There are two kinds of people in the world, those that book early morning flights home, and those that try and max out every minute of a holiday by leaving really late.
I am an early guy. The idea of hovering around with suitcases in a hot country scratching at things to do around an airport does not fill me with joy.
Most people that stay with me are late leavers. That last day is always the killer. I hate my friends and family more than ever in those 4 hours before they leave. There’s always a red wine accident, or one of their children hit a wall with a Cheetoh hand swipe. Which is why I exit early. Ghost out of there. People will be grateful for your foresight.
Today, I am late guy. My flight out is 6pm. I don’t know how to act. This is average dead time. I can’t really get drunk. I can’t really do anything meaningful. So I’m in holiday purgatory.
I was going to sit it out at an airport, but instead, I decided to be Late-Guy brave and go to a bar called Suzie Wong’s Hideaway. I’m drinking beer with the locals pretending to know what the Greenbay Packers are. I hate this.
So what about Arsenal?
Only one more week to go before we say goodbye to the incessant rattle of international football.
It hasn’t been a bad one for us. Smith Rowe is going to come back from the break bouncing off the walls because he made a dream come true. Saka and Ramsdale won’t have played too many minutes. Ben White looks like he’s away with his GF. Thomas Partey is tweeting on his national team from the safety of London. We are doing ok so far.
I watched some of the content around the club that I’d missed. The most interesting piece was the Josh K interview with Sky Sports.
He did… well.
I am a power-house complainer when things are going wrong at Arsenal. You know this. But right now, there’s not a lot to complain about. All the things we’ve wanted from the club over the past decade finally seem to be coming our way.
Josh laid it out quite clearly:
Young coach. Young players. Sprinkled with magic when needed. The idea grows and when it matures… we bang.
That’s a good model for success. What I like about his realisation is that it’s basically the KSE Global strategy. Whatever they did at The Rams sparked something in the entire group. The Rams, from what I understand, are now a contender club. They signed exciting young players and coaches, let them go for it, now they are a fun serious team. The Nuggets are decent, I watch them, but have no idea how they are doing it.
Arsenal have a good plan, the implementation at stage one looks solid, now we have to wait to see where it goes.
KSE are moving away from platitudes to delivery. Having a fancy plan means nothing if you don’t invest in it. Who spent the most money this past summer? Arsenal. That’s investing in an idea. It could still go to shit, but from where I’m looking… it feels like we’re on a good path, and regardless of where Arteta’s career goes, he’s left us with an extremely exciting crop of well-coached youngsters.
What more can you ask for from a club that will never be Chelsea or Manchester City?
There are still things to be worked on at Arsenal. I don’t think this summer changed the leadership issues we still clearly have at Arsenal. I don’t think we’re at perfection with the backroom team. There are still a lot of questions to be asked of a club that let Don Raul do what he did and there are still big questions to be asked of a leadership team that went down the player acquisition path we did. Where was the leadership to stop deals like Cedric, Mari, and David Luiz round 2? It was nowhere and there weren’t consequences for any of that.
… but that’s for another day.
Let’s focus on the good that’s going on. Arsenal is finally operating under a coherent strategy that makes sense for who we are. It’ll be hard work, but we’ve finally accepted our place in the world, and we’re working out a battle plan to make our resources work for us. Some people might complain that the plan is too long-term and that we’ve lowered standards, I’d disagree, I’d say we’ve ramped up the standards and ambition. We’re hiring in premium youth talent from around the world, we have the youngest team in the Premier League, we are getting better and better every game. We’ve also shipped out those that can’t hit the standard.
… and remember, we can get back to the top. Only the weak fear money. For every Chelsea, there’s a Lille. For every Manchester club throwing money at the game, there’s a Liverpool doing things properly.
Some comp juice of Odegaard playing well?
