Morning all.
What does a club do with £120 million bank loan? Lord only knows but they have taken one which ‘partially assist in managing the impact of the revenue losses attributable to the pandemic.’ Apparently it’s to be repaid by May 2021 so I’m not sure what the benefits are.
Onto other things, loans, sales and signings. David Ornstein reckons Folarin Balogun is a gonner. He’s close to agreeing a deal with a club this month and that club is not Arsenal. To say I’ll be disappointed is an understatement. Mikel Arteta said yesterday that everyone at the club wants him to stay, the player wants to stay but his agent is the one ruining things. I find that hard to believe really because if a player wants to stay at a club badly enough, he should be the one making the final decision and not someone who is just out to make money. I said the same thing about Aaron Ramsey and look how badly things turned out for him. Hopefully, Ornstein is wrong on this one.
On the ins, we’ve snapped up the £540,000 signing of teenage centre back Omar Rekik from Hertha Berlin. He’s already been training with the under 23’s which is where he’ll stay for now.
Another out, perhaps, is Mesut Ozil. Mikel Arteta said yesterday:
I will decide what is happening in the next few days. I don’t know what will happen, now he is free to negotiate with other clubs. We will discuss internally what is the best situation for him for the near future. And obviously with the player and the agent and try to find the best solution for everybody. If something is sorted this month it is because it is for both parties. It is good for Mesut and his future and good for the club. If that is the case we will move forward, if it is not the case then he will continue here.
Any deal which wipes his £350,000 a week off the club’s wage bill has to be a good deal but I guess what Mikel means is that Arsenal aren’t going to pay for him to play for another club. Rightly so in my opinion, Arsenal have been paying him since March last year yet he hasn’t kicked a ball for any Arsenal team. At least then, nearly an entire press conference won’t be taken up with questions about the German. Perhaps Arteta would have been better off just saying ‘when there’s any news, I’ll tell you’ and be done with it.
William Saliba loan at Nice didn’t start too brightly. No sooner had he landed, he was straight into their first team. He picked up a booking within the first fifteen minutes as his team went on to lose 2-0. I read that the Nice team is not particularly good and our young defender is set for tough few months. Good, just what he needs I think. To be busy.
Lastly, it’s no shock that Bukayo Saka scooped the man of the month award voted for by the fans on A.F.C.com. He’s been outstanding. Kieran Tierney too. Both have been solid so far this season and thankfully, others are now trying to match them. ESR has been a breath of fresh air, Lacazette has been playing some of the best football he’s ever played for the club in my opinion and both Mari and Holding have looked a calm and organised pairing at the back. Martinelli, well, we all know what a difference he’s made already. With Partey soon to return, our midfield should have a bit more bite to it. Plus Gabriel is set to return too which can only be a good thing.
See you in the comments.
Good morning Rico, with Partey, Gabriel returning and Martinelli getting fit and ready to play, I must say the squad is looking more stronger but lets pray and hope COVID19 didn’t do us an Aston Villa. Balogun going? BAD! After all the 55 redundancies £120M bank loan for actually what? Maybe 2-3players would be signed imo
Morning Rico and all.
Didn’t someone say on here (Kev?) the Nelson and Balogun shared the same Agent? If so, it may be that there is a link. Nelson has not had anything like the playing time he should and could have had, imo. Balogun has has had even less! It would not surprise me to see them both leave with promises of more playing time elsewhere.
What a waste, both now and in the future. Back in old mother Wenger’s days he did the same with any number of young talented players, he didn’t play them and they left! Most notably Gnarbry now rated the 6th best footballer in the world, according to the Guardian’s top one hundred list, recently.
Are we in danger of doing the same again by not playing youngsters when the would seem to be big enough, able enough and ready to replace their underperforming peers? As Sala has shown, if you’re good enough you’re old enough! Is Arteta not being bold enough, experimental enough or even determined enough to back some of these young guns? It could be his undoing if he’s not careful.
Cold here. The brass monkeys are rolling down my drive!!🥶
Morning all.
These kids need to earn their spots, and their agents should shut the hell up and allow them to develop.
That’ll never happen though, as agents want to earn their coin so keep telling kids they’re worth more, they should be played more etc etc and the kids start believing what they’re being told because as we know, every new contract signed means dollars for those snakes!
Nobody can honestly say Balogun deserves a spot ahead of Lacazette or Aubameyang because he’s simply not good enough at this stage.
Nelson, who I rate, hasn’t set the world on fire yet when playing first team football.
He hasn’t done anywhere near as well as Saka or ESR so why should he get a gig just because he, his mum and his agent think so?
It’s absolute garbage and typical of today’s world where kids want and expect everything to be handed to them on a platter!!!
Seriously, what kind of people advise these kids????
Agents-pure pond scum!!!!
I’d love to see every country in the world refuse to deal with agents!!!!
Make them go out and actually earn a living without ruining players careers and holding clubs to ransom!
G’day all.
