Granit Xhaka has put Arsenal 3-1 up over Tottenham with just over 20 minutes remaining on the clock, capping off his fine start to the new season.

The Gunners have been much the better side today, and a silly challenge from Emerson Royale minutes before our latest goal has made things even tougher for our noisy neighbours, who now have just 10 men on the pitch.

Thomas Partey and Gabriel Jesus are credited with our opening two goals, and this neat effort from Xhaka has put us well in the driving seat.

3⃣ – 1⃣

Granit Xhaka gives Arsenal a two-goal cushion with this beautifully worked goal… pic.twitter.com/quYCrBVxPK

Marcus and Luke are back with Lions Watch as we look ahead to the World Cup in just seven weeks' time! 

Join us every Saturday as we recap the biggest England news, debate some Southgate Selections™ and tackle your questions. Today, we celebrate the impressive Nations League performances of Jude Bellingham, wonder how we can solve England's Harry Maguire dilemma and unveil our Take Thermometer!

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Don’t worry, gang - the Premier League is back! Marcus, Vish, Jim and Andy tuck in to all the latest after waving goodbye to our beloved Nations League.

There’s some North London derby jitters for Jim, while Vish seems much calmer about Man Utd’s prospects against Erling Haaland n’ company. We also celebrate the return of Keeping Up with the Icardis and Kevin Keegan’s latest awards show gig. We did wonder about all that disruption at Dover…

The Football Ramble Preview Show is sponsored by Betfair.

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About five years ago, Kat decided to stop taking her birth control pills. She wanted to give her menstrual cycle a chance to return to normal before trying to get pregnant in the future—and anyway, she was beginning to have some doubts about the Pill. Her friends had been talking about what they saw as the dangers of hormonal birth control—blood clots, for instance. “Maybe I shouldn’t be putting chemicals in my body,” she recalls thinking. So Kat, who lives in England, spent about $100 on Natural Cycles, an app and thermometer that promised she could avoid pregnancy simply by taking her temperature every day.

It seemed so straightforward. The thermometer would send her temperature to the app, which would predict when she would ovulate—the hormones produced during ovulation typically raise body temperature by a little less than half a degree. Based on that information, the app used a color-coded system to tell her when she could safely have sex without getting pregnant. “Red days you abstain, and green days it’s safe to go for it,” Kat explains. It seemed just as easy as taking a pill every day, with none of the uncertainty of how hormonal medication could be affecting her body. Best of all, Natural Cycles assured her that when used correctly it was 98 percent effective—almost the same as the Pill.

Various factors drive women to try birth control methods that rely on observations of physical changes throughout the menstrual cycle to predict fertility. (There are many names for the various types of these methods, but for the purposes of this piece, I’ll refer to them collectively as cycle-tracking methods.) Some women experience unpleasant side effects of hormonal birth control and are frustrated that their doctors don’t take their complaints seriously. For others, their religion forbids the use of contraception. But in the last few years, there has been an explosion of interest in cycle-tracking, thanks in part to Silicon Valley companies that have launched cycle-tracking apps promising birth control by algorithm.

Other powerful forces also have mobilized behind this trend. As I have reported, many wellness influencers leverage women’s legitimate complaints about the side effects of the Pill, selling supplements, herbal remedies, and diets that they say will alleviate symptoms like mood changes, acne, and headaches. Those messages have no basis in science—yet they have moved swiftly through social networks and made their way into the mainstream. Celebrities including Dr. Oz, Gwyneth Paltrow, and podcaster Joe Rogan have all promoted the idea that hormonal birth control is unwholesome and potentially dangerous.

But recently, this tidal wave of backlash against hormonal birth control has made its way into another sphere of influence. Anti-abortion activists—many of whom are morally opposed to the idea of contraception because they consider it a form of abortion or just morally wrong—have found that wellness influencers, many of them pro-choice, are a boon to their cause. While previous generations of activists saw picketing outside abortion clinics as their only option for engaging the public, today’s crusaders are also using social media to win followers, incorporating wellness messages into confessional videos and stylish memes to convince their audience that hormonal contraception is not only sinful but also unhealthy. In a strategy I’ve been reporting on in collaboration with UC Berkeley journalism and law students, they are also promoting the false idea that cycle-tracking methods of birth control are just as effective at preventing pregnancy as hormonal contraception. Some downplay their anti-abortion convictions and religious identity in order to undermine trust in the Pill and IUDs.