Martin Ødegaard vs Latvia (13/11/21) (H)pic.twitter.com/M1BnuWACSN
— . (@N5COMPS) November 14, 2021
There’s a story doing the rounds that Arsenal will listen to offers for Pepe for £25m. The Don Raul tax. Quite a striking markdown for a player so young that seems to put in the work. But reality is, you can’t keep blaming everyone else for him not being where he needs to be. Question now is who is going to pick him up? I suspect he’ll need to go back to France, but who is shelling out for him? What sort of system does he fit? Will anyone pick up his salary, which I was told is £150k a week? Gonna be a tough sell. The only thing we have going for us is the player wants to play, so I doubt he’d sit around and do nothing like some of our others.
KDB said this to L’Quipe about how City scout players.
“Man City looks for the best players, but also learns about personal life, the way you behave. They know how to create a group. It’s a little different from what is done at PSG.”
I know this isn’t new. Alex Ferguson was notorious for being up in players shit. However, you do feel that the big difference between this batch of transfers and those that went prior is the character bit. Everyone is a hard worker, there are no slackers, and they all seem super focused on personal betterment.
Finally, get well soon to Kolasinac. He was brutally tackled and his ankle took the full force of it. I’d be surprised if we see him again in the next 6 months, the injury looked very, very bad.
Right, I think that’s all I have. I cannot believe I’m a late traveller guy. I’m so sorry if I let anyone down. x
P.S. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel, then tell me how cool you think that widget is. Programmed it myself, kind of.
Then listen or watch the pod with Perry G.
Kronkephobe.Will agree about the krankies.For all that’s occurred in the last ten or more years.The boot should well & truly should be still on their neck.Plenty left to prove.However. As to your other “ let people express their views,however much they differ from yours” well that wasn’t happening so much a couple of months ago was it? The bedwetters were out in force haranguing anyone who dared to suggest that “ special sauce” might,just might be improving us,finally.In fact there was a whole lynch mob on here daily villyfying anyone who had the temerity to suggest otherwise.Eventually some saw the… Read more »
Kphoebe
Ha ha. Its only going to get worse now!! 😉
Terraloon
I was reading that. He definitively has to come back to Greece to face trial. It will be one for the papers during Summer. He will get away with it with a slap on the wrist (the fucking wanker), as usual.
5 nil before the end of the 1st half. Joke internationals.
Kane litterally stealing another hat-trick.
0-5.
Glad no one took up my bet. I am looking dead set like losing it. 😂🤣
Someone throw in the towel
0-6
A joke indeed.
Positive
You clock on and Pedro clocks off. Funny that.
Hearing you crap on about nouveau riche clubs is pure comedy. Stan-k is nouveau fucking riche! To a far greater degree than the oil kleptocracies who have been
drawing oil out of the middle East since the 1930s. Read his biography and ‘is ever so’ umble upbringing (Mr Copperfield) including that bit about his marriage into one of the wealthiest families in the world. Fuck’s sake Positive – get your facts right and stop sucking up to Stan-k. It’s creepy.
Positive You miss the point in that it’s all well and good being viewed as a big club but unlike the arbitrary criteria applied in the failed SL when it comes to UEFA taking control they won’t be looking at criteria such as having a big ground or having ex number of followers on Facebook or indeed the number of domestic titles it will be determined by a whole different set of factors and those factors almost certainly will include success on the European stage. There is absolutely no way that a properly constituted SL won’t involve German, French and… Read more »
No easy games in International football anymore.
International football is a crock. These teams like SM and Andorra need to play each other to decide which one gets to play the big boys.
In so doing, they get to play teams at a similar level of competition and thus gain more experience than being slaughtered by England.
Rugby and cricket do a far better job with the relative minnows. A shitshow. Maybe galaxy brained wenger could put his mind to a solution….
Maguire subbed for Chilwell.
He is being rested because his brain hurts after too much thinking. 6 goals is a lot to process for his pea brain.
‘I am the rational one’
4 minutes later.
‘EVERYONE IS PEDRO IN DISGUISE’
Very good.
