Paul Merson tells Arsenal to sign £130m star after Premier League title win

Arenal hero Paul Merson (Picture: Sky Sports

Paul Merson has urged Arsenal to sign at least two new players this summer after being crowned Premier League champions.

Mikel Arteta guided Arsenal to their first Premier League title since 2004, with the Gunners finishing seven points ahead of Manchester City.

Arsenal lifted their first Premier League trophy in 22 years at Selhurst Park on Sunday and were celebrating the monumental achievement long into the night.

Arteta gave his squad the day off on Monday, with Arsenal’s players set to return to training on Tuesday as preparations begin for this weekend’s Champions League final against PSG.

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Arsenal are holding a trophy parade in north London on Sunday and will hope to display the Champions League trophy as well as the Premier League gong to their adoring fans.

Attentions will then turn to the summer transfer window and a chance for Arteta to bolster his squad even further ahead of Arsenal’s title defence.

Arteta will reportedly have another £200m to play with in the transfer market and Merson believes the majority of that should be splashed on Julian Alvarez.

Mikel Arteta took Arsenal to the Premier League title (Picture: Getty)

Alvarez is expected to leave Atletico Madrid this summer and Arsenal are one of the frontrunners to secure his signature along with PSG and Barcelona.

The Argentine scored 36 goals across his two seasons at Manchester City and also helped Pep Guardiola’s side win two Premier League titles and the Champions League.

Alvarez has continued to impress at Atletico, scoring 49 goals in two seasons, but is believed to be keen to move on as trophies have eluded him since moving to Madrid.

Atletico Madrid striker and Arsenal target Julian Alvarez (Picture: Getty)

The 26-year-old has indicated to Atletico that he is open to leaving this summer, with club officials adamant he will only be sold for a staggering fee of around 150m euros (£130m).

Merson has suggested Alvarez would be worth every penny, however, insisting Arsenal should launch a move for the striker and also sign a new midfielder in the upcoming window.

‘I would get a centre forward this summer, I would go for Julian Alvarez,’ Merson said on The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast.

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‘I’m a big fan. If they could get him I would. I still think they probably need another midfield player as well.’

Gary Neville has also suggested Arsenal should look to sign a new striker and another midfielder this summer.

‘Arsenal will need to add again [in the transfer market] but at this point right now when they’ve won the title and got a Champions League final I don’t want to focus on that,’ he said on his Sky Sports podcast.

‘I’m not in that mood and I’m actually really happy for them. It’s not the time to start talking about Arsenal being built for a second title run.

‘Let’s be clear, they have to be. But I can’t give that too much consideration given we’ve got a Champions League final and a World Cup coming up.

‘We’ll start to think about those things nearer the time and do they need another centre forward as back-up to Viktor Gyokeres? Do they need another central midfielder in case Declan Rice or Martin Zubimendi aren’t quite there?

‘There’s probably a couple of positions that Arsenal will still want to think about but they’ve got a lot of strength in that squad.’

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Mum who abandoned children in woods sent to Portugal’s infamous women’s prison

Marine Rousseau (right) and Marc Ballabriga are ‘suspected of committing the offences of domestic violence and exposure and abandonment’ (Picture: EPA)

A French mum who ‘abandoned her children’ in the Portuguese woods has been sent to the country’s most infamous women’s prison.

Marine Rousseau and stepfather Marc Ballabriga are accused of ditching Barthélémy, five, and Zacharie, three, near Alcácer do Sal in France.

Rousseau, 41, was sent to the Tires Prison in Lisbon for pretrial detention on Saturday, Portugal’s Lusa News Agency reports.

The sexologist will be unable to leave her cell and cannot contact other inmates. Ballabriga, 55, has been sent to Setúbal Prison.

Tires, often the focus of true-crime documentaries, is home to around 450 inmates and is associated with murderers and child abusers.

The lock-up has a daycare facility for pregnant inmates as well as a school, hairdresser and an area to do crafts, make rugs and use a loom.

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Ballabriga at Setubal Judicial Court (Picture: EPA)

The boys were discovered wandering alone in the forest hundreds of miles away from home (Picture: GNR)

Portuguese police speaking with the children (Picture: GNR)

Rousseau and Ballabriga allegedly blindfolded the children and told them they could only remove them once they had found a buried knife.

