It all started with Cristiano signing for Al Nassr last year. Karim Benzema, the Real Madrid striker and one of the best on the planet currently, decided to move to Al-Ittihad. He is joined by N’Golo Kante who had injuries last season but is still a very decent player on the field.
Ruben Neves from Wolves had interest from different Premier League teams. Not long ago, every other Arsenal fan wanted Mikel to bring him to Emirates, he is such a decent midfielder that he will start in any of the PL team’s midfield bar City. He has moved to Al-Hilal, at the age of 26 for a 3 year contract, and Wolves are getting £47m for him. Chelsea has shifted Hakim Ziyech and Edouard Mendy is expected to leave too. There are rumours of Koulibaly, Mahrez, Aubameyang, Neymar and a bunch of others.
Is it any difference to Chinese Super League or MLS? In short, yes.
China turned out to be a retirement home, so did MLS (and even now, they are). Players who had spent their best days, were moving to MLS and CSL, to earn a big fat check. Kind of a ‘grab whatever you can coz it’s going to be over soon’ round. But what Saudi League has managed differently is that, they have attracted some of the best and in-their-prime players. Though, Ronaldo had a bad season by his standards at Old Trafford, he could have literally walked into any of the teams he wanted. Benzema is still a hot entity in world football. Heck, I would have loved Neves at Arsenal for that amount of money.
Mendy is a Champions League winner. Riyad Mahrez, Bernando Silva, Gundogan, who all just won a trebble at City, are all being linked to different Saudi teams. We even have rumours for one of our own, Thomas Partey. Much like others, Partey is still in his prime and had a brilliant season with us. He still has couple of good years left in him.
What Saudi League has done, is, attract the attractive ones (money helps) and build from there. Any other league like Indian Soccer League are low on budget, they can’t pay millions and though the playing condition is a bit of hostile, it’s not as much as Saudi Arabia here. It’s the bottom up approach for Indian Football. It’s the top down for Saudis. Hear me out, Ngolo Kante is rumoured to have a net worth of 23m euros after playing in one of the richest league, in one of the richest clubs in Chelsea and winning almost everything. He will earn whooping 100m euros in his 4 year contract at the Saudi club. 4 times his net worth!
Is it going to last?
I don’t know. Unlike China and US, they have money and they can keep doing it forever. The lot that’s reaching Saudi this year (and the next year) will decide how famous they get, and how much impact it will have on European Football. English football in particular is rooted enough, and might not have impact in terms of revenue and popularity locally, but there’s a bigger market share outside and Saudi league will compete with it. Some of the neutral fans are invested in players (Ronaldo, Messi e.g.) rather than the club they play for.
What can the English club do?
Nothing, they have opened the pandora box. From an owner, who spent half a billion in one season, and now wants to shift some players and recoup some of that money, has a buyer outside Europe. Players, who were sitting on bench, being paid a whooping 100k/week wages will earn 10x of that. It’s a win-win for the club and the players as of now. It won’t be long before the players whom the club wants to keep, will ask for a transfer for that 10x money. It won’t be long before it further inflates the market because you have to pay substantially more to keep your prized possession from moving to Saudi (and MLS has opened the gate too with Messi and Image/TV rights).
In my honest opinion, it’s worse that the European Super League. Either it will ruin the financials all over, or it will force clubs to go back to grassroot level of developing footballer and instilling in them the club identity over money.
Only positive? For every Neves, there’s a Lukaku.
You are welcome to disagree with what I feel, because I haven’t seen anything like this. I don’t know how it will turn out. I would be more interested in your opinion about why/why not it’s a good thing for football in general and English Premier League in particular.
Just got a soft spot for the stones, Kp, but good analogy with Perry Como and Woodstock.
Did you see Lil Nas or Lizzo- this old git didn’t know where to look. My five year old grandson thought it was hilarious.
https://images.perthnow.com.au/publication/C-11090305/94d3c2fd4cf6274bb5c7acf4ba930cc41972b153.jpg?imwidth=1024&impolicy=pn_v3
https://binaries.irishnews.com/2023/06/24/195920450-506b4821-e5dd-4d31-ab5a-5b4416560c78.jpg
Hi Bob
It seems risqué but if you look back at Donna Summer, Silvester (not the Manure reject that played so badly for us! ) or Frankie Goes…. It all seems hackneyed and the opposite of avant garde.
