Tag Archives: Arsenal

David Luiz and Willian audition for Brazilian Eastenders

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Well what a busy start to the week we have had over at The Arsenal.

On Monday, the news broke fairly late in the day that the deal taking Henrik Mihitaryan to Roma was finally confirmed.

This got us thinking about COVID19 clauses in contracts and if it was a part of the agreement between Arsenal and Lille that Gabriel would have to undergo testing and quarantine prior to the transfer being completed.

On Tuesday our suspicions were confirmed as Arsenal announced the signing of Gabriel on a cute little Zoom call alongside David Luiz and Willian. This was a day after Gabriel had been at the training ground to join the squad in the bi-weekly club COVID19 test.

The announcement was quite a novel way to announce a player.

A live call between David Luiz and Willian on YouTube. They had a little chat about Willian, and then went on to discussing Gabriel. A decision was then made to call him and there he was, in his Arsenal training gear.

Luiz and Willian certainly have a post playing career in Brazilian EastEnders, playing hairy, South American Mitchell brothers.

And I guess that would make Gabriel Billy Mitchell?

On the video call, David Luiz’s importance to Mikel Arteta came across.

He is now in the role of “Father of the Squad” as one of the oldest and most experienced. It will be his job to help the young players such as Gabriel and William Saliba settle. It is a role he seems to have fitted into nicely.

Prior to the Gabriel announcement was the news that Ken Friar is to step down from the board to become Arsenal’s Life President.

Ken Friar is a lifelong Arsenal employee, whose story is immortalised on the North Bridge:

One day in 1945, a young Ken Friar was playing football with friends in front of Arsenal Football Club’s Highbury Stadium.

A miskick saw the ball disappear underneath a parked car. As Ken Friar hesitantly went to retrieve the ball, the car’s owner appeared from the famous Highbury marble halls, it was none other than the manager of Arsenal, George Allison.

Allison was impressed with young Friar’s enthusiasm and told him to make himself useful by reporting to his office the next day, whereupon the 12 year-old was offered a job as a messenger at the stadium on matchdays.

From that day on, Mr Friar became a loyal servant to Arsenal Football Club.

in 1950, Mr Friar started working full-time in the matchday ticket office. Through years of hard work and dedication, he was the club Secretary, Managing Director, and also a leader in Arsenal’s move from Highbury to the new stadium.

At the forefront in driving Arsenal Football Club to success for over 60 years.

For that lifetime of dedication, we thank you Mr Friar.

It was sad to see some “fans” abusing Mr Friar in the Tweet announcing his retirement. So called Arsenal fans have also taken to abuse the clubs social media manager for the Gabriel announcement being “delayed”. in the past we have also seen “fans” abuse club photographers, club legends and more recently, the daughter of Geordie Armstrong.

These people are not fans. They are hangers on. They are something nasty you step in occasionally. For some reason they associate themselves with Arsenal and their behaviour is disgusting.

The majority of these fans seem to be Tweeting from abroad. None of them have ever been to a game.

All true Arsenal fans will know and thank Ken Friar OBE for his work for the club over the last 75 years. They will understand those working for the club are just employees and do not deserve abuse. It is vile, and these people need to look at themselves.

Following the Gabriel announcement came some news about an outgoing. Not Sokratis to Napoli but Hector Bellerin to PSG.

It was interesting to watch it unfold on Twitter.

One Journalist broke the news, and then the likes of David Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano jumped on it as if they were breaking it, to keep up the pretence that they actually know what is happening at The Arsenal.

I will probably dedicate more time to discussing Bellerin later in the week.

He has been a fantastic servant to the club for nearly 10 years, and worn the shirt with honour and dignity. If he and the club decide it is time for Bellerin to start a new journey, then so be it.

Enjoy your Thursday.

Keenos

Arsenal announce COVID19 season ticket procedure

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Arsenal season ticket holders will soon receive Emails from the club detailing ticketing for the 2020/21 season.

The club have already updated the Terms and Conditions on the website.

From this we can get an early insight into what Arsenal are planning for the forthcoming season for “general admission”:

    • For any Reduced Capacity Match during the 2020/21 Season, Home Match Tickets will be issued by Ballot

    • In order to be eligible to enter the Ballots, you must have been a Gold Member for the 2019/20 season
      • The club might open a Ballot to other tiers of Membership depending on Gold Member take up
    • To enter the Ballot, fans must make an “initial payment” to the club to the sum of equivalent to the rebate you received into your Ticket Exchange and Transfer account for 2019/20
      • This initial payment will act as partial pre-payment towards the cost of a Season Ticket
      • Payment will be made “game by game” with the initial payment only used against the cost of a season ticket when full capacity returns
      • You may enter the Ballot in groups of up to 4 people
    • In the event that you are allocated a Home Mach Ticket through a Ballot, the Club shall take payment for the price of the relevant Home Match Ticket by using the payment card details that you provided to the Club
    • The club are unable to guarantee your usual seat, but will attempt to seat you as close as possible
    • Before any Home Match Ticket will be issued to you, you will be required to confirm that you will agree to comply with and adhere to any COVID-19-related guidance
    • You will be required to provide the name of who is using the ticket on a “ticket by ticket basis” when purchasing. This name must match who uses the ticket on game-day
    • Home Match Tickets for a Reduced Capacity Match are not refundable
    • Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no Home Match Tickets will be permitted to be sold or exchanged through the “Ticket Exchange Service”
    • If you decide not to enter your season ticket into the Ballot, you will still be eligible to renew your ticket for 2021/22
    • If you log onto the Arsenal website, you will now have an option to renew your season ticket. Initial payments are from £210.14