When the Soviet Union still existed, Anatolii Harahatii made his career as a photographer in the small village of Savintsi in northeastern Ukraine. Snapshots of him as a younger, sharply dressed man appear on many surfaces in the cozy, one-story house he shares with Natalya, a former nurse and his wife of over 40 years. In photos from just a few years ago, he appeared happy and healthy, posing with Natalya and their two adult children.

As was the case for most Ukrainians, Anatolii’s life was forever upended on February 24 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of their country, and by early March troops had occupied Savinsti. Russia’s goal, which its government justified with an often head-spinning mix of falsehoods, was nothing less than to topple Ukraine’s democratically elected government and install a puppet regime in its place. As Ukrainian resistance proved to be more formidable than Putin had anticipated, Russian troops escalated their attacks on private citizens. Anatolii was one of them. 

Anatolii intensely followed the frightening and chaotic news of the early days of the war. Several months later, we sat in his kitchen, as he recalled seeing the news of grandmothers standing up to Russian armored columns, blocking their path as they tried to make their way through small villages across Ukraine.

“It was heroism,” Anatolii told me, referring to the Ukrainian civilians’ attempts to physically block Russian tanks with their bodies. When he awoke one morning, he decided to find the columns of tanks, which he filmed. He then posted the footage online.  At the end of May, Russian soldiers in masks, likely intelligence officers, arrested the 68-year-old pensioner. They considered his act of filming the tanks dangerous, likely due to the information it might provide to others in Ukraine, and believed he was in some way acting against the Russian authorities. 

Anatolii

Every other day, my WhatsApp bursts with messages from friends in Brazil and abroad expressing equal parts of excitement and apprehension as Sunday’s Brazilian presidential elections approach. On Wednesday, my best friend who lives in the country’s capital, Brasília, texted to say she was scared of wearing red clothes to go vote this weekend because red is the color associated with the Worker’s Party of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, the current front-runner, has a real, if slim, chance to beat far-right incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in the first round by getting more than 50 percent of valid votes. “The mood is terrible,” she wrote, later adding that in the last 48 hours, four instances of political violence had been recorded across the country. “It’s very sinister this fear of expressing yourself.”

My friend’s worries are justified. The upcoming presidential elections in my home country are the most fraught and hate-filled in recent memory. In July, one of the president’s followers fatally shot a local Worker’s Party treasurer at his Lula-themed birthday party. Even before the official kick-off of the campaign in August, pro-Lula protesters were bombarded with feces and urine. On September 7, the day Brazil commemorated 200 years of independence, in the midst of a political discussion, a Bolsonaro supporter killed a Lula supporter, stabbing him 70 times and attacking him with an axe. This month, a researcher with Datafolha, one of the main polling institutes in Brazil, was assaulted. In a Rio de Janeiro bar, a 19-year-old woman was struck in the head after a Bolsonaro fan threatened to hit her sister when she criticized the president. Almost 70 percent of Brazilians surveyed in a September poll said they fear being victims of politically motivated violence. 

“Online and offline hate speech and harassment and serious political violence have made many Brazilians afraid to express political opinions and exercise their political rights,” Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Electoral and judicial authorities, police forces, and other authorities should do their utmost to protect freedom of speech and assembly, and ensure that Brazilians can vote safely.” Experts with the United Nations have also called for peaceful elections and condemned “continuing attacks against democratic institutions, the judiciary and the electoral system in Brazil.” 

