Mattoon

Today football won

No but you need to be to enjoy Arsenals brand of football

This was always the plan, go ahead and spoil the game, diving, pulling, keeping the ball out of play, disrupt PSG's game in any way possible, slow everything down, make it as niggly and bitty as possible

I was so ready to try and blag my way through this one, but alas, it was merely an educated guess as an ideal replacement for Gordon and there have been a few reports we are interested

I think we'll move quick to bring in Abde first, we're clearly keen and with Villa and Spuds sniffing round we'll want to get it done quickly if we're going to stand a chance.

Club and player, Mitchell burned bridges and the makeshift transfer team had no experience, I don't imagine selling a player to a team who wants that player and who wants to go to said team is very tasking, no, however extracting the deal that we did from a team who knew that the player was desperate to join them was good negotiation by Wilson. I do agree that bringing players in will be the real test of his mettle, but I also think if we're targeting the players we are rumoured to be then it should be just as easy to bring them in as it was to sell Gordon.

This is the only thing that matters to most players, we lost out last summer because Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool can all pay double what we can.

I mean specifically saying "the club expected to lose 17 games last season?" is a little bit on the prick side, yeah. But if you read the Athletic piece then yes, the club expected last season to be a real struggle and knew they were putting Howe in the firing line.

Surely by the same logic then buying players is easy if you have a willing seller and a player who would jump at the move?

This same transfer team that has had more hits than misses, last summer was horrific because it happened at a time we could actually finally spend, but without someone of Wilson's ilk it became an unorganised mess of panic buying and although his role doesn't change who we try and buy, it makes a huge difference in how we try and buy. Judge this current set up on what it has done to now with leadership and direction and not just on what it did last, rudderless.

Football only wins today if the team that plays it does, I'm hoping for an absolute rear ending but Arsenal, for all their turgid "football" are actually really good at defending so I think we'll see a cagey game.

It's mental the recency bias people latch on to, one poor transfer window under extreme circumstances, both in personnel and player issues followed by a completely predictably bad season, even the club thoroughly expected it, and all of a sudden Howe is worse than Bruce and the transfer team consists of Mo, Larry and Curly. Trauma junkies.

I do think there has been shades of Isak here, the only difference is how the club have handled it. Gordon has clearly wanted out for a while, probably going back to the Liverpool interest, but in his defence he did get his head down for a while afterwards. Having said that, whether it was his decision or Howe's that he sat out the last month is immaterial, we've seen out the season without one of our best players because he wanted off. The only difference is we haven't tried to keep hold of a disgruntled player this time and chosen to extract maximum value as early as possible, the club have clearly learned from the Isak saga and thats a positive. People are just taking it easier because Gordon didn't publicly kick up a fuss and has gone abroad.

It will definitely take a bid North of £80m to get us at the table, we're not active sellers with Tonali but he does seem to have one foot out the door. Manchester United seem to have an eye on him so I don't think £100m is unreasonable.

Dan Burn scored the winner, thats how I remember it

See this is exactly what ai was made for, perfect execution

Not sure he'll get you the first but hes likely to win the penalty that gets your first goal of a game.

Other than his shop window performances in the CL last season he hasn't been a £78m+ player for us for a couple of seasons so yes, it is a good deal. Now let's get to rebuilding Eddie's team with the proceeds.

Great player on his day, however his days have become few and far between recently, if he was consistent he would be unreal. This transfer doesn't make sense to the eye test but there's obviously a playerr in there and I have no doubt he'll be tearing up trees next season, but for how long? Time will tell I guess. He never really did fully buy in to NUFC but he played an important part in our recent history and I'm thankful for that. But I'm also thankful hes helping fund our rebuild and I wish him well. Losing our top scorer again is a risky move but so long as we spend it wisely I'm happy.

This is the crux of the argument really, a club should be allowed to spend within its means, however that means is supplied, not through arbitrary rules. Thats not to say I want to see carte blanche spending, but at least a level playing field, if it can be afforded.

Boehly can go suck a fart

Yeah fair play, they had a great season and they bettered us over every conceivable metric domestically, they are where they are through sheer bloody-mindedness, intensity and concentration. Having said that, all of those things will take a hammering playing every 3 days next season, so they will have to evolve to cope, something we have failed to do so far.

Whether they see us as a vanity project or not, pumping in millions and having us compete on the big stage would make us a much more lucrative investment.

The nanosecond our owners buy a second club there will be a red cartel premier league meeting to ban transfers between multi-clubs or have their "FMV" price on the books.