The controversy over Granit Xhaka’s yellow rages on.
Premier League Match Official Dermott Gallagher has stated the Swiss midfield “had it coming”, backing his colleagues decision to book Xhaka for persistent fouling after just one infringement.
It is time TV companies stopped using refs (and ex-refs) as pundits.
They add nothing to the game and spend their time performing mental gymnastics to support the man in black on the field.
Imagine if Roy Keane never criticised Manchester United, or Ian Wright only ever praised Arsenal. They would soon be dropped for pundits who give a more balanced opinion.
Pundit refs all have an agenda. And that agenda is “what narrative can I spin to back my colleagues poor decision”. Time for them to go.
There is still some talk about Arsenal being wrong to let Auba leave after his two goals against Real Madrid.
Auba himself has recently addressed this explaining the move has suited both parties.
Arsenal have won 10 from the last 13 league games since Auba was dropped. Auba has re-found his scoring boots since leaving us.
The deal suited all parties. And all parties have benefited from it. Time to move on.
Talking about strikers, it was announced that Juventus would not be renewing Paolo Dybla’s contract. This has led to a whole load of Twitter accounts saying “Manchester City / Liverpool / Chelsea / Arsenal / Manchester United fans (delete as applicable), would you take Dybala?”
And the answer from us should be no.
Our transfer dealings over the last 12 months have been excellent. We have signed players who fit a certain profile – 24 and under, talented, fit and hungry.
Dybala does not fall into any of these categories.
At 28-years-old, he is coming up to “last big contract” territory where whoever he joins will be tying up huge wages in a 4 or 5 year deal on a player quite clearly past his best.
Dybala is injury prone and has not consistently performed to a high level since 2018.
He would destroy the wage structure Edu has implemented and we have “been there, done that” giving an underperforming striker a huge contract.
Whoever comes in up top needs to fit in with the rest of the young and hungry players we have.
If we sign Dybala, we might as well have just kept Auba.
Last thing to note. We have complained for years about the lack of thought for travelling fans when it comes to arranging games.
Making Arsenal fans travel for games when the last train has already left – or no trains at all due to “planned engineering works”.
The FA Cup Semi Final has been scheduled at a time when there are no trains from Manchester or Liverpool into London.
Sorry the FA should think about the fans and re-arrange the game for Old Trafford?
The only reason to host it at Wembley is for financial reasons.
Everyone was up in arms over the European Super League. Yet those at the FA (and Premier League, Sky and BT) clearly do not care about the fans.
Have a good Tuesday.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
Totally agree about Dybala and the wage structure but … we must also make certain that our young stars are appropriately recompensed for their efforts. PLEASE don’t let us get into another Cashley situation
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That`s exactly how we should be increasing the wage bill. Get this core of young players tied down to the club for the next 5+ years and then just look to add one or two players of real quality who fit – there or thereabouts – the profile of player we recruited last summer. The next step is going to be the hardest, we`ve already got a competitive team who are only going to get better but to really challenge for the biggest trophies we`re going to have to get our next couple of big signings right. No more big time Charlies who are after one last big contract, we need to find players who are hungry and have something to prove. They need to have the right character as well because you can tell we`ve got a good dressing room at the minute. Don`t need some flash cunt coming in and wrecking all the hard work that`s been put into achieving it.
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