This is not the first time political violence has been part of a Brazilian election. In 2018, Marielle Franco, a Black, gay, feminist Rio de Janeiro councilmember and human rights advocate was killed along with her driver after leaving a Black women’s empowerment event. She has become an international icon as a symbol of resistance and activism, but her murder remains unsolved. That same year, while on the campaign trail, Bolsonaro was stabbed by a mentally ill man. Since then, the country’s Superior Electoral Court, which oversees elections, has recorded a spike in violence against candidates. When my American coworkers recently asked me what I thought the outcome of this election would be, I matter-of-factly stated I believed Lula would win, if only he didn’t get murdered first. (The leading candidate’s security apparatus has been reinforced, and he’s been wearing a bulletproof vest at public events.) 

Bolsonaro himself has often incited hostility if not outright violence. A former army captain and a member of congress for 27 years, he was famous for his misogynistic and homophobic views. As president, he is notable for his disastrous handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and disregard for the Amazon and climate change. He has called for the Worker’s Party to be swept into the “trash bin of history” and talked about shooting the “petralhada,” a pejorative way of referring to those who vote for the left-leaning party. This authoritarian president, who received a full endorsement from former President Donald Trump, has loosened firearms laws, which has resulted in a three-digit surge in gun ownership registration and told his supporters to “prepare” for what is likely to be a negative outcome for the president. Before Independence Day rallies in September, Bolsonaro urged his supporters to “go to the streets one last time.” 

During the mid-1990s, trust and estate lawyer Jonathan Blattmachr had an innovative idea that would come to revolutionize the American trust industry. Blattmachr is a veteran of the wealth management field, cutting his teeth at the famous white shoe law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, wealth managers to the Rockefellers and other dynastically wealthy families.

Then based in New York, he knew about the success of offshore jurisdictions—places like the Cayman Islands and the Cook Islands allowed super-rich Americans to secretly stash their wealth overseas, hidden from creditors and the tax man. But many of his clients, he believed, would not “want to have their assets in a place they couldn’t find on a map.”

What if, Blattmachr thought, the offshore came onshore?

With traditional trusts, you have the grantor (a.k.a. the client) who creates the trust and puts it in the care of a third-party trustee for the benefit of his beneficiaries—usually the grantor’s spouse or children. When offshore banking centers were first emerging, a major attraction was that they allowed grantors to create what’s known as an “asset protection” or “self-settled spendthrift” trust and house it offshore. Such trusts can be established for a very specific beneficiary: the grantor himself. (Most grantors are male.) By claiming he no longer owns the assets—in a way, they belong to the trust—he is able to avoid wealth-transfer taxes such as the estate tax, and dodge creditors, too. The intention is to put the grantor’s assets in an “ownership limbo,” which obfuscates his legal responsibilities. 

That’s what was going down offshore in the 1980s and 1990s. Blattmachr was riveted by the question: What if the United States hosted these trusts, too? You could have domestic asset protection trusts. He brought his idea to the trusts and estates law section of the New York State Bar Association, and was “unanimously shot down,” as Blattmachr told the trade publication Tax Notes in 2016. “People thought I was absolutely out of my mind.” See, some lawyers deemed the purpose of an asset protection trust—allowing people to insulate their money from creditors—a form of fraud.

Thursday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on abortion bans was a predictable, three-hour medley of left- and right-wing talking points. Republicans accused Democrats of wanting abortion policies in line with those of North Korea and China; Democrats accused Republicans of promoting repressive policies that are comparable to how the Saudi and Iranian regimes treat women. The “fentanyl candy” hysteria made an appearance, as did an out-of-context Shakespeare quote about demanding a pound of flesh.

But one witness cut through the noise, rejecting the “binary yes or no” approach to discussing abortion and shedding light on the humanity of the people who choose to terminate their pregnancies. Kelsey Leigh, a Pittsburgh woman who now works at a reproductive health center, said that she was 20 weeks and six days into a desired pregnancy when she learned that her child had a severe fetal anomaly that she considered “not compatible with life.” At 22 weeks, she had an abortion. “I could not carry my son for four more months to give birth to him knowing that his life would only be filled with pain and suffering,” she said.

During the hearing, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) shared his own story of losing a child to justify his position that “I support life, from conception to natural death.” Higgins said that his daughter Daniela died after being born three months prematurely, but that her short life was still valuable. “Our daughter Daniela breathed life into us,” he said. “She touched every life that she gazed upon.”