If you think about some of the genuine original, novel acts that we saw (Kraftwerk, Joy Division, the Pistols, Soft Cell to name but a few) the whole industry comes across as eggbound 🥚🥚🥚 and lazy these days. I was talking to a mate the other day about the absolute wonder that was music between say 77 and 85, each genre with their own avid cult following. Punk, new wave, ska, heavy metal, reggae, disco, soul, goth, synth pop, garage bands, mod revival, rnb revival, and Dexy’s who stood out on the own. And record labels were also much more adventurous and willing to take risks. Other genres have come along since (dance music, drum and base, grunge, indie) but that time was just so fucking rich in terms of variety, and kids really defended one style against another. It would be terrific if today’s and future generations reattempted genuine originality and freshness.
Add David Bowie to Dexys of course.
KP-that might be a bit if a cynical take, you just have to look a little harder nowadays…acts like Ween, King Gizzard, anything Jack White, Vulfpeck, Goose, Frank Ocean, Eels, Dungen, 21 Pilots, Civil Twilight, Crown Lands, Greta Van Fleet, Beck etc…I just think there’s a very peculiar dichotomy out there in the musical universe right now, as music has never been more and less accessible…Cheers
Kroenke, I guess that we go way back so when we see a contemporary band who is ‘trendy’ I know I regularly consider that their sound is derivative. “sounds just like…insert who you will’.
I completely agree with your point about musical variety and originality. Nowadays you can access all manner of new music but just like everything else algorithms will point you in the same direction. Did I mention the week before last I saw The Beat (the original singer Dave Wakeling at least!) supported by Bow Wow Wow.
I was drinking buddies with Dave Ball for a few years in a boozer off the Marylebone High Street in the late 80s, early 90s. Genuinely lovely bloke.
“Kai Havertz could soon become one of the Premier League’s most expensive signings of the summer transfer window despite enduring a difficult season with Chelsea” SKY
hardly a ringing endorsement of our first “big” deal of this TW…I’ll take a bit of a wait and see approach on this one in the hopes that we can somehow unlock the Bayer version, with him playing primarily in the 8 hole
KP-what’s really gone the way of the Dodo is live music venues, of the smaller, more local variety, as there’s not enough good bands who actually play fucking instruments…turn on some AGT bullshit and people are going gaga for someone playing a subpar guitar lick or an electric violin, almost as if Hendrix and/or Nash the Slash never existed…I’m somewhat fortunate as I raised my kids on my musical leanings so when they bring something new to me it tends to be something of merit
simply put, if we fail to secure Rice and/or Caicedo, then try to act like Fofana or Lavia or even Onana are readymade viable alternatives, the shits going to hit the fan…all the above players are currently depth pieces and not the kind of individuals you throw away Partey for, especially with Jorginho eagerly waiting in the wings for Arteta/Edu to screw the pooch this summer
welcome to the Arsenal, where even conducting a medical is week-long slog…we sure know a thing or two about killing the moment
TRVL
Cynical, moi? Mea culpa. It’s the spice of life. Too many people underestimate the pleasures and irredeemable humour associated with cynicism. Assuming we’re about the same age (late 50s), it’s impressive that you listen to relatively more contemporary stuff.
Bob
I liked The Beat. Tony will know for certain but I think they were on the 2-tone label. If so, he’s sure to know them. Just like the Vapors who established their reputation with a sing about onanism (turning Japanese), I think ‘ Mirror in the Bathroom’ was arguably the greatest song ever made about wanking, if you discount that Ivor Biggun effort from around the same time. Did they play ‘Stand Down Margaret’ when you saw them and if so how was it received? Dave Wakeling was a Rickenbacher player right?
The fixtures for the championship came out last week. Cardiff’s first two away fixtures are at Elland and the King Power. Pretty daunting, although it may be propitious to play them early. Been to Leeds recently so I think I’ll go to the Leicester game.
Kroenke, he did sing ‘Stand down Margaret…stand down please….’ which was sung enthusiastically back at him by a crowd which consisted of mainly 55-60 year olds(My wife and I fitted the demographic!). He said that the name could easily be changed to a few other Tories but the difficulty was in the number of name changes, or words to that effect.
Never knew that about ‘Mirror in the Bathroom’!
