Paul Merson has claimed that Arsenal striker Eddie NKetiah wouldn’t get in Fulham’s team, insisting that we wouldn’t be able to earn a Champions League place with him in our first-team.

The Gunners narrowly missed out on the top-four last term, with Alexandre Lacazette having held down the first-choice role for much of the campaign, while Nketiah came into the side after impressing in the absence of the Frenchman. I would argue that we wouldn’t have finished as close to fourth as we did if young Eddie hadn’t stepped up when he did, but Merson claims that there is ‘no chance’ that he would be able to fire us into the CL places.

‘All Arsenal have got up front right now is Eddie Nketiah, who recently signed a new contract when it looked like he might leave,’ Merson told the Daily Star.

‘And no disrespect to Nketiah but Mikel Arteta must realise he won’t get you into the top four. Absolutely no chance. That’s a fact.

‘Nketiah can’t be spearheading your Champions League push. He’s not getting in ahead of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison at Everton and they almost got relegated.

Darren Bent has claimed that he would prefer Arsenal to sign Chelsea’s Romelu Lukaku over Manchester City’s Gabriel Jesus this summer.

The Gunners appear to be closing in on the Brazilian’s signature at present, with reports claiming that we have now agreed a £45 Million fee with the Citizens, but talking to TalkSPORT, Bent has claimed that his preference would be the Belgian star.

When asked who he’d sign if he was in charge of Arsenal’s transfers this summer, he said (via the Metro): ‘I’d take Lukaku on loan, 100%. I’d be over the moon.

‘I look at Lukaku and I think he wants to go somewhere where he’s going to feel most loved, and at Inter Milan he was fantastic.

‘He scored a lot of goals and felt the passion from the Inter fans.

It was already clear seven months ago that the conservative supermajority on the court was gearing up to overturn Roe v. Wade, but that didn’t make Friday’s decision any less devastating. 

After the reality sunk in, Mother Jones reporters snapped into action. We published no fewer than 15 stories on the decision yesterday, covering the devastating impact that the ruling will have, the Democrats’ impotent and infuriating response, and the Christian right’s long journey to victory. 

Here’s a compilation of our coverage:  

SCOTUS Finally Made It Official: Roe Is Dead by Becca Andrews and James West
The court officially ruled to let a Mississippi law stand that bans abortion after 15 weeks—overturning decades of precedent and threatening your constitutional rights.

Justice Clarence Thomas Just Said the Quiet Part Out Loud by Hannah Levintova 
In a concurring opinion, he called on the Supreme Court to build on overturning Roe by reassessing rights to same-sex marriage and contraception.

Arsenal have been linked with a move to sign Richarlison from Everton this summer, but Tottenham are now claimed to be considering using Everton’s interest in Harry Winks in a swap deal.

The Gunners have been actively looking at attacking targets to add to our front line this summer, with both Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang yet to have been replaced. While Gabriel Jesus looks likely to come in this summer, we are expected to add one more, likely someone who can not only provide backup at CF but also in behind, and Richarlison ticks those boxes.

The Brazilian has proven to be a consistent performer during his time with both Watford and Everton in the Premier League, and after helping his side to avoid relegation he now seems open to a move to a bigger club.

While we have been linked with such a move, it is Tottenham who are now claimed to have been asked to be kept informed about his situation, and that they are considering using Everton’s interest in Harry Winks to work out a deal.

Tottenham are still well informed on Richarlison – was discussed during talks for Harry Winks-Everton. Richarlison would be open to Spurs move #THFC

Willam Saliba is set to stay with the Arsenal squad for the upcoming season, but with Marseille said to be ‘confident’ of a deal, I’m not wholly convinced that the player has completely made up his mind.

The Gunners are readying themselves for a return to European football ahead of the new season, having missed out on any form of continental football last term, and are believed to be building up their squad to tackle just that.

Willam Saliba joined the club from St Etienne in 2019, but as yet has not made his senior debut for the club, spending two-and-a-half years of that on loan with his former club, Nice and most recently Marseille.

