Good day one and all.
In this podcast we consider how much of a loss Xhaka will be, his strengths, weaknesses and the stupidity of our fanbase.
If you want to watch on youtube , it can be found here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs2tcS42ZPw&ab_channel=UncensoredArsenal
Positively Arsenal 
I agree.
For me, the finest show yet. Cheers!
Shocking when you see the players Dick Emery booted out, and who he brought in. Ere Dad, I dunnit again. Good grief, what a mess.
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Arsenal first team up in Scotland for a training camp and two friendlies, some of the players who have travelled arePierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette Nicolas Pepe, Thomas Partey and Emile Smith Rowe. Nuno Tavares,Hector Bellerin, Cedric Soares, Rob Holding, Sead Kolasinac, Joe Willock, Calum Chambers and Pablo Mari.
omari Hutchinson, and 3 of our young keepers, Smith, Okonkwo and Hillison also there as is Rekik the CB we signed in January
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Harry Clarke, and Jack Henry-Francis and Balogun also there
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Willian is there too
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David Ornstein
@David_Ornstein
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3h
Police cars revolving light Marseille reach agreement with Arsenal to sign William Saliba on 1yr loan. #OM to pay #AFC loan fee but no option to buy. 20yo still needs to have medical before embarking on 3rd spell away since signing in 2019. No new contract discussed @TheAthleticUK
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If correct 2 years left for Saliba when returns, makes so little sense to me.
Puts us in odd position where if it goes great that’s not particularly good for us- other than maybe being able to get a good fee at that point for a guy with 2 years left. So if it going great is problematic for us…
Don’t see any way a guy treated as he’s been since joining will have any interest in signing a new deal at that point. So if you did want to integrate him next year, it would be as someone who will be keeping options open, with no warmth to club initially, and with contract ticking towards a year.
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I have never seen so many first teamers in the first game of a pre season tour. I think that highlights the decline in performance of not only the individual’s concerned but also as a collective squad not being able to promote the individual’s within it.
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Arsenal team vs Hibernian: Okonkwo; Cedric, Clarke, Mari, Kolasinac; Elneny, Maitland-Niles; Nelson, Willian, Aubameyang; Nketiah
Arsenal subs vs Hibernian: Hein, Rekik, Hutchinson, Pepe, Partey, Balogun, Smith Rowe, Lacazette, Bellerin, Henry-Francis.
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a cock up at the back and Hibs take the lead, a defender played a back pass to Okonkwo but in was high and took a big bounce, and the keeper could not handle it, and missed the ball when it bounce so high and the Hibs forward had an easy tap in
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HT: Hibernian 1-0 Arsenal
Boyle with a tap in when Okonkwo did not deal with a poor back pass by Cedric
they have caused us more problems too, and we have been a bit off so far
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half time subs
Lacazette, Smith Rowe, Partey, Pépé Hein, Rekik, Balogun on.
Nketiah, Okonkwo, Auba, Clarke, Willian, Maitland-Niles, Nelson off.
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63 minutes, Bellerin on for Cedric
Partey hits the woodwork with a pile driver of a free kick
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2-0 but looked well offside
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pepe has a penalty saved
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jack Henry-Francis has come on
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omari huthinson on for kolasinac
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ESR makes it 2-1
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FT: Hibernian 2-1 Arsenal
Smith-Rowe with our goal, not a great performance
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The Times: Newcastle United have opened talks with Arsenal about the possibility of taking Joe Willock back to St James’ Park for the new campaign on a season-long loan deal.
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England B beat Pakistan 3-0 for a series whitewash.
It seems at the moment I am getting most of my enjoyment from Cricket.
I have always liked cricket but football has always been my game which shows the dispondancy I am feeling towards the sport at the moment.
The media, the pundits, the money, the fans and the scum that are associated with the sport are killing a love built up for over 50 years.
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“The media, the pundits, the money, the fans and the scum that are associated with the sport are killing a love built up for over 50 years.”
Feel the same Ian, I dont watch cricket but Baseball is my second game -that has a lot of problems too, but not like football though.
Im just grateful that theres this place and you guys.
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Cricket is going through an interestng stage, and in my opinion is a much better sport now than when I was playing. I like the way it keeps reinventing itself: keeping the core of the game the same but experimenting with different formats. I shall be fascinated to see how the Hundred, which starts next week, plays out. I know that those behind it were genuinley anxious to reach beyond cricket’s traditional audience: they hope to make a few converts.
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I kept telling myself yesterday to have no interest in the first pre-season friendly, that although I’d watched but a few of the Euro matches I’d had quite enough football for the time being. Miserable addict that I am I resisted for a while before tuning in at halftime. Three things struck me:
that having been spoiled by crowds back at Wembley I no longer want to watch football played behind closed doors;
that I was more invested in this game than I had been for Sunday’s (and I’m not proud of that);
that Pepe and Lacazette were trying much harder than I would have necessarily expected in such an early pre-season friendly.
