Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

Aaron Ramsey, Sokratis, Caglar Soyuncu and Jack Wilshere

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It all seems to have gone a little quiet at Arsenal – and usually this means some news will probably break today!

It is kind of the pre-World Cup lull.

Maybe fill that time by getting an early bet on for next season? If your looking to back Arsenal make sure look at a Ladbrokes review.

Anyone at the World Cup is currently under lock and key in final preparation training camps before flying out to Russia at some point this week.

It is important final preparation so unlikely that too many countries will allow their players to disappear for a day or so to compete a medical. It is at the stage where agents and hangers on will also be prohibited from contacting players to avoid their concentration being taken elsewhere.

As for players not at the World Cup, they are on a well earned break.

Whether it be relaxing in LA, returning to the country of their birth, on a beach in Barbados, a golf course in the Algarve, or just disappearing off the map, it is the time they can refresh themselves, turn their brains off, spend some time with their family.

On top of that, a lot of the club staff will also be away. A bit of time off before pre-season starts in 3 weeks.

So it will probably be a quiet week in terms of official announcements, but those not away within the club, agents and lawyers, will still be working hard to complete deals as soon as their representative is back.

Rumours are circulating that Aaron Ramsey has agreed his new deal in principle. A new 4 year deal at around £200,000 is what has been mooted.

The delay has always been surrounding his agent, David Baldwin, leaving Base Soccer to set up his own agency.

That now seems complete and last week Aaron Ramsey announced that the new agency was now up and running, with himself as its first client.

The deal to announce Ramsey will probably happen once he is back in the UK after his break.

Sokratis seems to have been plodding on for a while, struggling to get over the line.

Talk now is that it will be done on the 1st July. The reasoning for the delay is that Borussia Dortmund want the transfer to be in their 2018/19 accounts, not 2017/18.

Not sure how true it is, as the source is a writer for Goal.com, who made their name on click bait journalism.

Arsenal could easily announce him today, and the official transfer could not go through until the end of the month. A lot of deals happen like this, especially when a player is signed in April or May for the new season, even though the window is not yet open.

I very much doubt the delay is due to Dortmund holding it up.

It would not actually surprise me if Arsenal are being cheap. By not completing the transfer until June, the club will save themselves a months wages from when the medical was done – about half a million pound.

Arsenal will be in no rush, despite fans wanting to hear news, with the squad not due to report back for pre-season training until the week starting Monday, July 2.

The last name doing the round is Caglar Soyuncu.

The 22-year-old Turkish international, who plays his club football with Freiburg, is the latest name to be linked with a switch for a fee reported to be in the region of £35M.

The player’s agent, Mustafa Dogru, has told Turkish Football that talks are ongoing between club and player.

“(Sven) Mislintat has been keen on Caglar since he was at Borussia Dortmund. He first scouted him back in Germany. Sven is interested in Caglar, there are concrete talks, all that remains if for a fee to be agreed. We will see what happens next,” he said.

This feels more like the agent fabricating a story in the hope it generates interest in his client.

With Soyuncu’s Turkey not at the World Cup, I imagine he is on a beach in Kusdasi, near his home town of Izmir, whilst any sort of talks are happening in the background.

The last bit of news is Jack Wilshere’s contract.

In the recent released list submitted by the Premier League, Wilshere’s name was missing. Instead he was on the retained list with (offer) against his name; Signifying that there was a contract offer on the table.

Wilshere is unable to officially speak to any English clubs until the end of this month (or is it the beginning, I always forget). That means he is likely to see what other offers come in before he signs a new deal.

This hinders Arsenal’s transfer spending as we will not know whether we need to sign a replacement until he either stays or go’s.

It might feel frustratingly slow at times, but rest assured there is plenty going on and the flood gates of news will open.

Keenos

Tottenham stadium costs continue to spiral

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Electricians on the Spurs stadium site are earning £400 a day as the job approaches its opening deadline.

The Construction Enquirer understands around 500 mechanical and electrical workers are currently on the site on the heavily delayed project.

