Avi_R

Indian gooner...

[FTBL_Planet @FTBL_Planet]

When Paul Merson left Aston Villa in 2002, he genuinely thought he still had another year of Premier League football left in him.

Instead, Villa paid him £100,000 to go.

Merson drove home devastated, sat on the sofa and cried, with no idea where he was going to play next.

Then the phone rang.

It was Harry Redknapp.

“I’m in charge at Pompey now, son.”

“Are they any good?”

Harry did not exactly oversell it.

“They’re f****** s***, son.”

“They finish in the bottom half every year, they always have to win one of their last games to stay up.”

“I’ve come in and I can’t believe how s*** they are.”

But Redknapp had cleared most of the squad out, brought in a load of free transfers and wanted Merson to join him.

“Come down, I’ll make you captain and we’ll have a right f****** go.”

The problem was that Merson had remarried, had twins in Birmingham and had no interest in moving the family down to Portsmouth or travelling to the coast for training every day.

Harry found a way around that as well.

“Don’t work Mondays, don’t work Wednesdays and don’t work Fridays.”

“Just make sure you turn it on for me when Saturday comes.”

The wages were going to be much lower than Merson had been earning at Villa.

“Well, that’s William Hill’s loss, not mine.”

“Let them worry about that.”

“Gaffer, I’ll sign.”

Merson had spent his career at clubs where the players were looked after.

At Portsmouth, he suddenly found himself taking his own training gear home every night and washing it.

That lasted until Kev the kit man came up with a proposition.

For £50 a week, Kev would do all of a player’s laundry.

Merson thought £50 a week sounded a bit steep.

But there was something in his Portsmouth contract that gave him an idea.

He had taken a huge pay cut to sign, but if Pompey won promotion to the Premier League, he would receive a £250,000 bonus.

After Harry’s introduction to the club, Merson did not think there was much chance of that happening anyway.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, mate.”

“If you wash my kit for the rest of the season for nothing, I’ll give you ten grand if we go up.”

Merson thought he had got himself a brilliant deal.

Kev nearly bit his hand off.

Pompey beat Nottingham Forest 2-0 in his first game, and Merson could not believe the noise at Fratton Park.

The following week at Crystal Palace was rather less convincing.

Pompey were 2-0 down at half-time and had been battered.

Merson walked off wondering what he had done.

“What the f*** have I done coming here?”

“Don’t tell me it’s one of them ones where we win one week and get battered the next…”

Harry changed the system at half-time, moved Merson into a free role behind two strikers and Portsmouth came back to win 3-2 with a last-minute goal.

The wins kept coming.

And every time Merson walked into training, there was Kev.

“As the campaign got underway and the team went on a winning streak, he’d come into training every day with a smile on his face.”

“He could smell his money.”

By now, the £10,000 laundry bet was looking considerably less clever.

Portsmouth won the First Division title by six points.

Merson collected the £250,000 promotion bonus he had barely considered possible when he signed.

And somewhere along the way, Kev had earned himself £10,000 for washing one man’s football kit.

“It was official: Pompey’s kit man was running the most expensive laundry in the world.”

“The tragic thing was, I was his best customer.”
#football

[Sann @san_x_m]

No rain fell in Rasuwa in Nepal this morning. The river still rose and swept away everything in its path. Here is why.

At 8.37 this morning, near the Nepal and China border, instruments picked up strong shaking. Early reports called it an earthquake of magnitude 4.4. The United States Geological Survey has now corrected that. There was no earthquake.

A huge block of ice and rock broke off a mountain and crashed into the valley. The impact was so heavy that it registered like an earthquake of magnitude 5.2. The landslide made the shaking. The shaking did not make the landslide.

That ice and rock fell straight into the Lhende Khola, a small stream that feeds the Bhote Koshi river. It blocked the stream fully and made a wall of ice, rock and mud across it.

The water behind that wall kept rising. Then the wall broke.

What came down was not water. It was mud, boulders and ice moving together. Video from the Rasuwagadhi border post shows the whole crossing vanish in under a minute. Timure and Syafrubesi were hit next. The surge then reached Bidur in Nuwakot and went on to Devghat, more than 100 kilometres downstream.

Police in Bagmati province have confirmed at least 95 dead in Nepal. China has confirmed 3 dead in Tibet with 265 missing there. The Nepal Tourism Board says nearly 400 travellers are missing, including 105 Indians and 37 people of Indian origin, many of them returning from the Kailash Mansarovar route. About 430 megawatts of power generation has been damaged. Bihar has put its districts along the Gandak on alert.

Now the part that matters for anyone living below a Himalayan river.

The same stream did the same thing 14 months ago. On the 8th of July 2025 the Bhote Koshi flooded with no rain. Nepal found that a glacial lake in Tibet had drained in a few hours. Scientists had already marked this basin as one of the most dangerous in the Himalaya for such floods.

