Good morning all.
Today at 1.30 Fulham come to the home of football to face the mighty Arsenal.
The mighty Arsenal on a bit of a roll , by the way. In our last two games we have comfortably seen of Sheffield United and Slavia Prague. Ok, not the mightiest opponents, but we have dispatched them with somewhat of a flourish. Things are looking up. We may not be flying high, but at least there is a bit of an accent, we should enjoy it while it’s going.
Fulham are desperate for points, but they are finding them very hard to come by. They find themselves in 18th place, and 7 points behind 17th having played a game more. In other words, they’re relegated. They have lost their last four games and although they play some nice football, it’s not nice enough to get them any points.
If memory serves it’s a battle of the two youngest managers. Both have struggled this season but neither of their jobs seem in danger, That’s odd these days.
I’m back to guess work on who might play , personally I would go with the same eleven that started in Prague but of course I have no idea about fitness levels or anything else, so it will likely be all change.
This is a game I expect us to win comfortably and with a bit of style too. We need a bit of cheering up and I think we will get it.
Enjoy the game and stay safe
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
Not really sure about SKY or BT but UEFA and FIFA are pissed and they run most of the international comps that hold any history or prestige.
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Madrid Zone
@theMadridZone
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2h
Police cars revolving light
Police cars revolving light
| At midnight, Spanish time, Florentino Perez will be on @elchiringuitotv
to give every detail about the Super League and answer questions about summer plans and other things.
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mandy there is a formal proposal for Arsenal, Man Utd, Chesea, Man City and Real Madrid to be thrown out of the EL and CL by Friday. Seems it will happen if they ca legally do it
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Feel for the players if that happens….perhaps they should have waited until the seasons end to announce this!
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Sorry for the double post
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Gee I think tony atwoods article on untold is the best summary
https://untold-arsenal.com/archives/86579
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R.I.P football” the working man’s game”
The PL took alot away from fans and family clubs or the attachment fans had with their club.
Lots of people said the PL would be good for football but capitalism has always proved everything is s a race to the bottom and this was inevitable.
Remember the ARSENAL fans Favourite David Dein was trying to start a Super league 20 years ago.
This is not the end as when travel becomes quicker the world club cup will become the world super League.
When your club doesn’t represent an area, an ideal, or even its own history what’s the point in keeping that attachment any longer.
If the clubs in the SL get the best players and the best managers what’s the point in those clubs having academies because they won’t be able to introduce young players into the games that are being watched by sponsor JP Morgan an American bank that is enveloped in all the corruption that capitalism allows.
Players who no longer serve their purpose in the SL will be banned from domestic leagues so where will they go only so many can me pundits.
Kerry Packers idea dissolved because It was exclusive rather than inclusive and if the same happens and JP Morgan don’t make money then they will pull the plug because they are only interested in the buck and have no interest in football and certainly not those involved.
This could quite simply ruin some players careers if they are caught in the crossfire.
If clubs and their employees are banned before the end of this season and this whole affair gets dragged through the courts are all those employees in limbo.
Are players contracts still valid or will they be able to walk away and sign new contracts whenever they like.
If the SL wins it’s case and their clubs can’t be banned then do we watch a b side in the domestic league and what happens when that side gets relegated.
As for fans watching the SL matches will these tickets be more expensive, well yes and season tickets may not be valid as clubs will want as many of the prawn sandwich brigade to buy tickets as possible and the games will be sold like the theatre as tourist attractions this has already started happening in the PL.
Whatever happens here I don’t think football can recover.
The playing and supporting of clubs both amateur and the famous 92 is all about attachment and belonging if that disappears and this is going down that road even more than the PL then why would youngsters play football when there is so many other things they can do. Why would their parents pay a fortune to take them to one game in a blue moon when they will never get anything back no sense of belonging.
The best case scenario is for the whole thing to fail and the big owners cut their losses and fuck off however I think before that happens the game itself could be irreversibly damaged.
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@ finsburyp
thanks for that. What a mess football is for me right now,hard to believe it was ever the beautiful game.
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Feel pretty worn out by it already, 24 hours in.
Got a bad feeling about upcoming prem games as, if Liverpool are copping it a bit – ‘a goal for all of football’, etc- my word are we going to get it.
I watch most games on mute these days but plenty still filters though, mainly because I check twitter a fair bit.
The refs might stop short of visiting our opponents dressing room with a ‘you know what to do lads’ and a wink, but I figure that’s how it’ll be, cathartic events for the nation, with Riley’s lot imagining they are serving justice. Wouldn’t be natural for them to turn the ire on to Utd , Pool etc, just like Nev, Carragher and co are giving some to their old clubs but must be conflicted doing so and are reserving the worst contempt for us.
Gonna be a tough few weeks I think.
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Think you are right Rich. The PGMOL and PL hatchet men will let us have it, the same will happen if our EL semi does go ahead
Feel very sorry for our players, a lot of uncertainty for them.
But do suspect men like these owners have done their homework , and that some of the moves to counter this may be illegal. And Boris really shouldn’t be getting involved, he has enough problems on his hands, and doesn’t he want to turn us into a bit of a capitalist free for all anyway?
As posted, I am pretty wary of this move, but as a constant critic of the way UEFA, FIFA, the EPL, FA, PGMOL work, not as upset as some, I suspect a huge element of this is big clubs taking some control back, and countering some excessive greed, as well as feathering nests!