KP-i think a close second might be the Violent Femmes “Blister in the Sun” with it’s “beats/stained sheets” rhyming couplet…of course it’s difficult to forget Prince’s Darling Nikki, which clearly wasn’t beating around the bush
as for my more contemporary musical interests, it didn’t come without some considerable foot-dragging, but bands like Radiohead, Muse, Kings of Leon, Beck, White Stripes and The Black Keys made the transition exponentially easier
as a bit of a fucked up cherry on the top of our Havertz signing sundae, the Donkey Sanctuary has named a foal after him…let’s hope that’s not a sign of things to come
if for some reason Rice and Caicedo each end up at two of our closest competitors and Jorginho is our starting DM, we don’t deserve to win jackshit, let alone qualify for the CL next season
things are ratcheting up on the Rice front, so the question on everyone’s mind is can we hang with the big boys or is it back to the kid’s table once again
we’re quickly approaching the 2 week mark since the window opened, still no one officially signed or sold, albiet there’s a player in each respective queue that appear to be on the precipice…at first things seemed fairly straight forward…we had top drawer midfielders on our mind, with Rice and/or Caicedo almost certainly in the bag…then, as per usual, we started our traditional dither dance on the midfield front, yet somehow we had just enough change in the company couch to pay above the number for an out of form player on the outs…I get it though as who in their right mind could resist paying a mere 65+M for an up top player who potted a whole 7 goals last season
once we completed our all-important “luxury” purchase we slowly returned to the more important matters at hand, only to be surprised by the fact that not everyone put their plans on hold while we courted one of the supposed “best players in Europe”…now the focus shifts from how much we’re willing to pay for this player to don our kit, to how much it’s worth to us that our supposed primary target doesn’t end up in the opposition’s kit…this is always a difficult situation to properly navigate as it takes a certain amount of foresight and gumption, two traits that are usually honed over time, which doesn’t bode well for our still wet behind the ears executive branch…I guess only time will tell
ultimately, would it really surprise anyone if we tripped over our dicks at the negotiation table and instead spent above the number on a 3rd RB option, with our second transfer acquisition, then opted for a far less polished DM on the secondary market…of course, it’s not always about market valuations, as these don’t always tell the full story, but there’s a reason why the players we first coveted are those with the 80, 90, 100M price tags…as such, it’s clear who MA/Edu view as the superior and inferior options…as per usual, I hope my predicitve inclinations are way off base
Good morning all
Another rip roaring day of nothing TW wise other than City and Manure have made or are about to make bids, as we scramble for our 3rd bid, as if that is going to seal the deal where Mr. Sullivan and Mrs Brady will say to City & Manure in unison “you guys are playing catch up, what’s you’re next bid?”
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Sullivan was taunting us by telling us to bid again. You got it, a club that can’t afford their own stadium is holding us to ransom and now they have their bidding war.
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This is where we leave it to City and Manure and sign Caicedo oh wait!
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How about we hijack Sullivan’s ex Chav’s Rice replacement or at least make a bid, ditto with Caicedo’s replacement? Hijack them both as a big fcuk you!!!!! Then fold on the 30th of Sept. Muddying the waters can be fun.
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Now this is where they need to sedate Arteta and let the hierarchy fcuk it up, sorry I mean do their best. Here’s what a professional would do if Josh were a professional negotiator. He’d have two blank cheques raised from the Bank of England, Couts or similar signed and ready for the amount to be entered, as the old fashioned way. I’d also have the bank in question online to make the exchange instant.
I’d send Mr Lewes to meet Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Garlick to see Tony Bloom at exactly the same time and tell them we’ll meet your £100m valuation and the money is there waiting for me to press send, but we only want one player, not both.
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Who wants to sell right now, this instant?
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See who blinks first? If bothy think they can get better deals, then so be it. Let the Chavs, Manure and City fight it out. Our optics will be good for the fans and future negotiating as at least we created some leverage. There are many strategies to any business deal and we are clueless in that department.
This window, you know the one el Primo has often said; we HAVE to get this TW right? Well, it’s all tits up at the moment, but we will get our £65m+ gamble, probably sell Trossard to Pool and safely buy Timber who looks the real deal of the 3 and he’s from the Dutch league, so a wait and see if he hits the ground running.
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Sound about right, mon amis?
Bob
If your temperatures hit 40*C, I would strongly advise you have at least one room with real A/C. People die in these temps. Dissolving on your sofa with a fan is not the way. I urge you to at least have an ice a/c machine on you with the freezer load up with ice.
