After a summer of discontent it seems the Arsenal rumourmill has gone into overdrive. And once again the rumour wheel of fortune has landed on the name of Eden Hazard. As soon as Samir Nasri’s deal to Manchester City was done and dusted the “Hazard to Arsenal” rumours quickly snowballed to somewhat of a frenzy, even the BBC got in on the act.

Arsene Wenger and the club have been very quiet. Wenger dismissed reports of a £6m bid for Bolton’s Gary Cahill and nothing else was reported. On Thursday night French website Mercato 365 released a “story” that Hazard had agreed terms with Arsenal and a deal would be done for around €35m. Now let’s get a few things straight, Mercato365 is not a respected media outlet, to be honest it’s actually worse than talkSPORT.

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Over the past 12 months I have wrote quite a few articles about Eden Hazard and as the links to Arsenal have reared their ugly head again I suppose it is only right to share those pieces again.

I don’t personally believe he will leave the Stade Lille Metropole this summer, with only eight days left in the window it doesn’t make sense for Lille to part with the Belgian forward regardless of the price offered. However as I’ve always said…..you never know.

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Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of activity on this blog. Time is a wonderful thing, but it seems like I just don’t have enough of it to go around. Most days I am writing something, just not for GFS. If you would still like to read my work please go on over to French Football Weekly and read what I am saying over there .

“Don’t be fooled by the calendar.  There are only as many days in the year as you make use of.”  ~Charles Richards

Transfer negotiators at Arsenal take note. Most summers at the Emirates are spent embroiled in the latest drawn out transfer saga. More often than not it involves Cesc Fabergas, the “will he won’t he” drama that fills most windows has at least been complimented this Summer with the potential purchase of Ivory Coast winger Gervinho from French champions Lille.

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On this week’s podcast we picked our goals of the season, describes our choices.

Eran Zehavi earned a special place in the hearts of football fans with this amazing overhead goal against Lyon in a December Champions League match. Not only did this goal help Hapoel Tel-Aviv earn a spot in the Europa League, it earned the Goal Of The Year nomination from Brazilian football expert Jack Lang.  While Jack admits to knowing nothing about Zehavi, he will always think of this goal whenever he hears that name mentioned.
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First of all…watch this!

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**Disclaimer** In no way is this an attempt to generate hits via having the keywords Eden Hazard, Arsenal and Transfer in the same article. Over the past few weeks questions about the future of Lille’s fantastic little Belgian have been flooding in via twitter and other avenues. It is time to put these to bed….for now.

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After recording for 38 minutes there was a technical hitch and some of the greatest football analysis ever spoken was lost forever.

Being the consumate professionals that we are at the gibfootballshow we carried on.

Enjoy , and talking about Lazio and Serie A, the Belgian League playoffs, Eden Hazard staying at Lille and a preview of the Europa League games. Ben also answers some questions on Portuguese football.

As an extra bonus brings us a report from Socrates Ryton as a whole host of bloggers travelled north for Northern League Day , not to be missed.

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW IN ALL FORMATS HERE

talks us through this week’s Coupe De France Quarter-Finals

On Tuesday Ligue 2 Reims entertained Ligue 1 side Nice in the first of the Quarter Finals, Daniel Ljuboja gave the visitors the lead on the half hour but Reims hit straight back when Romain Amalfitano side footed home from a Odair Fortes cross. Eric Mouloungui restored the lead for Nice on 48 minutes but once more Reims deservedly hit back, Fortes adding a goal to his earlier assist to force the game into extra time. Mouloungui was to be the hero for Eric Roy’s Nice as substitutes David Bellion & Anthony Mounier combined for the former Strasbourg forwards 2 ^nd goal of the game vindicating Roy’s decision to rest several key players.

There was to be no more giant killing heroics from non league Chambery as Ligue 2 Angers strolled to a 3-0 victory at Grenoble’s Stade des Alpes. On loan Bordeaux man Henri Saivet broke the minnows hearts on the stoke of half time and 2 ^nd half strikes from Sebastien Renouard & Diego Gomez gave the scoreline a one sided look.

Ligue 2 leaders Le Mans travelled east to the capital to face a Paris Saint Germain side who started with a mix of experience and highly rated youth, it was to be the youth that would eventually come out on top. Scoreless at full time and with the hosts down to 10 men the game ebbed and flowed with both sides creating chances, possibly the best of which fell to Le Mans, the visitors also went down to 10 men early in extra time and PSG took hold of the game, taking a 108 ^th minute lead through Jean Christophe Bahebeck and sealing the game through another youngster Neeskens Kebano.

The last of the Quarter Finals was to be the final game played on the notorious Metropole pitch at Lille. The hosts had the better of the chances but visiting Lorient keeper Fabien Audard was in fine form and after extra time the game ended 0-0. The first four penalties were converted before a woeful spot kick from Lorient’s Arnold Mvuemba gave the home side the advantage, both sides scored their next penalty so it fell to Lille’s talisman Eden Hazard to win the game and he did just that although Lorient may feel that the Belgian playmaker should have re-taken the kick after he appeared to stop mid run up before tapping the ball to the stricken Audard’s right hand side to give Lille a 5-3 shootout win and send them into the semi finals alongside Angers Nice & last season’s winners Paris Saint Germain.