While everything coming out of north London has stated that he will be staying to vie with Gabriel Magalhaes and Ben White for a first-team role this season, the player is yet to come out with a statement which firmly backs up his intention to do so, and the fact that Marseille are claimed by RMC to be ‘confident’ of persuading him to return tells me that the defender may be in contact with the Ligue 1 side.

I would be pretty annoyed if we allowed Saliba go without giving him a fair shot, with not a single minute of competitive yet in his three years under contract with us, but at the same time, he isn’t guaranteed to earn a place ahead of either White or Gabriel regardless.

Charles Watts claims that Arsenal are really disappointed that Fiorentina opted against triggering their option to buy Lucas Torreira following an impressive loan spell.

The Uruguayan midfielder has spent the last two years on loan, enjoying a La Liga winning campaign with Atletico Madrid before returning to Serie A to impress for La Viola, and it was a surprise when they opted against meeting his pre-agreed fee to sign him on a permanent basis.

He has now returned to north London but isn’t expected to stay beyond the current window, and Watts claims that we are unhappy with the way it played out.

“Lucas Torreira – Arsenal are so disappointed with how that one turned out, over what happened with Fiorentina,” Watts told listeners to his podcast.

“They thought that one was pretty much a given that was going to happen.

The amount of Arsenal transfer rumours being shared by usually reliable transfer gurus like Romano, Ornstein and Watts has been incredible this summer, and even with the imminent arrival of Gabriel Jesus, there would appear to be many more incoming deals in the pipeline, if the “insiders” are to be believed.

One of our most-needed targets this summer must be a backup to the injury-prone Kieran Tierney and the inexperienced Nuno Tavares, so the links with the Ajax defender Lisandro Martinez is hardly a surprise, and at 24 years old is perfect for Arteta’s long term project.

Out interest has been confirmed by David Ornstein in the Athletic, who wrote: “Arsenal would like Martinez to join the defensive block — Ajax’s left-sided centre-back would add more depth in the position Gabriel made his own last season. Sources indicate Arsenal have had an offer — in the region of €30 million — rejected already. The 24-year-old, who is said to be keen on joining Arteta’s side, would also provide cover at left-back for Kieran Tierney, similar to how Takehiro Tomiyasu is also able to play both positions on the right side of defence.”

As we heard earlier, Fabrizio Romano has stated that Edu will be concentrating on the Leeds winger Raphinha after Jesus is in the bag, but personally I believe that Martinez should be the priority out of the two, and should be signed quickly so we are ready for the beginning of the season.

Admin Pat

It would appear that Edu and Mikel Arteta are trying to get as many deals done as possible before Arsenal’s first game of the season against Crystal Palace, and it is looking good so far.

The Gunners have already officially confirmed the signing of Marquinhos from Sao Paolo, which appears to be a steal due to his contract problems in Brazil.

Then we had the surprising out-of-the-blue acquisition of Fabio Vieira from Porto, who stats from last season were amazing, and if he can settle quickly in England we could have a real star on our hands.

In another bargain deal, Arteta persuaded Eddie Nketiah to re-sign for us on a long term contract. Considering his form at the end of lastseason and how much it would have cost to replace him, it looks like another excellent bit of business.

Another signing yet to be confirmed by the club is the USA international keeper Matt Turner, but him and his wife are now in London house-hunting. He also looks like a bargain and I like his attitude. He told SkySports: “I’d agree with it for now (being second choice to Ramsdale). I’m coming in to push him and become the best goalkeeper I can become, while also making him the best goalkeeper he can become. That’s really my goal for it all.

This article is a collaboration between Mother Jones and Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, which is a nonprofit investigative newsroom. Sign up to get their investigations emailed to you directly.

For more than a year, Kelly Flynn had to hire off-duty officers to provide security for her Florida abortion clinic, A Woman’s Choice of Jacksonville, after a local anti-abortion group moved into the vacant building next door and police calls related to harassment spiked.

Now, though, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is assigning an on-duty officer to the clinic every day “to ensure the safety of all parties,” spokesperson John Medina said in a statement, and expects to continue “for the foreseeable future.” The officers’ regular presence, Flynn said, has been reassuring to patients and staff: “We are a safe place.”