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Do you miss playing Tim? And do you still go over games and how they played out?
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Mills: the last time I played any serious cricket was in 1986 (how long ago that sounds) but was lucky (am still lucky) to coach a little bit. I stopped missing it the moment I knew I could no longer do the things I used to take for granted. I began playing golf then, and for a while was able to enjoy getting better at that, though I was never very good. But it is nice to be able to enjoy doing something badly.
As for going over games I don’t really do that, as to be honest find it hard to believe that it was something I ever did. One or two moments stick out, but as with most things it is slightly alarming to realise how much is covered up forever.
I love Larkin’s poem At Grass, about the two retired racehorses: ‘The eye can hardly pick them out // From the cold shade they shelter in” and when I teach that poem I normally show this lovely clip about Tommy Lawrence alongside it.
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Thats a really touching clip thanks for putting it up. Im sure old Fred in the Shed would have loved it (wink).
As Carrie Fisher said: “fame is just obscurity biding its time”I think it comes to all eventually? Even those who are fossiled in history as personas, we dont know them, they are but a shadow of their lives, and we sift through their legacies trying to find them, and fail?To me it was always a shock that Debbie Reynolds was no longer famous in her time, having been Americas sweetheart and had alsomost total fame. Ive always been fascinated by old Hollywood: consumerism par excellence, gobbling up all in its wake, buildling and tearing down.The biggest Faustian bargin on the planet, and a dark under belly. Isherwood talks of a house he rented in Hollywood and how it was haunted by the spirit of those who had lived there before, he said it had the eerie spectre of broken deals, bad liquor and dreams gone wrong, and that they should leave as it would be an experience they would have too. So much of contempoary society seem to be like that now?
Sort of gives you and achy feeling,like when Ian and James mentioned the Arsenal post Brady and pre GG, I found myself feeling really sad, forgotten heroes, guys I really loved who were just as much the Arsenal as Henry or Paddy or Rocky. As you grow up you think its all in place, not changing, then you see it just doesnt stop morphing round.
We laugh at the old fools( more PL) but then one day we become one. I recall a story about my Great Grand Mother asking an officer what was going on having seen lots of soldiers training, whether it was some kind of special troop movements, and the officer replied “where have you been madam, we’ve been at war with Germany for two weeks”.
Such was life out in the wilds back in 1914! Apprently she also said once to a friend sometime just before 1914, “they say theres men up in those aeroplanes!”. Of course we laughed as kids and youngsters at it all. Now they jokes on me, and I deserve it for being so conceited. Its easy to read Larkin when youre young, but tougher perhaps when youre older and you start to experience those things?
Sometimes if I get frustrated with loud voices and simple dualistic thinking my partner always says: “well they also have to go the whole way”, in that life changes so much and they will too experience a version of things we have too, youth glory, and then a change and deeper understanding, that leaves you feeling like you dont understand anything.If Im not being precious about it , its all absurd and sometimes amusing.
Heck, I dont even recgonise anything that Arsenal has become now, the idiocy( imo) of Emery and Arteta and pals(including fans who wanted all of this) who had no long term vision, busted something that didnt need breaking. Im convinced Fins is right : they dont really know anything about football. Perhaps dignity and ethics too.Bloody Thatcher opened up pandoras box with glee and look what it did? Shame there wasnt another way…
Anyway.
1986? Its odd, it seems like yesterday but as you wrote, a long time away too. Im sure fame was different in those days? Less critical for sure! But I hope you have some great memories too. Must have been prety exciting for you and your family at the time?
The problem with memory is that it only seems to select images, rather than a whole catalouge of sequences, then we often animate them, then distort them out of shape, then we have memory of memory. I went to so many Arsenal games, and most are wiped from my memory, or the endless games i played, only a few stick with me. Trauma seems to be more logged into memory and reflection of events than the events themselves? I asked about replaying games, as sometimes I still do. What if I had done this or that? Just wondered if you still had day dreams of it all.
Certainly its one big dance to the music of time?
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I was relating stories of my heroism and battles against the odds and bullies in times gone by, to a group of acquaintances the other day. Some of them had heard the stories before, and some had even witnessed them as they transpired. However, those that were hearing for the first time were looking at me in disbelief. Which made me think that was how I remember them happening actually how they happened? In our day the only evidence of what we did is in our minds, and that is definitely only one side of the story.
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I agree George. Our life stories are so complex. Those we see as bullies dont see themselves as that, and even they are victims of other bullies? How do you explain the atmosphere of growing up in decades gone by to youngsters now?
We define each other with semi- false narratives? Who knows who we really are, through the eyes of others, and how well do we know ourselves?
Now Im sounding like a twat whose going to say ” underneath this finger nail there could be many worlds”….maybe there is!!! ( LOL!)
