St Marco

I saw on the news a bunch of 14 year olds breaking into Wimpy and taking a monitor. They are not protesting, they are looting. Back in the day looters used to get shot. Maybe that needs to come back in.

Just saw it on the news, pretty awful **** right there. The thing is you might understand if they were protesting against something like the financial mess, unemployment, the war in Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya, the cost of living going up, the people who are running the country etc But it isn't anything like that. They are just a bunch of kids out there trying to cause trouble. As mentioned above the fact the police are doing nothing is disgraceful. They need to get in there 80s style and beat the **** out of these little ****s. Half of the problem is they know nothing will happen to them. The country has gone too soft.

At the end of the day it is only a good deal if we re-invest it. If we don't then we are a fair bit worse off. I have no doubt that Cortese will put a lot of that into a couple of new signings. I just hope they are brought in before the end of the transfer window. In January prices are badly inflated as clubs become desperate. Plus it means they have more time to settle into the squad. Alex will be a great player no doubt about it. He could go on to be one of the best players of his generation. But however you look at it £15m for a 17 year old who has only ever played in division three is crazy. The pressure on the lad is going to be huge.

Of course Lowe got some good fees for our players, he had a lot of practice!

Which would have to be wrong as it does not break the club record as mentioned in the press release let alone "blow the club record out of the water".

£15m then is a cracking deal for us. The only downside is that now other clubs know we are even more minted then we were before. Which means we have to pay more. Maybe this will be the start of a chain of events where we might have agreed deals for some other players before this deal was completed?

Didn't Darren bent go from Charlton to Spurs for something like £22m?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2023840/Alex-Oxlade-Chamberlain-signs-Arsenal.html?ito=feeds-newsxml They say £12m upfront which could rise to £15m with addons. But it is the daily mail....

Theo for £12m acording to the saints records on the site http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/Records

Also a bit of interesting info from the Arsenal youngsters website http://younggunsblog.co.uk/2011/08/arsenal-agree-oxlade-chamberlain-deal/ Arsenal’s six month persuit of Southampton winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is nearing an end, after the 17-year-old arrived at London Colney for a medical. Oxlade-Chamberlain had already visited Colney earlier in the summer, after Southampton gave him permission to hold talks with Arsène Wenger. However, the two clubs failed to agree a fee, and the player returned to the South Coast. Yet Arsenal re-opened talks over the weekend, and have found common ground with a structured £12 million fee. Oxlade-Chamberlain has already accepted terms on a long-term contract, and the deal is expected to go through before the close of play this evening. More to follow.

"bbcsport_david David Ornstein Arsenal plan to announce Oxlade-Chamberlain signing on official website in next couple of hours. All done and dusted" https://twitter.com/#!/bbcsport_david Thats that then

Oh of course, don't get me wrong i think most of us would prefer Alex to stay. He would do a huge job for us in this league this season. Imagine him in the game against leeds instead of Guly, we could of scored more goals. But the fact is the guy wants to go. He said to the media a few times he wanted to go. His dad wants him to go. For a long long time now all we have heard is about the kid and where he might go. Sometimes that has taken the front seat ahead of the team which is wrong. Everybody knows what he meant when he talks about "The theory" and who it is aimed at. Basically saying one of the guys attributes has now bitten the dust. The reality is if the player wants to leave then what can you do? Put them in the reserves? force them to play? That has the potential to destroy the club morale. All you can do is dig your heels in and try and get the best deal possible. IF the £12m-£15m turns out to be true then we would of shown we were no push overs. In the past someone would of offered maybe £5m and a potential add-on and we would of taken it. Talks would not have lasted as long as they have. By holding out as long as we did in my opinion shows the club made it clear it was on our terms that he will leave and for the amount we want. Which is very different from how we have done business in the past. Mainly because we needed that cash to keep going. IF we get that money and IF it is then put back into the team then think about what it could do. Say we need a striker, a CB and a winger that could possibly be £4m spent on each position. Personally i think we could easily get a replacement for Alex who has his current ability for under £4m.

Your post was a total swipe at the club, trying to hide it with a nice comment after it does not make it any less a swipe.....idiot

This just posted on the Arsenal forum http://arsenal-mania.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=116001&start=660

Pretty sure getting £15m for a 17 year old with one season in division three is quite different from other clubs wouldn't you say? To put that into context that is more then what Shearer moved to Newcastle for (at the time a world record). And he was a proven premier league and international player at that time. To pay that for a guy who has never played in the pl, never played in europe, never played for the national or under 21's team, never played in the championship etc is madness, pure madness. Only you could use it to take a swipe at the club Hypo....

Feck if that is true we really have done well! I bet Cortese was trying hard to keep a straight face when he agreed to that one! If we pump that back into the squad then i think we have a good chance of going up this year.

To be fair i think it has a lot to do with timing. I think that has a lot to do with why they are so ****ed off. In the past Arsenal have done the job on the pitch. When you win things nobody questions your transfers. If Arsenal had won the league last year then i doubt they would care that Wenger has gone for another kid. But they didn't win it. They imploded. If you formed a table based on the last 8 games of last season Arsenal would of been 14th. They now have a tough game against Udinese to get into the Champions league. That could be without Fab and Nasri because if they become cup tied their value drops a lot. If they get knocked out of the CL before it has really started, lose the first 3 games or fail to win any of them then you have to fear for them. Every thing Wenger does now will be in the spotlight like never before. They are going into the 7th year without a cup. This will be the 9th season since Arsenal won the league last. The question i think is will being around that kind of pressure actually help Alex to progress? Everytime he steps onto the pitch for Arsenal the fans will be expecting massive things. They will be expecting the same level as someone like Nasri who they also paid £12m for. And as good as the kid could maybe oneday be he is nowhere near that level. It is when you look at it like that when you realise if we get £10m-£12m for him that we actually have done really well. If he progresses or not will not be our problem anymore. If he doesn't then you would have to blame his dad. Is a quick pay cheque more important to him? Based on his comments and that of Alex you would have to say yes it is.

