Hello everyone, it’s been a while. I hope you are all in good physical and mental health? It’s been a difficult time for me on both counts , but I’m feeling better and I appreciate the good will shown to me on here and social media, it really did give me a lift. Thanks .
Ok, to business, specifically transfer business.
It should be clear to all that the virus will have a big effect on the clubs ability, or willingness, to spend this summer, but lets start at the beginning, pre virus.
We spent big last summer, specifically on Pepe. this was achieved by Raul and his mate staggering the payments in a big way. Some people heralded this as as masterstroke, but the reality is they were spending a good chunk of this (and next) years transfer kitty in advance. In simple terms that means less to spend this year and following years.
We have had a 3rd season out of the Champions League and could even miss out on the Europa League next season, this too will limit or spending.In short, we were already going to be fugal.
Then we have the virus effects. We have to consider how much it’s cost the club to keep going during lock down, How much will they have to refund for tickets sold for games people can’t attend, will the TV companies also want a refund and what effect will it have on next seasons ticket sales and match day income? We simply have no idea how much this will cost, but it’s a lot, an awful lot.
In my opinion any talk of several £50m + players being bought is ridiculous.
It think we might complete the signings of Cedric Soares and Mari. Then we might buy one big name, possibly Thomas Partey, but this will be funded by the selling of several squad players like Guendouzi, Torreira and Mustafi.
There could also be some £ coming in from Aubameyang or Laacazette, but that will weaken us if we don’t reinvest it.
For me then, talk of Coutinho is preposterous. even a loan deal will be very expensive considering the fee and his wages.
Of course nothing will stop blogs, podcasts and twitter from hyper speculation and then endless moaning when this mad speculation doesn’t come to pass.
See you soon, stay safe.
George.
Positively Arsenal 
Hello George. Was a nasty shock and worrying when heard you were unwell. Glad things improving for you.
On the football, agree all this talk about spending big seems fanciful. No idea to what extent club finances hit but can only imagine its a significant amount.
My understanding is we truly took a gamble this year, stretching finances more than usual in pursuit of CL. Combine failure to do that and this unprecedented situation with pandemic and…jeez, who knows.
At present I still feel totally out of groove with prospect of football anyway. I hope that changes, even if there are some things I haven’t missed at all. Dean for one!
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Welcome back George. We keep missing each other but am glad you have the energy and time to blog. You are an inspiration.
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Nice story but the truth is that coutino’s agent is the one for david luiz and cedric suares so i’m seeing this deal going through
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Why would we spend that sort of money because a £3m CB with a year left on his deal and a free agent, have the same agent? That’s a mad reason.
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george his agent is friends with Raul, that is sadly why this deal is very possible
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have to say the idea that we would give Barcelona a £20M loan fee, and then also pay Coutinho a reported £285K per week would be madness, those wages plus a £20M transfer fee might be something worth considering, but a £20M loan fee, and nigh on £15M in wages, would be crazy, I’m sure we could spend £35M in a much better way than on a player we give back in a year.
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Yet another nail in the coffin of my love of football! Even if they manage to finish this season, who’s to say there will even be a next season, when we are likely going to get the second wave of Covid-19 cases in the autumn/winter of 2020? The world and it’s priorities are totally f’ed up and we’re going back to business as usual as if nothing has changed?
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Bit of a waste of time wring this?
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so Arsenal away to Man City is one of two games to restart the season on June 17th, rest of league starts a couple of days later
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Elliot Hackney
@ElliotHackney
· May 27
Proposed Premier League televised schedule on return…
Saturday – 12 noon, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm.
Sunday – 12 noon, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm.
Tuesday – 6pm, 8pm
Wednesday – 6pm, 8pm
Christ alive.
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don’t know if any of you seen today’s big Arsenal story, Sir Chips Keswick has stepped down as AFC Chariman,
Sir Chips Keswick, chairman of Arsenal Holdings Limited, has retired after seven years at the helm of the club.
Lifelong Arsenal fan Sir Chips, who turned 80 in February, has been a member of the Arsenal board since 2005.