More details will follow once the Emails have been sent out

Keenos

Arsenal need to sell 2 for every 1 player they sign

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At the time of writing (Tuesday morning!) Arsenal have 30 players listed on Arsenal.com as senior players. And this is before the incoming Dani Ceballos and Gabriel. Both of which will be confirmed over the next 7 days (unless already done so by the time this is published).

Ceballos and Gabriel joining the club will take it to 32 senior players.

Regardless of Premier League squad rules, 32 senior players is too many.

But then when you take into account Premier League rules:

  • Each squad contains no more than 17 players who do not fulfil the “Home Grown Player” (HGP) criteria.
  • The rest of the squad, up to a total of 25 players, must be “Home Grown”.
  • Each club squad list is below as well as an additional list of each club’s registered Under-21 players who are eligible over and above the squad limit of 25 players.
  • A “Home-Grown Player” means a player who, irrespective of nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to The Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons, or 36 months, before his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21).
  • For the 2020/21 campaign Under-21 players will have been born on or after 1 January 1999.

A lot of people often get the rules wrong, thinking that you have to name a minimum of 8 home grown players. You do not. You could just name 17 non-home grown players and fill the rest of your squad with U21s.

So when looking at the Arsenal squad for 2020/21, we need to take into account:

  • Who was born on or after 1 January 1999 – these players do not need to be registered
  • Who does not fulfil the HGP criteria

This is what the squad currently looks like:

So before Gabriel or Ceballos is confirmed, we have:

  • 16 non-home grown players
  • 6 home grown players
  • 8 U21 players

This means that under PL rules, we would be fine submitting the squad “as is”. Although this does not remove the issue that 30 senior players is about 5 too many.

But then you add Gabriel & Ceballos to the squad. Both of whom would be registered as non-home grown. That takes Arsenal to 18. 1 too many (and 32 first team squad members).

Straight off the bat, Arsenal would have to sell (or loan out) 1 senior player.

But that only brings the non-home grown element of the squad down to 17 – the maximum we are allowed.

Now we would still be able to buy 2 home grown players without needing to sell – but this would further increase our squad size to 34. We have also not been linked with any home grown players.

So we need to start seeing departures to offset those coming in.

Just to accommodate both Gabriel & Ceballos, we need to sell one. Then if we added Thomas Partey, Houssem Aouar or Coutinho, we would basically need to sell “like for like”. With Lucas Torreira, Mohamed Elneny or Mesut Ozil leaving to make space.

Remember, Matteo Guendouzi is U21, so selling him will not free up a squad place.

We could not go and sign Thomas Partey and Houssem Aouar and sell Lucas Torreira and Guendouzi to make space. We would have to shift someone other than Guendouzi.

So for non-home grown purchases, if we sign Gabriel, Ceballos and 2 more, we would have to sell (or loan) 3 non-home grown players to stay within the rules (or as someone pointed out, we could just not register Mesut Ozil!).

There are obvious suspects: Sokratis, Sead Kolasinac, Lucas Torreira, Mohamed Elneny.

But selling “like for like” would still leave Arsenal with close to 30 first team players. At most we need 25/26.

So on top of the 4 we would sell to make space for the 4 we would buy, we would need to sell at least another 4 to bring us down to a first team squad of 26.

Now before some smart arse says “you can only have a squad of 25”, remember, U21 do not need to be registered.

So looking at the squad, Arsenal will need to sell or loan out at least 8 players if they wish to make 4 purchases. This ensures they stay within Premier League squad rules and reduce the bloated squad.

  • Sokratis
  • Lucas Torreira
  • Mohamed Elneny
  • Matteo Guendouzi
  • Mesut Ozil
  • Alexandre Lacazette
  • Rob Holding
  • Calum Chambers

That 8 names on the lsit are fairly clear and obvious, with only Shkodran Mustafi perhaps being sold ahead, or as well as, Chambers and Holding.

That would take us down to just 4 home-grown players. But this is not an issue as you are not required to name 8 home-grown players.

Arsenal would also be watchful on 2021/22 when the likes of Joe Willock, Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nketiah have to be registered as will no longer be U21.

So expect 8 sales (or loans) to occur before the transfer window shuts on 5th October, as old players make way for new.

Keenos