Well, it seems like we have managed to tie down WIlliam Saliba till 2027 for now. Ornstein broke the news about the agreement and it’s going to be a 4 year deal. Saliba has moved on from the one of the best talents to one of the best defenders in the world, and it was very important to not let him go.
So, Edu and the club has managed to tie down Ramsdale, Saka, Martinelli, Gabriel and Saliba, and we are sure Odegaard is not going anywhere too. That’s 6 of the important players from our playing XI. Good job from whoever is involved. We don’t let go the best of our players.
Criticize Edu and Mikel for everything but they have managed to keep the important players. You may argue that we are paying over the odds for likes of 21-year olds, but I am looking to win things even if it means we overpay.
Rice will cost us a whooping 80m+ and will demand a salary of 200k+/week at minimum. He plays for a mid-table team who was fighting a relegation battle for the whole season. Do you expect the likes of Saka and Martinelli, who are probably the best in their places in premier league satisfied with anything less than that? It’s not like we are paying huge money for the has-beens and retiring people (like Willian?).
Credit where it’s due. We have 4 years of no worries in 6 places. We have the RB and LB sorted already. Jesus came in last season and we tied down Nketiah too. It’s the midfield which is a worry, but if we are bringing players, we would have a very stable team, where you don’t have to think for at least next 2 years (that’s when these players have 2 years left on the contract and you decide whether to cash out or offer them some more money).
We are in good place. Hopefully we will sort out the midfield this season, pick ourselves up for the fights at two fronts and win something. I’m going to very specific with my demand as a fan – win Premier League and have a good run in Champions League and I will be happy.
It’s not too much of a ask when we stayed on top of the table for like 90% of the season. It’s not too much when it wasn’t City who won it from us, but we gave it to them. It’s not much when Arteta is in his 4th full season, having spent in the north of half a billion and have a team of his own.
Short one today, hope you are having a nice weekend!
Foden might be in one of those weird situations where he enters the match as a sub then ultimately gets subbed off…they clearly need some width on at least one side of the pitch, so as to stretch this Inter backline, which is why I think Mahrez would be the best option…you’re right though, City’s been off the mark thus far
Lukaku ON.
it’s so weird to see City Arsenal things up…just goes to shows you what can happen when you continually cock things up…boy did that Real CL Final ever plant a nasty seed in their collective heads…maybe Pep should lean on someone who wasn’t there at that time, like getting some service to fucking Haaland
Just when we thought City is struggling, they score one. Damn.
quite the seeing-eye shot….of course helped by the head turning Inter defenders
meanwhile in City’s end right after absolute chaos ensues which somehow doesn’t lead to an equalizer
Pep could crack a fucking chestnut with his ass cheeks right now because he can no doubt see the obvious openings in his present scheme
beautiful maneuver but horrendous finish by Foden…will that come back to haunt??
some interesting tactical tweaking both both managers…Inter clearly did their homework regarding how City have had a tough time dealing with large bodied Strikers coming deeper for link-up play purposes, like Kane
I bet Pep would give his left nut for a time machine that could only travel 2 minutes into the future
isn’t that just the way it can happen on occasion, as Pep finally gets what has eluded him for more than a decade on the backs of one of their worst ever CL performances
OK now time for FFP to kick them out of the league structure.
Morning all
Some good verbal intercourse last night; LIR is becoming more loquacious and maybe we’ll just be in for the window we need.
Ambarish & Hoopah et al no offense meant, but junior showed me something that had me almost suffocating with laughter.
How is this guy still alive? He’s a star!
https://youtu.be/kSOvjYBtNZ4
Marc
Can’t wait to see how the FA tackles City with the FFP infractions.
Finally from me with the image below, I ask why? Kudos to the trombonist who kept playing on the floor. Should get a medal for that!