The change in policy began soon after Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting spotlighted a surge in harassment, disturbances, and violence at clinics around Florida amid a lack of state and local protections for abortion providers and patients. 

The Jacksonville move reflects a growing awareness among local, state, and federal authorities about the mounting risks that abortion providers and patients will face now that the US Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is expected to trigger a new wave of clashes as abortion is certain or likely to be banned in 26 states and the remaining open clinics will offer anti-abortion protesters and extremists fewer and clearer targets. 

Why do so many of us obsess about football? Why do we do this to ourselves when it can cause so much pain? Well, we're here to help! Kind of. Welcome to The Football Ramble's Guide To!

This summer, different Ramblers will be here to walk you through the sublime and the ridiculous from our beautiful game. Today, Jim, Luke and Pete discuss the twelve hardest yards in sport: penalties. Join us as we look into their historical origins, revel in the psychodrama and reminisce about the time Arsenal took the absolute piss.

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More half of all abortions in the United States are currently performed by taking a set of pills. The first, mifepristone, interrupts the hormones needed to continue a pregnancy; the second, misoprostol, expels the contents of the uterus. For decades, the FDA has approved both drugs to be used together to end pregnancies before 10 weeks. Over the years, the agency has repeatedly honed its regulations of mifepristone, setting specific regulations on who may prescribe it, and how it can be dispensed.

But today, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization cleared the way for states to enact abortion bans, including prohibiting medication abortion. But do states really have the power to ban a medication approved and regulated by the FDA? This open question is poised to become an important new front in the legal wars over abortion, now that Roe v. Wade has been lost, according to Rachel Rebouché, interim dean of Temple University’s law school.

Making this question more urgent, in reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision this morning, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement saying the Justice Department “will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom.” One of those tools: The constitutional principle of “preemption,” which could theoretically be applied to stop states from banning abortion medications, because the FDA already allows them.

It’s something that, in a paper earlier this year, Rebouché and her colleagues argued the federal government could do in the very scenario we’re faced with today.

Now, it looks like the attorney general agrees with them. “We stand ready to work with other arms of the federal government that seek to use their lawful authorities to protect and preserve access to reproductive care,” Garland said in his statement today. “In particular, the FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.”

The Supreme Court has, as anticipated, overturned the federal right to abortion as established in Roe v. Wade, allowing states that have been waiting for this moment to make their moves to ban abortion. However, as the timeline is unclear in some of those states, some clinics are immediately closing their doors to avoid pricey lawsuits and, at worst, potential arrests. In short, the ruling is already having a devastating impact on providers and, of course, patients desperate for the abortion care that has long been a constitutional right.

A Whole Woman’s Health clinic in McAllen, Texas, was forced to turn away 22 patients today who had already consented to abortion care, and staff has been calling patients to cancel future appointments. This clinic is of specific importance for the population it serves—mostly low-income Latinx families—and its location in the Rio Grande Valley. Some residents of the Rio Grande Valley are undocumented, and it’s impossible to leave the Valley without going through a domestic Border Patrol checkpoint. There’s regular surveillance: Cameras often record cars that pass through and monitor interactions between agents and drivers. At checkpoints, armed US Customs and Border Protection agents inspect vehicles one at a time, and by passing through these checkpoints, undocumented people risk the very thing they are likely seeking—abortion care to protect their families and their lives. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: The overturning of Roe will impact everyone, but low-income pregnant people and pregnant people of color will carry the heaviest burden. 

Planned Parenthood clinics, too, across Texas have ceased abortion services. “The pause in our abortion care,” said Jeffrey Hons, the president of Planned Parenthood South Texas, “is the right thing to do so that we have time to ensure that Planned Parenthood organizations remain compliant with the law.”