Leigh responded that the two stories are not incompatible. “No one needs to be reminded of the sanctity of life,” she said. “We need to be reminded that this is a nuanced, complex decision that is never gonna be answered by a binary yes or no question or the amount of weeks that my ultrasound shows. We need to leave people alone to make these decisions for themselves and their families and the betterment of their communities.”

Asked by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) why abortion bans are dangerous for families like hers, Leigh had some harsh words for the representatives who used their time to describe the stages of fetal development. “It’s demeaning and it’s insulting to insinuate that that’s what I need to hear to know that my son, and that his life, mattered,” she said. “The rhetoric and the sensationalization create stigma and shame, and it’s wrong. And it’s really difficult to sit here and to hear that, and then not actually be looked in the eye and be asked about my experience.”

Dotun, Andy and David Cartlidge are here with a state of play after the final international break before the World Cup. We wonder if Germany might prove entertaining rather than efficient come Qatar and whether the problems plaguing France have knocked them off their prime perch. 

There’s also time for a Barcelona injury update and a question even devoted fans are starting to ask: do Portugal need to move on from Cristiano Ronaldo?

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This past weekend, activists, economists, politicians, and members of the public packed a room at the California Science Center in Los Angeles to talk about reparations. Members of the California Reparations Task Force, a first-of-its-kind group, gathered for their tenth meeting to grapple with some of the difficult questions they have yet to answer about what California owes to descendants of slavery.

At the top of everyone’s mind was how to begin to calculate the amount the state should owe for the harms it has committed. The Task Force has to decide how much California should owe eligible Black residents not just for its involvement in slavery, but also for all the lingering trauma that has followed and the impacts it has had on every facet of society.

Though California’s 1849 state constitution was meant to be anti-slavery, the state was complicit in upholding the institution. There are no exact counts, but one Gold-Rush-era source estimates that in 1852, there were 1,500 enslaved African Americans living in in the state. The same year, California passed a state fugitive slave law, which not only criminalized formerly enslaved people who had escaped to the state from across state lines, but also people who had escaped there before California had even officially become a state. 

To study these harms and try to understand how they could possibly be remedied, the Reparations Task Force was created in September 2020, with the passing of AB 3121. The Task Force has two main objectives: 1) To “study the institution of slavery and its lingering negative effects on living African Americans…and on society”; and 2) to make recommendations for “compensation, rehabilitation, and restitution for African Americans.” In other words, it’s time for the government to pay up.

The Task Force issued its first report in June, with a final report due by July 2023. The interim report includes preliminary recommendations, ranging from a proposal to repeal policies that contribute to housing segregation to calls for free healthcare programs and the elimination of discriminatory policing. The interim report also recommends that the state should implement a reparations program to address its racial wealth gap (which one 2016 estimate put at around $350,000 in Los Angeles), though the Task Force has yet to decide the size of that payment.

Pete here from The Football Ramble. I've been working on a show I think you're going to very much enjoy, so I thought I'd stick an episode in here as a little treat for your Saturday afternoon! If you love the Ramble, I reckon you're going to very much enjoy this.

Ian Fiveankles seeks to make his mark on modern sports radio in his very first radio show, in a cynical bid to win his ex-wife Denise back. The only thing that stands in his way is his new show sponsor, MENSMOOTH. Mmmmn…that’s smooth! 

https://smarturl.it/SportsHorn - subscribe now, or search for 'Sports Horn' wherever you get your podcasts. Lovely!

Sports Horn is a brand new sitcom hosted by comedians Anthony Richardson and Mark Davison, best known collectively as the popular online sketch duo 'The Exploding Heads'.

Sports Horn is a Stak Production.

Marcus, Luke, Pete and Andy revel in more Nations League nonsense, as Kevin de Bruyne remains bored out of his mind and John McGinn’s memory foam mattress grabs a great win for Scotland.

We also toast the departures of Charlie Adam and the FIFA game (Ted Lasso’s idiotic appearance not withstanding) and we wonder how Gareth Southgate can turn the barge around - starting with tonight's clash against Italy.