71984685-0-image-m-29_1686401294636.jpg
Tony-buddy is the Basil Fawlty of DIY fails…he deserves an Oscar for the way in which he acts surprised each and every time shit happens to him…perfect timing as I just had a late night bake session
Not sure exactly what to takeaway from that rather lacklustre final other than Inter mostly got their tactics and ultimately lost due to a rather fortuitous deflection, which Rodri smashed home, and some rather unfortunate bounces in City’s final third…I can’t remember the last time I saw such a nervous City performance, as they were sloppy as fuck, minus a few individual moments…Inter’s preferred 3-5-2 formation has always created problems for this City side, just ask Brentford, who took all 6 points from them this season, which is why I can’t figure out why we never deployed a similar formational tactic against our PL rivals…maybe once we properly shore up our midfield we can be a bit more tactically adventurous when it’s required
TRVL
No baking just the obscure way I see things sometimes. Supposedly, outtakes from the guy’s attempt at science that he gets right in the end.
KP
Pumpkin has competition:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12164607/Hilarious-moment-dramatic-flying-squirrel-fakes-death.html
TRVL
I can’t stand to watch City knowing that, until the FA steps up and deals with the the club for their lack of FFP adherence, anything they win they do by way of unfair advantages.
Manure had the same when they were winning trebles with old red nose.
It makes a mockery out of the game and I don’t know how their players can look people in the eyes knowing financial doping is the real winner. I couldn’t because, for me, it wouldn’t be real.
Currently, I’m getting my France ducks in a row ready to be green lit; hopefully, very soon. The TW is something I just have a quick scan on the Internet and take nothing serious.
Morning Tony,
Small point but it’s the PL not the FA who are considering City’s offences or to be precise, it has appointed an ‘independent commission’ to look into the charges. I understand the lawyer chairing the commission is an Arsenal ST holder!
Tony-you’ve misunderstood my “baking” lingo, as it’s a drug related reference….Cheers
The difference between last night and 99? Other fans may have hated Manure but they were respected for what they achieved. City just feel plastic and an ersatz version of a real club. No soul, save for a few thousand old geezers from the inner rectum of Manchester.
The similarity? Arsenal could have stopped both of them (and added to their own legacy in the process).
TRVL😊
The great global bake off! Tony and you as Cheech and Chong instead of those two a-holes that present the show in Britain.
Hi Bob
I read that too about the lawyer in the case – it’s the start of City’s legal team attempting to muddy the waters. Defending their own corruption by baselessly suggesting that it’s a rigged game. Breathtaking. Taken straight out of the Trumpian/Bojovian playbook. Pep has also been whining about the timetable… Imagine a kid caught with an ounce of draw asking for their hearing to be changed so they can go on holiday. Same rules…
But if he’s like many entitled Gooners (you know people like that pompous fucking idiot Emstroller) he’ll seek to protect and go lightly on the establishment, ie where the moolah lies, rather than worry about the truth and justice.
There are some serious, heavyweight cunts involved in PL football since its commodification. Another reason why the lower leagues are more appealing these days.
Right, time for my daily caustic soda enema.
Tony
Do we have to call you ‘Antoine’ after the move? 🇨🇵
The fact that its the PL pursuing the FFP issue makes sense with the rumours about Arsenal, Chelsea, ManU, Liverpool and the Spuddies pushing the agenda as much to stop Newcastle as reign in City.
Kroenke
Agree as much as I hated ManU under Fergie what they did was self generated. The issue with them was the ref tampering something that we won’t find out the full details of until he dies.
Stories about what he used to do will then begin to leak out.
Kroenke, good luck with the caustic soda….
One of my all time favourites ‘Up in Smoke’ – still remember so many classic lines from my stoner days: “I’m annihilated..’ “I can see clearly now……”(Johnny Nash) ‘I wonder what Great Dane tastes like….” ‘I wasn’t looking at his neck” Stacey Keech, brilliant as the cop.
Off to play Rounders, pray for my achilles please!
Bob
You talk about your stoner days as though they were a thing of the past… Surely your intake has increased given some of your outlandish and egregious opinions about modern day Arsenal. 😊
Rounders (in Clissold Park?) sounds cool. I much preferred playing tennis there back in the day compared to those courts in Highbury Park where there was always a far higher quotient of wankers.