Barthélémy dug up the knife after several minutes and took off their blindfolds only to find their parents were gone, they told police.

All they had on them were a change of clothing, two bottles of water, cookies, a pear and an orange.

Barthélémy and Zacharie were told by their parents that they were out in the woods to find a hidden toy.

The ‘terrified’ youngsters were found by Eugenia and Artur Quintas wandering the rural roads of Monte Novo do Sul at 7pm on Tuesday.

Artur told SIC Notícias that the children were ‘screaming and crying’ as they walked along National Road 253 (EN253).

‘To trick the children, their mom blindfolded them and left them in the forest to play a game,’ he said.

‘They told them to go and look for a toy.’

The couple took the brothers to a nearby police station and, after being given a clean bill of health by doctors, are now in foster care.

The children’s father had reported them missing to the French police and accused Rousseau of child abduction.

While the mother’s family reported Rousseau had vanished on May 11.

Rousseau’s LinkedIn describes her as a sexologist (Picture: Getty Images)

Prosecutor Jean Richert told AFP: What was surprising was that she wasn’t home, she had no reason not to be, and she didn’t notify anyone.

‘We managed to narrow down her whereabouts, successively in the south of France, in Spain and in Portugal, but without being able to contact her.’

Rousseau and Ballabriga were arrested while sitting in a terraced cafe near the city of Fátima on Thursday.

Before being sent to their respective prisons, Correio da Manhã reported the couple could be heard in their separate cells ‘shouting at each other’.

Setúbal District Court heard that the defendants were placed in pre-trial detention as they are considered flight risks.

Ballabriga, a former French gendarmerie officer, is also accused of aggravated assault.

Some of his final social media videos before his arrest show him wandering fields, filming animals and staring up at the sky.

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Mikel Arteta reveals the moment he knew Arsenal would win the Premier League

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta lifting the Premier League trophy (Picture: Getty)

Mikel Arteta has revealed the moment that convinced him Arsenal would become Premier League champions.

After a tense and turbulent title race with Manchester City, Arsenal were crowned Premier League champions for the first time since 2004 earlier this week.

Arteta had led the Gunners to three successive second-place finishes before finally delivering Arsenal a first league title in 22 years.

Man City’s draw with Bournemouth on Tuesday night allowed Arsenal to avoid a nervy final-day title decider but Arteta says he was convinced for a month that his side would get over the line.

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Arsenal suffered a painful defeat to Pep Guardiola’s City in April but Arteta says that loss actually emboldened his belief that the Premier League trophy would be heading to the Emirates Stadium.

Asked if there were any moments that made him believe Arsenal would win the title, Arteta told beIN SPORTS: ‘The very first one probably came when we all came together in pre-season, the week before we played Manchester United.

‘I got all the players together and asked them what they were happy to do for the team. They were happy to do anything for the team and I knew we had a big chance to compete in every competition because we had the depth and the quality to challenge.

Arsenal fans celebrating their Premier League title win (Picture: Getty)

‘Their response was immediate and incredible and they weren’t just words – it’s easy to say it in a meeting, but then you need to produce it throughout a ten-month season.

‘The boys deserve so much credit because they’ve done it in an incredible way.

‘The second moment is when we lost at Manchester City. That day I thought, “we are going to win it”. I looked at the players in the dressing room and I wanted to see their reactions before I said anything.

Mikel Arteta with the Premier League trophy (Picture: Getty)

‘And I could tell they were very hurt but they realised we can beat them and we can be better than them.

‘It was in our hands and we had to do what we had to do, after that we focused on what we needed to become champions and the response was immediate.

‘From that moment I realised we were going to go very close to winning it.’

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Reflecting on the moment Arsenal became Premier League champions, Arteta added: ‘It’s one of the best feelings I’ve ever had.

‘I was supposed to be here, at Sobha, watching the game with the boys and the staff, because that’s what they wanted, but I couldn’t. I think 20 minutes later, before the game, I had to leave.