As of publication, Alabama, South Dakota, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kentucky have all banned abortion. As my colleague Noah Kim points out, Idaho, Tennessee, and Texas have 30-day periods within which the trigger laws will take effect. (Tennessee’s attorney general just proposed implementing a six-week ban on abortion immediately, with an outright ban to take effect in the 30-day window.) Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and Northern Mississippi, for its part, is pledging to keep its clinics’ doors open for as long as possible, though the clinic in Nashville is closed today for inventory and staff training, CEO Ashley Coffield says.

This is just the beginning. Already it appears Florida and Virginia, two states where abortion has been fought over but that do not have any trigger laws, intend to move forward with 15-week bans on abortion. 

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority is waging a full-scale war on modernity. On Friday, the court’s six conservative justices ended the constitutional right to abortion that had allowed American women to enjoy full citizenship and equality (at least in theory) for nearly 50 years. We often talk about legal efforts to undo abortion rights with the phrase “setting back the clock.” That understates the radical project that today’s Supreme Court is undertaking.

To justify overturning Roe v. Wade, the conservative majority argues that abortion is not a right grounded in our history and traditions. Because the right to abortion rested largely on the guarantees of the 14th Amendment, which was adopted in 1868, Justice Samuel Alito notes in his majority opinion that the morality of the 1860s should be applied to pregnant people today.

“By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, three-quarters of the States had made abortion a crime at any stage of pregnancy, and the remaining States would soon follow,” he writes. Alito then takes his time machine back to 13th century England to build his case that abortion is not, historically, part of our tradition.

It doesn’t take a genius to poke holes in the logic here, or even question this framework. As the three dissenting liberals on the court point out, women were purposefully excluded from both the Constitution and the 14th Amendment by the men who wrote them. “Those responsible for the original Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment, did not perceive women as equals, and did not recognize women’s rights,” the dissent states. “When the majority says that we must read our foundational charter as viewed at the time of ratification (except that we may also check it against the Dark Ages), it consigns women to second-class citizenship.”

In other words: the majority’s reliance on the laws of centuries yore is not a bug, but a feature. Alito and his fellow conservatives on the court have embraced “history” to justify their decisions. History here belongs in scare quotes because the goal of a historical test for the court here seems to be to pick and choose the artifacts they want.

In the aftermath of the fall of Roe, Democrats dispensed a familiar rejoinder. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that come November, our rights were “on the ballot.” President Biden, in a somber press conference, informed Americans, “Roe is on the ballot.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said she hopes it is clear that the right to end a pregnancy “is the issue on the ballot.” In conclusion: “There is one answer,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) declared on Twitter, “VOTE.”

Meanwhile, members of the House took to the steps of the Capitol to sing “God Bless America” over the screams of protesters. 

Let’s attempt to cast aside the goofy and the strange. The leaders of the Democratic party—in between firing off donation emails—want you to vote for them. They believe, as Pelosi and everyone said today, that “the rights of women and all Americans are on the ballot this November.”

I keep wondering though: Are they?

After all, many did vote, securing control of Congress and the White House, and the doom cycle has yet to relent. Roe has fallen, mass shootings continue apace, and the current administration has failed to protect voting rights, leaving the elections they warn about in the hands of the minority. Even after it was clear that Roe would fall, national Democrats backed the famously anti-abortion candidate Rep. Henry Cuellar in Texas. His primary opponent, Jessica Cisneros, lost by only a few hundred votes in a runoff.

Roe is dead. In the coming weeks, abortion will be banned in 13 states with trigger laws, and 13 more are likely to severely restrict or end abortion access. As my colleague Becca Andrews said earlier this week, it’s not an exaggeration to say “the sky is falling.”

While a post-Roe world is now the reality nationwide, it’s already been reality in Oklahoma; in May, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill that bans abortion at fertilization and the bill went into effect immediately. Even before the bill, access in Oklahoma was dire, impacted drastically by patients fleeing Texas’ SB 8, which banned abortion at six weeks. When the Texas bill went into effect, the University of Texas at Austin found that 45 percent of patients unable to get abortions in the state traveled to Oklahoma. But now, those Texans and Oklahomans are traveling to other states, including Kansas. In fact, Kansas shares three borders with states likely or certain to ban abortion since Roe has been overturned. It didn’t take long Friday for the new Supreme Court ruling to further stresses the already-precarious system there:

Patients immediately started calling Kansas from all surrounding states saying their abortion appointments were canceled and hoping we can make room for them….

