It’s been another frantic week in the weird world of European football transfers! And it doesn’t get any weirder than Barcelona signing Robert Lewandowski on a contract that will take him to his 38th birthday...

Dotun, Andy and David Cartlidge dissect that and a few other transfer sagas that could be about to enter their final chapter. Will Paulo Dybala fit in at Roma? Why has Matthijs de Ligt jumped ship from Juve? And could Cristiano Ronaldo really be about to sign for Atlético Madrid? Spoilers: there'll be riots if he does.

We'll be back with another OTC Transfer Special next week. Got a question for us? Ask away! @FootballRamble

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Marcus, Luke and Pete parachute in for an emergency pod after we saw José’s new tattoo - not that we can identify any of the trophies pictured. 

Elsewhere, West Ham want to couple up long term with Jesse Lingard, while Mikel Arteta gets the band back together with their move for Oleksandr Zinchenko. Plus, we’ve got the usual visits to Keggy Corner and Fizzerville…

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What a night! But it certainly wasn’t eazaaay. England came back from behind to oust a rampant Spain thanks to Ella Toooonay and, well, an absolute howitzer from Georgia Stanway!

Flo, Chloe and Rachel relive the night and their experience of it from pitchside, the stands and - in Chloe’s case - lots of bars. Plus, more feisty polling!

Got a question for us? Tweet us @FootballRamble, @FloydTweet, @GirlsontheBall and @Morgie_89.

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Football really only has two seasons. The football season, where the football is played, and silly season, where the transfers happen.

From celebrity agents to players liking Instagram posts, ITKs and fans tracking planes, Marcus, Jim and Andy are on hand to lead you through the chaotic and simply bizarre world of modern transfers. Some hate it but if we're being honest, we kind of love it!

What do you want us to talk about? 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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We’re back for our final Football Ramble Presents showcase of the summer!

There's a different flavour to today's episode of Ramble Meets as Andy gets to know not just a single person, but one of La Liga's most beloved clubs.

Celta Vigo has had a rich but turbulent history, from impressive spells in La Liga and the Europa League to almost falling out of professional football altogether. Andy is joined by Celta players Nolito and Joseph Aidoo, who tell us just how special the city and their fanbase are. We also speak to Vigo residents, including renowned Swedish journalist Alexandra Jonson and Mexican-born fan Paula Anton, who explain just how this unique city and club became home.

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Have you ever wondered if Roy Keane is actually a psychopath? If so, you’ll absolutely love this episode of Eureka, a brand new science podcast from Stak! Every Wednesday, science enthusiast Rick Edwards and actual real life scientist Dr Michael Brooks get to the bottom of some of the universe’s most puzzling questions, with the help of world leading experts.

This episode tackles exactly what it means to be a psychopath, whether it’s possible to cure psychopathy and just how many psychopaths there are in the general population… If you enjoy it, head over to the ‘Eureka’ feed and hit subscribe to never miss an episode!

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Flo, Rachel and Chloe have just about composed themselves after two cracking semi-finals, where Germany edged out France and England smashed Sweden in Sheffield.

We're here to get stuck into it all: Alessia Russo's backheel, that Alexandra Popp masterclass and the end of France's blistering tournament. 

Join us on Saturday over on Football Ramble Presents for our preview of the final!

Got a question ahead of the game? Tweet us @FootballRamble, @FloydTweet, @GirlsontheBall and @Morgie_89.

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Curtains are being raised everywhere this weekend! But like Jens Lehmann, here at the Ramble instead of pulling it back we’re chainsawing our way through it instead.

Pete, Luke and Jim discuss what they’re rubbing thighs over this weekend, with one particularly troubling answer (ahem, Pete). Plus Man City initiate real-life Terminator 2, Alexandre Lacazette goes full Nicolas Cage and a non-league chairman picks up an ex-Serie A player while out walking his dog…

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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Arsenal’s newest signing Oleksandr Zinchenko has given his first interview with the official Arsenal website and he has made it clear that he supported the Gunners since he was a kid, watching players like Thierry Henry, and he says its a “dream come true” to finally wear the famous Red & White jersey.

His first words in the interview were: “Thank you so much. First of all I would like to say this is a boyhood dream come true, because I was a massive fan when I was a kid. Since Thierry Henry and young Cesc Fabregas was playing here, I was just enjoying watching those games, that Arsenal. And obviously I started to love this club, so I am so excited and I cannot wait to play for this amazing club.”

When asked about this picture from when he was a kid, Oleks said: “Yeah, I remember that was in Donetsk, when I was at the Shakhtar academy, and like I said already, it’s a dream come true.”

The deal was very quickly agreed between the player, Man City and Arsenal, and Zinchecko was asked if Mikel Arteta was instrumental in his decision to choose Arsenal. “I would say it’s the most important role in my decision because I’ve known Mister for a while, I used to work with him at Manchester City. Since the first day at City I knew that he’s going to be a very good manager. The way he can see football, especially I was watching the last season of Arsenal’s games and I was really enjoying it. You can see in the style, the picture of the game, so I would love to see it (while) playing and being involved.

