Morning Rico and all.
Can’t wait for the world cup to finish, so our players don’t get injured, especially when you see the tackle that Messi put on with his studs going down the other players leg and yet he gets away with it.

So Potter, I’m guessing that you wasn’t offered the driver awareness course?
Thats a bummer…

Rico, Hand of Arsenal is pretty reliable, but we know, from past experience, how difficult Villa are to negotiate with, Douglas Luiz for example…

A driver awareness course hopefully I suppose I passed my test in 1974 it was a matter of time.

I used to have a cherry tree when I lived in Kent, but the birds nicked most of them, gooseberries are a very underrated fruit Potter.

You’ll probably get offered a driver awareness course if you’ve not been nicked for three years, it’s pricey but better than 3 points.

Thank you so very much Rico, #sarky 😉

Good afternoon beautiful people

Rico, its always good reading your posts, but mentioning Mustafi brings the shudders. That man was a walking disaster. I think AW had a brain fart when he spent €35M on him.

I never liked him.

Xhaka was a different beast for me. I always liked him even before he came to us. Some dont (Pa was one of them) but if I had to be in trenches I would want him beside me.

Arsenal have reportedly reached an agreement with Club Brugge to sign Christos Tzolis!
The 24-year-old left winger has accepted the move, with Andrea Berta playing a key role in getting the deal over the line. Personal terms were never an issue, as the Greece international was fully committed to joining the Gunners. Final paperwork to be completed this week. Tzolis expected to travel to the Emirates once the deal is formally sealed

Capable of playing on the left and centrally, Tzolis adds creativity, directness and goals to Mikel Arteta’s attack.
And the business may not stop there, with a deal for Morgan Rogers also reportedly edging closer. Rogers stated that he wants to be with Arsenal

We could start a market garden Kev , Strawberries , Cherries , Grapes , apples and pears too on the wonderful sunny Norfolk Broads .
On other news coming back from Cyprus 19 1/2 hours after leaving our hotel room I got done for doing 35 in a 30 limit at 4.26 am having been diverted off of the main road due to roadworks. No roadworks , no fine , no points and home an hour earlier .
welcome back to the U.K.
If Tuchel wants Saka for the later stages , he should be wrapping him in ice and a cotton wool blanket. Hopefully then we get knocked out early and he doesn’t play at all.

Morning all,
Spain were poor last night,dominated possession,pass pass pass. Some great chances,to be fair the Cape Verde goalkeeper was outstanding. I suppose at least they didn’t lose. Raya on the bench which is hard to understand.

Good morning all.

Warm and sunny here this morning and no rain forecast. 😎

I read that Saka has declared himself fit (enough?) to start Wednesday’s game. Clearly he is still suffering from the Achilles injury he picked up back in March.

Rather than start I would prefer a thirty minute second half cameo.

BBD yes it was an unedifying period in our recent history , it created divides which somewhat like Brexit will take a generation or two to heal . Even now despite winning the league and good European runs , you still hear Arteta referred to as Wenger mk2. Despite living on the early years where it has to said he lived on the abilities of the famous back 5 without whom he could never have built the attacking team that he did in his defence we did have a few glory years .
However in retrospect we all look back and know that it carried on too long .
It’s interesting to note that he went off with a bang and things tapered off as time went by as opposed to Arteta who struggled to start and we can only hope that the team that he has built can carry it on forward .
|The proof of the pudding will be to see how the obvious team spirit is retained as new faces are bought in and some of the stalwarts disappear.

Very interesting, Rico, and probably the most vitriolic period in the clubs history.
It appears from what you have said, Arsenal were held to ransom by the Banks regarding Wenger.
There was a clear divide between those clinging to the hope that Wenger still had his ‘magic hat’, and the growing number who believed it was gone forever and agitated for him to go.
It was very unedifying, almost circus-like with Robbie growing traction from his AFTV vehicle designed to bring more unwanted attention and add more fuel to the toxicity.
It didn’t help that big players left and there was a clear downgrade in key areas.
Arsenal should never have lost Ashley Cole to Chelsea, and that was the beginning whole demise (poor Kieron Gibbs’ career was ruined at 18, when he was thrown in against Ronaldo in the 2009 CL semi-final, and he slipped for their first goal).
Theo did his best, but was seriously over-hyped from his fledgling stint in the Championship with Southampton.
I never hated Theo – it wasn’t his fault – but he just didn’t have it against the best.
The poster-boy for the Emirates never quite delivered.
There was a lack of any real clarification or communication between the club and fans over the clubs resources and ability to compete, but Nasri and Fabregas leaving in the summer of 2011 wasn’t good. With other ‘events’ like Wembley and later Old Trafford, it is a year best forgotten.
Then the whole van Persie controversy, where after a chat with Wenger and Gazidis about the ‘direction of the club’, neither could give him the assurances he wanted, so he decided to leave.
Was he a bit disloyal after the club nursed him through so many injury problems? Yes, a little, it should have ended a lot better and a lot of Arsenal fans were angry at the way he left.
Strange then, in 2013, Ivan Gazidis told everyone that Arsenal were financially strong and ‘could afford any player in the world, with the exception of Messi and Ronaldo’.
With the above statement in mind, Arsenal lined up against Bayern Munich in CL Rnd of 16 in 2014, with Yaya Sanogo leading the attack.
Of course the three FA cups were worth winning, but they were masking deeper issues at the club that weren’t being addressed.
Looking back on 2010/11-2018 period, I think Wenger leaned very heavily on his success at Highbury to try and justify why he stayed around too long.
We’ll probably never know why Wenger lost his competitive mojo to become more corporate, maybe it’s linked with the departure of his friend and ally David Dein.
Personally, I wanted him gone after the 8-2 at OT, but his leaving was long drawn out and painful for us.

It’s an art to know when it’s the right time to pack things in . Very few people know when it’s best to walk away and as much as I agree that Starmer should go , it worries me more who the people lining up behind him might be.
There is no way that with this majority the Labour party will hold it’s hands up and say it’s a fair cop mate and give the country another vote so perhaps it’s best to stay with the devil you know. ( not the one in Malta ).

Yeah Rico, Wenger really should have moved on after 2015, but by then the offers from Real Madrid etc weren’t probably on the table anymore, knowing when to bow out, as Guardiola did this summer, isn’t something a guy like Wenger understood as he was the ultimate controlling personality. In the end he basically had to be forced into retirement by all the empty seats at the Emirates, I mean how can you not be able to sense that it was over when the club was announcing 60,000 capacities with only 45,000 in the stadium.

Morning Rico and ya’ll.

Mustafi wasn’t Wenger’s worst signing over this period but he, along with Sylvestre, really put paid to the ‘Arsène Knows’ narrative that carried us through some dark times. The jam tomorrow theme kinda died with that overpriced calamity of a defender.

Wenger really had the Midas touch when it came to the FACup and that kinda extended his stay way beyond what it should have been.