This blog was written 24 hours before Arsenal’s loss to Stoke. Everything football and media-wise from that game reinforces my findings and conclusions.
Positivistas: This is not a blog about me per se but am using my experience to explain to our audience the meaning of a contrarian world view and how it applies to the football club we so love and support. After all so much is written and said about this club on a daily basis which, to me at least, is confusing and contradictory and makes absolutely no sense. Hopefully this essay may be helpful in providing a rational and logical perspective.
A contrarian according to the Webster on-line dictionary is defined as:
“One who takes a contrary view or action, especially an investor who makes decisions that contradict prevailing wisdom, as in buying securities that are unpopular at the time.”
Contrarian investors are usually successfully because they buy stocks when they are cheap due to their unpopularity and profit from them when their value rises over time.
Contrarians Rely on the Unbiased Data
As a self-described contrarian I will therefore typically disagree with or proceed against current opinion or established practice. But contrarians do not disagree simply to be disagreeable. Any successful contrarian investor, will base their opinions and findings entirely on the unbiased data, meaning it is subject to robust statistical analysis and not stitched up to suit a particular viewpoint.
Thus, for example, in my last blog I did not prescribe either an attack or defense oriented approach this season after analyzing 21 years of data demonstrating a widening gap in Goals-Against between Arsenal and the winning teams in the premier league. The data was clearly suggesting a more balanced approach where the club not only aims to score more goals but also concentrate on conceding less.
It may interest you how I arrived at this outlook. Twenty years ago I became one of the increasing millions of Americans whose employer no longer offer standard pensions, the alternative was a defined savings plans, in my case it being the very popular 401(k) retirement plan. Initially I was one of those passive investors who followed the conventional rules proclaimed by brokers, investment advisers and the mainstream media, i.e. always fully invested in the market regardless of highs and lows. Despite repeated evidence that the stock market is a dangerous place for uninformed amateurs I was like a lamb to the slaughter buying high and sell low.
My “Damascene” moment was the 2008-2009 crisis when, like almost all my American cohorts, my retirement nest-egg was almost totally wiped out by the stock market crash. I then learnt, like millions, how the big investment houses and banks such as Goldman, Merrill-Lynch, Deutsche, Barclays, etc., engineered the bubble arm-in-arm with the mainstream media, conveniently bailing out before the shit-hit-the-fan.
Public Sentiment Is A Contrarian Indicator
It is well known among all academic studies that when it comes to market performance public sentiment is a contrarian indicator. The public is inclined to buy on good news when prices are high and sell on bad news when prices are low; clearly a losing proposition.
Contrarians partially attribute this to Freud’s theory that unconsciously we human beings are often motivated by our primal instincts of fear and despair. Thus, for example, I was one of millions in 2007 who feared missing out on the rising market, refusing to sell when the market was topping out. Similarly, when the market hit rock bottom in 2009-2010 and the Feds were pumping trillions in the market most of us missed the monumental increase in stock prices out of despair that the market would ever recover again.
Similarly, how many times have Arsenal fans acted irrationally based on fear sown by the mainstream media that the club is on the edge of disaster because of a run of bad results. Despite 21 years of history showing Arsene Wenger is the most knowledgeable, most accomplished and most consistent manager in the league, fans have been frequently stirred and motivated to drive their greatest ever manager out of the club. At the very moment they are acting most irrationally the club is usually digging itself out of a hole. Last year was no exception. While the mainstream media was rushing to wager bets as to how soon Arsene Wenger would get his pink-slip, between April and May the club won 10 out of 11 matches to not only move from 8th to 5th in the league but to also secure its 3rd FA cup title in four years.
Mainstream Media Can Never Be Neutral
Much related and connected to public sentiment is the role of the mainstream media which is often the purveyors of public opinion. Contrary to conventional wisdom that the media has a neutral, unbiased interest in reporting facts, when it comes to money and investing they have a commercial interest in propagating fear and despair. Fear sells. It generates newspaper sales, listeners/viewers in radio/television and clicks on-line.
No commercially-oriented media company benefits from the boring up and down behavior of the market. To the contrary, if a media company is commercially dependent on investment banks, brokers, mutual funds etc., it is in their objective interest to hype a rise and fall of the market. At the very least, there are commissions to be made by market insiders when stocks are heavily traded.
Oftentimes a media representative, like a broker, may be professionally aware that the market is set for a fall, but because his or her commission is tied to generating new sales, he/she continue to induce more lemmings to invest, leading them like little lambs to the slaughter. No wonder so many of us were fully invested in worthless mortgage-related stocks during the last crash.
