(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread

I taped "Arsenals greatest FA Cup players" or some such which was to start at 4AM.

That's exactly what i thought was the case. Showing NFL Countdown or some similar bullshark instead of a proper sport.

frustrating eh. Pay enough for Sky as it is without these sort of shenanigans 

[quote=foal30]

frustrating eh. Pay enough for Sky as it is without these sort of shenanigans 

[/quote

It was advertised on ESPN days ago.

Ozil has publicly stated now that he wants to re-sign, but basically only if Wenger is staying.

Interesting times. 

This new signing is very interesting - Cohen Bramall.

We've signed him from the 7th tier of english football... for just a $40k fee...

20 year old left back, so not massively young for a signing like this. 

Apparently he is very very fast - up there with Bellerin, and has a great left foot. 

We seem to be shopping around for these types of players - ones who have slipped under the radar in the youth systems, but battled their way through anyway. 

The Vardy bid, Gabriel, Lucas, Takuma Asano, now this guy, it all matches up with Wenger's comments a while back. Can't remember the actual words but he spoke about how players who have come through the hard way have more hunger and desire. 

Interestingly he also pinpoints this as the reason why almost all the best strikers in the world are south american now - they come from a tougher upbringing in most cases, so they are up for the scrap, they have that suarez/sanchez/aguero level of desire where they just run all day, chase everything down, and will do anything to win. 

And BBC tweeting reports of a Squid60m offer for AS7 from PSG.

Here we farkin go again.

The cohen bramall story is actually pretty ridiculous, definitely worth a read;

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10720...

Ridiculous story. When i first heard we were going to sign him I tried looking for the clubs he had played for, or how much we were going to pay for him. But I couldn't find anything on him. 

Hope he kicks on and gets some game time. Though I imagine it wont be this season. Id say he'd need the rest of this season for conditioning and a pre-season under his belt before we see him. 

Next round of FA Cup, we've drawn the winner of Soton/Norwich, away.

Southampton are a bogey team for us, tough draw. 

either way a crap draw. 

Need to smash Swansea this weekend

Interview with Brammall is must-watch

Love the very last bit about Thierry Henry.

"Again, it's mad that I'm here, because he's been here!"

If Santi has to retire, that would be the saddest retirement in a long time 

Don't care what anyone says, Santi was our most important player. The difference between when he played and when he hasn't is huge. No coincidence our title challenge fell off when he got injured (last season and this season)

Swansea 4am sunday morn.

Just checked and we're on Bein 1, so we will be having goalrush Ajc. 

I'll think of you when I'm throwing sh*t at the tv, and console myself that I'm not the only one. 

Haha, thanks I'll do the same.

I just politely reminded Bein we're paying more money for a worse service compared to 12 months ago. F*ckers.

Giroud, Coquellin, and Koscielny all sign new deals.

Koscielny is a great confidence boost for the Sanchez & Ozil deals. Coquellin is interesting as he only re-signed in 2015, I wonder if it was a short term contract to honour his new found form without placing an expectation on him keeping it up for ages. Giroud is the most fascinating contract extension. It highlights how Wenger sees him, BUT also give Girouds recently vocalised discontent it's good to see him still committing. Suppose it's good to know it's competitive discontent, rather than Debuchyesque style.

Good news to tie them down.

maybe WBA can help us out v Cocks

Happy enough if Pool v CC's is a draw

We just have to beat Swansea! I'll be septic if we drop points there. 

Sanchez doesn't seem too happy.

A decent win, but there would have been something seriously wrong if we hadn't taken all three points there. Swansea are wank.

average performance against weak opposition. 3 points and a clean sheet is good. Good Welbeck got a run. 

well done Everton. 

Burnley then Watford at home are next Prem games

City play Cocks and Pool v Chelsea so let's make hay while the sun shines. 6 points 2 clean sheets 

Goofy666 in an email just now;

"I really hope Sp*rs finish 2nd this season. Cos that means we finish top!"

hahahahaha

To finish first we need Santi back ASAP

I read he just had another procedure on his achilles, and we're looking at 6 weeks at least?

Best we can hope is probably for him to come back and add something in the run-in. We're going to have to get to that point all on our own :(

Been a while since Santi had a long run without injury now. 

yes, a great pity for him and the club. 

Santi is done. Hate to say it, but we can't rely on him anymore. Probably my favourite player to watch next to Alexis, so it's a damn shame.

Coquelin back way ahead of schedule, available for this weekend. 

Bellerin and Gibbs now also back for this weekend. 

Giroud injury not as bad as first feared, will be back quickly, could be in contention for the weekend as well.

Where is Walcott? Don't even remember him getting injured, just seems to have vanished without a mention.

Good point. Just had a search, this seems to be the latest;

Speaking to the press at his pre-Swansea press conference, Wenger said, “Walcott is still out. He is one of the players who doesn’t come back.

“But he was not rested last week, he was injured.

“He is now out for three-and-a-half weeks, and I think he will not be available for Burnley. He will need another week, two more weeks.

He was then asked if he was concerned about him being out longer than expected. “Not concerned, because it was at the start a little calf problem, but he was not comfortable when he started to train again and we had to pull him out again,” Wenger replied.

Also in the news, Sanchez has apparently pleaded guilty to tax fraud relating to when he was at Barca. 

As per Messi and others who have done the same, he won't get prison, but what the hell is going on with these guys?

With the income footballers earn I personally find it a bit disgusting that they get away with these massive tax dodges with just a fine. The spanish people deserve better. These sorts of people are where the biggest tax take is, this must be crucial money for the government. 

It's obviously wide-spread over there if these guys are all thinking it's ok to behave this way - how many of them are getting away with it?

It's widespread everywhere. 

I would expect players have people to handle their income and may assume things are legitimate. 

Would expect so, and in most cases they are not particularly highly educated either.

Yeah it's f*cked up, it's capitalism at it's worst.

No doubt ajc/foal, but the buck still stops with the individual. 

Just one of the additional pitfalls you need to negotiate when you have such a high income. If you aren't smart enough to check on things occasionally yourself, then you need to have a Manager you can trust implicitly, and have them look over it. 

If they aren't careful enough about who they employ to handle these sorts of things, and the practices of that individual/organisation, then that's their problem unfortunately. 

Messi's case is the worst - it seems all transgressions were actually made by the family. They handled all his affairs, including the financial ones, and were knowingly dodging tax. 

They all seem to think it was ok to do, but are now being cracked down upon, and I'm all for it. 

The wealthy of the world spend a lot of time and money avoiding paying their fair share, whether that's via legal loopholes or just straight up illegal means. I'm all for punishing the illegal stuff severely, and closing the legal loopholes. 

Funny how quickly football can take us into the deeper consideration of life?

Paulm I don't wanna be a COD but I'm pretty confident we're due an infamous Paulm injury table update!

Bit tired of work today, so time to give the people (brumbys) what they want...

Injury Update

Gibbs - Knee - probably back for Burnley at home, Jan 23

Bellerin - Ankle - probably back for Burnley at home, Jan 23

Coquelin - Hamstring - probably back for Burnley at home, Jan 23

Giroud - Ankle - possibly back for Burnley at home, Jan 23

Elneny - African CoN - probably back for Hull at home, Feb 12

Walcott - Calf - possibly back for Hull at home, Feb 12

Mertesacker - Knee - possibly back for Hull at home, Feb 12

Cazorla - Achilles - possibly back for Liverpool away, Mar 5