Gf60 concludes his series of Arsenal League triumphs with a look at the 26th May 1989;
When the South African Broadcasting Corporation decided to suspend normal Friday night TV programming to bring us the match live, some magic just had to be afoot. Football in the then rugby dominated, white supremacist South Africa? Take off Afrikaans programmes for Pommy football? Pull the other leg!
But the rumour was true. My friend Mike and I made up one of the smallest contingents of Gooners watching the game. We were, still are fanatics. Moving to South Africa had never dimmed the anticipation of reading a favourable match report, or watching an occasional pirated copy of Match of the Day and, total bliss, a full showing of Cup Finals. (OK so we forgot Ipswich and West Ham)
Our wives were banished to the kitchen to natter. This was serious men’s business. We settled back, six packs of Castle lager, crisps and biltong ready at our sides. And the game started.
I can remember but one Liverpool shot in the first half, from Rush, which had it been a foot either side of John Lukic would have taken the net with it. Suffice to say it was a mean enough shot to empty the fifth of the Castles and open the last. Our normal intake was four for the whole game.
Replenishments were hastily summoned; the wives poor Annie and Sheila were still discussing knitting or whatever women talk about at times of great husbandly stress. We weren’t very communicative. 2 goals in less than an hour? Our external composure was brave. Internally we were cotton wool and Castle.
We looked at each other and smiled. What else but faith kept Arsenal supporters supporting through the barren years? And, prior to both the double in 1971 and today, there had been many years of despondency and unrewarded faith.
Why were the beers having so little effect? A sympathetic comment or an involuntary movement of the feet accompanied every pass. McMahon was roundly cursed on many an occasion. He was covering every blade of grass and putting in crucial tackles, single handedly taking away OUR League title.
And then Nigel swings in a left footed free kick from the right. Tony goes sprawling. Smudger gets the faintest touch with his head. Pandemonium. We didn’t quite kiss and cuddle but it must have been close. But, what’s this? The ref is chatting to the linesman, both looking very serious. They chat forever. What did they say to each other? I’ve watched a replay many times and the only thing I know for certain is that lip reading ain’t my forte.
The finger points to the centre circle. 1-0 to the Arsenal. And the time ticks on. One not enough but sufficient for some silly sod on the commentary to mutter words to the effect that Arsenal may take some consolation from the win but they won’t win the league. Kevin Richardson goes down injured. We go past 90 minutes. Rueful looks at each other.
And then…Lee to Smudge to Micky….
Collectively the two of us have covered more grass and kicked more balls and made more tackles and drunk more Castle than any player on the pitch. We try to stand but someone or something had cut our legs off at the knee. We just collapse and cry. We’d done it.
(This was originally published in an anthology of Arsenal supporters and players/officials thoughts “It’s up for grabs now”, compiler Greg Mitchell 2005)
And on behalf of all PA posters, commenters and the hundreds of daily lurkers out there I wish you a very happy 75th birthday for June 29th – have a virtual cake on us –
Positively Arsenal 
Arsènic @Lexus7Sanchez 6m6 minutes ago
RMC | Aulas: “There are talks with #AFC, and yes they pushing to seal the deal but nothing is concluded yet.”
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HT: Germany U21 1-0 Spain U21
Germany been by far the best team in the first half, and it was a fine header that gave them the lead. Spain have been very tentative, especially in defense
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a rumor that Arsenal’s first game of the season v Leicester City could be on the Friday night.
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reports in France that Marseille have today bid €25M + €3M in bonuses for Giroud
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Jason Burt of the Daily Telegraph says Lacazette likely to sign for AFC this weekend, medical due tomorrow.
He earlier today claimed that there was only €4M of a difference in what AFC offered and what Lyon wanted for the striker.
So Arsenal might be about to break our Transfer Record fee, no wonder the ASB don’t like Stan or Ivan or Arsene, the stingy bunch.
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FT: Germany u21 1-0 Spain u21
Germany by far the better team in the first half, Spain improved in the second half.
The german goal was a fine guided header.
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An excellent win for Germany tonight – a team of talented but not exceptional footballers. Very impressive.