In a statement, Stan and Josh Kroenke said: “We would like to express our immense gratitude for everything Sir Chips has done for Arsenal Football Club as a board member and chairman of the board over the past 15 years.
“His extensive business knowledge and experience coupled with his deep love of Arsenal have made him the perfect chairman. It has been a privilege to work with him and he will always be a very welcome visitor when we return to playing matches at Emirates Stadium.”
Sir Chips, a former chairman of Hambros Bank and director of the Bank of England, said: “It has been an honour to be the chairman of this great football club. Arsenal has always held a special place in my life and that will remain the case in the future.
“I made my plan to retire at the end of this season clear to the board, before the global health crisis we are now experiencing. The club is in safe hands with Stan and Josh, the board and the executive team. I know Arsenal will emerge strongly from this situation and I look forward, like all our supporters around the world, to seeing the team in action as soon as possible.”
Moving forward the board will be composed of Stan Kroenke, Josh Kroenke, Lord Harris and Ken Friar. Stan and Josh Kroenke added: “Our primary concern at this difficult time is the health and well-being of our staff and players. It’s also our intention to ensure Arsenal Football Club emerges from this crisis in a strong position. That’s what we’re all working on every day.”
Copyright 2020 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
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earlier this season it was reported that Sir Chips made his decision to step down cos his proposal to bring ex Arsenal player David O’Leary on to the board so as to have someone with football knowledge to give some oversight to the work of Raul and Edu and co, was turned down as Raul and co were opposed to it.
It was mooted at that time that Lord Harris was considering stepping down too, and Ken Friar is almost 86 so it can’t be long till he leaves his role too.
So now we have a 4 man board, the two Kroenke’s, Stan(72) and Josh(40), with Lord Harris (77) and Ken Friar (85)
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Dean
@DeanJamesSBTB
·
4m
From
🇳🇴
|| Now confirmed by multiple sources including the Sporting Director of Fram Larvik, Jostein Jensen. Arsenal have signed 19yo Forward, George Lewis.
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My poor old Collie, Bran, breathed his last today, picture below was him just before the Vet put him out of his pain, he was just shy of 15 years old, I had him from he was 12 weeks old
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZNpQMPX0Ag0-DI?format=jpg&name=medium
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its reported that Arsenal are valued at £300million less now than the £1.8billion Stan Kroenke’s share purchase in 2018 set their worth at, yet somehow many on twitter commenting on it have the notion that this will force KSE to sell up, as if he will ever sell AFC at a loss. Also would point out that only last week it was reported that Kroenke’s own net worth has risen by over £300M in just the course of the Covid 19 pandemic.
have to say that I would expect with the way things are in the football world now, that it would be hard to find a football club that is now worth more than it was before the lockdown
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My sympathies Ed. Such a sad thing to have to say goodbye when time comes. Wonderful pals. Hope coming days are ok for you.
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Sorry to hear about your dog eduardo. I had to let go of my cat of nearly 20 years a few months ago. It was not easy, so I feel your pain.
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Glad to hear you are well PG.
Hope all Positivistas are safe and well?
We pray this ugly period ends sooner than later.
Don’t see Coutinho at the Arsenal anytime soon.
Too expensive for a player whose loyalty is elsewhere.
Cedric, Mari, and either Rabiot or Partey seems the best case scenario to me.
More importantly we really need to win as many of the games left to grab 4th or 5th.
At least we’ll have the PL back.
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.
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“You say it best when you say nothing at all”
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so the EPL is allowing five subs to be used from a listed 9 for the remaining games of the season (except the two games in hand I would expect)
the reasoning for it, players not at required fitness levels and so will get more injuries than normal, also games to be played with less than ideal breaks in between.
Integrity of the Competition, ha ha ha
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seemingly Arsenal will start off with 4 games in ten days, all away fixtures
17th June Man City away
20th June Brighton away
23rd June Southampton away
27th June Sheffield Utd away – FA Cup QF
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Lets hope that fixture list isn’t a portent of how it’ll go. I have tentative hopes it’ll be harder for refs to do us without the crowd assistance.