No Interest In Boring Arsenal
Similarly no commercial media house has an interest in “boring, boring” Arsenal. Just in terms of sheer numbers, supporters of the football club are clearly a fertile market for media exploitation. For example, from the reports I have read, Arsenal has the biggest online presence among football clubs worldwide. Since Wenger transformed the club into one of the biggest in England, there are now huge expectations by fans season after season. Correspondingly among these fans is chronic anxiety that the club may be falling behind its better financed rivals, not only to the traditional commercial giant Manchester United but the nouveau rich externally financed clubs, Chelsea and City.
It is no surprise that not a day passes without an alarming story in the mainstream media portending disaster at Arsenal football Club. Take for example, this week’s headlines from a Google search:
Liverpool join Arsenal in race for Jean Michael Seri: Reds in talks with Nice – Daily Express
Liverpool on brink of signing Arsenal target Jean Michael Seri – Daily Star
Liverpool Set to Sign Ligue 1 Midfield Star Seri Ahead of Arsenal, Tottenham – Sports Illustrated
It begs the question has Arsenal ever publicly disclosed an interest in signing Seri? Does the club ever get into a bidding war for any player? Any informed fan should have the answer to both questions.
Public Sentiment Is Against Arsenal
What of the current predictions by the media for Arsenal this season? As evident below is all doom and gloom:
- 6th Place – Guardian (Writers predictions)
- 6th Place – BBC (Writers predictions)
- 4th Place – ESPN (Writers predictions)
One wonders what are the factual bases for these predictions. We have had 21 years of Arsenal averaging 3rd position in the premier league and never falling out of the top-4 except last season. This new campaign the club has kept all of its top players from the previous season and furthermore strengthened the squad with: (1) the second highest goal-scorer from the French league, and (2) a left-back who made the Budesliga best XI for the last season.
The fundamental data is therefore indicating the current squad is deeper and better qualitatively than it was last year and, arguably, better than it has ever been since 2005. It seems to me a clear case of the mainstream media once again discounting the facts and data and simply emphasizing current negative public sentiment. What a surprise!
Contrarians are usually in a small minority, at least initially. I am therefore amongst a precious few who will confidently wager on a title challenge. In fact I will go further and predict Arsenal will most certainly regain its top-3 position. Only a total injury disaster will prevent this achievement and, if they are allowed to get away with it, undue referee bias.
For the sake of irony, I will conclude with the following disclosure: Information in this essay is not investment advice. Please consult a financial professional to help make decisions suitable to your particular situation and risk tolerance. That should take care of the bleeding football “experts” writing blogs, tweeting and doing podcasts.
Postscript:
Arsenal this season may well suffer from undue referee bias and another penalty embargo but vs Stoke they were statistically dominant despite being denied two penalties and a good goal ruled offside. The following summary was obtained from Whoscored.com:
| Stoke | Key Metric | Arsenal |
| 11 | Shots | 18 |
| 4 | Shots on target | 6 |
| 63% | Pass Success % | 88% |
| 64% | Aerial Duel Success | 36% |
| 7 | Dribbles won | 13 |
| 19 | Tackles | 16 |
| 23% | Possession | 77% |
I rest my case.
Positively Arsenal 
From the Old Fart;
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First City then Tottenham were subsidising Adebayor’s wages long after he retired I mean stopped playing football for them.
Perhaps the conventional transfer as we knew it passed away some time ago and only now is it becomming obvious or clear that we are in an era of players running down their contracts or being subisdised on their contracts by previous clubs. It was the end of an era.
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Wenger on The Ox at this morning’s presser:
“I want him to stay and be one of the big players of the future of this club. He is one of the players this team has to be built around in the future. Personally I want him to commit to the club and to be one of the carriers of the values of our team.
“I think we invested a lot of time, confidence and money on players like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who we bought at a young age. For me, they have a responsibility for the future of this club because Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be one of the big English players in the coming years. I, personally, am highly determined to keep him here at the club and I hope he will commit.”
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Wenger on Lemar at the presser:
“It’s dead because Monaco has closed the door. They’ve already lost Mendy, Bernardo Silva and Bakayoko, so Monaco is at a stage where they have closed the door.”
See ya next year Thomas.
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BREAKING NEWS: ARSENAL FANS HAVE BREAKDOWN OVER DRAWING DONCASTER IN TEA CUP!