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Lacazette has scored 91 goals in his last 129 games for Lyon, in the last 3 seasons, but the ASB have decided that he is not good enough for Arsenal, even the ones that when it looked like he was joining Atletico Madrid said we should be in for him/
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Bellerin played 360mins at #EuroU21 therefor he will donate £18,000 to the Grenfell Tower victims.
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Ed
I havent seen Lacazatte games and since he is no 3 or 4 in the France national teams Pecking order i am not too much excited about it.
May be he is more speedy than Giroud but our lanky French man has some other qualities ss well.
Its upto Wenger how Lacaxatte fits in the team that has to be seen.
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Just a few comments about the end of season event.
Firstly Ivan was as smooth as usual, he rarely gets flusted and easily dealt with the questions thrown at him. The communications manager unfortunatly is not quite so good, I asked a question about Youth football, the deal with Borehamwood and encoureging children into football. It was in responce to this that he was saying about the teen area’s not being sold out.
I heard twitter were reporting the room was all against Ivan, but again this wasn’t the case with about a 50/50 split. The bloke who said the club was in a period of stagnation not seen in his lifetime and also said his dad was in the 1950 cup winning side, he obviously was suffering from amnesia because he was older than me and in that time there have been some very bad times and bad sides.
When Perry got up to defend Arsene people wern’t booing him and he got claps accross the hall at first but then he went on and on and people were shoting “ask a bloody question” which was fair, to which he responded with “ok why was Arsene only given a two year contract and not longer”
The fellar who metioned Dein, wasn’t saying Dein should come back but somebody of that ilk who could link all aspects of the club and be on the board.
Ray Parlour was his normal funny self and he did say with all the English lads drinking and the French lads smoking and the amount of social media around the sides he played in would not of lasted today and also conceeded because of the amount of sides competing at the top it was more difficult to win the league.
All in all it was a good evening, I had my picture with the F.A.cup got to ask Ivan a question ,chatted with Ray Palour before the event and won a 6ft Joal Campbell which I then had to walk through the streets, past the Finsbury park Mosque while everyone was trying to get in and on the train home.
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Rosicky I have no idea how good Lacazette is, but if he joins I will support him, and as you say its up to the manager to fit him in the team, but for £50M, I would expect he would be fitted in straight away, I don’t think we are at the £50M squad player yet, and Ivan said the other evening that the incomings this summer are to be starters.
My main point on Lacazette is that the ASB, even those who complained we were not after him when AM were about to sign him, and those who bemoaned that we did not sign him last summer and the summer before, are now complaining that we are about to sign him, as he is no longer “good enough for Arsenal” – something that oddly enough happens quite a lot with regards our new signings.
As for him being only 3rd or 4th choice for France, well all the better, less time away from AFC for him, and when it comes to international selections, an Arsenal fan should know how often international managers differ in view to Arsene. Rob Holding did not play a minute at the U21 Euros, Chambers played every minute and I don’t even know who he partnered. By the way Lacazette had a fall out with Dechamps a couple of years ago after Brazil beat France 3-0 in a friendly, it put him down the pecking order.
I do worry that if Lacazette comes in Giroud will leave(he has said he will not be a sub this season), and if he does leave we have no one who can give us what he does. our aerial ability would be lessened to a great degree, Danny is a big guy, but is not on Ollies level with his head. And mentioning Danny, for me if Lacazette joins its danny who is most in danger of losing game time, unless of course we are selling Alexis and Danny moves out wide left, or maybe Arsene is going to surprise us all and change formation again, and not back to 4-2-3-1, but to 4-4-2, or some other variation that sees us with 2 up front.
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reports that Ethan Ampadu the son our our U18 manager Kwame Ampadu has turned down Arsenal and decided to join Chelsea from Exeter City.
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Ed
I dont think Giroud leaves the club.Wenger likes Giroud.
However i am afraid if Lacazatte purchase is a sign of Sanchez leaving.
I hope not.
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i really don’t get the Lacazette is a replacement for Alexis thing, one an out and out main striker the other our wide left player. If anything the proposed move for Thomas Lemar would be more a replacement for Alexis if done.
I think Arsenal are going to keep Alexis for the final year of his contract – something I think is too big of a risk – and for me I really don’t see us selling him to a BPL club this summer, possibly to a foreign club, but not to a rival. One of the main reasons I think we will keep him is so that it makes it easier to get others to sign new deals, and to make new signings and also to stress our improved financial status, if we sell him it indicates any player can be bought from us, and would mean we would have to start selling players with 2 years on their contracts if they did not sign new deals.
