Jose Mourinho in court on Friday, Lacazette leaving.

By Tony Attwood

All the latest bits and pieces of the day include the rather exciting news that Jose Mourinho is due to be in court on Friday over the issue of tax fraud in Spain.   It relates fairly obviously to his time at Real Madrid.   The state claims that he owes them just under £3m in tax revenue.  The source of the problem is the old issue of image rights, in this case for 2011 and 2012.  Mr M rebukes all claims.  I was told he argued that no one prints pictures of him because he is too stupid looking, but I am not sure this was actually true.

But he will claim it is not his fault, as indeed he did last time in he called up before the beak after it was suggested that he had abused the doctor at Chelsea.    That case got into a tribunal hearing, and then suddenly, hey presto! the entire process stopped and everything went quiet and the good doctor walked away rather happy, as far as we all can work out.

Of course that one was a case against the club that employed the touchline performer, while this one is against him in person.   We await developments.

Back on the home front, as you may have heard Arsenal have announced that the mighty Emirates will get a trifle bigger of posh seats as the redevelopments which were required after the government introduced new rules on seating requirements for disabled people.   These changes have now been made and so now we will have more seating in the Club Level.

I don’t go there very often but I was there for the Emirates Cup and went up to the super posh utterly expensive bar and asked for a glass of Merlot.  The man behind the bar went to find a supervisor to whom he said, “What’s Merlot?” and upon being told it was a red wine went and looked in the fridge.   Then on being told red wine is served at room temperature was given a bottle and went looking for a corkscrew not knowing that most Merlot these days comes in screw tops.   I got my drink and although expensive it was worth it… for the entertainment.  No criticism of the man behind the bar; he has every right to expect to be properly trained.  It is the company that runs the bar that needs to be laughed at.

Anyway the seating project will happen in next summer and the one after that, and all told an extra 780 seats will be added taking us up to 60,600 which is closer to the number that we had when we moved there in the first place.

But the project has already been denounced as a huge failure by the media because it fails to make the ground larger than Tottenham’s new ground.  What is not mentioned is how well the notion of the large stand at one end of the ground will work for that club.  To create it the plans for wrap around upper class seats for toffs and those who drink Merlot has been reduced, and there are questions about the visibility from the top end of the big stand.   We shall of course see, in time.

So what else have we got?

Cologne have been ordered to pay Arsenal over £50,000 after damage caused by their supporters during the Europa League game.  I wonder if this happens after every game at which there is damage as I’ve not heard of this before – although I was told that with certain games the club has the repair crews automatically booked into the club for the amenities at the away end.

Anyway it is not too bad all round, because one headline this evening reads “Arsenal vs Koln could have been a lot worse… but it wasn’t”.  And I think we can all drink to that.

Cologne were charged by that upright upholders of the law, Uefa, with crowd disturbances, setting off fireworks, throwing objects and acts of damage.

Being rather decent sorts, and unlike most English club, Cologne then issued an apology to Arsenal.  They were then told by Uefa “to contact Arsenal within 30 days for the settlement of the damages caused by its supporters”.  An interesting move by Uefa who are of course known world-wide as being the upholders of reasonableness when it comes to all money transactions.

Cologne were also given a one-match away supporter travel ban, suspended for two years, and fined them 60,000 euros (£53,000).   That punishment of the ban on away support is of course completely silly, since in reality Cologne are dropping out of the Europa after the group stage, and are very, very unlikely to climb from the lower reaches of the German League to a place high enough to qualify for next season.

Anyway, this is a day of the week that ends with the letters “day” and that means that there must be a new transfer rumour on the loose, and yes, here it is, courtesy of “All Arsenal”.   “Bayern Munich Want To Sign Lacazette And Welbeck In January”

Well, that is rather jolly.