least another season. Luckily for them, Ramsey seems like a straight-shooter and would probably take a massive pay cut to facilitate a move away if he continues to be a bench player for much longer.

Would’ve probably been made captain here had he stayed and agreed to £140k a week. Arteta would’ve loved his energy (whenever he was fit enough to play).

p.s. Pete, did you ban Marko?

Dissenter

Pedro
Let peace roll on man.
We know where you stand on this
You know where we stand
What’s the point of all the quibbling on the day Kobe died? There are bigger things to worry about.

Dissenter

Jamie
Part of the Ramsey problem at Juve is that he committed to them in January thinking he was going to wrk with Allegri, only to be saddled with Sarri by May 2019.
I doubt he would have signed had he known Sarri would be appointed. They will probably loan him out nest season to Everton or something. We can’t afford his wages.

Jamie

Imagine Ramsey was like Mustafi, happy to sit on his ass and take the money for the next 3.5 years or whatever.

Crazy stuff from Juve. £400k a week. Mbappe money right there.

Jamie

Pete – My sources tell me we couldn’t afford his wages. He had ample time to sign up for £140k a week. In the end, he secured himself 3 times that amount at a bigger club. No-brainer. On some level, they all ‘want to stay’, except when a better offer comes along (bigger club/chance of silverware, more money, innovative coaching, …). He’s always been a solid player, fitness issues aside. But his pay packet at Juve is bananas. He’s gotta be in the top 10 highest paid footballers in the world, no? Unjustifiable on any level, including Bamford’s “top 33”… Read more »

Jamie

” but hoped we’d replace his energy. Alas…” Yep, super poor squad planning, but we’ve seen that movie before. Like going hard for Higs to replace RVP’s goals, then Ozil is ushered in instead on deadline day. Do you know at what point we yanked Ramsey’s deal? He signed a pre-contract in Feb. Couldn’t he have signed during the previous summer when he had 12 months left on his existing contract? Why wait so long to sign the damn thing? Seems like he was primed for a few whispers into his ear from his agents being like “mate, just hold… Read more »

Freddie Ljungberg

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11670/11918907/shkodran-mustafi-can-have-arsenal-future-says-mikel-arteta

Why is he saying these things? Where’s the ruthlessness? Do we now have to watch Mustafi amble around spraying his defense splitting (for the other team) passes around and go into rash challenges on a weekly basis?

Just bin him ffs, haven’t we been through enough already, isn’t the attempted resurrection of Ozil and Xhaka project enough for Arteta.

Subsidize his salary if necessary, just get him out of the club.

Thorough

Spare a few minutes for Yogi. Stuart, Yogi, the writer of A Cultured Left Foot has passed on. A loss to the Arsenal World just now that things are looking up.

Emiratesstroller

I think that there is too much importance being attached to the Mari signing which is I understand is a “loan with option to buy”. First this player is a replacement for Mavropanos who has been sent out on loan in similar circumstances. Mari is not costing us mega bucks. Second the club has already spent more than its annual transfer budget in the current financial year. They are not in in a position to spend £50-70 million on a top class Centre Back. Finally Arsenal is a “rebuild” job particularly in midfield and defence. These departments are unlikely to… Read more »

Wasi

Rambo was a super player for us and has potential to be even better in the right system. Had he signed a new contract with us then he would have easily been a 50m player. Considering Juve or any other sign him for 50 and then hand him a 200k a week contract and stays for 3 years before being sold. How would the financial effects be for the club. Lets do some calculations Real life scenario He is earning 400k a week apparently and went for free. So if he stays for 3 years would cost Juve around 67… Read more »

Sid

RIP Kobe Bryant
Mamba out

Santino

Shocked to hear about the death of aclf s yogis warrior. Aclf and east lower were the first arsenal blogs i read.

Sid

Freddie LjungbergJanuary 27, 2020 00:35:36
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11670/11918907/shkodran-mustafi-can-have-arsenal-future-says-mikel-artetaWhy is he saying these things? Where’s the ruthlessness? Do we now have to watch Mustafi amble around spraying his defense splitting (for the other team) passes around and go into rash challenges on a weekly basis?

Arsenalization is real!
ION Ramsey benched 400k a week, atleast ozil is on 350k looool,

Im telling you this for free!

Sid

Either get rid of Ozil or pay martinelli & Auba 350,001

Im telling you this for free!

IndianGooner PD

Whispers about James Rodriguez to arsenal

Habesha Gooner

I hope Arteta is saying these things about mustafi so that he may be encouraged to go and try a new team. If not that is a huge red flag regarding arteta. Turning a fan opinion tide around is tough let alone after being this expensive horrible signing. The last player to truly turn it around was Monreal and he wasn’t as brain dead as mustafi. He is done here. Let him Improve somewhere else.