After watching Bayern Dortmund game I’m expecting interesting insights into which teams pester refs. Stood out a mile in aforementioned game that Bayern look hardwired to try influence them by screeching, screaming, yelping, converging at speed etc whenever there’s a key decision. Dortmund looked v passive by comparison.
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Just read disappointing news for women’s team. Player who it’s a fair bet is most talented in academy has moved to Chelsea. Silvana Flores. Been playing up age or two for Mexico and got to youth World Cup final with them. Happened to us a year or so as well with prob England’s best youngster, sister of Reece James, leaving for Utd.
Her -Flores- younger bro a star with our youth team as well, entering scholarship year. Got to think fair chance he’ll go also, especially if represented by same agency as sis, Ramsey’s.
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Other sister apparently gone there too. Doesn’t seem promising for 3rd sibling. Will be a real disappointment as, though standing out with great skills at youth doesn’t guarantee anything in senior football, Marcelo Flores’ skills look extra special to me.
Seems possible the covid situation could negatively impact a few of those we are probably fighting for at youth level- with every year it seeming to be more of a fight to get them to sign- fingers crossed not too much.
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not sure if the young flores lad will leave for CFC, don’t Arsenal and Chelsea have an agreement not to poach each others youth players
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there are reports that Roman has decided that the financial problems Covid will cause clubs means its the right time for him to splash the cash at Chelsea again, that they will be able to get clubs to sell them their targets, seemingly they are in for Werner and Chilwell for a start
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Didn’t know that about us and Chelsea having an agreement Ed (though perhaps there’s a dim, dim twinkling in memory of it…)
Anyway, more hopeful if there is, but then again would never trust any club fully in the game, and certainly not them.
Another exit today as Louise Quinn is off. Shame. She seems a good person to me and solid part of squad. Get sense off some of the women players of lot of loyalty to us and pleasure in shirt I don’t really get, or trust, in men’s team. She seemed like that.
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wow how did the BBC manage to get two such blockbuster games to start their live coverage of the EPL, first time they have ever shown a live EPL game and they get
Bournemouth v Crystal Palace
and
Norwich v Everton
wow, just wow
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an interesting point I seen raised on twitter re VAR and the restart of the EPL, it has been suggested that there will be no VAR for remaining games, but surely with no match going fans in attendance VAR can be used to its fullest as there is no match going experience to ruin and the TV companies can show they whole VAR process
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Seemingly Arsenal play Charlton today at the Emirates in one of their two allowed friendlies
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I seen an odd part about the new 5 subs rule, the 5 subs can only be brought on in no more than 3 breaks,
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seems Arsenal beat Charlton 6-0 today at the Emirates, with Nketiah scoring a hattrick
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Arsenal
@Arsenal
·
37m
Today’s scorers in our 6-0 win…
Soccer ball
Soccer ball
Soccer ball
@EddieNketiah9
Soccer ball
@LacazetteAlex
Soccer ball
@Aubameyang7
Soccer ball
@JoeWillock
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We continued our preparations for the restart of the Premier League season against Brentford at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday afternoon, losing 3-2.
Having won 6-0 against Charlton in a behind-closed doors friendly on Saturday afternoon, Mikel Arteta’s side this time faced the promotion-chasing Bees.
Our first chance of the game came when Nicolas Pepe swung in a cross from the right, only for Bukayo Saka’s contact to not prove substantial enough to find the net.
Next it was Joe Willock’s turn to go close from a cross, but he was unable to get the right contact to convert from Kieran Tierney’s cross.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang then cut in from the left before stinging the palms of the Brentford goalkeeper.
We broke the deadlock five minutes before the interval, with a low ball across the edge of the box finding Willock, who coolly slotted home.
Pepe went close to doubling our advantage when he hit the post with seconds remaining of the first half.
Mikel Arteta made five changes at the interval, with David Luiz, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Matteo Guendouzi, Mesut Ozil and Alexandre Lacazette all coming on.
Bernd Leno would soon pull off an impressive save to deny Shandon Baptiste, before Shkodran Mustafi went close at the other end with a header from a corner.