As some might k ow my brother, Dave ,is a Chelsea ST holder he has been telling me that Gallagher will be integrated into Chelsea’s squad next season and possibly replacing either Kovacic or Gorgino in that squad.
As I type you witness in one why Arsenal should not have been anywhere near Abraham
No Pedro I am Spartacus
ESR with a great goal for England!!!
0-7.
Pedro
You’re not a journalist are you? Where did I say ‘I am the rational one’ ? I’d never dream of saying something like that about myself cos I’d be fucking laughed at!
Are you man enough to apologise…? Fake news mate.
ESR subbed off.
Did really well but this is really easy to write considering that San Marino are extreme featherweights in football (if such a boxing category ever existed).
Both our boys on the scoresheet ❤️
0-10
Zz zz zz
Saka makes it ten…
Yes Saka!!!!!!!
Well that sounds it well!!!
Rich, the ESR one was put down as an OG.
Sounds = rounds
Ooops, my mistake, that was Saka earlier.
San Marino 0-10 England.
Man of the Match… Aaron Ramsdale
:)))))))
Incidentally, is okay to say that although Kane scored four he was a bit crap otherwise giving away the ball and miscontrolling everything?
Andy
Of course it is! He’s a spud!
Andy1886
Of course!!
Once a spud, always a spud cunt. (if you can excuse my French).
Pundit : it’s a vintage year for England!
😂🤣
With such easy opposition…
You
Can only beat what’s in front of you
But I remember a time (actually quite a few times ) when we would struggle to beat whipping boys like these
Got to love a 10-0 away win whatever the circumstances
Northbanker
Remember that game away to SM in the 90s I think. It was when Stuart Pearce was playing. They scored first after about 5 minutes – think the scorer’s name was Galtieri (same name as the Argentine dictator during the conflict in our 82). Think England maybe won 7-1 and it wasn’t enough GD to qualify as group winners.
Just checked. It wasn’t 5 minutes, it was after 8 seconds that they scored!
Kroenkephobe, I am Pedro. Keep trying to will away all the hate you were spewing on the blog a while back. It’s not forgotten easily. You were wrong, and nasty,, and you’re trying to sneak back in, quietly hoping people will forget. It would be much better if you would just admit that you were wrong. We all know you are a negative, hateful person, don’t be intransigent too. You were in heaven when our guys were scrambling to get the opening game postponed with the covid outbreak. You also enjoyed every minute of the hardest first 3 games any… Read more »
Nigel…
You’re an Arteta fan who is all about genuflecting before a novice manager and kissing his ring. I’m an Arsenal supporter. That’s how we differ. I come on here because I love the club. Its a relationship that’s endured over 50 years and shows no sign of abating.
Go back to playing lead guitar in Spinal Tap – you were much more entertaining doing that you plastic, basque-blagger adoring, fanboy. Carry on culting.
Make a note of the word “genuflecting”, darling, I like it and want to use it more in conversations…
lol
I’ve been saying since last season, I’m not sold on Arteta .. I’ve been a skeptic, BUT…. I thought our players have been unfairly derided here for the most part, right up until the Tottenham game. That’s why I don’t forget the nastier people here attacking White, Ramsdale, and Arteta, among others. Watching the team play good defense, pressing and moving the ball forward aggressively, not being bullied anymore, and working the refs like other big clubs…, I am coming around to thinking Arteta is the right man. I reserve the right to change my mind, like anyone else. When… Read more »
We nasty bastards who criticized the manager for delivering a disaster class last season have had a piss bag forcefully inserted into our sacred parts as of late.
