🗣️| Paul Merson on #Arsenal v Southampton: “This is a big game in the title race, and Arsenal need to get back to where they were. They've run out of luck a little bit - for all the last-minute goals they've scored this season, it's coming the other way now.
🗣️| Merson: “Bukayo Saka was incredibly brave to take a penalty after his miss at the Euros. People miss penalties, and I'd be shocked if he didn't take the next one for Arsenal.” #afc
🗣️| Merson: “If you had to pick a game to bounce back this season, you'd take Southampton at home. I still think Arsenal will win the league this season, and they should be able to win this game.
🗣️| Wayne Rooney on Arsenal: “How do they stop Erling Haaland? With William Saliba injured, there’s no prospect of matching his pace and power individually, and the only way is to go out and try to impose their own game.
🗣️| Rooney: “Arsenal should focus on how to expose those City defenders rather than focus too much on Haaland. The mindset needs to be: nobody thought we’d be here, and now we’re playing for the title – so let’s go and take it.” #afc
🗣️| Rooney: “If Arsenal go with that positive approach, it’ll be a great game. If they sit back and wait? Do that against City and you die a slow death. City are exceptional and cannot be contained, so it’s about what they can do in attack themselves, and about having no regrets”
🗣️| Martin Ødegaard: “We went into our last two games knowing that they would be difficult away matches, but as always with the aim of winning – so the results in themselves are disappointing, but it’s even more frustrating the way they happened of course.
🗣️| Ødegaard: “After the final whistle we were frustrated with ourselves, but we also knew that maybe it was a hard-earned point in the end. Aaron Ramsdale was brilliant for us and made some unbelievable saves. Next day at the training ground we spoke together as a team.” #afc
🗣️| Ødegaard: “We spoke about our response to them scoring and what we should have done better in the second half. We talked about how we could have broken the Liverpool momentum once they had it and what we needed to learn from the game.” #afc
🗣️| @FabrizioRomano: “Chelsea are on a mission in Poland, where Shakhtar are, to try and sign Mudryk. Chelsea are now in talks with Shakhtar, very advanced talks, to reach an agreement on the fee of the deal for Mudryk. Chelsea will also try and focus on the player side.”
🗣️| @FabrizioRomano: “We know that Arsenal are more than advanced talks, because in the last few days Arsenal made a third bid. Shakhtar and Arsenal were also speaking today (Saturday) about this bid. But then Chelsea arrived in Poland to negotiate with Shakhtar.”
🗣️| @FabrizioRomano: “Chelsea are also trying to reach an agreement on the player's side. We know that the player's priority has always been Arsenal, Mudryk dreams of Arsenal. Let’s see how the conversations between Chelsea and Mudryk will go.”
🗣️| Ben Jacobs on Danilo: “The other name that people are talking about from Arsenal’s perspective is Danilo as well. And a bit like I suppose Tielemans and Leicester over the summer, it’s a case of trying to get a fee that Arsenal feel is of value,” [@GiveMeSport, @JacobsBen]
🗣️| Ben Jacobs: “and not make that mistake of paying more than they have to. I think that Danilo is going to be a bit more of a kind of bargain fee from Arsenal’s perspective. If they do proceed, Palmeiras are probably looking for around £20m, maybe even a touch less than that.”
🗣️| Ben Jacobs: “And I think that for a player of his potential and quality, that would be very worthwhile from Arsenal’s point of view, and Arsenal have been there before with Danilo; they’ve offered, or they’ve certainly considered, around £20 million before for the player.”
🎙️| @charles_watts on Arsenal and Bukayo Saka’s contract:
“Edu’s got a big job on his hands when it comes to sorting out his future. This World Cup is probably going to put even more money on the table, in terms of what Arsenal are going to have to pay him.”
🎙️| @charles_watts: “And that’s why any agent in the world would be mad if they’re committed to a new long-term contract before the World Cup. I’m talking about Martinelli, Saliba and Saka here. It just wouldn’t have made sense.”
🎙️| @charles_watts: “Because, why would you commit before he goes there [World Cup] and does it on the world stage and performs well? You’re just going to have a much stronger bargaining tool. I’m sure Arsenal would have expected that.”
🗣️| Bukayo Saka: “I remember my uncle came to my house around the age of six and he said ‘oh, you're playing football a lot. You should try and go to a local team’. So we researched our local team, which was Greenford Celtic, and we went there.” [@England]
🗣️| Bukayo Saka: “I was there for around six months to a year when I started to get a lot of scouts contacting my parents and I started going to trials at different clubs. There were quite a few. Arsenal, Chelsea, Watford, Tottenham and there were more.”
🗣️| Bukayo Saka: “Watford were the club closest to me so I went there for a while. I used to train at the Harefield Academy and sometimes would play matches at their London Colney training ground, which is next door to where I train now with Arsenal.”