— Christina Bourne, MD, MPH (@xtina_bourne) June 24, 2022

Dr. Christina Bourne is the medical director at Trust Women, an abortion provider with clinics in Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kansas. In the last several months, they’ve dealt with the end of access in Oklahoma and seen how that ban impacts their ability to provide care in Kansas, where there is no trigger law or current legislative proposal to immediately end access. Earlier this month, before the Supreme Court ruling was made official, I spoke with Bourne about what she has learned from operating in a post-Roe reality, and what she wants providers everywhere to know about how to care for the patients who are now more anxious, more weary, and often more pregnant than before. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Since early May, when Politico published the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that today overturned Roe v. Wade and rolled back a half-century of reproductive rights, there has been a lot of analysis on how we got here. The easiest points of reference have been the obvious inflection points in recent Supreme Court history. The failure of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire during Obama’s first term, for instance, and the Republican obstruction of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the court after the death of Justice Anton Scalia in 2016. Looming large, of course, was the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump, who appointed three of the conservatives who voted in favor of wiping out Roe, including Justice Neil Gorsuch, who occupies the seat that should have gone to Garland, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who replaced Ginsburg.

But there’s one other critical turning point in the road to Roe’s demise that often gets overlooked: the failure of President George W. Bush to put his friend and White House counsel, Harriet Miers, on the high court in 2005. That debacle prompted Bush to replace Sandra Day O’Connor, the court’s first female justice, with Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Dobbs decision overturning Roe and declared that the real-life implications of the decision on actual humans were beyond the court’s concern. “We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision,” he wrote. “And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision. We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law.”

After the Dobbs leak, Jamie Lynn Crofts, a writer with Wonkette, a publication that had happily mocked Miers in 2005,  tweeted “HARRIET MIERS, I’M SO, SO SORRY.” 

HARRIET MIERS, I AM SO, SO SORRY. https://t.co/NtpIMO2DDa

— Jamie Lynn Kitten (@jamielynncrofts) May 3, 2022

Andy's back with a hugely important episode of At The Match, as he travels to Łódź in Poland to see Ukraine's second 'home game' since the Russian invasion in February.

He walks through crowds of vibrant local supporters with British-Ukrainian journalist Andrew Todos, who reflects on a hugely difficult period for the national team. We also hear a fevered home support cheer on Oleksandr Petrakov's men, who came away with a point after a ludicrous James Collins opener.

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We're back with two bags of souvenir Bulgarian pottery for another trip down memory lane as Kate, Luke and Pete kick off with the 2015/16 season - dilly ding, dilly dong!

The Iceland horror show came and went, the Champions League served up its best season ever and the Ramble became Football Ramble Daily. After that, we welcomed our new cohort to Ramble HQ and, following a Film Club-filled lockdown, we came roaring back with over 500 episodes of glorious nonsense. Oh yeah, and England got good again!

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Join Marcus, Jim and Vish for the first of two episodes celebrating fifteen years of the wee Ramble!

We take a trip through the first few years of the show and football history more broadly, as the lads took a ramshackle production from Luke's kitchen to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and onto a studio Pete had access to. In that time, Pep Guardiola became a manager, the legend of Keggy was born and Donaldson drunkenly bought two pianos.

We'll be back tomorrow with Part Two. Thanks for all your support over the last fifteen years - here's to the next fifteen!

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Over the next few weeks, we're bringing you some of our favourite Football Ramble Presents episodes from this season!

Back in November, Andy went to a rain-soaked Barcelona as a new-look Barça took on Benfica in their first Champions League game of the Xavi era! Despite the reduced capacity, Andy said it was one of the best atmospheres he'd ever experienced at the Nou Camp. He also chatted with GOAL's Rik Sharma for the inside track on Barcelona's recent struggles and their hopes for Xavi.  

We'll be showcasing a range of shows from across the Ramble universe over the summer before we come roaring back for the new season in August!

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