I do not buy into the claims that our referees are corrupt. I just think they are incompetent. And their incompetence goes unchallenged by the equally incopometent Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL).

The PGMOL is essentialy an old boys club where a bunch of mates from Manchester support and promote each other. They control the refereeing of the game, and back each others incorrect decisions to ensure they remain in charge. Whenever an error is made, they batten down the hatches to ensure that they can not be questioned. It is not about getting a decision right or wrong, and all about keeping themselves and their mats in power.

People talk about the “Red Cartel” of Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal being too influential in the game (note: this was coined by Everton fans who for whatever reason seem to back Manchester City and Chelsea purely because they are facing / have face financial charges). The truth is, the most influential group in football right now is the Manchester based Black Cartel.

I do believe that throughout time and space, poor decisions will even themselves out. Many teams have had poor decisions go their way which have won them games that led to lifting a trophy, and also had poor decisions go against them hat have cost them a shot of glory. It is sometimes easy to forget the poor decisions that go your way – especially when you are feeling raw about a recent decision going against you.

However, it does feel Arsenal are often on the bad end of the same sort of poor decisions.

Every season, the PGMOL decide to crack down on something. Clubs are told. And for a few weeks they referee incidents more strictly, before forgetting their briefing and going back to normal. It seems whenever this happens, it is Arsenal that ends up on the rough end.

Granit Xhaka v Swansea City – Back in 2016, referees were supposedly cracking down on fouls where an opponent was making no realistic attempt to win the ball. It was supposed to be a straight red. But only one red was given out to a player for failing to attempt to win the ball – to Granit Xhaka.

It was not a dangerous challenge, not was it reckless. Xhaka had just tripped his man making no attempt to win the ball. It happens all the time in football and Neville et al actually praise teams for what they call a “smart foul”.

To my memory, no other player was sent off for committing a foul without attempting to play for the ball and the “rule” was quickly scrapped.

Gabriel Martinelli v Wolves – In 2022, referees received instruction that they were to issue a two yellow cards if a player committed two yellow card worthy offences in the same phase of player. Only once did we see it happen. To Martinelli against Wolves.

I personally agree with this rule. It is a frustration of mine when a player commits a yellow card worthy challenge and a scuffle then ensues between the fouled and fouler. Both players then tend to get booked for the scuffle, but the original foul then goes unpunished. The fouler should be receiving a yellow card for a foul, and then a yellow card for the hand bags – or neither player should receive a card for the handbags and just one yellow dished out for the foul.

Martinelli received two yellows for two challenges one after the other. Every other time a player has committed two yellow card challenges before the ref has had a chance to blow the whistle (or waved play on), he has received just a single yellow. The double punishment has been dished out just once.

Takehiro Tomiyasu v Crystal Palace – Last season the instruction to referees was to crack down on time wasting. This consisted of the instruction of refs to be quicker to flash a yellow card for time wasting offences, and an increase in time added on.

The season started with most games going into their 100th minute. By the time we reached the second half of the season, the PGMOL had scrapped this and time added on was back to normal.

Referees failed to dish out quick yellow cards, continuing to allow goal keepers (Jordan Pickford, Nick Pope and others) to take an age over goal kicks (note: I always think if they got booked for the first offence, no matter how early in the game it was, it would speed up the game dramatically). Only once was a player sent off for time wasting.

Tomiyasu got a second yellow card against Crystal Palace early on in the season. His offence was taking a whole 8 seconds to take a throw in. After the decision was roundly condemned by everyone (except former officials), we saw no one else suffer Tomiyasu’s fate. Once again, a PGMOL experiment had failed with Arsenal being the victims.

Declan Rice v Brighton – In a repeated of something that happened in the 00s, referees have been instructed to crack down on players kicking the ball away and obstructing the kick taking of free kicks. The experiment failed in the 00s as teams would literally smash the ball into an opponent to get them booked, with refs giving no thought as to whether a player could physically get out of the way of the free kick, or was deliberately obstructing.

This weekend, we saw Joao Pedro kick the ball away and receive no punishment. the new Brighton managers defence of his man not receiving a card whilst also saying Rice’s was a “clear “red” was laughable. I look forward to his tears as the season goes on when Brighton get a player sent off due to a bad decision.

Also yesterday, a Bournemouth player booted the ball half the length of the pitch when a free kick went against them. No yellow card.