“Well, here we are outside the Emirates Stadium with Arsenal fan Jeff Bogey.So youre an Arsenal fan Jeff,please tell me whats wrong”
“I mean its just sh’t, I blame Wenger, I mean, you know what I mean, Don Caster, how can we get Don Caster? We tried to sign Don last year and he wouldnt agree terms Real Madrid wanted to keep him, didnt they, so why now?And that was dithering senile Wengers fault, I mean the bloke hasnt got a clue.The games moved on now, its more about You Tube and not him, I mean I get 250,000 views on You Tube for my thoughts, tell me how many does he get? You just dont get it do you? My mate Dave Barracuda, he learnt to play Stairway to Heaven at the age of 12. Jimmy Page didnt write it till he was 27, which says a lot.Think about it”.
“But Jeff you do know Doncaster is a place and not a player?”
” I dunno do I ?What are you on about? But I know that I want my Arsenal back, this would have never happened when we had Bergkamp and Paddy and all them. Everythings the clubs fault, I mean, if I didnt support this club my life would be great, basically you gonna have to understand, that if I dont get what I want, you know what i mean, I mean, Im gonna complain, its democracy right? Me and my view, Im gonna express meself, right? Know what Im saying?”
“well there we have it, reaction from Jeff Bogey on todays Tea Cup draw.Over to you in the studio”.
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Nice one Mills- but I can’t pronounce Bacaruda.
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It’s a real shame Jon Total going g to Hull another real talent that got injuries at the wrong time
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This Wenger quote with respect to The Ox is a fitting rebuttal to the MSM and the usual bloggers/podcasters:
“We all have our agendas that are quite busy but we do not publish them. Some people look better informed than I am!”
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Ian: Is Toral better than Hull? They are a good championship team looking to come straight back up.
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He is very much in the David Bentley mould but better and can play on either wing I honestly think if he hadn’t had injuries he would be in the squad and Hector’s going to be gutted as they we’re best mates having both come from Barca at the same time.
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With just a week to go until transfer deadline day, Arsene Wenger was quizzed about the futures of two members of his first team on Thursday.
With Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Alexis entering the final years of their contracts, there has been a lot of speculation about them.
This is what the boss had to say:
Find out if Alexis could start at Liverpool
Get the latest on Oxlade-Chamberlain’s future
See what the boss said about Lemar and Mbappe
‘It was a human reaction from Wilshere’
on whether he has a meeting with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain…
We all have our agendas that are quite busy but we do not publish them. Some people look better informed than I am! My secretary has my agenda, I will check what I have to do today.
on whether the Ox has indicated whether he wants to stay…
All these conversations that I have [I say] that I want him to stay and be one of the big players of the future of this club. He is one of the players this team has to be built around in the future. Personally I want him to commit to the club and to be one of the carrier of the values of our team.
on whether there have been any bids for the Ox…
I know every bid we have of course but the best for us is to focus on Sunday.
on if he’d sell him to Chelsea…
I want to keep my best players. I only have one target: to keep everybody on board. I think we invested a lot of time, confidence and money on players like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who we bought at a young age. For me, they have a responsibility for the future of this club because Alex will be one of the big English players in the coming years. I personally am highly determined to keep him here at the club and I hope he will commit.
on Alexis’ attitude…
He has always been focused on his job, he loves to play football and I don’t think he is too disturbed by all the [external] noises that happen. Players at that level are used to it now, some deal better with it than others but I don’t think he is too bothered by that.
on if he is happy to stay…
He is very focused, very happy and as I told you before, the fact that he goes into the last year of his contract does not mean we have no chance to extend it. At the moment we have not managed to do it, but we just want to focus as a team and not look too much at the individual conditions of the contracts of everybody because what is important is what you want to achieve forever.
on not giving up on extending his deal…
Let’s not go too far, let’s focus on Sunday.
on whether Alexis will travel with Chile…
Yes, of course. Chile are at an important part of their qualifiers, they are not through yet and he is available to travel to Chile.
on whether he will be an Arsenal player when he comes back…
Yes.
on how much harder it is to keep hold of Alexis with inflated transfer fees…
I had to deal many times in my life with big departures, big players. I always focused more on the team and to deal with all the rest. No matter what, Arsenal and the team is important. Of course you want to keep your best players but you always think if it happens you have to find a way to survive at the top level and to find a way to make the team efficient. You don’t focus too much on individual players, you focus more on how the team can be strong enough to deal with what can happen.