SP

Arsenal cannot afford to pay 400k per week to a player like Ramsey who has lot of injury issues. We are already making losses due to missing out on CL and paying ridiculous wages to players like Ozil.

Ivan

Habesha – Arteta is a bit cornered here, dont You think? He is avare there wont be squad refreshment made with 200mil per transfer window. We have injury ravaged defence that is not good enough when they are all fit. Obviously he need every healthy defender to be on board so there is no sense in publicly condemning any of our cb-s (this goes to most of our team). If You take all of this into account best way possible for Arteta is to continue this clean slate policy with nice pinch of who works hard will play. Worst it… Read more »

Unai

Don’t want to sound too critical Pedro but the creditability of your opinion on our back room team went down the swanni when you let Ivan tickle your balls and you came back to sell us all progress and rainbows.

The majority of what you write is opinion, no need to dress it up as something it’s not, particularly as we all have eyes.

The idea that Raul has come to Arsenal to fleece us is laughable, if your going to pick a mark then you don’t go for the tightest fisted (and most skint big club) around.

Unai

I can’t remember the quote but didn’t Arteta say something along the lines of blow smoke up their areas until the point you push them out the door?

I can only hope he’s just trying to improve Mustafi to increase his resale value and improve team harmony.

gnarleygeorge9

Ole Gunner Getsacked “Everyone wanted us to fail”

Hell yeah!

Graham62

Unai Spot on. For years we were stitched up by a regime (Wenger and Gazidis) who were so flawed, it was painfully obvious to anyone that understood the basic workings of a competitive working environment. Amazingly though, some were prepared to ignore the regressive signs and carry on applauding the moral and ethical codes of his and Wenger’s philosophies and methods. Gazidis was, to put it mildly, an utter sleezeball and his cringeworthy rhetoric showed just how out of touch he was with the fanbase. The fact that so many fans accepted his methods has always astounded me, as it… Read more »

Gentlebris

‘No-brainer. On some level, they all ‘want to stay’, except when a better offer comes along (bigger club/chance of silverware, more money, innovative coaching, …).’

Shit chat this one.

Ramsey’s contract was pulled and the man tearfully demanded why. Never have I seen a genuinely sadder footballer on the pitch than Ramsey after that idiotic decision by Raul and co. No wonder my friend CG hunts down their collective ass every time he’s on patrol.

Gentlebris

‘The idea that Raul has come to Arsenal to fleece us is laughable, if your going to pick a mark then you don’t go for the tightest fisted (and most skint big club) around.’ You have not the slightest idea how a fella like Raul operates. If he wanted to fleece a club, where would he go? Madrid? Bayern? Juve? PSG? Chelsea? In any of those places he either wouldn’t be welcome or be seated in a chair with cameras all around him. If you want to fleece a club you come to Kroenke’s Arsenal, especially when coming from Barca.… Read more »

Pierre

I’m sure Aaron Ramsey will have clubs queuing up for his services. Who wouldn’t want a goalscoring box to box midfielder. Of course we all know why there won’t be any club making a move for him. It’s nothing to do with his ability on the football pitch, it’s all to do with the size of his wage packet. I think we’ve heard this story before, and we know how it ends. 1)A club awards a massive contract to a player. 2) the manager leaves and a new manager comes in who doesn’t fancy him and benches him. 3) The… Read more »

Pierre

Graham
“It was infact Gazidis and Wenger who “fleeced us””

For years we had the Emirates crowd urging Wenger to” spend some f*cking money ” .

Unless I’m mistaken, ” fleecing” the club is taking money from the club for your own personal gain.

Maybe you expected Wenger to work for nothing and pay the bank loans for the stadium move out of his own pocket.

Jamie

“Ramsey’s contract was pulled and the man tearfully demanded why.”

Shit chat this one. Why didn’t he sign in the summer, and how do you know he cried when his contract was pulled?

Graham62

Pierre

Keep standing up for him.

You know I won’t.

Graham62

If Ozil was on £500k a week and was performing consistently to a high level , I would be happy. The thing is he doesn’t and never will.

We all know the club was stupid to give him such a “ridiculous contract” and we all know why this was done and, significantly, who was to blame for this.

Marginalising Ozil only came about because of his attitude. Even now, under Arteta, his attitude still stinks.

That’s always been the case.

Graham62

Tell me Pierre, why do you think Ozil was given such “a ridiculous contract”?

Give us your 1-6 reasons