sadoldgit

The Daily Mail has us in with a late bid for Real's Asier Illarramendi. Not sure if we need another defensive midfielder?

Which makes me wonder where the story that we would sign Vlaar came from. Isnt he 30?

I don't mind people making money out of their talents and endeavours, but so much before the lad has even paid his dues is a nonsense.

Not to be sniffed at!

Please excuse the pun, but someone needs to bite the bullet, and that someone is the President of the United States. What a great legacy it would be for Obama's last term if he was to advance the debate and put tighter gun control firmly on the agenda. Does he have the b@lls to grasp the nettle? Sadly, probably not.

Agreed he played a lot at the start of the season when there were a number of injuries but was used less towards the end of the season and Arsenal's form improved. I watched him several times last season and thought he was very poor - both at CH and RB. True he is still young and he may well improve but I think his career has gone backwards since he went to Arsenal.

You can see them doing a comeback tour with that fella who left a while back and racking it in. Sad state of affairs.

That is the issue Whitey. It is not the transfer fee, it is how much you are prepared to pay in wages.

Perhaps we should employ a hot physio like Chelsea?

Fine. But unless he improves on his current form he will find himself being Yoshida in the pecking order.

Perhaps they did and perhaps the lure of a big club now was too much for him?

Of all of the players that left last year Chambers' mover was the one that shocked me the most. Didn't see it coming at all. At the time I was gutted as we were losing one of our young rising stars. From what I have seen of him since I think it was a very shrewd move by the club and I wouldn't want him back again. £16m was a steal. I think he has made a very poor career move that may have looked good short term, but long term could well have screwed his career.

Unfortunately it is a double edged sword - the better we do the more likely our players will be poached by bigger clubs. Wages is clearly an issue too. I doubt if we pay more than £60k to our top players and that is nowhere near what quality players can earn elsewhere. Once upon a time a player might accept a smaller salary if he bought into the club's vision for success. I really don't think that happens now. It is a nice problem to have though. I am sure we all remember how dreadful it was when we were struggling in the Championship. I'd rather have the problem of trying to keep players beyond their contract than have a squad of players who no on else wants.

You are right Billy. Football sold it soul a while back now and as the amounts of money grow, so does the greed element. Like F1 is has just become a circus now. Trouble is once the genie is out of the bottle you cant put it back again. I cant see things ever getting any better.

He looked poor at RB for Arsenal last season. He seemed to spend most of his time pulling players shirts and getting booked. Arsenal looked much better at the back when Wenger finally dropped him.

That is an Alpine sized assumption you have leapt to there. If players refuse to sign a new contract of course they will be sold at some point. If they want to be sold to decent clubs it is their interest to play and to play well, as Morgan did last season. Vic and Sadio will be off at some point in the future. In the meantime there is no reason to suppose that they will not do their best for the club who pays their wages.

Awesome.

Very sad news......apparently it is only for one year!

quality

archers

Lots of waling and gnashing of teeth over the loss of Cork but Puncheon was a loss too. I appreciate that he probably was a pain in the @rse to manage but has settled in well at Palace.

So long as he doesn't sign up for this forum we should be ok.

I am not going to say that the start of the season hasn't been a tad disappointing, but to pretend that we were brilliant all of last season is very far from the truth. We had some poor games then too. Lets wait until Bertrand, Clasie and our new CH join the team and see what happens then.

Do they have similar transfer windows?