Something that is very much surprising and enjoyable is not only have things been better this season but the recruitment appears to have been bizarrely excellent Every signing has added to the squad. I was not happy with the prices for white and ramsdale but theyre looking the part so those figures now look much fairer (ramsdale especially has blown it out the park). Tomi is a peak wenger signing. Cheap nobody who comes in and adds real quality to the squad. Tavares is another wenger buy. Cheap random kid who is actually a quality player to genuinely compete with… Read more »
One of the other key differences is unlike in previous years we actually have several players who I actually like How sad is it to admit that for many years I honestly couldn’t give a damn about most of our players. Which names name would I want on the back of my shirt a few years back? I was struggling to name more than 3 or 4 players in the whole squad who I particularly looked forward to seeing or having in the squad. At best I could tolerate them, at worst I actively disliked them. Wengers final years, Emery… Read more »
That’s peak gloating with K’phobe Pedro. Such indignation with it . Wasn’t long ago you assured me you don’t gloat. Happily confused as it made good reading. You should gloat more often, Pedro, you bring out the best in people. Peace and blog of love and all that. Arteta is still in no man’s land until early Feb, so I wouldn’t crow too loudly, Pedro, K’phobe is recounting 21 months and you’re celebrating about 10 weeks. How you going to be before the Pool game, Pedders? All weak knees and negative Nigel like pre Villa game or full of vim,… Read more »
That’s peak gloating with K’phobe Pedro. Such indignation with it . Wasn’t long ago you assured me you don’t gloat. Happily confused as it made good reading. You should gloat more often, Pedro, you bring out the best in people. How you going to be Saturday before the Dipper’s game? All pre villa of doom and gloom and weak knees or full of vim, vigor ands vitality leading the COYG screams that you can muster from 10 weeks of mid & low level wins and draws? Away from the Arteta will he or won’t he, the team is doing well… Read more »
sorry for the duplication a lot of things happening today here. Multi tasking and being 66 don’t go well together most of the time.
Hiya Tony
How’s it going?
I think it’s less than gloating – it’s more like a struggle to maintain the narrative. Pedro’s a pretty earnest type of geezer but he knows he’s been selling a pup. He’s hyper-sensitive too about falling readership numbers after his chatroom putcsh(sp?). Things will become clearer after we play some of the big boys soon. It didn’t go well at the start of the season (and Spurs don’t count) so the game this weekend is a properly important one. I’m going all ‘positive pete’ and so predict a 0-1 win and an outstanding defensive display.
It’s about time UEFA and FIFA looked at dismantling the qualification groups for the major tournaments.
San Marino, Andorra etc need to placed with others into groups whereby they can compete at their level. If they win the group, then by all means give them a play off birth against one of the bigger boys.
No more of these 10-0 score lines please.
Kroenke yeah 1-0 and a great defensive display is what I’m calling too. Would be fantastic but it’s definitely achievable, just very difficult
Gabriel MOTM and scorer of the winning goal
For all the negatives of international football it is obvious to see that all the England players love playing for their country and love being together.
Congratulations to GS for creating such a visibly positive atmosphere in the England set up.
Agree Graham, I really felt for the San Marino players; it was painful viewing. That said I’d be interesting to know what the players view would be on being grouped together with Gibraltar, Andorra etc in a ‘pre qualifying’ group.
I hope the players don’t share my inferiority complex when we play Liverpool on Saturday. Like City, in recent years they’ve often essentially won the game in the first 30 mins. That shouldn’t be the case this weekend but I remain pessimistic, hoping to be wrong!
Watching the England game, it was easy to see that saka and smith rowe have a very special on field relationship and enjoyed playing in the same area of the pitch in the first half, something that we haven’t seen them do this season for Arsenal.. I’m hoping that they can resume their special relationship at Arsenal as I believe they could become as prolific together as Sanchez/Ozil .. Smith Rowe has been outstanding on the left for Arsenal, but that shouldn’t mean he can’t return to his favourite CAM position, which will also allow him to resume his relationship… Read more »
I can see Pepe slotting in nicely at Palace for some reason.
Morning Bob
I know, that’s the downside but something has to be done.
Maybe if FIFA/ UEFA thought about things that didn’t involve lining their own pockets, they could come up with a solution.
It can’t continue.