The problem for Balogun is not the player nor the agent, it is the style of football that Arteta learnt under Guardiola. As far as City are concerned big, strong back-to-goal central strikers are the dinosaurs of the game. Guardiola never employed them at Barcelona and doesn’t have one in the squad at City.
It’s always a shame when a youngster who has grown up at the club is deemed surplus to requirements, but that’s the reality of modern day football.
Afternoon Twinsy, Wavy all.
If Nelson and Balogun are left out of the FA Cup squad, Eddie too for that matter, I think the writing is in the wall. Very disappointing if that turns out to be the case.
Had Balogun played in the Europa Cup more than he did, he might have already signed a new contract.
I’d rather Balogun started ahead of Auba Scott…
Yes Scott we are living through ‘funny times’ indeed, in fact we’ve not seen times like these for 100 years but you just have to soldier on mate.
I’m not sure about Arteta not rating or liking Chambers tbh Scott, I think that Chambers played a lot for Arteta before his injury. It all depends on finance because I see absolutely no point in selling Chambers for a fee much below the £16m we paid for him because he’s a much better player now than he was then. I don’t think we’d have any trouble selling him if we needed to but there’s plenty of other players I’d rather see out of the door before Calum.
Of course if some club offers a good price then you have to consider it, but he’s English so I’d be more inclined to release David Luiz early than sell Chambers.
Hi Rico and all the only way to stop agents is for the whole soccer world to make a ruling that no player under 20 years old can earn more than ninety thousand pounds per week and that includes add on’s and any player, agents or family members court breaking the rules the player gets suspended for one year from all competition
Rico, Balogun hasn’t done nearly enough to start in League games yet, imo.
Either way my point stands-why is it kids these days want it all, and want it now?
They’re not guided very well at all by their parents.
Here’s a little example.
My son is playing at a good level U/15’s.
His mate is the keeper,played last season and had officially accepted the invitation to play again this coming season, was then offered a gig at another club who he believed are better, so took it.
The trouble is his coach knocked back two other very good keepers as this lad had accepted the spot, and then had to scramble to find a replacement.
What precedent does this set for the kid?
His parents ought to have taught him a lesson by making him stay as if your word means nothing, you have nothing and you are nothing.
We can’t blame these kids as we’ve allowed this generation to be that of a self entitled, self centred lot, generally speaking.
Kev, I like Chambers and would love to see him stay fit and healthy as he’d make a damn decent player imo
We definitely need to sell a few players though.
Sell by all means but not English ones
We don’t really know yet how Brexit will finally be utilised , there are certain rules put in place but are subject to change at the end of this season.. The F.A that effectively believe that England’s international team is not doing really well because there are too many non English in the Premier league can easily change the numbers.
There is a dichotomy between the forces of the F.A that are commited to international football and the clubs that supply the players . English players may well become a premium and players like Chambers , Nelson should not be sold until the whole thing pans out , they may well try to change the rules on Homegrown foreign players like Balogun and Bellerin . So far these rumours have been refuted but they are out there.
Back in the early 1990’s Arsenal had a rich vein of attacking talent in situ, Alan Smith at centre forward, a young Kevin Campbell who was equally effective at centre forward or as a support striker out wide and Paul Merson, a multi – talented forward who could play wide, up front or between the lines/ in the hole/ false 9 take your pick and Into this array of goalscoring talent manager George Graham added Ian Wright in 1991/92 and Arsenal (boring Arsenal!) scored 92 goals in all competitions.
In the Arsenal reserve team a young Andy Cole was banging in the goals but saw no avenue for himself and after some heart to heart discussions with Graham the club decided to sell Andy and he joined Bristol City where he scored a lot of goals. After about a year Andy moved onto Newcastle and eventually ended up at Man Utd where he won many titles.
Now in hindsight maybe Arsenal should have kept Andy but I doubt that he would have progressed at the same rate if he had stayed and maybe Balogun is thinking along similar lines?
Of course money is a major factor but when you see Aubameyang, Lacazette, Martinelli and N’ketiah in front of you and another club is promising to make you their No.1 striker then you can’t help but think he’s right to leave and play elsewhere. Arteta can’t make him too many promises because things change and his agent won’t listen to BS anyway, so as awful as it seems we might just have to accept that the downside of having such a great academy is the fact that we’re gonna lose some good players along the way, just as is the case at La Masia
We’ve lost the likes of Yunus Musah who is playing really well at Valencia and Xavier Amaechi who joined Hamburg already, it’s what it is but if John Jules and Moller come through next season we’ll soon forget Balogun.
I think that there is a limit to what the FA can do because the rules we operate under are set by UEFA and FIFA and not the EU. The EU affect your right to work across borders but they don’t affect how many homegrown or foreign or homegrown foreign players, the rumours are probably coming from some bitter remoaners in the press/media…
Fair point Kev, and very relevant.
There is no simple answer.
Well, there is, but the FA won’t allow an Arsenal B side.
That’s always been a problem Scott, Barcelona have a B team as do Real and it’s of a great benefit to them in developing young players. I’m sure that Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea, City, United, Liverpool, Everton maybe and say Leicester or Leeds would have B teams straight away if it was allowed. Although maybe it’s less likely to happen now we’re out of the EU and clubs can’t fill B teams with dozens of foreign youngsters. Maybe in the end it’s a good thing the FA never allowed it?
