Readers of this blog will know how much I detest Arsene Wenger and his policy of stealing the youth players of other clubs. I know other clubs do it too (Chelsea is another notable example), but Arsenal do it every other day. In fact, I protested this post that praised Arsenal's youth system chiefly because Arsenal's youth system is really just Arsene systematically purchasing well known young prospects from other clubs.

The latest news from this week...Due to the amount of material covered, I didn't post links to the original sources like I normally do, but if you want them, let me know.

OUTGOING:

FRED: Is it just me, or does Fred spend an inordinate amount of time making life difficult for the rest of us?

Last week, Lyon Foot published a hot collection of Lyon players with tattoos. It's a different sort of look at OL players, whose reputations normally come across as nice family guys. Which they still are, but sometimes we like to pretend they can be badass.

For me, the biggest surprise was Anthony Mounier.

Lyon had their first summer friendly this afternoon against Nimes in Albertville. Goals were scored by Juninho (10), Yannis Tafer (40), and Anthony Mounier (63). This was Claude Puel's first match in charge, and for many of the players, their first match in an OL jersey.

It's international week, so things are rather quiet on the Lyon front. Here's what's been going on:

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Fabio Grosso is back in training and is expected to play against Lille on October 18th. This is good news because if he does well, he play against Steaua a few days later.

These 3-0 losses are starting to turn into a yearly ritual. A humiliating one.

The game was so bad that Lyon's official website posted a highlight video that was only three minutes long - usually they are around twenty minutes. Watching it, I realized why. Apart from Mickael Pagis's three goals, not much else happened.