“The way we were working together, I was so impressed because I remember how many times we were working hard in the training sessions and then straight after with individual stuff and I took a lot from the manager and I hope I can take even more.”

Mikel Arteta changed half the Arsenal team last summer, and despite a few hiccoughs on the way, we improved so much that in the end we were disappointed in not succeeding to finish up in the Top Four.

Now we have even more talented additions in the squad in Zinchenko, Jesus, Turner, Vieira, Marquinhos and William Saliba retuned from loan like a new top class arrival, and once they all get integrated into the squad we should be even more of a force to be reckoned with this season.

One of our arrival’s last summer was Martin Odegaard and he has quickly become an important player for the team and he has been impressed with how the new contingent are settling in during pre-season.

“The new signings have been really good so far,” Odegaard told Arsenal.com. “They are working hard and are all good personalities. They all bring something good to the team.

“Fabio has been injured but we’ve seen Matt and Gabby play well in the games, so I think they are all going to be good for us. Especially for me, playing close to Gabby up front, I think it will be really fun.

Chelsea had a very turbulent end of season with the sanctions imposed on the club when Roman Abramovich was the owner, but they still managed to hold on to Third Place in the League.

They now have a new billionaire American owner (like Arsenal) who has many franchises in the American sports market in Todd Boehly, and perhaps there may be a little rivalry brought into the mix, as Arsenal are aiming to overtake their neighbours in the coming season.

So now the two giants are set to meet on their doorstep in America, and I am sure both owners will be very keen to win the boasting rights as Arsenal take on Chelsea in the Final of the Florida Cup tonight (Okay 1 a.m. on Sunday!).

Arsenal have won all their preseason games well, while Chelsea have not been so successful, with a 2-1 win over Club America and a loss on penalties to Charlotte, but the Gunners are wel aware how difficult the Blues are to beat in preseason.

This will be our fourth meeting since 2017 with Chelsea winning the first one 2.0 in Beijing that summer. The following year we met in Dublin and Arsenal only managed a 1-1 draw with a last-minute Lacazette equaliser.

The amount of changes that Mikel Arteta has introduced since his appointment as manager at Arsenal has been incredible, and we are expecting to see a further exodus of players that are surplus to requirements in the next month or so. But one stalwart is the defencer Rob Holding who has always been in the squad available to replace any injured or suspended defenders at a moments notice.

AS Holding himself told the Athletic: ‘I’ve seen centre-halves come and go. I’m still here, I must be doing something right’

But now Holding has admitted that he very nearly left the Emirates when Steve Bruce was trying to take him on loan to Newcastle in 2020, but Arteta persuaded the ex-Bolton star to stay and fight for more game time. Holding said: “It was always going to be a loan. I was just back from my ACL injury and thought I needed a full season of playing.

“But after the Community Shield against Liverpool, the boss said to me, ‘You’re going to play here, I don’t know why you’re planning on going on loan’.

“And I said, ‘If I’m going to play here then yeah, I’m happy, no problem’. And I ended up playing 35-odd Premier League games that year.”

Fabrizio Romano has told Arsenal to sign Lazio’s Sergej Milinkovic-Savic this summer.

The Gunners have already made moves in the transfer market, bringing in Matt Turner, Marquinhos, Fabio Vieira and Gabriel Jesus, as well as now landing Oleksandr Zinchenko.

It remains to be seen if we’ll still be in the market for a central midfielder after the Ukrainian’s arrival, but Fabrizio has told us to sign the ‘underrated’ Milinkovic-Savic.

“At the moment, Lazio have received nothing for Milinkovic-Savic. So I know Lazio so well because here in Italy we know how they work on the market and the president Claudio Lotito is really strong in negotiations when it’s about his top players.

“And he said a few weeks ago that he would only sell Milinkovic-Savic in case one of the best clubs in the world will put one of the best proposals for Milinkovic, and from what I’m told they want around €65-70m.

Mikel Arteta has made it clear that, having secured a good amount of our incoming transfer targets, it is now time to start thinning out the squad, which has grown drastically over the summer with our new signings and our returning loanees.

We already know that Arteta has given a contract extension to Mo Elneny, who everyone expected to leave, and Rob Holding doesn’t sound like he expected to be leaving any time soon, and now we have the Portugese defender Cedric Soares making it clear that he has no desire to leave his “dream club”.

“Arsenal was always my dream club since I started to play in Southampton,” Cedric told ESPN. “I always had the goal to move to Arsenal, and this didn’t change.

“Of course you are more happy when you are involved.

“Being involved here in a massive club like this, with the project we have and the goals the team is fighting for, I want to be here.

Arsenal have been extremely busy so far in this transfer window with five new arrivals already here, and now Edu has given an interview, ostensibly talking about the arrival of Oleks Zinchenko, but he has already given a deep insight into the planning that has gone into making this window a success. “…Our main focus in the beginning of the transfer window is try to get the players that we target as soon as we can to enjoy and to be here and to be together and to start the season the way we planned it as well.”