Ivan explained in detail last summer why it actually makes sense to let contracts run down to the 2 year and 1 year level before renewing and even going into their last year still in talks. And he said once a player is in his last year, the club and player in fact can treat it as if they were someone they were trying to sign on a bosman and so bigger wages can be paid, even if that is in bonuses or one off payments, like how its reported that our new left wing back Kolasinac is on the guts of £150K a week when everything is taken into account. Remember Sol Campbell did not break our strict wage scale with his weekly wage, but if all payments to him were included he blew it out of the water.
Many don’t understand too that image rights play a massive part in deals, if included the club can virtually pay as much as they like in bonuses or one off payments for these rights, take the image rights out of the deal and it can be much less costly, but of course the player has to have big image rights value for it to be a good bargaining tool for them. For example Theo Walcott has a big wage cos of his great image rights value.
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a simple question for you all, if one of Giroud or Welbeck were to leave this summer to make room for Lacazette which one would you prefer to see go. For me Welbeck suits the 3-4-3 formation more, but Giroud gives us so many things none of our other forwards do I think he has to stay.
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I dont think Arsenal need to sell any of the players bar Debuchy who seems surplus now.
Sanogo is already off.
So we already made space for Saeed kosalainic and another signing which seems to be Lacazatte.
Both Goroud and Wellbeck will be there this season surely.
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Andy Kelly @Gooner_AK 3h3 hours ago
Happy birthday to Arsenal legend Alan Sunderland who is 64 today. 🎂 ⚽
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Rosicky we have to move on about 10 players, we have around 35 players over the age of 21, and are only allowed to register 25 of them.
the point on moving on one of welbeck or giroud if we sign Lacazette as seems likely is that as already pointed out by Giroud himself, he is not willing to be a bit part player, he wants to be first choice, if at AFC then great, but if not he will consider his future. Despite his great scoring form, he never held down a regular starting spot, and once we went to 3-4-3 he got even less starts. Danny missed half the season with injury and yet only started 3 fewer BPL games than Ollie. in fact Giroud only started 11 league games last season and 17 in total. He has stated a few times this summer that he is not prepared to have that happen again this coming season.
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Chris Willock left our Academy yesterday for Benfica, but it seems despite earlier reports, his younger brother Joe will be staying at AFC this coming season.
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I see the ASB are saying Alexis’s comment that he has “made his decision about his future” but “can not reveal it” at the moment clearly means he is off. Have they not considered that he is signing a new Arsenal contract, and he can not say this cos Arsenal want to reveal it for the clicks on Arsenal.com. no, thought not.
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Ivan Gazidis: “We’re looking for top-quality players. We’ve got three times as many scouts as we had four years ago.”
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i remember when chelsea bought shevchenko and everyone including the manager expect drogba to become a bit part player. he actually started the season on the bench (drogba) but fought his way back into the starting eleven. the rest is history. i want giroud to learn from that and dont mind whatever anyone is saying about wenger not having him as a starter next season. football is not mathematics.
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if, despite his fine form last season, he could not force his way as first choice, what would make him think that he will be first choice after we sign a £50M striker. I would suggest that would be in Giroud’s thinking. By the way shevchenko was the owners signing, not a managerial decision, any signing at AFC is the managers decision
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to even suggest giroud will leave if we sign another sriker is laughable. it is even funny that anyone will think giroud will expect arsene not to sign another striker. he has always said that he would welcome strikers who would improve the team provided they can play together. can lacazette and giroud play together? the answer is yes. everything being said here and elsewhere are just based on speculation. nobody knows wenger’s plan or formation he intends to use next season as i’m sure no one here ever believed wenger could ever play three defenders last season. so lets chill and stop doing the exact thing we accuse other bloggers of doing.
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and giroud is not the manager’s signing?
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@Brosicky7
IroBI Retweeted arseblog
Arsenal bloggers, the only people could take a break from crying to mock people for crying.IroBI added,
arseblog @arseblog
Arsenal fans, the only people could get laid by Angelina Jolie and complain that it wasn’t a threesome with Scarlett Johansson.
