Summer '21 transfer lunacy and overpayment

[I am invisible]

i'm a bit more split on that, it's maybe not wise of him but equally I think it's symptomatic of a club that's completely lost control and is hopelessly mismanaged.

Ollie was right to say above that this'll be really bad for morale at the club - loads of sulky players hanging around seeing Xhaka no doubt get straight back into the team when he's served his ban...

Yeah, I agreed with Ollie somewhere above. His “we need to be ruthless” speech was incredibly naive in this market - as soon as that left his lips, a third of the squad knew they were neither needed nor wanted, and another third were probably left thinking “shit, was he talking about me?” How can you expect players to put in a shift for you after that?

If you’re going to try and kill someone off then you need to do it quick and clean, and you sure as shit don’t leave survivors! It was the wrong tactic to begin with - we don’t have unlimited resources like City so we can’t just casually bin players off like that - but ffs if you are going to do it then at least do it competently! Don’t just piss off most of the squad and then leave yourself having to rely o them! Jesus Christ.

Re: Ainsley, I don’t think there’s anything to be split on here - it’s possible to hold two competing views at the same time and for both to be true. Arteta is a petty tyrant, we all know that. So does Ainsley, which is why he’s also been incredibly dumb. Not only has it angered his vindictive current manager, it’s probably closed a lot of potential moves for him too because I guarantee you most managers and owners have the exact same rule at other clubs: you don’t leak to the press or go public.