We live on the hospital and airport grids and have 3-phase wiring to spread the load and rarely have power outages now, but if we do I head to the Marc and have the A/C running with music on. Honduras age no problem with the breezes but inner city? The buildings keep the heat in. Living in BKK taught me a lot about heat survival during power outages.
As we’ve discussed I really resonate with musicians and creative people in general. It seems you do, too, and where your two sons are immersed in creative fields for their careers. Have you ever tried playing an instrument?
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I’ll leave you at the water as I would a horse. 🙂
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With regards Rice or Caicedo we knew this was coming and we did nothing to circumnavigate the bidding fiasco. I don’t blame Arteta unless he’s been his usual procrastinating self standing in the way of progress.
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Tomorrow’s another day.
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KP
I have seen The Mosquito Coast but not read the book. I vaguely remember it these days but oddly now I have lived here longer than I have in the UK and seen enough of the tropics to last a life time.
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Conversely, I remember filming my MC’s Club Northern Ride up in Doi Mae Salon at the beginning of our winter. It was 9*C and we froze that night so much our bones hurt sleeping in our clothes and boots with multiple blankets. Going down the mountain at 6am, as the sun rose with the mist over the coffee fields etc was breath taking where we got to film it all including a drone for the narrow ridge at the top.
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Good to see the chatting on different subjects while our suits find a way to do what they need to do. By and large musicians are highly intelligent people, flakiness is apparent, but it is with all creatives and absent minded professors alike.
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TRVL
I’d get your best baking herbs you’ve been saving for a special moment as you would a good vintage wine for the TW evenings, but remember we can be grumpy in the mornings as a byproduct. Being retired I’m happily self medicated but as I said it affects me differently, such as slowing things down to a more normal brain speed pace. I feel cheated, as I’ve never got to Cheech & Chong’s level of wasted-ness.
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That said, we’re all going to be part of Rants’R US in the coming 8 to 9 weeks if the first week of the TW is anything to go by.
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Anyone got any better ‘outside the box’ strategies to successfully buy and sell players? If so, please send to Mr. J. Kroenke at KSE.
To just divert myself from the shit show that is called the Arsenal Transfer Window, this past Saturday I watched the Crusaders coached by Scott Robertson aka Razor winning the Super Rugby Grand Finale which was the 7th straight final they played in. For celebration Razor does a break dance performance. Now even as shitty as our manager is if he would pull this off, he has my respect. But then our manager has won 1 trophy with a squad he inherited from Wenger / Emery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jBkkBhdiqE&ab_channel=GYMFR3AK
to the Merc*
Killroy
I’d love to see A&E do that – only problem is winning the league, so they are safe – maybe at their next clubs?
Tony, barely ever even picked up an instrument. I definitely have an appreciation though!
No idea how the Rice saga will finish. Rice has a preference to come to us; City have bigger pockets. I guess WH hold the key, do they just simply wait for the bidding to stop or give Rice and his family a break and let him stay in London if a certain figure is hit? I would hope Rice’s Dad is putting emotional pressure on Sullivan to accept an Arsenal bid but I’d completely understand if the highest bidder won!
I don’t think getting a transfer of this type is that easy to get over the line. It’s very easy to be an armchair negotiator without knowing the full story. It’s all very well going along with a blank cheque…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUx8HpzZX1o
Gunnerblog, we’ll worth listening to his insights on the transfer business.
Bob
Don’t knock the blank cheque, Bob, until you tried it. Sublime to the ridiculous I know, but outside the box wins more than traditional ways. It’s why the world is forever changing.
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I’d say if we knew what was happening behind closed doors, believe me we would not be happy.
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If it’s so difficult, how did Pool sign MacAlister?
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We made the signing more difficult by not negotiating correctly and closing the deal at the beginning, so City and Manure didn’t get a look in. Would it have cost us more? Sure, but we’d have got the player we wanted and made a statement. What we lost in that deal we will make up on other deals. It’s called business.
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From what I hear Rice senior is a Chav’s ST holder for a long time. I doubt deep down he wants his son to go to the enemy. Better City for him, as it’s accepted that City is the in form team in the PL by a city mile no pun intended.
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How’s our PL title cupboard looking? Grim, I’d say.
