I will concede (and this really hurts) that the Barclays PL is a bigger, global league, but Celtic are – in many ways – a bigger club. Still, I wish Tierney and Arsenal well. Once a Bhoy, always a Bhoy.
Celtic are as big a club globally as Arsenal no doubt about that. Three quarters of my family came over to London from Ireland after the second world war and settled in Kilburn and Holloway and amongst my older male relatives there was always a love of two football teams Arsenal and Celtic.
When I say Kieran Tierney would have a better chance of achieving his full potential at Arsenal I meant better than if he went to another club in England like Manchester City or Chelsea and only because of the way Arsenal are set up financially at this time because to compete with the other top clubs who have bigger budgets Arsenal have to find and nurture the best young players from across the world and Kieran Tierney is most definetly one of those. That isn’t to say Celtic wouldn’t nurture him too but even if he stayed there another season or two he would still end up leaving.
I wish you all the luck and continued success for the coming season and will be cheering you on both at home and in Europe.
I can’t argue with a single word of that, Bob.
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Saw the goals on Sky. Your early comments about sorting out the Gunners’ defence are right on the money, @Bobthebuilder. Even if the second looked offside, the gaps between the back four looked alarming.
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Nothing new there MDS but I have a feeling that there will be more signings to come before opening day.
Only Arsenal supporters could boo one of their own players coming on in a pre season friendly. Though Mustafi or Mistakey as he’s known around the Emirates was not great last season he certainly wasn’t the worst and booing him will do nothing for his confidence or too improve him as a player.
1st half score Barcelona 0 - 1 Arsenal
Ended up 2-1 to Barca and showed Arsenal great going forward but rubbish at the back.
Hmmmmm…
Bob, Tierney!
Yes Chris’_M according to the sports press Arsenal have agreed terms with Celtic and will announce the signing of Keiran Tierney tommorow but unfortunately he is still recovering from a double hernia and wont be fit until late September just in time to line up with Hector Bellerin on the opposite flank.
Now all we need is a centre back or two…
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Young Charlie Gilmour a local lad from Hove was released by Arsenal and has signed a two year contract with newly promoted Norwich City. I know Charlie and Hopefully it will mean a new stage in his career because though he had made his first team debut in the Europa League last year he was not promoted from the U23’s to the first team squad.
His stats and performances in the Premier League 2 where so good last year that he was named in 100 boy shortlist for the Europe wide Golden Boy award one of only 16 British born players to be nominated alongside the likes of Manchester City’s Phil Fodden and Chelsea’s Callum Hudson-Odoi, Arsenal’s Eddie Nketia and Joe Willock and from the rest of Europe De Ligt from Ajax and Guendouzi from Arsenal. Though he didn’t make it to the final 80 it’s still a fantastic endorsement and it seems Arsenal’s loss will Norwich City’s gain I spoke to Charlie and he is very excited for the coming season so fingers crossed he can break into the first team this season.
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The shock news this morning is that Arsenal are signing the 32 year old David Luiz from Chelsea this is because deals for up and coming youngsters Dayot Upamemcano and Daniele Rugani couldn’t be agreed due in part to the huge fee Man United paid for Harry Maguire. As a stop gap if it happens David Luiz is a far better partner for Sokratis in central defence than anyone we have save possibly Rob Holding who is still long term injured. His experience if he does come is a real bonus and every Arsenal supporter will say he is an upgrade over the error prone Mustafi.
Minimal interest in the EPL as long as it remains non-contact ballet killing grass roots football and bizarrely refereed by people employed by… the EPL. VAR being introduced long before it’s ready and new rules largely designed to cause more controversy than resolve issues. Sigh.
Meanwhile, back in the real world. Bolton on trouble. Bury about to be kicked out and the failed ownership model persists.
Good to see Halifax top the NL and it looks like my team are going to spend the season managing between a defensive minded team coach and a manager who knows what we fans want but tactically is clueless. The result 2 games in appears to be that the unchanged meanest defence in Europe is going to be hideously exposed but we’re going to be treated to lots of open games. Promotion? I very much doubt it but it’s going to be a very Wrexham season. Lots of drama; stupid goals conceded and far more entertainment than we’ve been used to.
Mike you crack me up. I’m not one for emojis but in this instance. 
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Well here in the world of non contact ballet dancing far, far from grass roots football played by real men in hob nail boots with footballs made from actual pig bladders filled with concrete we’re looking forward to the start of the season.
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Personally hoping for Leicester to repeat the never to be repeated title win from the other year and am quite tempted to bung a ton on while they’re still at 250-1, instead of adding to the wine cellar this month.