Declan Rice should never have received a yellow card. The Brighton defender threw the ball at him, and then attempted to kick a moving ball, missed it and kicked Rice. I sit right next to the incident and most fans were calling for a red for the Brighton lad (I defended him by saying it was not malicious and just an accident).

No Brighton player seemed to be calling for a second yellow card. In fact most were attempting to defend their forward. The exception was Danny Welbeck. And having seen the Manchester born forward influence the ref and call for a yellow card (which in itself is a yellow card offence), I am gutted that I clapped him off.

I doubt we will see another player sent off for the ball hitting them and it moving about a foot this season. Refs crack down on these things earlier in the season, then forget to do it. Once again we are the ones punished by the PGMOL trying something out.

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I do wonder sometimes if when the PGMOL try an initiative and decide to crack down on something, they pick a handful of games to do it in rather than apply that rule across all games. And Arsenal is always one of those games that they decide to do it in. This is the only way I can explain why Manchester born Chris Kavvangh “applied the letter of the law” against us, whilst countless similar incidents this weekend did not receive a booking.

Football is a tribal game, I get that. And we have seen online fans of opposing clubs support the decision to send Declan Rice off. But this shows a level of immaturity.

Instead of defending poor decisions because they went against a rival, we should be calling out poor, inconsistent refereeing regardless of who is victim.

If Rice’s was a yellow card, then why was no other player booked for kicking the ball away in a Premier League game on Saturday? And if the ref was officiating by the “exact letter of the law”, why did he not book Joao Pedro for kicking the ball away, or Danny Welbeck for demanding an opponent be booked?

And finally, if the ref was officiating by the exact letter of the law, then it he should not have booked Rice for delaying the start of the game. The ball was moving when the Brighton lad tried to kick it. It was never still. Therefore play was never in a legitimate place to restart.

Had the Brighton lad not missed the ball, and they gone on to score a goal, it would have been disallowed due to the ball moving. If play was not ready to be restarted, how could Rice be booked for delaying the restart?

It is all just a farce. The Black Cartel doing their own thing and making things up as they go along. Nothing will happen to Kavanagh , and in fact he will receive pats on the back and support from his colleagues who will celebrate his decision.

The best refs are those that do not make the game about themselves. Yesterday, for whatever reason, Kavanagh decided he wanted to influence the result of the game.

Keenos

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Three years ago we bought Aaron Ramsdale for £24million. He established himself as first choice keeper in the team that finished 2nd and was named in the PFA Team of Year. After 2-years at the club, Ramsdale was valued at €€m by Transfermarkt.

On the face of it, £18m plus add-ons looks cheap for a keeper of Ramsdale’s quality. So what has happened?

Ignore the valuation

Whilst Transfermarkt valued Ramsdale at €40m, this is an algorithm based valuation. Ultimately, Ramsdale’s true value is based on what a team is willing to spend on him, and what we are willing to accept for him. That is £18m+ add-ons.

Little interest

Arsenal held firm with Eddie Nketiah and pushed our price up because we knew there was plenty of interest. When we rejected the bid from Marseille, we would have already had contact from Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace.

There was very little interest in Ramsdale, and transfer speculation concerning him had been flat all summer. Links with Newcastle United was more driven by fans, and there was maybe one day where he was softly linked with both Wolves and Nottingham Forest. It was not until last weeks links to Southampton that things felt more concrete.

Transfers are simple, the more clubs interested in your player, the more you can hold out for a bigger fee or push that fee up. The less interest there is, the more you may well have to accept a lower offer. You will all realise this when coming to sell your car or house.

So why was there so little interest?

No one in the market for a keeper

We raised back in November about how selling Ramsdale would not be an easy task.

He is a decent keeper, but he would not walk in as number

Manchester City – Have Ederson, Ramsdale would be number 2
Liverpool – Have Alisson, Ramsdale would be number 2
Aston Villa – Have Emiliano Martinez, Ramsdale would not be guaranteed number 1
Tottenham – Have Guglielmo Vicario, Ramsdale would not be guaranteed number 1
Chelsea – Have signed 8 keepers under Todd Boehly. Who knows?
Newcastle – Have Nick Pope, Ramsdale would not be guaranteed number 1
Manchester United – Have Andre Onana, Ramsdale would not be guaranteed number 1
West Ham – Have Alphonse Areola, Ramsdale would not be guaranteed number 1
Crystal Palace – Have Dean Henderson, Ramsdale would not be guaranteed number 1
Wolves – Have Jose Sa, Ramsdale would not be guaranteed number 1
Fulham – Have Bernd Leno, Ramsdale would not be guaranteed number 1
Everton – Have Jordan Pickford, Ramsdale would not be guaranteed number 1

Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford, Nottingham Forest and the 3 promoted teams would have been the only sides where Ramsdale would have turned up and been number one. But many of those ruled Ramsdale at as they did not see him as a £20m upgrade on their current keepers.