7:28 PM – 1 Jul 2017
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report from France that Lacazette only put one condition on his signing for Arsenal, and that is that Ozil remains, as he views this as vital to his desire to be BPL top scorer. But Tim not so nice but dim Payton says no one wants to sign Ozil.
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Lucas Perez’s agents says despite talks with Seville and Valencia neither club has bid for the player and LP will be back at Arsenal from tomorrow for preseason training .
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Alexis, Mustafi and Bellerin not due back in Arsenal training for another four weeks, Chambers and Holding due back just before them, meaning that we can expect lots of transfer rumors about Alexis and Bellerin in that time, unless both players and the club make it clear they are staying.
First senior players (those that did not have international football during the summer) back in the coming days, the next batch due back early next week, and Arsenal fly out early next week to Australia, so will be interesting to see who of the international players make that trip. First game of the tour is Thursday week.
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Seemingly Ivan “let slip” after the Q&A that Arsenal had offered Alexis and Ozil the biggest contract offers ever made by the club. Cheap skates.
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Jordan McEneff
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Big rugby match, big call from an official, no controversy.
Blimey.
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< I don't watch the Rugby Football but it observably has a better rep and more credibility then the pgMOB Rules Football (ok?) code.
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Fins
Rugby officiating is at a really good standard. Many factors, I’m sure, including the established norms and habits of respect to refs from players and fans before video technology was introduced.
To me ,though, the number one factor is being able to hear the refs and other officials communicate. I don’t think VAR can ever work very well without something similar in football. Drives standards up immensely.
In the Confed game the other night we had the ref waving play on when replays showed ,within seconds, there was a clear foul for a pen, but we were left as viewers with no idea whether or not the Var refs said anything to the man in the middle.
Another time there was a long delay before a yellow was correctly shown, and it was unclear if something had been said to ref or there’d just been an unusually long delay before he came back to something.
It won’t work like that, and for people who distrust, say, pgmol, it will be a nightmare.
At least offsides will be better for us…but everything else!
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Perhaps if we could persuade Wayne not to “c***” the referee off the map every two minutes we might get referees miked up Fins.
Big difference between football and rugby officials is that there is no disrespect of officials, no cursing, crowding round, no mob rule. You curse a referee or a line judge you are off – and suspended
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I suppose the other advantage Monsieur Graces had yesterday is that it is quite rare for an international rugby player to throw themselves on the ground pretending to be gravy injured in order to win a penalty or get an opponent carded.
Can you IMAGINE a rugby referee trying to cope with the constant cheating in a typical PL game ?
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Andrew perhaps if the pgMOB reps had th footballs required to show a red card to players once branded by their hacking colleagues as “good as Ronaldo and Messi” they wouldn’t have this problem.
Watching the way the officials deal with Alli, another hyped up average footballer who simply doesn’t have that level of technique, the not forgetting the lack of red cards for the hacking neighbours, I don’t expect that facet of the sport to improve anytime soon.
To be fair to Tony Adams during that famous and hilarious chasing of David Ellery he didn’t score many goals! Heh. I’m not biased. Not in the slightest.
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Many of the loudest commentators in the media either
Do not know the Laws or
Do not like certain Laws and want them interpreted, how they would like them interpreted given a particular scenario.
The language used can be confusing
It is claimed that football is a contact sport
But all contact is pretty much deemed aceptable ,for a player to go to ground claiming a free-kick/penalty (Particularly if your a England International).
That’s just the pundits the ‘Ex-Pro’s’ who know ‘The Game’.
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< For the hacking and diving neighbours
That second yellow in the final and the second yellow for Di Maria stand out. There's nothing stopping these officials doing the same with favoured/protected players. Is there?
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Do you imagine that individual referees or the refereeing body that employs them enjoys being cursed by a gang of overexcited semi apes wearing a football jerseys once a week Fins ? I doubt it.
I agree though – first “fuck” I hear and your off – I’d love it, really love it. And the same goes for the coaches on the sideline abusing the 4th official (and no doubt the VAR next season)
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Admittedly games for a few weeks would finish 4 a side and every bench would be empty – but in war there are always casualties
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< Di Maria gently put his hand on Oliver. I think that we've all seen Rooneh do worse, probably more then once, but I can't be arsenalled to check.
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Completely agree!
