I know someone said it earlier, but I definitely think the charges are simply to keep him in the UK. They've had 3 years since allegations came out and there has been very little noise since the beginning. James can be all vocal now, but he's had no problem singing Partey's praises on the podcast circuit over the last year.

Do I think he probably did it? Yes I do and I'm glad he's not longer at the club. Do I think it'll be proven guilty in the court of law? Not particularly. If they had concrete evidence, it would have happened awhile ago. It's too coincidental with the expiration of his contract to be anything else.

Either way, it is a bad look for the club and they'll need to do some PR work to get over it.

I have no doubt in my mind he had sex with the girl(s) in question. I have reservations about whether he raped/SAed them. There are FAR too many cases of women making those claims because they had "buyers remorse" after. Ive even seen cases when a girl was 100% into a situation only to convince herself that she was SAed 2 yrs later because she doesn't wanna believe that she was actually being a hoor.

some buzz this morning that we are making a formal bid for Madueke. not seen any info on numbers.

Any more than 40 and I won't be happy with it lol

Also FWIW..... Madueke IS NOT considered HG because he left England for the Dutch League at 16.

Fab saying 50m including add-ons. Chelsea looking for 50m + add-ons

Chelski bought him for 29 million 2 years ago and he's done precisely eff all in that time.I wouldn't pay a dime over 15.

I don't get why we keep going back to Chelsea for players. I could understand if we were going to City but our obsession with Chelsea players is mind boggling.

chjoak said:

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I don't get why we keep going back to Chelsea for players. I could understand if we were going to City but our obsession with Chelsea players is mind boggling.

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In our defense, they have about a million players on contract.

Norgaard official. Will be #16.

Welcome to The Arsenal, Christian Nørgaard 🙌

— Arsenal (@Arsenal) July 10, 2025

🚨💣 EXCLUSIVE: Noni Madueke to Arsenal, here we go! Fee agreed in excess of £50m with add-ons included, green light from Chelsea.

Madueke already agreed five year deal at Arsenal days ago and he’s now set to complete the move.

The winger leaves #CFC to join #AFC. pic.twitter.com/Cjeqnlswle

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 10, 2025

Well I hope this works out for us. Lot of money. He brings pace and progression, but his final ball needs to drastically improve.

As long as we still get in a striker and probably another attacking option, I'll be okay with it. But this better not hamper other moves because of finances

Its also annoying that it seems like other deals like Gyokeres are hinging on 5-10m extra and then we drop 50 and a squad player.

I trust our teams talent evaluation, but we just seem financially stupid sometimes.

I've heard "pundits" talk about him as our Raphinha and I've heard reference to Arteta viewing him as a LW. Curious how this all plays out. Trossard likely out so that would leave us with Marti/Noni & Saka/Nwaneri wings. Is that better than last season? IDK. Hopefully Zubi at DM and Gyokeres at ST opens things up a bit more and we can up the tempo back to 22/23 season.

Agreed. Need to have Gyokeres announced tomorrow.

One little extra add..... I'm still not sold on Eze as the "extra attacker". Mostly because I don't see where the minutes end up coming from. I think we need a 3rd (Gyokeres + Noni + X) attacker in the window but I think it would be far more valuable to get someone that could play W & ST. No idea who this might actually be but I would LOVE to see a high potential right-footed speed-demon that is a minimum 6'.

The way I see our depth right now including Gyokeres, Noni & Mosquera.....

GK - Raya, Kepa
LB - MLS, Cala, Timber
LCB - Gabi, Kiwior, Cala
RCB - Saliba, Mosquera, Kiwior
RB - White, Timber, Mosquera
DM - Zubi, Norgaard, Rice
LCM - Rice, Merino, Havertz/Nwaneri
RCM - MO, Nwaneri, Havertz
LW - Marti, Noni
RW - Saka, Nwaneri, Noni
ST - Gyokeres, Havertz

To me the biggest holes are right-footed W, right-footed CM & development ST (both our STs would be 26+). While an argument could be made for Eze being able to cover right-footed W & CM; he's also 27, not a natural W and if Gyokeres makes good we will have 5 guys looking for min in 2 CM spots. And, while not right-footed, we also have Dowman in the wings and he likely develops into one of those CM roles.