So we end up in a situation where Ramsdale wants out, Southampton are the only club in for him, and we want to do what is best for the player. In the end we all agreed that £18m was the right deal.

Remember, Ramsdale is a keeper

Earlier in the summer, many fans, myself included, had Ramsdale’s pricetag down as £40m. I get why we all did. But realistically we were never going to get that.

Very rarely does £40m+ get spent on a goalkeeper. Infact, it has only happened XX times:

Kepa Arrizabalaga – £71.6m
Alisson Becker – £56m
Andre Onana – £43.8m

£40m would have made Ramsdale the 4th most expensive goalkeeper of all time. So we expected a mid-lower league team to sign the 4th most expensive keeper ever. These teams spend £40m on an attacker. They won’t spend it on a keeper.

At £18m, Ramsdale is the 5th most expensive keeper signing globally this summer behind David Raya, Giorgi Mamardashvili, Filip Jørgensen and Odysseas Vlachodimos. They joined Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Newcastle respectively, highlighting only those with money spend big on keepers.

Some might say “why didn’t Newcastle buy Ramsdale instead of Vlachodimos”. The Greek keeper has joined them as 2nd choice, and there is some PSR fraud involved in the deal.

Arsenal do the right thing

One thing I respect Mikel Arteta, Edu and Arsenal for right now is letting players leave to further their career.

Our senior management are all ex-footballers, so all know the situation of being at a club and not playing. This gives them the perspective of a player and we have shown over the last couple of years that we care about player welfare and their future.

The easy option would have been to say to Ramsdale “you have 4-years left on your contract, you are staying as 2nd choice” and block his departure unless a bid of £40m came in. But that would have been unfair on the player.

Like with Emile Smith Rowe, Eddie Nketiah and now Ramsdale, the door is open for players to depart who are considered key to Mikel Arteta’s plans. And that in turn makes us more attractive to players.

Not played for a year and wanting out

Ultimately, Ramsdale had lost his place a year ago to David Raya. Some of you will still argue until you are blue in the face that it was the wrong decision. Get over it.

So we had a 2nd choice keeper that has barely played in the year. He is on a decent wage. He wants out, and we do not want to block him from leaving. And there is very little interest in him. All of this would see his transfer fee drop.

I expect some will say “this shows Arteta bombs players values”. What do you want Mikel to do? Play an inferior player so he retains his transfer value despite it potentially costing the team points? It is the same as when fans demand he play youngsters so that they increase in value.

We are a title challenging team. We are not a Chelsea or Brighton who look to develop players to sell for a profit. We look to put out world class players and challenge for honours. Get your head in 2024.

Finally…

£18m is a profit, despite the “net loss” of £6m.

Ramsdale had been at the club for 3-years, meaning 3-years worth of his transfer fee had been amortised. He currently has a book value of £9.6m. So we will show a £14.4m profit in the accounts this year on him.

Add in Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah, and that is £50m of pure profit on player sales this summer. That will go a long way to re-balancing the books (remember we have been a loss operating business for the last half a decade!).

So yes, £18m might be low, but we have still profited on the sale, and done the right thing for Ramsdale. We have add-ons in the deal and a sell-on clause. If he performs well over the next couple of years for Southampton, and pushes for that England number one spot, a big move might be on the cards again. And at that point we make more money!

Enjoy your Friday

Keenos

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I think we all agree that we need one more attacker in the squad.

Emile Smith Rowe and Fabio Vieira have departed, Eddie Nketiah has one foot out of the door (at the time of writing), and Arsenal are reportedly willing to listen to offers for Reiss Nelson. That would see four attackers who mainly played either upfront or on the wig last season depart.

In total, the four played a combined 1,969 minutes of Premier League football last season. That is just a little less than Gabriel Martinelli:

Eddie Nketiah – 1073 Premier League minutes
Emile Smith Rowe – 347
Fabio Vieira – 292
Reiss Nelson – 257

Whilst we are all exited to see Ethan Nwaneri develop this season, it is too early to expect him to play that many minutes. Nwaneri also only covers the wide right position, as well as Martin Odegaard just inside. We can no expect him to be an option upfront.