Bob for me it’s the manner in which we get results or lose. If we push them all the way and get beaten by a goal, then I’ll take it as a step forward from playing to contain the losing score margin. There’s something brewing in this squad who are enjoying their football again and not having to worry about brain fart players. I would not be surprised if we get a hard earned point and some smug satisfaction of be ever more confident. We’re pretty secure at the back and Ramesdale is top drawer at the moment. Get Eddie… Read more »
Hiya Bob Holistically, ie for the good of football across Europe, I think it needs to happen. These teams don’t even get results against traditionally minor euro teams. What the players of these teams think is only a small part of the equation. We’re probably talking about 10-12 teams in Europe. They might be making a bit of cash but that could be found elsewhere to help boost their coffers and their grass roots game. Its the very demographically small places that are the real problem because you can’t see improvement irrespective if what happens They would rebut those points… Read more »
Tony….. didn’t know you are that young. Nothing is ever the same….so why would one be rigid in one’s assessment of our situation as a club?.am a romantic,was on Tets train,then through the work of his galaxy brain, became disenchanted and said as much…. but now,there is not much we can complain about, the direction is clear,even if Tets fails…..a very good squad is being assembled under everybody’s nose and I think we going to explode soon either with Tets or any other gaffer…..I want Tets to succeed, he has all the resources to do so.we should revaluate where we… Read more »
Fortune favours the bold…… Liverpool can be gotten at.,.one thing I loved about our season so far is the speed of our counter especially on that left where our speedsters dwell….less of meaniless possession.so let’s get at them,if we loose by small margins,we will forgive them, but not another 5-0 scorline, that would be too much to bear
Mulerise 14 Agree with most you say and worry as Ten Hag has been my choice for a long time with Paddy as a back up when he was in France. Looks like United want Zadine and I doubt Rogers is right for them. So maybe they go for Ten Hag. I don’t believe in agendas and go by results tables and the football we play. I worry that it takes Arteta to be forced into changes to play players most of us want on the pitch. By February we’ll have a very good idea of the future with Arteta… Read more »
Agree Kroenke, 30 years ago some countries that were considered poor are now competitive, Gib, San Marino etc will never have a good team, they will never develop as they are not really countries – they have a population of 30,000 ffs! It’s completely ridiculous and pointless(excuse the pun);that they play games against real countries. Tony, I agree that our performance on Saturday is almost of greater importance than the result. Losing in a competitive way would be acceptable, obviously I’d rather we avoided defeat! Both sides will be experiencing the effect of their players having travelled and played all… Read more »
The away games to Liverpool + United won’t prove anything Last season was our first win in the League at Old Trafford in 14 years, they’re having problems, but they’re still only 3 points behind us, and their fixture list eases up after Chelsea + us Liverpool are currently better than us, they’re a mature team, that’s been together a while, one of the best in Europe We can get results at both those grounds, but it won’t be the end of the world if we don’t, the season is 38 games, we’ll get plenty of results elsewhere I said… Read more »
Arteta deserves credit for starting Ben White, Tomiyasu and Ramsdale, if those decisions had backfired on him he would have been out of a job. Where our season really took off was the introduction of Tavares, Lakonga and Lacazette due to injuries to Xhaka , Tierney and Odegaard. Let’s be honest , without those injuries we would still be watching Xhaka lumber about in midfield , Tierney struggle to get up and down the line and Odegaard run around a lot without making a tackle and avoiding physical confrontation. It could be said that Lacazette was the spark that ignited… Read more »
Hey K’phobe kind of be paradoxical in my eyes. After the NLD I was up and buzzing and wrote a positive post and said to Pedro to enjoy posting which he took to being me having a dig at any impending told you so’s where all I was saying was enjoy the moment in writing how that could be a turning moment. In many ways it was but now we can test this new resolve against the best. Mane will be a big loss but Firmino is a handful. This game will tell us many things and just how good… Read more »
Happy retirement Tony.
Pierre
Apparently Switzerland don’t miss Xhaka either.