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More continental capers for Dotun, Andy and Lars Sivertsen as the international break gives us a chance for various domestic debriefs. The Serie A title race continues to intrigue, as Napoli try shake off the Sivertsen Curse - while the La Liga title race is marred by horrible racist abuse of Vinicius Jr.

Elsewhere, we try to work out if Bayern are in an actual crisis and ponder the future of the Nations League.

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It's back! Jim, Vish and Lars knee slide into today’s edition of our handy footballing handbook. Today, we focus on the icing on top of football’s sweetest, most joyous cakes: goal celebrations!

We run through how best to approach such a noble art and outline some of the do’s and dont’s. We also recount some of the more infamous - from one of the greatest sporting moments of all time to Cristiano Ronaldo spinning around in the air and Jamie Vardy killing an eagle.

What subject should we tackle next? Tweet us @FootballRamble and email us here: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Kate's off to west London for today's episode of The Drop In, where she's shown around QPR's training facilities by a Premier League icon. It's only bloody Les Ferdinand!

(Sir) Les sits down with Kate to discuss a storied career that took him from QPR to Newcastle and many places in between. They talk about how representation needs to be accompanied by meaningful action from footballing authorities, discuss his role as QPR's Director of Football and remind us of the importance of non-league football. We also get the answers we* have always wanted, such as did he really fly himself to Bolton training in a helicopter?

*Pete. Obviously.

Who would you like Kate to speak to next? Find us on socials @FootballRamble. Sign up for our Patreon before the end of August and get 15% off an annual membership! Plus exclusive live events, ad-free Rambles, full video episodes and loads more: patreon.com/footballramble

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Jules, Vish, Pete and Andy recap more bonkers Barclays from the weekend, as Leicester valiantly conceded six and Arsenal's U8's beat Brentford. 

We also take stock of Everton's long walk to freedom after their first win of the season, check in with our pal Moysey and hear of potentially football's shortest ever debut. 

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Arsenal make the short trip to Brentford for Sunday’s early kick-off, which is now scheduled to begin at the new time of 12:00 (GMT).

This game was initially meant to be getting going at 14:00, but was moved a little earlier to ease pressure on the police amidst a busy weekend in and around London following the death of HM the Queen.

While the time of the match should have no bearing on the result, the fans will no doubt be affected by the earlier travelling needed, and you can be assured that the team will be thankful of the support.

Today’s clash is unlikely to be a stroll in the park. The Bees have only tasted defeat once so far this season, away to Fulham, and are known to be a strong outfit, especially when playing from home.

At this stadium they have already enjoyed a massive 4-0 win over Manchester United, who beat us into a 3-1 loss in our last showing in the division. They remain unbeaten in their own stadium, and having beaten us 2-0 here last term, we will certainly be weary of our rivals.

Gabriel Jesus has wasted no time in getting his Arsenal career off the ground, and his input clearly hasn’t gone unnoticed by the fans.

The Brazilian’s signing this summer brought huge excitement to the club, and his pre-season performances only moved to enhance his following. He’s then continued that into the new season with three goals and three assists so far, and the fans have made their feelings known by voting him as their Player of the Month for August.

Introducing your August Player of the Month…

Gabriel Jesus

The first of many, Gabby

Emile Smith Rowe is claimed to be struggling with issues related to growing pains, and not considered an actual injury as he looks to make his Arsenal return.

The midfielder was seen to pull up in the warm up ahead of taking on Manchester United two weeks ago, with him initially named on the bench for that matchup, but reports coming out of the club claim that he isn’t really injured at all.

The Athletic claims that the staff at Arsenal don’t consider his injury as anything substantial, and he is expected to return sooner rather than later in a boost to our squad options.

Mikel Arteta reiterated the importance Smith Rowe has within the squad, despite the fact that he is yet to start a single fixture so far this season when talking in his press conference ahead of tomorrow’s clash with Brentford, and it can’t be denied how important some of his goals were on our previous campaign.

I must admit, ESR’s increasing absences have been something that has been a growing concern, and I hope that this latest information means that we will soon have our academy graduate back fit for an extended time once he gets over his current issues.