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/wenger-gives-latest-ox-alexis-futures#iPWTABUQ9IQbbc0o.99
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/wenger-gives-latest-ox-alexis-futures#BqGLpUWksKq0RPdq.99
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we might get one more signing if we sell enough players in the next week, AW comments on possible Mustafi sale are a surprise
Thomas Lemar has been linked with a move to the club throughout the summer, but could he still make the move to the Emirates?
Arsene Wenger was asked whether he could seal a deal for the Monaco man before the close of the transfer window.
This is what he had to say about him, Kylian Mbappe and Shkodran Mustafi:
on whether the Thomas Lemar deal is dead now…
It’s dead because Monaco has closed the door. They are still on cases like Mbappe and Fabinho. They’ve already lost Mendy, Bernardo Silva and Bakayoko, so Monaco is at a stage where they have closed the door.
on how much of a frustration it is for him…
We have the numbers, we have the quality to deal with that.
on if he expects to sell Mustafi before the end of the window…
It’s difficult for me to speak about any individual cases because we are now in the final seven days of the transfer market. It’s always very difficult to predict what will happen there. You have to make quick and sharp decisions, and you cannot plan that and come out in the press conference with how you will respond to any solicitation.
on £180m plus a player for Mbappe – and nearly getting him for nothing a year ago…
That shows you how quickly things go up and down in life. At the moment it’s an abstraction. It’s just a number and very difficult to imagine nowadays. We saw £100m for the first time last year and just one year later, it’s over £200m. Will that go on? I don’t know, but it looks like it doubles in the transfer market every year now. It looks to me like it will reach a stage where it’s very difficult to predict where it will go. Nobody knows in our job.
on how happy he is with the strength of the squad…
I’m happy with the strength of the squad. I’m completely happy with the strength of the squad. I have said many times that we have too many players in our squad, and some of them have no chance to compete for places because we have too many. Too much competition for places is no good as well because the players have no chance of playing. On the other hand, one of the values of this club is to give a chance to young players who deserve it. If you have too many players of confirmed status, you’re in a difficult position to give a chance to young players. We have the luck of having three or four players who are top quality and deserve a chance.
on whether more players will go than arrive by deadline day…
Both can happen. It depends how many players will go to see if we can bring one more in. We are on alert in the last seven days. Everybody gets agitated and phones ring more often than before. Sometimes you have to share the work in the final day because you have some cases going out and some coming in. The last two days are always very hectic.
Copyright 2017 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source.
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/wenger-lemar-mbappe-and-mustafi#r8g2zQuCgl6UfUsp.99
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/wenger-lemar-mbappe-and-mustafi#Il1bPpDPzTRrmU6K.99
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Jack Wilshere has had to learn to live with being under intense scrutiny ever since his breakthrough season in 2010/11.
That has continued after he was sent off in Monday night’s under-23 match against Manchester City at Emirates Stadium.
Arsene Wenger has sympathy for the midfielder, who reacted to a bad tackle, and says he hopes he can build on his vast potential.
“At my stage and with my experience in football, I can understand a lot – especially what happened to him,” the Arsenal manager said.
“Ideally he wouldn’t have responded at all but when you have gone through what he has gone through, with bad tackles, it was a human reaction.
“At the moment he is working very hard to come back after his fracture so another setback would be terrible and it was a bad tackle.
“You know how much I love Jack and his talent,” he added. “I started him at the age of 17 but today in the football world you need to be a consistent presence.
“What is at stake for Jack is not his quality, his talent or his determination, it is whether he is a consistent presence at the top. I hope he can manage to do that and after nobody questions his quality.”
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/it-was-human-reaction-wilshere#zXccpAYyK03Gtxz1.99
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/it-was-human-reaction-wilshere#QxLqYGKjzFdEd02k.99
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England Senior, U21 and U19 squads have been announced – Arsenal call ups
Senior – Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Danny Welbeck
U21 – Ainsley Maitland-Niles
U19’s – Marcus McGuane, Reiss Nelson, Edward Nketiah, Joe Willock
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Team News for Sunday
Alexis and Koscielny in contention after injury and suspension.
Cazorla and Campbell the two players out with long term injuries.
Chambers is a doubt with a groin injury, expected to be fit after International break.
Wilshere available despite his sending off monday for the U23’s, he has had his suspension reduced from 3 to 2 u23’s games by the FA.
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having not seen the Liverpool game last night, can I assume due to the lack of tweets or blog article blaming Wenger for the sale of Gnabry that the lad had a bit of a stinker.
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BREAKING NEWS: Arsenal fans in meltdown over not being drawn with Bayern in the UCL.