‘Hope VVD has a really hard match tonight- a game that is of real importance to the Dutch – Odegaard is up against him.‘
Thanks for the heads up about that, Bob, I’ll see if I can record the game or see highlights tomorrow.
Pepe scared VVD running at him before it’s the way to play front foot and 1 & 2 touch football.
Ode and Haarland facing VVD should be fun and a tough battle.
Thanks Graham.
Fairly sure Tony that Firmino is out with a hammie!
Tony, Haaland sadly out injured!
Can someone explain to me how can so many England supporters get. a Tuesday off and waltz off to San Marino for a couple of days.
No disrespect but how do they do it?
Are they all self-employed, unemployed or have incredibly nice bosses?
Bob I switch off when the Internationals are playing. Just scan for Arsenal news.
Thanks for the update.
Thank heavens! Now that qualifiers are known. serious questions are being asked about Qatar WC. There is a very real chance WC will be shifted to the summer in Europe or Latin America.Leaving aside football matters such as the turmoil of a six-week mid-season break, there are much wider issues. The corrupt bidding for a start. But most important of all, Qatar is a place where homosexuality is a crime, where foreign workers are treated like slaves, where women have zero rights,. Where bending the knee is an unpractised gesture over there. Time for world football to show where it… Read more »
Yes Tony…in a way Tets is a lucky b*stars….he fell upstairs a coupla times like that…the lesson of Xhaka’s absence I hope won’t be lost on him….we need two mobile CMs..if we can get Tyler Adams or Frank Kessie,our CM is set for at least a decade.we have to see what he would do as time unfolds….if ain’t broke, don’t fix should be the mantra going forward. As much as I like Tierney,I would’nt rest Tavares for him. I would not force Ødegaard into the formation…..our best eleven for now may even surprise us, don’t let us weaken ourselves b4… Read more »
EB
Time for teams to stand up and say we are not going. I mean Players as the FA is still in the dark ages. The players make the tournament happen – without them it would be a damp squib.
Rich “Whether we finish 5th-6th, fall into 7th or 8th, or just edge into 4th, won’t be decided for a long time yet, it’ll likely be tight and go to the wire” This shows a lack of confidence in the management and players.. We are 2 points behind liverpool 3 points behind city 6 points behind chelsea . Who’s to say that this present side can’t maintain this run of form, the players are only jist starting to gel and as yet, we haven’t totally clicked in the final third, though there are signs that we are getting there .… Read more »
Graham annual leave?
No.I am Spartacus ( oops,pedro)🤫
@ mulerise14.Good shout with the CM choices.I believe u could add Renato Sanchez to that list.& Bissouma.Surely one in jan would be attainable?As Tony says it depends on what the mindset is going into the match at Liverpool.Naturally,I would prefer positive.
I
Graham/China, I’d imagine that like me plenty of people in the UK didn’t take much leave over the last couple of years for obvious reasons – not much point if you’re stuck at home anyway! So there will be plenty of people who had holiday carried over to this year and have plenty to use up on things like an England away game (I used two days for the recent Monday/Friday home games against Palace and Villa).
For 7 years here I only had 8 days of annual leave per year and it really sucked. Next year it will hopefully jump to 20 which will be way nicer
With Laca leaving I’d bet that a striker will be very much first on the list. I expect Tets to make do with Xhaka even though he ruins the midfield with his snail like movement and tackling ability of a drunk on the dancefloor.
“where foreign workers are treated like slaves, where women have zero rights,. Where bending the knee is an unpractised gesture over there.”
EB’s knowledge of the Middle East comes from the Daily Mail. 75% of the population in Qatar is expat, but EB says foreign workers are treated like slaves.
And the World Cup is happening there. Get used to it.
EB – couldn’t agree more. Despite the fact that the bribery has been more or less proved, we are still allowing Qatar to host. What manner of decision making is that? It shows that FIFA is the Hydra that keeps replicating its corrupt self no matter how many of its bureaucrats are toppled.
