Pay €10,000 to watch Burnley? Desperate Arsenal fans may consider it

Arsenal got a bit of a kicking last week, and were accused of being a touch on the mean side, when it emerged that members of their staff – not of the playing and coaching kind – who want to attend the Champions League final in Budapest will have to pay around €1,000 for the privilege. This somewhat contrasted with what did Paris Saint-Germain did last year – they paid for flights, accommodation and tickets for all their staff for their final in Munich.

All you can hope is that the Arsenal staff at least managed to get tickets for their last home Premier League game of the season, against Burnley on Monday evening. Needless to say, it’s sold out, but as of the middle of last week, according to the London Times, there was one option still available: a corporate box with a capacity for 15.

Not only will you get to see the game in luxury, you’ll also receive an Arsenal shirt, you’ll get to meet an Arsenal “legend” and get served food and drinks, the menu including a worrying sounding “mini mock chicken burger”. The price? Just the €150,000 for the entire box, so €10,000 each. A snip, then.

Quote

“He texted to ask how I was getting on. Slagging me again about eating too much of me Ma’s coddle. I don’t even eat coddle. Me Ma is a vegetarian.” Jack Moylan, who marked his Irish debut against Grenada on Saturday with a hat-trick, on his old gaffer Damien Duff’s queries about his eating habits.

By the Numbers: 226

That’s how many days, since September, that Hearts had led the Scottish Premiership table ... until Saturday. Hearts? In smithereens.

Word of Mouth

“You go to these fancy hotels, but you can’t have ****ing two poached eggs on toast. I ended up in the kitchen, arguing with the chefs. I said, ‘where’s my poached eggs, I ordered 25 minutes ago?’ Two poached eggs, not like ****ing steak.” Just another day in Roy Keane’s life.

“They’ve been growing and ... well, it’s a team that has been together for, what, five years now, so it’s only natural that they would man up a little bit and start challenging for titles.” Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva, em, salutes Arsenal for finally (possibly) getting their act together.

“I feel rejuvenated. The players and the staff have given me a reason to live. That’s not to say my family haven’t.” Celtic gaffer Martin O’Neill after winning the title on Saturday, just about saving himself in time.

Florentino Perez’s press conference of incoherent ramblings

Press conference of the week? Actually, never mind ‘week’, it was one for the ages. The Guardian’s Sid Lowe never fails to make sense of happenings in Spanish football, but even he struggled with this one. Real Madrid 79-year-old president Florentino Pérez’s “incoherent ramblings” lasted for over an hour, the attendees “barely able to believe what they were seeing”.

The gist? Well, Pérez started with: “Good afternoon, I regret to inform you that I’m not going to resign” and then went on to vow that “I’m going to finish the bad people ... leave the internal enemies to me. They’re going to have to shoot me.”

The media? “Why do they want to kill me? I work day and night like an animal for Real Madrid. It would be bad to say I am the best president in history, but I am.” Out-trumping Trump.

Reguilón willing to spend $135,000 to bring dog across ocean

Remember Sergio Reguilón? The Spanish left-back had spells with Real Madrid and Spurs, and a heap of loan moves, before joining Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami last December. He’s been settling in nicely in Florida, but is desperately missing a family member he left behind in Madrid.

“I had been looking in to getting him a passport to bring him to the United States and he has it now. I want him to come, I miss him so much,” he said.

Who is this family member? Ohana, Reguilón’s Golden Retriever. “He is a big dog, I do not want him to have a hard time, so I don’t want him travelling in the cargo hold. So, I am looking at hiring a private jet to bring him over. It is 135,000 dollars one way. It is worth it.” It is too, good man Sergio.

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