BS NEWS BREAKING:Bayern boss said that they secretly plan to make a mess of the UCL and get in the EL, just to met up with Arsenal.”it wont be the same without them” said a spokesperson for Bayern.
We met up with Arsenal fan Jeff Bogey, outside the Emirates.
“Its pathetic, I mean wheres Bayern? Why arent we playing them???We was told that we were leaving Highbury to challenge against Bayern, know what I mean? So why arent they in the EL like us? Look I blame Wenger hes always dithering about, if he would have signed Lemar like I said earlier this summer, we would have been in the hat for the CL, everyone knows that.He hasnt a clue, I know what Im talking about, I get 450,000 views on You Tube, how many do Bayern get?”
“Well Jeff Im not sure you’ve understood the point?”
“No its you that hasn’t understood the point.The point is Kenneth Featherstonhaugh from No21 on my street is a bloody good fisherman, fresh water mostly, but thats not the point..And hes got all the gear. Thats the point. Thats what you journos don’t get, and we the real fans do get, know what I mean? Its just a question of upbringing!”
” well its back over to you in the studio, from us live at the Emirates”
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Josh DaSilva and Stephy Mavididi have been included in the England U20 squad.
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Koscielny, Giroud and Lacazette in the France squad
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Wilshere needs to play, not guaranteed to get game time at Arsenal
The future of plenty of our first-team players has been up for discussion whenever Arsène Wenger has met with the media in recent weeks.
On Thursday, Jack Wilshere was on the agenda. So, will the England international be offered a new contract?
“If he gets back to his best and wants to stay, we have to sit down, I think, later in the season,” Wenger said. “I don’t rule that [out].
“I’m open, you know, with Jack. We have honest conversations. I’m open to what is the best for him.
“He is at the stage of his career where he needs to play and I can’t guarantee him today that, and I think I’m quite open on that.”
Copyright 2017 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source.
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/wenger-my-honest-conversations-jack#JwAUXjCPrUHWB3cu.99
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/wenger-my-honest-conversations-jack#zzxG2UqWczsqMtAG.99
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is it not time we have a 3 month playing season and have a transfer window for the other 9 months, after all its more interesting for many
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Is it always this annoying on Twitter/ Blogosphere/Internet at this time of the year, folks?
Feel like I’d remember it if it was.
I’ve no blanket ban on questioning the club, a bit of doubt, even yelps of frustration, anger, whatever, sometimes.
But…phh…doing so relentlessly, and with such a lack of fair-mindedness.
Especially pisses me off to see those ‘bigger’ accounts, who have at some stage made me think they are pretty reasonable, stick the boot in so heavily.
They could probably shave a tidy 5% or more off the general crumminess if they behaved themselves.
Anyway, here’s to not being fool enough to let any of their stink bother me today.
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I suspect any shortening of the transfer window would only take place over Mr Murdoch’s dead body eddy – pleasant thought though that may be.
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Rich: Why would conventional opinion on twitter along with the media be so alarmist and negative about the club? Hmmm. Hope you read my blog.
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A5: Isn’t it a fact that the window will be shortened next year to coincide with the start of the season? Just asking.
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I know the PL clubs were talking about it earlier this month but I thought the idea had fizzled out Shotta ? I imagine a friendly call from KRM to a couple of bolshie chairmen got the matter quietly dropped
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BTW: Did you guys see a report that Barca backed out of a deal to sign Jean-Michael Seri at the last minute? Wonder if it is true. I watched him carefully over the two legs vs Napoli and I must say he disappointed me when faced with a higher level of competition. Napoli pressed him whenever he had possession and he made too many errors for a MF hoping to play for a top club. He did not cope well with the Italians physicality and lost too many duels. If the Catalans were really interested I can see why they had second thoughts.
Struck me from this experience there is a whole world of difference between an amateur scout (yours truly) watching videos of a player and a professional evaluating a prospective signing over a long period and in different games and positions. Based on their constant demands for another central midfielder, Arsenal bloggers and tweeters would have long ago signed Seri. But on the strength of his Napoli performances he would be a failure at Arsenal, certainly no better than a fit Jack Wilshere.
Can you imagine another middling African midfielder keeping a promising Englishman out of the team? Forget imagination. Let us rely on our experience of the bitter, unwarranted hatred dished out to Eboue during his time at the club. Nobody cared the club didn’t have money to buy the best talents from wherever. So poor Eboue became a hate figure for the hate fans and hate blogs.