My life these days is much more prosaic and mundane. It’s the municipal tip this afternoon with Ms Kroenkephobe and a load of old shit from our shed that belonged to other people. I might even be really adventurous and pop into LIDL’s on the way home. Crazy!
Very happy to know Big Bill will be around at least for a few more seasons. And to think he could have just completed his third full year with the club.
If the future goes well, he could end up being talked about in the same breath as Frank McC, TA and Spider… Oh and that guy we got from Spurs who turned out to be rather good.
I knew someone who loved that Johnny Nash tune so much so that he invented his own lyrics
I can see Deirdre now, Lorraine has gone…
I can put my testicles on her face etc.
Stacy Keech was some boy wasn’t he? Ended up doing some serious time in the UK at her majesty’s pleasure for smuggling brown iirc.
The kind of conversations that were a regular feature of life in the 90s.
Hi lads
TRVL
I got the reference – we’ve parleyed on the subject before where I’m happy to report our minor horticultural exploits are not too far off competition level now. Junior enjoys the botany side and is really precise with feeds and daily care of the minerals, ppfd, humidity and temp etc. Doing the gardening side has junior looking into the genetics, but he has no interest in drugs of any description including alcohol. He’s into learning about organic food and growing. We’ll have a green house for tomatoes and other organic veg in France for the restaurant.
I don’t get ‘baked’ it doesn’t work that way with me – I just slow down with a mild buzz even using rosin.
Bob
Thanks for the heads up re the lawyers and City. Won’t the chair be recused being a Gooner?
Cheech & Chong are legends for us more mature gents who lived in the 60s & 70s. The Lampoon movie with Belushi and the American Pie movies all spawned from Porky’s. I’m sure your south America travelling were a recreational education and then some. I imagine you had some party in 89 where ever you were with your radio.
Enjoy the rounders. I’m looking forward to mixing in with the French locals where junior will be some larger than life curiosity for the locals to get their heads round.
KP
Antoine does have a nice ring to it – that certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ of historical accent. Not the head lopping off 1700s history, though. Haven’t see the show in the UK you were talking of.
I have to say that I’m finding the thought of living in a 1st world country again somewhat exhilarating or will be.
Enjoy the weekend 🙂
KP
I can see Deirdre now, Lorraine has gone…
I can put my testicles on her face etc.
lmao 🙂
Haven’t see the show in the UK you were talking of.
Tony
Don’t bother mate, it’s fucking dire. A group of petit bourgeois self-aggrandising spunkers baking cakes in a competition – and that’s just the contestants. The presenters are even worse. It’s been the fashion these past few years – turning bullshit hobbies (sewing, antique restoring, dog grooming, gardening, pottery, and spliff rolling… Well, maybe not the last one ) into twee, not-too-serious competition with establishment comedians on hand with gentle ingerlish witticisms. I envy you not being exposed to it.
Right, back to ‘death match philately’ with Michael fucking McIntyre….sorry, slow day.
Life seems meaningless without having to worry about Big Bill any more.
Hi Tony
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixty_Million_Frenchmen_Can%27t_Be_Wrong
I read this book on the recommendation of a diplomatic colleague before my posting to Paris in 09. It’s written in a no-holds barred way by two Canadians and I found it really useful. It covers everything from how to act in your local boulangerie to getting the best out of French officialdom. You can dip in and out of it according to what you’re doing there. I found it invaluable. It’s not a tourist guide – it’s an insight into the uniqueness of French people and their culture, taking into account history and the shape of modern French society.
It can be had on Amazon or ebay for pennies these days. I think it would be equally helpful to you as/when you look to get a business foothold in the country and meet people.
KP
Thanks for the link; Mrs T is ordering from Amazon as I write. The French are big on nuances from what I remember. A good mate is towing a couple of Harleys with his Cheyenne with a mate – I know kind fcuks with the easy rider image somewhat. They are driving for a day and then ride for a day or 2 and moving on and soon on. He’s got about 10 properties in the Essex coastal area he rents out.