Will be interesting to hear from key sponsors over taking these teams out of the EPL, taking the best players out of the WC etc…..think we are heading for a period of silence from one side, hot air from the other before they find some compromise. They will say they are not trying to leave the EPL, or stop the European tournaments for others , just forming their own exclusive one. The ethics can be questioned, but is any of that Actually illegal?
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The broadcasters set the agendas, narratives. And
schedules.
Fans are a nuisance.
Players are treated like cattle.
Fans groups like the idiotic AST are more interested in working with agents then improving the match day experience.
Is the frequency of abuse in the game in this country in the recent past not a more important story then the dreams of some merchant bankers?!
Politics was never airbrushed out of the narrative of the modern game by the broadcasters whilst they promoted their singular cult like model for a club and for a business they have that much power to control and half the parliament were talking about football yesterday when there is actually more important news out there…this is all fascinating.
Shotta must be chuckling. As someone who has experience of the US sports I look forward to hearing his thoughts.
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“ I cannot stress more strongly how everyone is united against these disgraceful, self-serving proposals, fuelled by greed above all else.”
Interesting to hear a head of UEFA, Ceferin pontificating about self serving proposals and greed
I hope nobody thinks these governing bodies are innocent parties, or somehow standing up for the fans in this situation
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hope the “spend some fuckin money” and the “spend like Chelsea” brigade aren’t up in arms over all this, would be very hypocritical if they were
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Conflict for me is that I dream of us escaping current way of things- pgmol in particular but also how we are treated by media, with the two inextricably linked.
I don’t like idea of how we get there, nor know if we can against this opposition, or even what ‘there’ would be like- better, worse, etc- but I’ve never seen a chance of escape before. Idea of dynamiting it all therefore has some serious appeal, albeit of a ‘fuck it’ variety.
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Florentino Perez “Other teams will have the option to be in a ‘second league’ or the current champions league”
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Florentino Perez gave a great interview last night on Spanish TV about the Super League, says they will explain a lot more about it today.
He made many great points and said that the clubs can not be from this season’s CL and EL, says it can not be done legally.
The SL wants to come to an agreement with UEFA, and would like to start it next season, but are prepared to wait a year to start it
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ian its a long time since football was really the working mans game
you should look up the quotes from Perez’s interview, he is actually talking about the Super League even having a second division, this SL is not to replace the EPL or any domestic league, its to replace the CL and EL,
One great thing they intend to do is bring in the best Refs from around the world for these games, the idea is the best players and the best refs, and hopefully the best games. They are promising to upgrade VAR too
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Florentino Perez says Uefa explaining to various federations/Government that the league will disappear which is FALSE. And add when they understand the reality of the Super league everything will return to normal
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Florentino Perez to UEFA “Its OVER. Their monopoly is over. It’s time for a new era”
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Florentino Perez “15 clubs (founders) are the ones that generate value for televisions, and then other 5 clubs will come on their own merits, this league is not closed. This is what gives money, and then we will be in solidarity”
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ESPN claim that UEFA are not considering the expulsion of clubs from their competitions this week & that next week’s fixtures will go ahead.
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Anas Laghari [Secretary general of the Super League] told @LeParisienSport
: “The ESL has prepared for this, threats of exclusion are not legal. The timeline could accelerate. If an agreement is reached with UEFA, the competition could start as early as September 2021”
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Patrick Bamford speaks openly about his thoughts on the prospect of a ‘European Super League’
“It’s amazing the amount of opera that comes in to the game when somebody’s pockets are getting hurt, it’s a shame it’s not like that with racism.”
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I mean, a surefire way to lose the goodwill of football fans is by belittling their team, especially when we’ve been wronged for years and still tried to do the ‘right’ thing all along.
We’ve got Blake’s Poison Tree on our allotment, and it’s been growing for 18+ years, watered by every humiliation suffered in the course of being true to ourselves – AW in stands at Old Trafford, Mourinho’s ‘specialist in failure’, 2-10 vs Bayern, who are elevated only by standing on the necks of every other German team.
There had to be some kind of reckoning, and here it is. Behold the Super League in all its gross detail. Don’t look away – you helped make this!
OK, that’ll do – excuse the pretentiousness!
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well birdkamp for years the bloggers and twitteratti and of course not forgetting the Murdoch Media have been telling Arsenal that if we can’t beat the oil clubs we should join them, spend some fucking money etc etc, and now when KSE have decided to join them we are still wrong.
i really do think there are a hell of a lot of people out there that are just mad that Arsenal were asked to join it, they would be far less opposed to the idea if we were not in it, and they could blame Wenger for us having declined so much that we did not even get invited to the party.
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Podcast is up
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Eduardo, it’s also possible that people haven’t fully considered what they’re defending or attacking yet. Once this weird viral sanctimony lifts, maybe people will question the purity of the PL and CL as they are, and whether we’re fully to blame for our malaise and justified in wanting change.
I normally don’t care about this stuff, but doesn’t it feel like there’s a chance for persuasive fans to shape the discussion? I mean, it’s been absurd and needs a big dose of reality. One prominent AFC fan said he so hurt he didn’t sleep on Sunday night.
If only there were a syndrome named for a Scandinavian city to describe his predicament.
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The best refs!
As long as they dont get Barca or Real starstruck, almost sold on the SL reading that alone!
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