I 100% think he's coming to play on the LW. He is the winger option. There won't be a Rodrygo (didn't think that was ever going to happen anyways). I think he is a decent player, but its just bit hard to take for 50m. Now if someone tells me its 30m + 10m easy achieved addons a+ 10 much harder achieved add ons, I'd feel better

Probably more like 45 before easy add ons knowing our front office

At some point, I'd love to see an investigation on what dirt Todd Boehly has on the Kroenkes.

High risk financial move but I'm hopeful.

Look, we've been desperate for more pace, more directness, and quicker forward progression. He is and has been good at all of that.

Looking at FBRef, 99th percentile progressive carries, 96th touches in the box, 76th successful take ons…that's all stuff to really like.

And he would have been a double digit goal scorer last year if he played more. 7 goals in 22.6 90 minutes. Not great, not awful.

Worst case he is an expensive Saka backup. Best case he and Marti push one another so that we get better production from LW.

I will also throw in that he'd probably have better assist numbers if Chelsea had a decent forward as well

Romano said Arsenal are still working details with player deal for Eze

The good news is that we have an excellent history of goal scorers who wear black headbands.

I will not allow Gervinho slander in this thread. He was the most unpredictable player of all time. You didn't know what he was gonna do, the defender didn't know what he was gonna do and Gervinho didn't know what he was gonna do

I gotta say, the backlash from the Noni news has been epically embarrassing for our fanbase. I don't really like the transfer and think its a misuse of funds, but the ridiculous meltdown online and apparently in London is nuts. We are just making it harder on him in terms of the pressure.

Hope the kid comes in and flips the script.

The behind the scenes video of Norgaard's first day is pretty wholesome with his son with him. Dude seems genuinely happy to get the chance to play for us

He may be a rockstar for us but I think fans are getting tired of constantly going to Chelsea for players. There are 100s of club in Europe we could buy from and we keep buying from a direct competitor that is in FFP/PSR trouble. Add to that that we spent 50m on a player that they purchased for 30m and while he hasn't been bad he hasn't done anything to justify an additional 20m from us.

That said, some of the reaction is significantly overboard.

I loved me some Gervinho

Madueke deal is being reported 48+4. We have effectively agreed to "take over" his Chelsea contract which has 5yrs remaining and is 50k/wk + incentives. No details on what the incentives are or how much per year he could possibly earn.

I guess the plus side is only 50k/wk if he does poorly. Instead of big transfer + big wages. Hell MLS is probably making double that

chjoak said:

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He may be a rockstar for us but I think fans are getting tired of constantly going to Chelsea for players. There are 100s of club in Europe we could buy from and we keep buying from a direct competitor that is in FFP/PSR trouble. Add to that that we spent 50m on a player that they purchased for 30m and while he hasn't been bad he hasn't done anything to justify an additional 20m from us.

That said, some of the reaction is significantly overboard.

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Why does it matter where we get players from? I'm not saying you care, I'm just trying to understand.

Had we been buying all our players from a mid to lower table squad, I doubt anyone would care. The problem here is that we are buying numerous players that a direct top 4 competitor doesn't want and the closest we have to a "redemption arc" so far is Havertz but we overpaid for him and he didn't make a difference in the position we bought him to play in.

Thanks.

He wasn't great but David Luiz was an upgrade to what we had before he arrived and was a decent stop gap for where our club was at the time. But Willian and Sterling were a bust.

That being said, we appear to buy and sell for ***** It would surprise me to watch us bid $30 million for Frank Lampard's player's rights and then watch us spend $40 million.