Reading the Arsenal forum i did not realise the level of pressure on Wenger right now. A lot of really angry fans! The thing is it could actually get a lot worse before it get's better. Fab off, Nasri off and then they start the season with Newcastle away, Liverpool at home and then Man Utd away. If they get off to a poor start i think the pressure will become too much and Wenger could walk. Signing a 17 year old kid for £12m who has never played above the third division is a huge gamble. It is a lot of money. It is understandable why their fans are angry about it. If we did something similar (although on a lot smaller scale) we would all be angry too! It would be like Adkins spending £4m on a player from league two who would then go into our reserves/under 18s squad. You would much rather he spent that on someone who could do a job for us this season.

If true then i think it shows where him and his dads loyalties lie, with the pay cheque. Which you can't really blame him as that is how football is today. I am sure most of us would do the same thing. But what gripes me is that 12 months ago he was a nobody. The club took a huge gamble putting him in the team ahead of Puncheon who was in the L1 team of the year the previous season. That was the start of the whole Puncheon crying saga. Which still has not been resolved. The club showed a lot of faith and respect in him and that has not been returned by him or his family. He has had one season in the third division and now he is ready to play at the top level in the premier league? I think not. He will sit on the bench and maybe get a few lat 5mins here and there. I hope Cortese sticks to his guns and does not sell him on the cheap i.e £5m now and £5m in 5 years time etc. That does not help us at all. The deal needs to be done from what is best for us not what is best for Alex or Wenger. £7m up front and the rest when either Fab or Nasri go (i.e at the end of the month) would be a good deal. I would also insist for the first year he cannot be loaned out to a championship side. If we then put that cash into getting a fast pacey striker, a replacement winger and a Fonte level CB then i would be pretty happy. Saturday showed we do not rely on AOC. We can get by without him. If losing him gives us a better chance of promotion by re-investing in players to make our weakest areas stronger then i am all for it.

Think it is a good chance to see how the other guys do. Bart Butters Seaborne Saville/Stephens Dickson De Ridder Dean Morgan Holmes Barnard Doble

The thing i like about Cortese (other then getting the football side right) is that he strikes me as a guy who will try and break the mould and isn't afraid to try new ideas. Sure some of them will go a bit pear shaped and we have already seen him go back on a few mistakes i.e the photo's thing. But at the heart of it he isn't trying to be this ego maniac that a couple on here would like you to believe. He is actually trying to create new revenues of cash for the club. Naturally some of those affect us and some won't be happy about it. But when that rule comes in of only spending what you make, then i imagine we will see lot's of new ways that clubs try and make money. Love or hate Cortese he has got the football side to the business right. We have progressed from the very first day he came in. "IF" we get back to the prem league you know it will be very different from when we were last there. I don't think we would have that air of being underdogs who bend over and get shafted by the other clubs. That has a lot to do with Cortese and his way of doing business. It is a way that won't see him being taken advantage of. Which benefits us all. Some seem to love comparing him to Lowe or to the way people would react if Lowe did something. The difference is Lowe made a lot of mistakes that ultimatly took us to the third tier. Sure we had some good times but that would be expected over a long period of time. Even Birmingham won a cup, now look at them. In the end Lowe got neither of the football side or business side right. His idea of getting the business side right was to sell off your best players to survive. The problem with that method is that you run the risk of eventually having nothing left to sell, and when that happens your only go one way. Down. Cortese makes mistakes, but when you look at it they are mistakes that have not affected the club or business. I am sure most teams and fans would love to be in our position and rightly so. It just seems to me that some people are so used to complaining about Saints that they can't enjoy the good times. Like the guy saying he didn't go because of Cortese (not that i believe him at all), you missed out on a really good day. One that saw us break our first game of the season jinx and saw us break our most games won in a row record. The only person to lose out was yourself.

Can't be bothered to go through all the points but will mention the one about players supposedly turning us down etc Oliver Gill (19 year old) turned down signing for Man Utd http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2016555/Oliver-Gill-turns-Manchester-United-university.html Shows that happens at every club even the champions and has nothing to do with the chairman. Didn't the same people using this stick say the same about Cork when rumours were around saying he rejected us? I think if anything this is what annoys me most about the negative guys, they take rumour and try and use it as fact.

Hard to compare a chairman that has milked a club for everything it is worth and taken it from the top league spiraling down into the abyss with a guy that helped turn a dead club into a promotion chasing team, eventually winning a trophy and getting promoted in just 2 years. While this season bringing in quality like Cork and holding onto are stars etc. Only a person with an agenda could try and compare the two... Being honest here i seriously couldn't care less. He can print his photo on the tickets and i still wouldn't care. As long as we progress on the field then he can do what he wants. If we go down 2 leagues and flog off our silverware then maybe we can compare. But right now who seriously gives a ****? I remember going to see Middlesborough once when i was at uni and saw a programme with that Gibson fella on there. Don't think they had an issue with it.

Stadium Arcadium by the Red hot chilli Peppers. Coming off the back of Californication and By the Way i was expecting something amazing. Maybe they will get back to form with their new album out this month!