Arsenal

zanela said:

What d'ya think? Nah, that's not my tushie. But that's my attire come june.

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Well were gonna need to see it at some point, you can't remain mysterious forever

I shall be wearing a Brazilian Silva shirt.

Because i am #Team Silva for the WC

Ode to Django said:

Well were gonna need to see it at some point, you can't remain mysterious forever

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The mystery has already been uncovered on the MC thread, long time ago. Seems like you were not in attendance.

I was probably a young whippersnapper back then.

I put this in the Arsenal thread on purpose


Luis Suarez HAD £40m release clause but Liverpool just refused to sell to Arsenal, claims John W. Henry


Liverpool owner John W. Henry has sensationally claimed that Luis Suarez did have a £40million release clause in his contract last summer, but the club simply refused to sell to Arsenal anyway.


The Gunners made their infamous £40m plus £1 bid after being tipped off that the Reds would be forced to accept all offers over £40m for Suarez, but Henry held firm.


Arsenal, and Suarez’s agent, Pere Guardiola, eventually accepted that there had been confusion over what the clause entitled them to – with Liverpool insisting that they just needed to inform the player of all offers over £40m.


But Henry has now seemingly admitted that the Reds simply refused to be held to ransom over the player’s contract after being burnt in the Fernando Torres deal.


Speaking at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference over the weekend, Henry said, when asked how Suarez was potentially key to Liverpool’s future plans: ‘Luis Suarez is the top scorer in the English Premier League, which is arguably the top soccer league in the world.


‘He had a buyout clause of £40m. Arsenal, one of our prime rivals – this year we’re tied for second … we’re actually second because of goal difference.


'They offered £40m plus £1. What we’ve found … is that contracts don’t seem to mean a lot in England – actually, in world football.


‘It doesn’t matter how long a player’s contract is, he can decide he’s leaving.


‘We sold a player, Fernando Torres, for £50m, that we did not want to sell, we were forced to.


‘Since apparently these contracts don’t seem to hold, we took the position that we’re just not selling.


‘It’s been great for Luis, it’s been great for us.


‘We have three gentlemen up front Suarez/Sterling/Sturridge, [they] are young, I think Luis and those three could be together for a long time.’


http://metro.co.uk/2014/03/02/luis-...-sell-to-arsenal-claims-john-w-henry-4376896/

I'm not really sure what to make of that. I read it earlier but I'm not quite sure I understand it. They paid the clause but Liverpool refused to let him go? And no one took it to court due to the confusion about whether or not the clause did exist?

Oh well...Sanogo to save the season anyway.

The way I understand it is £40 million is a minimum offer for discussions, but it becomes really difficult with such clauses. There is a 'good faith' clause in relation to serious discussions but I can’t say it is a cast-iron buy-out clause.

That's a stupid clause, tbh. A release clause is a release clause, not discussion clause. How silly.

I think Henry is being a touch disingenuous and having a bit of fun since Liverpool and Suarez are riding high and Arsenal's title challenge is on the rocks.

Didn't the PFA see the contract, if it was iron clad they would have said so.

Maybe if Arsenal challenged it and took it to court but that would have been messy and long winded, which the board would rather have avoided.

AnfieldEd said:

The way I understand it is £40 million is a minimum offer for discussions, but it becomes really difficult with such clauses. There is a 'good faith' clause in relation to serious discussions but I can’t say it is a cast-iron buy-out clause.

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get on ed. it was stated clearly that it was a release clause but liverpool management refused to honor it "because it didn't want to be held to ransom again by a player after the torres incident." Liverpool did what they wanted to I can knock them for that but your justification is silly really. Also, liverpool's silly excuse of "being held to ransom" is such nonsense. They obviously participated in making such a clause so all it looks like is the club falling back on its word, even more so, not acknowledging that it made such a legal promise. The best thing would have been to sit down with Suarez and let him and the public know the landscape had shifted with Suarez's brilliant performances and they want his true value if he is to move.

With that said, I think they did what they thought was best for them and thats fine. However, I would still be a little disgruntled on the inside if I was Suarez and skeptical of the management's promises from there one.

Edit: Actually, they can say whatever they want to the public, however, they should have had a straight talk with Luis about it. It was because they didn't do it behind the scenes properly that it looked like a mess and a conflict in public.

Jack Wilshere out for 6 weeks now. Great season this.

Chamberlain out for 5 months during the beginning of the season
Walcott out for 6 months (rest of the season)
Ramsey out for at least 3 months (still not back)
Podolski out for 4 months during the beginning of the season.
Cazorla out for almost 2 months between September and October.


This is not normal...

It is for Arsenal. Either their medical team is useless or there's something wrong with the training methods.

This happens with Arsenal every single year. It's not anything like the Dortmund situation this year where so many players are injured at the same time co-incidentally for example.

Ramsey, Walcott and Wilshere particulary being in and out from the physio room.

It's sad because they never manage to play a season to their full potential and deliver right till the end as they always end up getting injured. Also Arsenal does not have much depth so they struggle a lot when they're shooked with a few of these injuries.

Özil out for "a few weeks". Arsenal really manage to kill all their players.

He's probably going to be out for the rest of the season. Almost impossible to achieve something as a team if the key players constantly are injured.

Oh that's a blow and a half. They can win without him but there are some games where he's absolutely key. I think they should still manage the FA Cup if they knuckle down. The league is very likely to slip away from them.