Anyway, seems to me given that the pursuit of Lemar is closed, we will be relying on our current midfield options. ElNeny will most likely spell Xhaka in that deeper MF position, a certainly more experienced and reliable player than a questionable shiny new transfer from Nice.
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BATE Borisov, Cologne and Red Star Belgrade – nothing too odd
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Some of the away supporters that follow the team everywhere were telling me they were getting fed up with trips to Bayern and Barca ( a measure of success in itself) and so these fixtures will excite them new places to see and all that. Reiss, Joe and Eddie get your passports ready as well.
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Ian: Happy to go to Belgrade (Serbia) and Barysaw (Belaurussia) rather than Munich or Barcelona? Happy talk by deluded people. BTW: I had to look up Barysaw, no disrespect intended for the Belarussians.
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Sky reporting Ox has turned down deal, and Arsenal will let him know if he can leave over next 24 hours.
Personally, I would sell and replace, though of course in reality, not that easy at this stage
David Dein did a leadership speech last spring to some students. At the Q and A afterwards, Wenger was mentioned, Dein said he was being badly let down, but didnt elaborate. Maybe we are finding out what he meant, assuming the Sky report is true of course.
http://www.derehamtimes.co.uk/news/arsene-wenger-has-been-let-down-and-would-be-an-impossible-act-to-follow-former-arsenal-and-fa-chairman-david-dein-speaks-to-dereham-sixth-form-college-students-1-4951666
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Mandy: Reading all the press reports, it is evident that Chelsea in particular want to sign the Ox and Arsene wants to keep him and has made it public. Lets see how this unfolds. 7 days to go.
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I see one of the big bloggers(arseblog) has an article on our Europa League group. And he claims we have never played Red Star Belgrade before. always good when these uber bloggers show how little football knowledge they actually have. You see Red Star knocked Arsenal out of the Uefa Cup in 1978, they had a 1-0 home win in first leg and drew the second at Highbury 1-1. By the way the did the same to WBA in the following round
It seems Arseblog is confused by the idea that Red Star is the English name for FK Crvena Zvezda.
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Thanks Eddie for giving further evidence of how our super bloggers are scrupulously factual.
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some reports about the £180K deal for the ox are claiming that Arsenal have not offered him that amount, but its what his agent has demanded, and Arsenal have offered £125K a week. £180K a week would be highest paid player at Arsenal, by a distance.
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well shotta when I seen the arseblog article and its stated facts, I doubted myself for a moment, as I have this memory of a bit of hype over Arsenal facing the mighty Red Star Belgrade in the late 70’s. there are just some clubs names you do not forget, regardless of result, an odd one for me is Magdeburg, who we played in the 79/80 CWC. they were actually one of the big clubs in East Germany, but are now a lower league club in Germany, but from time to time the name Magdeburg comes to my mind.
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Arseblog update
ha ha ha, not for the first time my comment has disappeared, but oddly enough Arseblog has updated the article but credits two others with informing them we have indeed played red star before.
I don’t think they like when I tell them they are factually wrong
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Yep, see what happens Shotta, and if Ox really wants centre mid, he will have some competition at Chelsea.
Guess its a way of getting Cesc back!
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Got the Red Star programmes in the cellar and the Magdeburg ones too.Going
to both of them at the time was a big deal being behind the Iron Curtain. Those clubs instilled a bit of fear in the Gunners at the time. First time I went through Magdeburg the initial thoughts I had were about that game.
Glad you gave Arseblog some stick Ed-good work!
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Mandy: From all appearances Ox is a sensible young man. His parents don’t strike me as bright-eyed fools who lose all their senses because someone waves a big wad of cash in front of their son. Both he and family will know the pros and cons of both AFC and Chelsea. Hopefully they remember the ignominious career choices of Shaun Wright-Phillips. As for memories, remember Arsene stole the signature of Aaron Ramsey from Manchester United at practically the 11th hour. Lots of time for this to go either way.
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Eddie: This is not the first time you reported that you made a critical comment of the false claims of the super blogger and they were deleted. No wonder their podcasts allow no critical voices. Further evidence these so-called moderate voices don’t mind censorship and hate dissent from conventional wisdom.
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Ah Madeburg blue and whites stripes and I think number 18 on the Subbeuteo listings as well. Red Star had a brilliant side at the time really creative until the final.
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Volunteers for the match preview?
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George check you in box on your emails.
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I think Mills has something in draft George
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SNAP
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LOL!
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Oh fuck 327 Emails to look though, I really should check more often.
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