The Arsenal general director also told us that there is still a long way to go, to find solutions for the players that are not likely to get any game time if they remain at the club, and also to keep their eyes on targets that are on our list to fill the positions that are still in need of reinforcement. “We have a plan for every single player in the squad, and that’s why I said there’s still a lot to do in this transfer window because we have to balance the squad in the best way possible. For the players who probably aren’t going to have a lot of minutes here, we have to expose the players to have minutes in another place to keep developing the player, keep the player’s valuation et cetera, so that’s the way we plan it.”

Edu was then asked about his impression on the way we have done our biusines so far in this window, and he replied: “I’m pleased, but to say how close is difficult because there’s still a lot to do, we are in the middle of the transfer window and things can happen. What we have to be is really focused and be prepared for every single situation, opportunities maybe can happen, clubs can sometimes come to us to see if there is a possibility to get players on loan or buy players. We just have to be prepared and I think we are very much prepared for almost everything.”

Considering the deals that have already gone through, and the promise of more to come, surely Arsenal fans should be excited that we are going to end up with a much improved and well-balanced squad for our assault on trophies this season.

I, for one, am VERY excited about our new season…..

Oleksandr Zinchenko – Everything Arteta wanted Xhaka to be for Arsenal.  by Victor

With Mikel Arteta clearly sold on the idea of being tactically unpredictable for opposition teams, he needed the crop of players he inherited from Unai Emery to be tactically flexible in unlocking opposition defenses, while maintaining a balanced tactical shape between defense and attack.

One of those he very much entrusted with such tactical flexibility is Granit Xhaka; a player who many Arsenal fans believed was never really good enough and should be escorted out the exit door at the Emirates Stadium. The gaffer, however, upon his return to the Arsenal saw what many couldn’t see in the Swiss, especially from a tactical point of view. Having modeled his coaching style after that of his mentor – Pep Guardiola, the Spaniard knew exactly the kind of football he wanted his team to play and Xhaka was of course integral to the system to be implemented.

Firstly, Arteta wanted to build a team capable of playing from the back while utilizing players that are naturally comfortable in possession under pressure, and also occupying positions where they can carry-out the aforementioned style with their preferred foot. Playing a left-footed Centre Back in Gabriel was one, with a left-footed Left Back obviously the second, while a left-footed Centre Midfielder was the third piece of the puzzle. The latter is where Xhaka comes in. Instead of a right-footed Centre Back or Left Centre Midfielder playing straight and short passes to a team-mate hugging the lines; but always coming deep to receive a pass, a left-footer occupying the same position on the pitch can easily curl a pass unto a team-mate in an advanced position on the lines to beat the opposition’s press.

Secondly, talking about tactical flexibility, we have seen from the manager’s first full season at the helm, the various tactical shifts he loves to employ during the course of a match: from full backs playing inverted roles which allows box-to-box midfielders take up more advanced roles, to the left-sided midfielder (usually Xhaka) taking up a role I personally call ‘the half-centre midfield role’ where he covers for the overlapping left-back.

Nikolaj Moller has scored his fourth goal of the the pre-season campaign with FC Den Bosch, where he is set to spend the season on loan from Arsenal.

The striker spent a short stint with the Dutch side last term, but has really hit the ground running since returning to the club on loan ahead of the new season, adding his latest goal against fellow Dutch side Rosmalen.

The 20 year-old is yet to make his senior debut for Arsenal, but is rated highly in north London, and has been likened to Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

The striker has some way to go before breaking into the first-team at Arsenal, with Eddie Nketiah, Folarin Balogun and Gabriel Jesus ahead of him in the pecking order at present, but some crucial first-team football this season could help him to bridge the gap on his rivals.

Balogun is likely to leave on loan also, but his next destination is yet to be decided.

Martin Odegaard has claimed that Oleksandr Zinchenko could play as a winger after joining Arsenal from Manchester City this summer.

The Ukraine international is the club’s fifth signing this summer, after Gabriel Jesus, Marquinhos, Matt Turner and Fabio Vieira’s arrivals, but there is some confusion as to where he is likely to play in north London.

Zinchenko played predominantly at left-back for Pep Guardiola’s side, but operates as a central midfielder for his country, and the latter is where he is expected to line up for the Gunners.

Odegaard has sung his new teammate’s praises, adding he could well feature as a winger also.

“I’ve seen (Zinchenko) play a lot and I really like his qualities, I think he’s a really great player,” Odegaard told The Athletic. “I think he can play both positions, sometimes as a left-back and midfield,

Flo, Rachel and Chloe are here to wave England through to the quarter-finals after their 5-0 win. We wonder if Alessia Russo should start over Ellen White and highlight some lingering overconfidence England will need to stamp out.

Elsewhere, Marie-Antoinette Katoto's injury took away from another France victory - and our dark horses fell at the first hurdle! What do we know...

Remember, all post-England shows will be available on the Ramble feed this summer. But if you want access to all our Euros coverage, make sure you're subscribed to Football Ramble Presents!

Got a question for us? Tweet us @FootballRamble, @FloydTweet, @GirlsontheBall and @Morgie_89

***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!***