Marked for Giovanni Diosque
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market15 Nov 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Arsenal, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Damián Pérez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Arsenal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Payes is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.78 for the rest of it.
Market20 Sep 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Arsenal, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Damián Pérez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match18 Sep 2027
A bad afternoon for Arsenal against Güemes
1‑2 to Güemes, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Damián Pérez gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Aug 2027
11 matches without a win for Arsenal
The run now stands at 11, and the questions being asked around Arsenal are no longer polite ones.
Market9 Aug 2027
Only the photograph left for Julián Ledesma
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Julián Ledesma will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arsenal the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market9 Aug 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arsenal can pretend not to have heard.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Damián Pérez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match7 Aug 2027
Patronato left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Arsenal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Trombini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Boardroom9 Aug 2027
Wages eat 85% of everything Arsenal earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market25 Jan 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Arsenal, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Lautaro Guzmán was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dylan Cabral and Arsenal agree another 5 years.
In brief
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Boardroom
95% of the income goes out in wages at Arsenal
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Squad
When it matters, Lautaro Guzmán plays
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Squad
Words at Arsenal training over how hard people work
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Market
The Iván Cabrera talk will not go away
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market18 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market18 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Arsenal did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad18 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Damián Pérez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Thiago Schiavulli falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.