He’s now looking for somewhere to move to live outside the UK. He said he’ll update me when he gets back to his place in the south east.
At summer is over and the rain season has started here with the temps more manageable at around 35*C from 45*C.
I’ve survived. Great fun Un the sun but mostly drinking cold beers in shade.
Lol lyrics!
Tony
I’ll bet that rain comes as a blessing. Is it one if those classic wet seasons where you are that it buckets down for an hour or two at regular time of day before the sun starts beating again?
Be good to know, what you think of the book when it arrives. Possibly the most entertaining bit is about French attitudes to fast food. You’d think they’d hate it but they really go for it because of the ritualistic way it’s bought and eaten. The one thing they do dislike is kids eating impromptu snacks and not all being ready to eat at meal times.
We’ll miss conversations about things like Harleys, rounders and les Francais when the season resumes. By the way, your mates with the HDs aren’t doing too badly. Hopper and Fonda must’ve been in their 20s when easy rider was made. 🏍️🏍️
Late one evening, about 20 years ago now, I received a call from a real close bud, who at the time had a side gig as a sound engineer at a well-known concert/performance hall…he proceeded to convince me, which didn’t take long, I might add, to come over for an old timey late night session…his property sits about 5 minutes from the city proper, but it feels more remote as there’s a tree-lined winding driveway approach
he loves the privacy it provides but ever since a similar house, in a neighbouring county, was robbed at gunpoint, it has left him feeling rather paranoid at times…to make matters worse, we spend most of our time in a large coach house, which has been converted into a massive studio/man cave, that’s situated a good distance from the main house, where we listen to tunes at a level which would be unacceptable inside the city limits, so it would be highly unlikely that you would ever hear anyone entering the property for nefarious purposes
knowing all this, I decide to park up the driveway, making sure to turn off my lights so that there was no obvious signs of my pending arrival…I always travel with a little wooden baseball bat, just in case, which I took out of the trunk and then proceeded up to the back of the coach house in the hopes of scaring the living shit out of him…as I know him incredibly well I was positive that he would enjoy my fucked up antics once the initial shock had warn off
as expected he’s playing one of his old reel-to-reel recordings at an exceedingly high volume…on this particular occasion he’s playing a live performance of the Steve Miller Band, of which I’m very familiar with and which will likewise be forever emblazoned in my brain due to what comes next
I can see him standing in the center of the main room in one if his ghost of Christmas present-like robes with his arms flailing about, putting on what appears to be some sort of half in the bag, Wayne’s World air guitar performance…at no point do I see anyone else, so I’m assuming he’s alone, thereby making him ripe for the picking…I decide it’s best to circle around to the opposite side of the coach house, towards the sliding door entrance, so that I can see his face when my prank lands…I slowly open the door, pull my hat down a bit, so that I’m not easily recognizable at first blush, then jump into the room with my bat cocked and scream like a raving psychopath
it’s at this exact point I realize that not only have I scared the living bejesus out of my good bud, who may or may not have pissed his pants a bit, but I likewise terrified his rather distinguished guest…this was the infamous day in which I met the one and only Tommy Chong, who played a show at my friend’s work venue that evening then accepted an invitation to partake in some late night offerings
tbh this wasn’t the first time they had hung out, as they had done likewise during his last visit, which when he told me I remember getting slightly pissed at him for not reaching out…of course, this time he was trying to not only make amends but also surprise me in the process, not thinking whatsoever that I was going to go full Punk’d on his ass…needless to say it was a very memorable evening for all involved, as he was an incredibly down-to-earth cerebral individual with a rather vast knowledge of a wide array of topics…now that was some bucket list shit
TRVL
Nice story – I think… 😊
Given the Steve Miller band was on the old phonograph, you’d have been well within your rights to shout,
Abra-Abra-cadabra… I wanna, reach out and grab ya!
https://youtu.be/gg4mqNvY53M
Aah… The Titty Twister. I travelled all over northern Mexico looking for it.