One industry source said: “They are paying big money at Spurs because everyone knows the job is working to a deadline.

“They are piling people in there and paying top dollar which is having a knock-on effect on other sites around London which are struggling to fill vacancies.”

The current hourly pay rate for a skilled electrician in London working under the JIB agreement is just over £20 an hour or £160 for an average day.

The cost of the project is projected to be £850m, although continuing spiralling costs could see it breach the £1bn.

More than 2,500 workers are currently on the site where construction continues around the clock to get the stadium finished for the new football season.

Spurs are planning to hold the first stadium test events in August and their initial Premier League fixtures away from home with the new 62,000-seater ground ready for September matches.

Keenos

Journalist claims racism led to Arsenal being a “no-go zone”

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I try to stay away from politics and religion in my blogs and on my Twitter. It opens too much of a can of worms that you can not close. It is not worth the time.

However, I am lifting my self imposed ban to discuss an article I read yesterday on the Sunday Times website.

The article is supposed to be aimed at Russia. Questioning whether “England’s ethnically diverse squad and fans be safe from violence and racism”. It would probably be a valid article – although possibly unneeded because we all already l is Russia is a hotbed of racism and shouldn’t be hosting the World Cup.

But an sort of validity is destroyed by “The first ever Sunday Times Apprentice” Shingi Mararike’s first paragraph.

So the self-proclaimed “Arsenal fan” claims that whilst he grew up idolising Thierry Henry, he never once asked to visit Highbury due to it feeling like a “no-go zone.”

Basically he is saying that he never went to Highbury because it was not a place for black fans. And I imagine he would include other ethnic minorities in that as well.

Now before you spit your tea out, let’s paint the picture.

Shingi Mararike, according to his LinkedIn, started college in 2012.

He would have been around 16 when London were hosting the Olympics.

Arsenal were at their swashbuckling best in 2004, the team went unbeaten. A team whose strongest XI contained 7 non-white players and not a single white Englishman:

Lehmann

Lauren Toure Campbell Cole

Ljungberg Vieira Gilberto Pires

Bergkamp Henry

But we are not talking about the players, we are talking about the fans.

In 2004, Shingi, the apprentice journalist, would have been 7 or 8.

So before he had even hit 10 years old, he had made the decision not to go to Highbury due to it being a “no-go zone” for ethnic minorities. And then he uses that experience 14 years later in an attempt to add weight to his article.

This would be a contender for the Didn’t Happen of the Year Awards.

On his online bio, Shingi does not mention football, or any sport, as one of his interested. Instead he mentions “politics and current affairs”.

I imagine at 7 years old, Shingi was not even a Junior Gunner, and had little, if any, interest in going to Highbury to watch The Arsenal.

Had he done so, his “personal experience” of what Highbury was like would be very different:

https://twitter.com/michael56235807/status/1005873259362095106?s=21

https://twitter.com/warrenconey/status/1005910841705881606?s=21

Plenty of Arsenal fans have very different personal experiences of going down Highbury than the journalist in question, who remember, admits he never went to Highbury – yet still attempts to make it appear like it is a racist hell hole.

Now I am not naive enough to believe that racism has never existed over the Arsenal. There will always be idiots. But Arsenal was certainly not a “no-go zone”. And especially not in 2004.

Even going back to the 70s & 80s, when the National Front were using football grounds to recruit new members, Arsenal were one of the few clubs that the racist group failed to break into. Due to actions of the fans.

If you want to get a true view about what it was like around Highbury in the 70s and 80s, and how fans halted the rise of the NF, have a read of the brilliant article on 8by8 Mag about how the NF attempted to make its “presence felt around Highbury” and how Arsenal fans “helped keep the NF off the terraces.”

Normally this sort of thing I would ignore. But here is a journalist attempting to claim in a national newspaper that Highbury was a “no-go zone” if you were not white.

It is rubbish. It is dangerous. It is poor journalism.

Keenos