OhForAGreavsie

Me for one.

Inevitable. The economics of such a development was certain, on its own, to overwhelm any plans involving a football stadium. Throw in the political pressures at national, regional, plus local levels, and a football stadium was never, ever, going to win the argument.

On last night's showing Arsenal are significantly better than Barcelona.

Yildiz, Rogers, and Wharton works for me although the club's bank manager might not agree. 🙂

Would have been a fantastic stat if Reggie had scored to break the record for a third time on the night.

Wrong comment quoted.

Rogers remains my preferred alternative to Enzo. If affordable, a move for Wharton as well would still be possible.

I've never been a believer.

I like that expression. 🙂 Who else makes the list?

And who would blame them? Our expenditure on alternatives since missing out on Olise has been a lot more than that.

And people complain that the WSL is a one team league. (Chelsea) Every once in a while a Dortmund or a Leverkausen come along to offer some camouflage but, in the end, the point of the Bundesliga is who's going to finish second.

All sides evolve but if there is one thing all of us here will agree on it's that it'll be a while before the club can build any hopes around Romeo's ability to stay fit. Meanwhile, all players have to earn their place in the squad, including Enzo. Whether we can afford, and can attract, an upgrade to our No. 8 are answers that we don't know but, if I was involved in the decision making, they are questions I'd definitely be asking.

I'm guessing there were a cocktail of reasons for the club's decision. Among them might have been; bearing our track record in mind wanting to avoid the risk of extremely heavy punishments if these payments were to come to light, wanting to establish a new relationship with governing bodies, perhaps the purchase agreement included an agreement that sanctions relating to historical misdeeds could be charged against the reported two billion fund held for contingencies and management wanted to clear all liabilities while that fund is available, a desire to clean up our reputation, and other guesses too.

This is an important consideration. Not only was it possible to hide these payments from authorities at the time, they were not even discovered when the club came under heightened scrutiny because Russian owned assets were sanctioned. It's clear therefore that such payments can be hidden relatively easily. This means there is no way to be sure that other clubs have not engaged in the same activity. Indeed, given the competitive nature of the football industry and the insatiable greed of agents, I'm guessing that many, many, clubs are guilty too. If authorities can't find these payments, but are determined to stop them, it would be counterproductive to impose heavy sporting penalties. Doing that would only make clubs all the more determined to keep their mouths shut about their own regulatory breaches. There must be penalties but I'm guessing that these are much more likely to be financial than they are to be sporting.

I don't think we 'turned our nose up'. Reading the runes, it seems to me that Marc has told the club he does not wish to return.