When the Qataris sue, lets allow the details to be properly aired in court. Maybe this time we might get a legal decision that is based on law unlike the fair play debacle.
You mentioned Don Raul but you forgot to mention the role Kia and Edu played in bringing players like Luiz, Willian, Cedric and Mari all Kia players.
Edu was working hard in the summer to buy Neto, Barcelona GK, Emerson Royal and Coutinho all Kia players.
Don’t also forget that in the summer Edu was holiday with Kia and Don Raul.
Edu was brought in by Don Raul. If Raul is shady, Edu is shady. Edu has to be watched 24/7
FIFA and UEFA should be obliterated.
I lived in Qatar for 7 years from 1992-1999.
There is no way Qatar should have been awarded the WC.
Travesty.
Jamie
Unfortunately, we do have to get used to it.
We also have to get used to the fact that we have two bodies running football who are as corrupt as each other.
If you are a Western or Far Eastern foreign worker with qualifications in Qatar, then you’re gonna be fine. You’d also be ok if you were from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc and you had qualifications.
If you’re a manual labourer from the Indian subcontinent working in Qatar, then your rights are pretty much non-existent, your working conditions are terrible and your pay is derisory.
But then again your pay, working conditions and rights back in your home country are even worse.
Words
True.
Words, Graham – will take your word on Qatar. Never been there and never want to.
Harping back to FIFA and UEFA, why is it that some teams/countries get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to not showing respect for the Racism campaign?
Why are teams and countries not banned from competitions?
Before anyone responds, I also think our so called fans should be banned for life for booing national anthems etc. and left to rot in foreign prisons for not respecting another countries culture.
Any English fan who gets up on a table, singing “Rule Britannia”, whilst holding a beer in their hand, should be severely punished.
jamie
Not just me or Daily Mail, those issue are in UN report.
Havyn
When Raul was getting his greasy fingers well and truly stuck into AFC Edu was working for Josh and was involved with buying some of the next generation players (Gabriel was one of these players). At the time Arteta was reporting to Raul and in his first managerial position it was partly a case of yes sir, no sir. Arteta said yes to the players coming on board as is widely reported.
The Qatari leaders won’t sue. It would open a can of worms that will eat them alive.
With luck, top players refusing to take part because of Human Rights issues, will signal the end of the Qatar WC.
Systemic racism rearing it’s ugly head in cricket.
Top players being named and shamed.
Massive respect to Rafiq.
Vaughan, Root, Harmison, Ballance a part of this institutional racism.
If you sit and say nothing and accept, you’re a part of the problem.
Simple.
Tom Harrison made to look stupid.
Can’t even say “yes “ or “no”.
Part of the problem.
Northbanker
Both my children were born in Qatar.
We enjoyed our time and life there.
Pierre Fixture congestion and indeed the size and quality of squads will of course be a major contributor going forward but from a point in time which is very fast approaching the sort of impact you talk about will without doubt be as challenging for Arsenal as indeed it will be for other top 6 candidates In less than 6 weeks Arsenal will be waving a goodbye to four players who will be on their way to AFCON. They will depart following another 9 or10 games ( league and cup). Other clubs of course will be likewise have African Internationals… Read more »
“Not just me or Daily Mail, those issue are in UN report.”
Some labourers are treated shockingly. Not even close to all foreign workers are treated as slaves, though.
You should probably read the UN report. I have a house in Dubai and travel to Doha regularly. Your perception of the Middle East is wrong.
That’s not to say the awarding of the WC to Qatar wasn’t totally corrupt and shouldn’t have happened, but it has. Move on.
Terraloon “Fixture congestion and indeed the size and quality of squads will of course be a major contributor going forward but from a point in time which is very fast approaching the sort of impact you talk about will without doubt be as challenging for Arsenal as indeed it will be for other top 6 candidates” Not really , come February when the european knockout stages begin , that is the time when we will benefit so if we can hang in there for the next 2 months , and i see no reason why we can’t, then we will… Read more »