Maitland-Niles and Lacazette then almost replicated the latter’s strike against Charlton, only for the France international to fire over.
Tarique Fosu levelled the scores with just under 20 minutes remaining when he sent a powerful rising strike past Emi Martinez.
We hit back straight away, with a neat swivel from Lacazette working the space for a low left-footed finish that beat goalkeeper Luke Daniels.
Shortly after, the visitors drew level again. Lacazette was robbed of possession in his own half before Halil Dervisoglu was sent through to send a low strike inside the far post.
The turnaround was complete for the visitors just moments from the final whistle, when Baptiste converted after Brentford forced a turnover in possession.
—
First half XI: Leno; Bellerin, Mustafi, Pablo Mari, Tierney; Willock, Ceballos, Saka; Pepe, Nketiah, Aubameyang
Second half XI: Leno; Bellerin, Mustafi, David Luiz, Tierney; Maitland-Niles, Guendouzi, Ozil; Aubameyang, Lacazette, Saka
—
Subs:
60 – Martinez for Leno
60 – Sokratis for Bellerin
60 – Holding for Mustafi
60 – Kolasinac for Tierney
60 – Nelson for Aubameyang
60 – Martinelli for Saka
85 – Coyle for Nelson
Copyright 2020 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.
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Hope you and yours are OK George.
And it gladdens my heart that The Arsenal have one of the people who brought the club back from that brink back at the club. The weirdos like those I won’t mention may have their mitts in the sport, proof now if ever needed that those running the sport don’t care about the fans, the power of the broadcasters is as ugly as we speculated now unmasked, but we still have The Arsenal under Arteta, and that is a something many football fans not just Arsenal fans are looking forward to.
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I lost part of my comment!
Just reflecting on the vermaelan interview, the rebuild, and arteta.
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Lost some of my comment!
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Lost some words there above!
Just reflecting on vermaelan interview and arteta.
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Sorry about the multiple comments. Still struggling with WordPress!
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Anthony Taylor has been appointed as the referee Arsenal away to Manchester City
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Hope it’s bollocks, as agent seemed to say, about Juve and Ramsey. Was hitting some form before covid struck and I’m sure that, unlike plenty of brit exports, has committed himself fully to task and determined to succeed.
I’ve found Juve a strange watch few times I’ve seen them. Incredible experience and depth in the squad but tend to leave me cold. All seems incredibly calculated in terms of how many they commit forward at any stage in game. Last night they played against 10 men from 15 mins and on the rare occasions opponents broke and looked like chance might emerge, Juve got the numbers back in time to snuff out the space.
I’ve toyed with idea that’s how a (near) perfect team should operate, calibrated so they react automatically to score and situation, very rarely caught short at back, but, like said, it or at least they leave me pretty cold.
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Ramsey would grace any team, if they really don’t want him, we should step in to right a wrong, suspect the reported wages might be a problem though.
Arteta is moving in the right direction, but before him, I believe there was a strong correlation of the team doing poorly when Ramsey wasn’t playing.
If he had stayed fit, there is every chance we would have made the champions league for this season, even if that would have meant a new deal for Emery!
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so Aubameyang has said that he has been in talks with AFC for months but so far Arsenal have not made him a contract offer, and that its up to AFC to sort this out, this is his last chance of a big contract.
Don Raul at it again, ha ha ha.
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Just get this horrible impression the club want to sell Auba, and imply the striker was to blame for things breaking down, we have seen this before.
All very well , yes, he will cost a lot to renew, bit so will a replacement, and how do you replace those goals? Could hit team morale as well, he seems a popular character
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mandy we can sign Cavani on a bosman
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Arteta today said that Eddie Nketiah can take AFC to the next level, I suppose we will know if this is spoof or if MA actually believes in the lad on Wednesday and starts him
my view on Nketiah is that he will likely have a career where he scores a shit load of goals, as he is the most natural finisher I’ve ever seen come through our Academy, but I do not know if he will score this shit load of goals for Arsenal, or even if it will be at the very highest level of the game.
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