Marked for Lio
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Apr 2029
“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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
A falling-out at Arsenal
Alexis Payes and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Vitor Queiroz 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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Lautaro Aguirre has moved up it.
Market2 Apr 2029
Julián Vila linked with a move away
The name of Julián Vila keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Arsenal say nothing, which says plenty.
Market2 Apr 2029
The clock does Lautaro Aguirre’s negotiating for him
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Arsenal could ask drops and the wages Lautaro Aguirre can ask rise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad25 Dec 2028
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arsenal will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market25 Dec 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Arsenal, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market25 Dec 2028
Atlanta come back empty-handed
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.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
This is not rotation. Matteo Trombini has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Arsenal is pretending otherwise.
Squad25 Dec 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Augusto Ghiglione and Arsenal agree another 1 years.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Federico Álvarez 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.
Transfer targets25 Dec 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Diego Zumbo 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.
Market25 Dec 2028
Add another name to the list: Morón have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Federico Mekbel. The answer from Arsenal has not changed — yet.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Nov 2028
20 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Arsenal lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom6 Nov 2028
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Federico Álvarez 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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words exchanged at Arsenal
Diego Zumbo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
The manager's exit leaves Damián Pérez exposed
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Damián Pérez is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
When it matters, Julián Vila plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ramiro Cáceres, and the manager let it.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
Lautaro Aguirre is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Market6 Nov 2028
The Julián Vila talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Arsenal know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces25 Sep 2028
Supporters organise against the Arsenal board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Boardroom25 Sep 2028
Pressure builds in the Arsenal boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad25 Sep 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Juan Carlos Luna
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arsenal lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match25 Sep 2028
Arsenal are in real trouble now
Position 15, 17 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market25 Sep 2028
“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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Diego Zumbo in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Arsenal are still strangers to each other
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Loan watch25 Sep 2028
“I did not go to Tigre to sit and watch. I want to come back to Arsenal and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
A promise honoured at Arsenal
Something was said to Lucas Sauer and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Sep 2028
Juan Carlos Luna damages knee ligaments — 77 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 77 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market11 Sep 2028
“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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Nahuel Pezzini 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
A row about effort at Arsenal
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Federico Álvarez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
Julián Vila gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Julián Vila is on it.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
The manager makes an example of Ignacio Bertone
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Arsenal, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
Lautaro Aguirre is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Market11 Sep 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Julián Vila’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Sep 2028
84 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Arsenal lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Pablo Benítez has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Match4 Sep 2028
Full time on the season at Arsenal
Position 15 on 17 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Market4 Sep 2028
“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.
The dugout4 Sep 2028
This is not rotation. Matteo Trombini has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Arsenal is pretending otherwise.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Words at Arsenal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Álvarez 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.
Match2 Sep 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Matteo Trombini’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Arsenal.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Pablo Benítez has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
Crisis meeting at Arsenal
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
The dugout3 Jan 2028
This is not rotation. Matías Sosa has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Arsenal is pretending otherwise.
Squad3 Jan 2028
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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Arsenal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damián Pérez 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.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
Arsenal asked and Colón said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad3 Jan 2028
51 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Market3 Jan 2028
A stepping stone, not a home, for Lio
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Arsenal were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
Market3 Jan 2028
Arsenal buy the years ahead of Lio
He is 17, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.