At this idealistic stage of the season where no-one’s had a nightmare start nor has anyone got out of the traps at breakneck speed, it looks like another fight between Liverpool & Man C, then a bit of argy-bargy for the next 5 spots.
Logically, it’s likely to be
Man C
Liverpool
Chelsea
Spurs / Arsenal
Arsenal / Spurs [interchangeable most years]
MU
then perm any 7 from 12 for the next few spots.
In my dreams:
Leicester
Leicester Reserves
Leicester U21s
Hinckley Athletic [even tho they merged with Town becoming United a few years ago]
Liverpool
Arsenal
Wolves
Palace
And everybody else relegated, esp Spurs. Bring it on.
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So we signed Gabriel Martinelli, William Saliba (loaned back to St Ettiene), Daniel Ceballos (on loan), Nicolas Pepe, Kieran Tierney & David Luiz.
I have to say after the embarassing collapse at the end of last season I’m feeling quite positive that we can mount a challange for and achieve a top four spot. That has to be a realistic challenge for us this season I’m really glad to see the club backing Unai Emery financially and with him have a long term plan for Arsenal FC.
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I very much hope that Bury and Bolton pull through. I can empathise with the stress and worry that their fans must be going through.
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You were doing well right up to
My point was of course a serious one. There isn’t even a resemblance between what takes place in the Championship and the EFL nowadays. The former has actual defenders defending for example whereas the heavy scoring and defeats in the latter stages of the Champions League illustrates, as Jonathan Wilson has suggested, that defenders no longer really exist at the elite level. Thus Spanish, French and other teams can wholly dominate their domestic leagues but get battered internationally for that exact reason. Thus why Liverpool won the thing. Being the only team with 2 genuine central defenders.
The selfishness of the EPL combined with fake austerity driving the local disposal of capital assets such as parkland has reduced grass roots football to a shadow of its former glory and having watched non-league football along with many other matches for a decade now I wholly disagree with the idea that improvement is being driven downwards i.e. that the lower leagues are improving in quality. Far from it. Money is now pouring into certain clubs at the top of leagues 1 and 2 meaning only a small elite are really competing each season and the standard of the rest gets ever lower. The closing of the gap between league 2 and the national league is wholly about league 2 getting poorer.
No-one ever really addresses the refereeing point. The EPL is the only elite league in the world where the referees organisation is funded and run by the league itself. This allows the EPL to put the emphasis on entertainment and the protection of entertainers and produces zero accountability. Fans concerns about the bias of certain refs and their poor quality is very real. In the meantime, the refs below EPL level are starved of funding and proper training and you have the bizarrely unedifying and wholly illogical sight of refs who have a poor month in the EPL being demoted to ref in other divisions as a punishment. Well thanks a lot.
What that’s actually revealed is actually how good those refs are and how impossible the task of refereeing the speed ballet of the EPL is. I watched Uriah Rennie slaughtered for a month in the EPL and demoted to the national league where he put in the most perfect refereeing performance I’ve ever seen in contrast to our normal standard of “you ate all the pies” officialdom.
I deliberately contribute to this thread to provide this contrast as it strikes me that EPL fans, so concerned about what’s going on in the rest of the world, are wholly unconcerned at the impact of their elite league on sport for their kids or the fact that many of the clubs they now support are little more than sports washing operations.
In recent seasons I’ve enjoyed watching Leicester, Brighton, Newcastle and Liverpool as there’s still some sort of genuine link with the fans there and in the case of Liverpool I simply think they’re the only team left in the elite playing anything that most fans of something other than the EPL would recognise as football. You know. The stuff we played at school; in the park or in five a side halls. However, even then I’m not stupid. Those clubs are as much about business as anything else.
The only genuinely competitive league in Britain is now the national league. The rest of you are debating how your top 2 clubs will do or whether you will break into the top 4. The poverty of aspirating in that sense is breathtaking. You accept you can’t win the title so your aspiration is to get into a European competition which in most cases will impact your domestic season (see Spurs and the knockout stage v their subsequent EPL record) just so you can get more money. Ought that to be your real aspiration as a fan or have you just totally bought into the money driven mindset of your owners?
I promise I’ll try and avoid bringing this up again all season and will stay on topic but the EPL has done major harm to many aspects of British football and is essentially a large money laundering, reputation fixing machine. Let’s at least acknowledge it occasionally.
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i paper has my Saints finishing 12th this season…
We will see.
(They predict Man City as champions, Liverpool 2nd).