Where fans disagree is what sort of forward we need.

Whilst some are demanding a “clinical goal scorer” better than Kai Havertz, others recognise that sort of player might not be available on the market and we would therefore be best looking to buy someone better (fitter and cheaper) than Gabriel Jesus.

There is also a school of thought that instead of an out and out forward, we should actually look to buy a new left winger. Someone to improve on Gabriel Martinelli.

Out and out forward, better than Havertz

I have always maintained that there is a lack of goal scorers available on the market that an improvement on Havertz. Once you discount Erling Haaland, Robert Lewandowski and Harry Kane, the cupboard is fairly bare when it comes out and out goal scorers.

Inferior strikers to Havertz have gone for £60m+ this summer. And it is the same 3 names we continually see mentioned:

Victor Osimhen – The fact Osimhen looks Saudi bound tells you everything you need to know about what motivates the Nigerian forward. Clearly a talent but there are 650,000 reasons why he will not come to Arsenal.

Viktor Gyorkes – After a good 18 months for Coventry City in the Championship and a decent first season in Portugal, Sporting slapped a £100m price tag on Gyorkes head. Clearly over inflated. Not really sure he is an upgrade on Havertz. If a deal can be done for half of that, then we might be talking.

Ivan Toney – Big reputation. Big attitude. I have a love / hate relationship with our links to Ivan Toney and it is telling that no-one has gone for him yet. Is it his poor form since the ban? Concerns about his attitude? Or is he pricing himself out of a move with one eye on Saudi oil money? 4 goals in 17 games last season speaks for itself.

Havertz cover and competition

Recent links to forwards of a “lower level” makes me think Mikel Arteta is happy with Havertz, and he is now looking for someone who could be an improvement on Gabriel Jesus as the cover. Jesus also plays a key role in being an option outwid.

Dominic Calvert Lewin – It seems an age ago that were were getting heavily linked with DCL, with Arsenal’s interest going back to January 2022. Since then the England striker has struggled with injury and form, and has played just 67 games in the last 3 seasons, scoring just 14 goals.

Last season it looked like he had gotten over his injuries, playing 2189 of Premier League football. If Arsenal can take advantage of Everton’s financial woes, he could be a good option as an impact sub, and would be a good target man if Havertz picked up an injury. Would not pay more than £30m for him though. You would expect us to sign him and keep Jesus for at least one more year.

Darwin Nunez – Surprise links with the Uruguayan broke earlier this week. How much truth in them is yet to be seen. Whilst a deal is unlikely, Nunez would be a like for like replacement for Jesus, and an upgrade.

The pair share similar strengths and weaknesses, including their ability to play across the front 3. Nunez has less injury concerns and is 2-years younger.

Santiago Gimenez – A favourite of mine. His underlying stats show a player who is playing at a similar level to Gyorkes, but his club are demanding a lot less. A deal for £30m between Feyenoord and Nottingham Forest was agreed, but the deal broke down as Gimenez did not want to join the relegation battlers. At £30m, you could keep both him and Jesus for the season, then move big for a new winger next summer.

Left wingers

The final option is we retain Jesus upfront, and we buy a top, top left winger. Gabriel Martinelli then becomes the second choice on both flanks and also a third choice striker.

This move can be done hand in hand with buying an upgrade on Jesus – with either upgrade Jesus this summer and buy a new left winger next, or we go big for a left winger this and then look for a second choice striker next summer.

Nico Williams – Still at Atletico Bilbao. Still has the release clause. Still at the top of every clubs “want” list. I would sacrifice a new striker for him this summer.

Kingsley Coman – Like Ivan Toney, it feels like Coman is waiting to see what is out there before accepting the Saudi oil money. I have always found Coman a little overhyped – known more for what he has one rather than what he has contributed. Turns 29 at the end of the season and we have seen how pace-merchants can fall off a cliff.

Raphinha – Heavily linked a couple of seasons ago, the Brazilian joined Barcelona for £50m in 2022. with their financial troubles, he could be available for as little as £30m. Although that is offset by £240k a week wages. Would Arsenal want to commit that much in salary? And is he really an upgrade on Martinelli? If the finances work 9maybe a sizeable signing on fee to be offset by the lower transfer fee), this could be one to watch out for.

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Anyone we have missed? Make your case for them in the comments.

Keenos

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