Hard to say how successful it would’ve been but it won’t happen so the clubs just have to do what they can.
It’s tough seeing these kids spend so much time at the club then having their heads turned so easily.
From the BBC……Mikel Arteta has almost a full squad to choose from as FA Cup holders Arsenal play Newcastle in the third round.
Midfielder Thomas Partey, who signed for £45m from Atletico Madrid, could be in contention if he proves his fitness.
Play him in the cup and see if he makes it, or save him for the Palace game?
Nor had ESR Scott, but now look at him.
Hi Geoff.
I see Steve Bruce says that it’s morally wrong for the Premier league to continue with infections rising so fast(here in UK)
I’ve sympathy with him but the clubs won’t stop, unless they are forced to by the government.
In the news, I see that the city of Brisbane and surrounds are entering lockdown – because of ONE case. The Aussies don’t muck about.
Rico, ESR started out of necessity.
Sorry, but I just do not agree kids should be given game time simply because they stomp their feet.
Limey, Brisbane is in lockdown because the premier of Queensland is an utter fukktard!!
She has used this entire situation to her own political advantage and she couldn’t care about the fact thousands of small businesses have gone broke, because the majority of that states population can sit back and collect Jobkeeper (our federal governments financial assistance package) and get on with life.
Trust me, when Jobkeeper ends, or at least is watered down in March and people must go back to work, she will not be closing things down!
She refused a toddler medical assistance in a Qld hospital because “NSW people can use NSW hospitals” even though this kid needed urgent and major surgery, lived an hour and a half from the Queensland capital, 8 hours from the NSW capital where the hospitals that could save her life were located.
She died en route to Sydney.
NSW, by far the most populous state in Oz, has remained more open than any other state and allowed businesses to remain in business.
We’ve also seen NSW remain the only state to accept incoming flights from overseas allowing Aussie citizens to come home because every other premier shut up shop, claiming to be protecting their citizens which is complete bullshit, and when NSW has the odd little outbreak, those hypocrites have pointed the finger at NSW and said “see, that’s why we are staying a closed shop”.
Mate, it’s nothing at all to do with anything but political gain by certain individuals.
We will never be in the same danger as you guys are as our population is nowhere near as condensed as Europe or the US and that’s major factor, not the actions of a few selfish, evil politicians.
Assuming Balogun is stomping his feet Scott, there’s no suggestion he is. His agent perhaps..
Rico, and as you pointed out frequently on the Ramsey situation, the player has the final say on such matters.
It’ll be interesting to see how this ends.
Idiot politicians the world over Scott.
I wonder if there will be any rotation tomorrow,my guess is not much, although we have a busy period of games coming up.
One game at a time Limey, play the the best team available in all games.
That’s it Limey 🙂
I am no major fan of my states premier, but imo, she’s done an amazing job on this.
I guess Scott that you have to blame the people of Queensland as they vote for these egotists, we’ve got a knob like that running London, but ultimately you get the politicians you deserve.
Nketiah to West Ham to getting traction, maybe if we can get Balogun to sign on the promise that he’ll get Eddie’s minutes on the pitch then he might stay?
Kev, that’d do!!
I like Eddie, but doubt he will be much more than a squad player.
Said the same in the post Scott.
‘ I find that hard to believe really because if a player wants to stay at a club badly enough, he should be the one making the final decision and not someone who is just out to make money. I said the same thing about Aaron Ramsey and look how badly things turned out for him. Hopefully, Ornstein is wrong on this one.’
Yep, I know Rico.
I am hoping it’s more like the Saka situation……the kid wants to stay.
No player has the write to demand game time however If Balogun does leaves may be its because he sees other young players getting more game time than him and just feels that he is not what Arteta is looking for or it may come down to the amount of pressure he maybe under from his family and management to move to another club
Game Day, it’ll be good to be able to watch the game on my TV for a change, I might get a ruby to enjoy with it?
When I was a kid I used to dream about Arsenal winning the FACup as at that time the clubs last success had been in 1950, then as a schoolboy I witnessed 1971 and it was truly amazing to experience it at Wembley.
27 years went by between 1971 and 1998 and Arsenal success in the FACup was memorable but fleeting, York City, Wrexham are stand outs but 1979 was a ride. George Graham got me used to winning cup finals but even he only managed 1993 after a replay, then Arsene arrived.
1998 remains my favourite cup final because 1997/98 was such a momentous season anyway.
Little did I know as I walked away from Wembley in the May of that great year in 98 that Arsenal were about to hit a hot streak of FACup successes and that we’d lift that beautiful trophy 7 times in 18 years between 2002 and 2020. It remains the clubs favourite piece of silver wear and long may that continue this year…
1998 Kev, Newcastle and Anelka? The ‘Its only Ray Parlour’ was pretty good too. Like you, I love the FA cup. It’s special.
New post up now
No new post yet Rico?