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Newcastle believe they are close to finalising a deal that will see Arsenal midfielder Joe Willock return to the club. Willock informed Arsenal he wanted to play regular first team football when he returned to pre-season training last week. [Telegraph]
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saliba loaned out for another season
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Josh signs Raul from Barca, just before Barca go to the toilet amidst financial shenanigans.
Josh signs up the people to replace Raul who have a rep for shenanigans of all sorts.
Josh signs some kid from Benfica, just before he people running the club get done for financial shenanigans.
I am afraid I have to disagree with George on this one.
Josh Kronke has bled out the Arsenal and destroyed what was an actual superclub in less then four years.
Never mind the PR consultants/blaggers who haven’t had the footballs to call out the blatant shenanigans at one of the few clubs that has ever sacked people in this sport for shenanigans.
Get. JK. Out. The. Club.
Yesterday.
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so according to David Ornstein and other journos fed news by the club, Arteta wants at least 7 signings this summer, GK. RB, LB, CB, CM, CM, ACM, and depending on if we move on Lacazette we might bring in a striker too
The LB has been signed, Tavares from Benfica, and now we are told CM from Anderlecht is a done deal, as is CB, Ben White from Brighton, only being held up due to London Colney temporary closure due to covid outbreak, and White being on Holiday. So that leaves a right back, a back up goalie(Ramsdale seems to be the one Arteta wants, whats that £20M, we’ve lots of money), another CM, the Italy guy might be the one if reports from Italy tonight are to be believed, after his club is said to have turned down Juves offer, and accepted AFC’s and the ACM still might be Odegaard, or is it Aoure or Maddison, the new striker might be Tammy Abrahams from Chelsea, surely one of these signings from CFC will work out in our favor
according to these journos Arteta wants rid of Runarsson, Bellerin, Xhaka, Nelson (who might be off to Brighton), Nketiah and maybe Lacazette
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just a little something on Aaron Ramsdale, as I’ve seen some big AFC twitter accounts tell the world that the lad is useless, in fact the worst keeper in the EPL, and the like, well in his short career, he is 23, was part of the England squad at the Euros, and in his time at Wimbledon, Bournemouth, and Sheffield utd he has won their clubs young player of the year at both Wimbledon and Sheffield Utd, and the club Player of the year at both Bournemouth and Sheffield Utd, maybe he is not as bad as the loud mouths are trying to convince people he is. Sadly for Ramsdale if he does join AFC, due to these loud mouth accounts no amount of great performances will ever make him “Arsenal Class”
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something that I’ve noticed in the last 12 months is the amount of good young Irish players that are now heading to clubs across Europe, instead of the usual route to the UK. A whole host of them are now with clubs in Spain, Italy and Germany, not sure if it has anything to do with Brexit, as there is still freedom of movement and right to work between Ireland and UK, so it might be more to do with believing that they have a better chance of progress by going the Europe route
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33 Okonkwo
17 Cédric Soares
20 Nuno Tavares
22 Pablo Marí
16 Holding
25 Elneny
5 Partey
32 Smith Rowe
19 Pepe
26 Balogun
14 Aubameyang (c)
Substitutes
2 Bellerin
3 Tierney
9 Lacazette
12 Willian
15 Maitland-Niles
21 Chambers
24 Nelson
28 Willock
30 Nketiah
31 Kolasinac
49 Hein
13 T. Smith
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Rangers take the lead, a free header six yards out from a corner, their Balogun scores
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Tavares with a fine right foot finish makes it 1-1
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HT: Rangers 1-1 Arsenal
Tavares with our goal, no more than we deserve, PEA has missed a couple of good chances
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Sometimes it might be right to read too much into a pre-season friendly.
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I was thinking the same! However if we take it as it is, Auba can do better, and I hope he does when things start, like him I thought the third chance was in! Nice goal from Tav
Nice to see us swinging it around and passing quickly? Emile looks sharp.
What do you lads think?
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They certainly look busily ‘at it’. Nice to see them takng it seriously.
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I agree.
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Bellerin, Tierney and Lacazette on for the second half, Cedric, Tavares and Balogun off
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AMN, Willock, Willian, Nelson, Kolasinac and Nketiah all on for AFC, with Holding, Elneny, Partey, Smith Rowe, Pepe, Aubameyang going off
Hein came on at half time for Okonkwo too
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Chambers came on at half time for Mari too
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Rangers take the lead again, another headed goal from a corner, the new set piece coach has his work cut out
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Nketiah with a great powerful finish 2-2
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FT: Rangers 2-2 Arsenal
Tavares and Nketiah with our goals, we let in two set piece goals, following up from one v Hibs too. We played some nice football and but for some poor finishing we would have won easily.
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There is something frustratingly predictable at seeing us take set piece after set piece and never look like scoring and then see the oppo score at will from the only one or two chances they get.
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I thought we looked lively but apart from ESR and Elneny who ran the first half all the best bits were from players reported to be on their bike so really difficult to assess the performance against what we might expect from the season ahead.
As always I suppose we will just have to wait and see.
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