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Rice & Caicedo were gettable and both would transform out MF. My thinking is Stan doesn’t want to shell that amount out to win a title maybe after we just choked for a 2nd season running.
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Sorry to say, Bob, you got a lot to learn about corporate business, which I wouldn’t advise, as I only took that path to hone my skills and learn while being successful enough to journey up that formidable ladder. Then I was out in the big wide world and loving it as you probably settled into family bliss. I’ve been out there ever since.
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I don’t have the patience to be even close to what you do, so there are no comparisons being made. Let’s just say we are at the top of our games in our respective areas of expertise. You almost got me with ‘armchair negotiator’ but I’d increased the poundage on that trigger and it was foobarrr all the way. 🙂
Stay cool in the severe temps; don’t let Mrs B find you poached on the sofa when she gets home. Not a good look I would imagine.
Nothing I didn’t know in that blog, Bob.
I stand by what I posted above and we’ll see who we end up with. I understand your need for resignation, but that’s not really in my vocabulary. Being resigned means you lost and accept it. I never accept losing; I only look to see why I lost and then make sure it doesn’t happen again.
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Honduras shaped you positively over the decade plus, as it would anyone to go through so many unbelievable experiences, most have never and won’t ever see.
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If you multiply your ten years by 4 and add 12 countries to that total and living in 5, you’ll have an idea of my experiences in life, Bob. Travel is the encyclopedia of life and far better than any universities. The one thing you really become good at to survive is reading people and situations and then making the right decisions. You would have done many times during your travels. Some times it’s life or death in foreign countries. That’s the way of travelling.
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I don’t think the buying a few PL players would cause me, Marc, TRVL and KP many issues.
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One of the few products to buy and sell that you cannot determine is property in a long chain. Buying players is not that difficult for skilled people.
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Oh, and screw etiquette, it always goes out the window when deals start to go south. 🙂
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This grisly does not accept excuses or incompetence, but you knew that, Bob.
Bob
I keep picking up a guitar and junior teaches my banana fingers where to be placed, but I never get far. I was hoping to get to 3 chords and play some Status Quo, and I could blow some sales out of a Selmer Mk 6 tenor sax about 40 years ago, but blowing my nose is all I got these days.
Put me behind a mixing desk with a bunch of musos in a room and the desk becomes my instrument, which I play well I might add only because my ears are still very good. The 2 do go well together.
Maybe your lads can get you to try and you be more involved in their songs, it really is fun if you 3 try to write something together or any genre. I do it with junior starting with a blues song intro and sucking razor blades made up on the spot lyrics. It always starts with, Well I woke up this morning………………………….
Rumours City have had a £90 million bid rejected for Rice and we’re looking at Fofana as an alternative.
We’re really are fucking hopeless when it comes to buying players.
https://theathletic.com/4631250/2023/06/27/arsenal-rice-transfers-ffp/?source=ukdfb&campaign=711528&access_token=3346185&redirected=1
Paywall but explains how we should be fine with FFP. Athletic are doing a £12 for a year deal at the moment.
I admit, financial negotiations are not a strength of mine!
It appears thus far you’re not alone, Bob. To be fair the biggest issues that affect sales and buys are committees, and with a player you have a committee made up of an agent, 2 sets of lawyers/negotiators and 2 clubs (CEOs?) so maybe 7 people all having to come to agreement.
It’s why the only talking in the boardroom should be rubber stamping the deal. The best deals are done in restaurants and maybe men’s clubs because the CEOs tell those below what to do.
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I won’t lie, Bob, it’s a very tricky mine field if you get that far and you end up in the mine field if you have no leverage.
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It’s chess on steroids.
Leaving aside the player and his performance at the moment, but we were in as number 1 target for Mudryk and now Rice. If we also loose out on Rice the LG community and all the Arteta fanboys will say, nah, he was shit we didn’t want him anyway there are better players out there. If we loose Rice we will win the Oscar for best amateur transfer team. What a fuck up.
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It already is starting get Caicedo he is a better player anyhow. This gets to the core of the problem, manager identifies set player, which for me is questionable to be a success looking at 4 players we bought in the last 2 TWs that didn’t work out so far.
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Then hand it over to the team getting it done and again we come out second best. So with no manager that can identify generational talent, but only sees players that are stand outs at other clubs, plus a dysfunctional team for buying and selling players, this will only change when KSE wakes up to where Arsenal ranks in their sporting empire.