In addition if VARs is used to stop serial and clever divers (coughs Alli coughs) who can trick an infield official who might not have a clear line of sight, we will all be literally laughing!
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anicoll
For reasons you mention, I have some serious misgivings about VAR, especially if it would ever be possible to let us hear what is said on the mikes. Yet I feel to work well it is essential we hear what is said. Bit of a catch 22.
Getting anything like the respectful attitude in rugby, rather than the typically antagonistic and bilious one of football, to refs, couldn’t be anything but a long and messy process. But is that reason enough not to try? Is it impossible for football- players, fans- to grow up a bit?
For VAR to work really well, we’d need fans, players, commentators and managers to change behaviour for the better; the protocols of how and where to use it to be refined through much trial and error; to hear the communication between officials; and, perhaps the biggest challenge of all, how to use it, in a game which doesn’t suit stop,start nearly as well as any other sport, without losing more than you gain.
It’s a bloody tall order! I’m only as in favour of it as I am because of my convictions about the untrustworthiness of pgmol, plus it feels an oddity in modern sport to have huge mistakes and injustices which can be identified instantly.
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anicol it is a yellow card offense for a player to to use foul or abusive language to a Ref, so there is absolutely nothing stopping them from carding any offender, they choose not to, the question is why. Game would not end 4v4, not even 9v9, for the very simple reason, if players know they will get booked for it, they will not do it, this is why Rugby players don’t do it, they are not better behaved cos they respect the ref so much, no, they know it won’t be tolerated. I played GAA with guys who also played Rugby, and it was amazing to see how differently they treated the refs in each game, the GAA ref would get cursed big time, but with the Rugby ref it wall yes sir and no sir. In recent years the GAA has realized this and their Refs don’t accept as much abuse as they once did.
The thing about the David Ellerey – Tony Adams exchange is that back then the Ref did not accept the bad language. Why do they accept it now, could it be that certain players are beyond punishment, and so they can’t go after others, as clubs would use the evidence that they allowed player x to say much worse.
Johnny Giles and Liam Brady discussed this a while back on RTE and they both said that in their playing days, Refs were not subjected to this level of abuse from players, the foul and abusive language was mostly reserved for each other, that simply put the refs did not accept it. Brady said that at Arsenal the players are warned not to abuse the officials, and is especially frowned upon in the Academy, but he seen some Academies that were outrageous towards the refs, managers, coaches and players, and Refs letting it go. He said that in many ways the refs get what they deserve cos they could stop it within a matter of weeks by simply implementing the rules on foul and abusive language.
By the way Brady said it was the same with diving, if the will was there to stop it, then most of it could be stomped out quickly, if players knew that they would get proper punishment for it, then clubs/managers would stop their players doing it.
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In GAA at a couple of the big grounds there is a system called Hawkeye, that is used to judge some scores, usually on the reaction of the players the ref will call for Hawkeye to judge if it was a point or not and on the big screen it comes up as a simulation of the path of the ball, and the decision is TA or Nil – yes or now – and in fact an All Ireland Hurling Final result was decided on an injury time Hawkeye decision, both umpires had given the point, but Ref wanted to be sure and went to Hawkeye and it ruled it out. No controversy, no complaints. And this is a system that is not available at all grounds, and oddly enough even at the grounds its at, they don’t use it in the Ladies games – the Ladies governing body were they ones that decided not to bring it in cos its not available so far at all inter county grounds.
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And why do referees not whip out the yellow card at the first fuck and the red at the second wanker eddy ?
Because they are to a man spineless cowards ?
The culture of football and attitude to refereeing from the Olympian Heights of FIFA and their absence of will to deal with cheating and dreadful player behaviour with more than a slap on the wrist to the referee being threatened in the Sunday League in Folkestone stinks.
As you say, and as Rich says, a bit of ruthless enforcement might work wonders.
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over the course of this the “silly season” of transfer gossip, I have seen many outrageous, even strange, Arsenal transfer links, some that has led some to say that “wenger has lost his mind” in a good way (the Mbappe rumor), but I just seen a rumor that would suggest Wenger has lost his mind in a bad way –
Rob Green to Arsenal to understudy Petr Cech.
Ospina and Szczesny are leaving so an experience back up is required and Green fits the bill is how the story goes. Next we will be linked to Sébastien Frey again.
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