These floods give no warning. No rain, no cloud, no alert, because the weather is not what causes them. Ice that stayed frozen for thousands of years is now loose enough to fall.

So remember this. If you are near a mountain river and the water suddenly drops for no reason, or you hear a low roar from upstream, do not stand and film it. That is a blockage forming or breaking. Move up the slope, away from the river, at once. Do not run along the bank. The water is faster than you.

Clear weather is no longer proof that a Himalayan river is safe.

[H | 🏆🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @ClockEndH]

William Saliba has been an Arsenal player for 7 seasons and has only lost sixteen (16) premier league matches.

Out of 131 games. He has won 90.

131 matches. 90 wins. 16 losses.

Mate.

[SensibleTakes @SardarGooner]

Kante won the PFA POTY in 16/17 with 2G/A over Kane (29 goals) and KDB (18 assists), just because he led Chelsea to the Premier League title.

But Declan Rice with 9G/A and similar dominance in midfield while leading Arsenal to the title, doesn’t deserve the award??

[Forever Arsenal @Arsenal_N10]

Declan rice got robbed.

[Mohammed MG 🏆 @imxxxd7]

ديكلان رايس لعب 1388 دقيقة اكثر من برونو

ديكلان رايس لعب 20 مباراة اكثر من برونو

[wavy @wavygooner]

His Arsenal CV is nuts man, been in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year ever since becoming a starter at Arsenal and hasn’t finished outside the top two in the league in that period. He’s retiring as Arsenal’s GOAT defender + one of PL’s GOAT defenders 100%

[Fan_Monty @AFC_Monty_]

Friendly reminder on the PFA TOTS which excluded Ozil despite registering 19 assists, finishing 2nd in the Premier League & winning a trophy….

[Gooner Raj @rajsenal]

This boy was signed from 4th division team in Brazil. Gets into the first team, scores important goals, stays humble when not picked, delivers when given the opportunity in UCL.

Gabriel Martinelli is the champion of England. What a story ♥️

[Basumati Busquests @Basumati_Busi]

Reason why we keep mentioning "From 4th Division Team in Brazil" because he was never trained in bigger academies and still made it big.

Huge Huge respect

[Uzumaki Tony @thearsfam97]

Micah Richards warned y'all

[Uzumaki Tony @thearsfam97]

"...every away game we give too much of the ball to them."

I dislike him so much. This dumbass lost possession TWENTY-TWO times against Hull. Who's we? YOU did that.

Ødegaard lost possession fewer times than you did vs Hull in his last TWO MATCHES COMBINED (City and Coventry games).

[Leo Dasilva @SirLeoBDasilva]

Arsenal not offering Martinelli a new contract was not communicating.
Arsenal increasing Trossard’s salary to signify he’s now the started over Martinelli was not communicating.
Arsenal signing Tzolis and chasing Vini at the same time, was not communicating.
Arsenal winning the community shield without including him or Gabriel’s Jesus in the squad was not communicating.
Martinelli rejecting a move to Turkey that Arsenal presented to him, was not communicating.
I don’t know what communication is anymore in this football business.

[The Arsenal Insider ✍🏼🚨 @Arsenalinsider5]

I remember 5 years ago when Arsenal lost 2-0 to Brentford on the opening day of the season.

We had a lot of injuries. The media didn't consider that, they came for us big time.

I hope the same energy is returned for Tottenham and Manchester United but I am sure the English media will never take them on.

[George 🇬🇪 @George_Zur1]

If Arteta is happy to let CB go that's about as big a red flag as you can get

[Daniel Storey @danielstorey85]

This is the second Premier League game that Saka, Odegaard and Havertz have started together since December 2024.

[Tim Stillman ⭐️⭐️ @timstillman_]

In the 2026 Europa League Final, Villa beat Freiburg 3-0 and then bought their best player for £60m because they have three times Freiburg's turnover. I presume that is what we are discussing here?

[Tobi @_Tobolos_]

Again, the most goals Arsenal have ever scored in a 3 year span wasn’t with Henry, Ian Wright, RVP etc

It was Mikel Arteta’s team from 2022-2025

Saying nonsense like this is so played out

[Damn. @Theonenameddamn]

Atal Bihari Vajpayee handed over an economy of around $0.7 trillion to Manmohan Singh. When Manmohan Singh handed over the baton to Modi in 2014, the economy was around $2.04 trillion. Today, India’s economy is around $4 trillion.

In other words, in roughly 10 years, Manmohan Singh oversaw the economy growing from about $0.7 trillion to $2.04 trillion nearly three times its size. Under Modi, it has grown from about $2.04 trillion to around $4 trillion roughly doubled.

Google it, ask anyone, and check whether these figures are correct. And if they are, then ask yourself what exactly have this govt achieved?

[Arsenal Babe @arsenalbabe_]

“Friendly game”

🍾 🍾 😭😂😂