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Finally your missus gets to kiss something that's better looking than you...

Oxlade-Chamberlain is a good signing - and while that price seems a bit high for him - in this market it's actually fairly reasonable. Chelsea need more depth and homegrown players, the Ox is English and versatile as fuck. Useful on multiple levels.

We were playing some of the worst football I've ever seen at Liverpool and with Gillett and Hicks also staring administration right in the face. Things were absolutely dire back then. Arsenal have financial strength. But Wenger has totally lost the plot and Stan Kroenke doesn't care about ambition as long as he has a stadium in a big city where he can charge high prices (see: moving his NFL team to LA & Arsenal's insane ticket prices). I also think a lot of the players are just not good enough - particularly Welbeck and Xhaka. I legitimately can't see how Welbeck went the full 90 yesterday.

There is no set rule! That's between the club, player and player's agent on the moment of a contract review or renewal depending what the circumstances are. Sometimes clauses are lowered when a player renews so as to lower his wages. But then a contract is reviewed or renewed, the normal thing is for the player to subsequently earn more and the club get their part with a much higher buy-out clause. In the case of Marco Asensio, he will no doubt now have a superstar contract this time around and get the top bracket wages which will mean a massive buy-out clause like the one being speculated on. What's for sure is that the bigger clubs in La Liga want to stop this buy-out clause situation as their defence mechanism with a negotiation only rule is much more adequate. For medium to especially smaller clubs, a buy-out clause sometimes makes sure they get top dollar for players that can be poached by bigger clubs. The player will put pressure on the club to move and that can cause chaos in the club.

@True Blue Word of advice, do not get attached to any characters.

It will be addictive like Crack.

as an Arsenal fan, you're in no position to talk about laughing stocks

Or they could be Leo, Ousmane, Luis to form LOL and become the laughing stock