- Arsenal finances are heading toward the edge, but we’re ok for another season of spending
- Suspicions arise that many children have been trafficked to England to play football
By Tony Attwood
At least with the Tuchel fellow we know where we stand for as he recently said, “I will not rest England players to help clubs” To which the clubs should reply, we will not release players if we need them to win competitions – which is what our supporters pay for.
So that means Declan Rice will probably start again for England against the mighty Latvia on Monday night after Tuchel said without any sign of sarcasm, “Given the fact Declan Rice played in the next match after a 7-1 first leg with Arsenal, I didn’t have the feeling that they think so much about us.”
But of course, these international managers are a bit slow in understanding these things so maybe we should point out to him first that Rice is pulling himself back to fitness after an injury and second that the team was shifted around, and some anchors were needed in it. Rice was one.
Added to which, was the interesting topic of who pays the salaries of England players – including when they come back from playing in a ludicrous international carrying an injury. But as we have always known, international managers are not employed to be reasonable or indeed knowledgeable.
Indeed it is interesting that in a week where there has been talk about how long it is since Arsenal won the Premier League there is much less talk about how long it has been since England won something big. In total England has of course won the British championship 34 times – but somehow that is a little difficult to celebrate that much. And of course, when England were excused from the preliminary rounds and played all their games at Wembley, they won the World Cup.
And for me, such a lack of success hardly gives the right to anyone in the England camp to tell Arsenal what to do.
Elsewhere there is an interesting news item from Saudi Arabia’s league in which Slaven Bilic says, ‘I left Saudi because I wasn’t being paid’ Maybe the oil stopped flowing. But still, according to GiveMeSport, Al-Nassr are planning to buy Gabriel Magalheas, with Arsenal demanding £83m. I wonder if he has checked how is salary will be paid.
Meanwhile, Fifa seem a bit worried about the club world cup, and this time it is not about the violence that seems to surround so many of the matches they and other international bodies find seem to follow their games. This time it is the 63-match tourney which will occupy Chelsea and Manchester City for a while, although they now find this might involve playing the champions of New Zealand in front of a modest crowd. Still exhausted players on the opposition side are always welcome when Arsenal kick off in August.
Also, it might mean for once that the Fifa directors will not be bathing in champagne or whatever tricks they get up to. A lot of games are being played in stadia that have capacities of under 30,000 and have found it hard to sell half their tickets.
It all reminds me of playing the world cup in Chile when the crowds were often around 5,000. Meanwhile, León of the Mexican League have been kicked out for some rule breach of other, and so won’t be there at all.
Meanwhile, on another planet, a recent survey has shown what many of us have long suspected: that certain English teams just never win big trophies. Big trophies include something in Europe but not the rather silly Intertoto Cup, the Community Shield, the Full Members Cup, and diddly widdley things like that.
The big four in terms of having quite a bit of media coverage and support but not much cause to open the trophy cupboard in English terms are Nottingham Forest who won the League Cup in 1990, Leeds United who won the old League Division One in 1992, Aston Villa who managed to get the League Cup in 1996 and of course our local chums Tottenham Hots who we must admit and get very excited about, won the League Cup in 2008, and the Uefa Cup in 1984. And the cup winners cup in 1963. And the second division in 1950…
It is, as they say, a funny ol game.
Rice , Lewis Skelly , Saka , Nwaneri , White we could easily have 5 in the next few months
Tuchel
“Given the fact Declan Rice played in the next match after a 7-1 first leg with Arsenal, I didn’t have the feeling that they think so much about us.”
Is this guy mad?
He is an Arsenal player.
Arsenal pay his wages, or rather we the fans pay his wages.
Arsenal’s priority, above anything else is Arsenal.
Is he actually suggesting that on the basis we won our first leg 7-1, we shouldn’t of played Declan Rice? Well, if he is, then surely he thinks that would also apply to all of our England players? And if he thinks that ,why not the International managers of all our other players ?
Oh look. We won our first leg 7-1. There’s Internationals coming up. Lets think about them. Lets drop ALL our Internationals shall we?
Maybe next time Arteta should ring the stupid little prick up and ask him who we can play and who we cant? And why he’s at it, maybe he could ring round all the International mangers to see who they would like us to rest? At least they’ll all know we’re thinking of them.
And what’s more, we were playing Albania, ranked 65 in the World, followed by Latvia, ranked 140 in the World.
Even when it’s an International break, somehow they find a way to have a pop at Arsenal. Well, we couldn’t allow all this positive MLS nonsense to carry on without a dollop of negativity to put us Gunners back in our box now, could we.
Jeeeez, you couldn’t make this shit up.
Nitram
Well said that man!