‘I couldn’t bring the energy that I wanted and I think it was the moment as well to watch it together, to be themselves and just see what the outcome would be.

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‘I went home, I went outside to the garden, I started to build a fire, and I started to do some barbecue. I didn’t watch any of it. 

‘I was just hearing some noises in the background, in the living room and suddenly the magic happened.

‘My oldest son opened the garden door, he started to run towards me, he started to cry, he gave me a hug and said: “We are champions, daddy.”

‘Then my other two boys and my wife came over and it was beautiful. Just to see that joy on them as well, that they are always with me, it was magical.’

Arsenal celebrated becoming Premier League champions with a final-day win over Crystal Palace.

Gabriel Jesus and Noni Madueke scored either side of half-time for the much-changed Gunners before Jean-Philippe Mateta netted a late consolation goal.

After fully celebrating their Premier League title win, Arsenal will turn their attentions to next weekend’s Champions League final against PSG.

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Casualty confirms devastating baby Pearl scenes as Iain and Faith fear the worst

Emotional times for Iain and Faith in Casualty (Picture: BBC / Metro)

Casualty spoilers follow for Saturday’s (May 24) episode that is now available to view on BBC iPlayer. The episode in question will air on BBC One at 8:10pm. 

Emotions ran high for Faith Dean (Kirsty Mitchell) and Iain Dean (Michael Stevenson) in Casualty this week after a devastating scare involving baby Pearl.

Faith, as viewers will know, welcomed Pearl in a dramatic scenes earlier this year – at the end of the BBC medical drama’s previous boxset – reuniting with Iain in time for their little one’s arrival.

In the weeks since, Pearl has been in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), with Rash Masum (Neet Mohan) keeping a watchful eye over her while working in the department as part of his CESR rotation.

This Saturday’s (May 23) edition of the popular show – the fourth in the Lethal Legacy saga – saw Faith excited at the prospect of baby Pearl coming home but Rash reiterated that the little one needed to learn to feed on her own before such a thing can happen.

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The news disappointed Faith, who worried that Pearl didn’t know who she was given that Rash handles her more than she does but Rash reinforced the importance of all the time she’s spent with Pearl, assuring her that the baby knows exactly who she is.

Faith attempted to help a fellow mum, Mia, whose baby Leo was in the neonatal unit and needed a lumbar puncture. The two bonded and Mia consented to the procedure.

Rash swooped into action to help (Picture: BBC STUDIOS)

But after Rash performed the lumbar puncture, his attention was elsewhere as a devastated Faith alerted him to the fact that Pearl was choking.

After a few moments, Pearl stopped breathing. Rash and the fellow doctors swooped into action, with Iain being notified via text to get to the NICU as soon as he could.

Iain arrived soon after and comforted Faith (Picture: BBC STUDIOS)

Iain had temporarily lost access to his phone after a passerby stole it from his hand but the person’s attempt to flee the scene resulting him in ending up with a serious injury, which Iain subsequently tended to.

When he checked his device to see a string of text messages, he raced to the NICU to see devastated Faith in tears, desperately hoping their baby would be okay.

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‘What happened?’, he exclaimed. Rash revealed that Pearl had arrested but she is stable now. Iain comforted emotional Faith.

Later, Iain assured Faith that he would get to the bottom of why their little girl is in the NICU. The question is: will he succeed in doing so?

Casualty airs Saturday at 8:45pm on BBC One or stream from 6am on BBC iPlayer.

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Man arrested after five people stabbed in west London

Emergency services were called to Horn Lane in Acton this afternoon to reports five men were assaulted and stabbed in an altercation (Picture: Google Maps)

Five people have been stabbed outside a shop in west London.

Emergency services were called to Horn Lane in Acton this afternoon to reports five men were assaulted and stabbed in an altercation.

Four of the men, aged 20, 22, 42 and 47, were taken to hospital with stab wounds.

Their injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

The fifth man, aged 26, was taken to hospital where his injuries have not been deemed to be life-threatening.

He has been arrested arrested on suspicion of GBH and Possession with intent to supply Class A & B drugs.

Images from local groups show the men being treated outside an electrical goods shop.

Chief Superintendent Jill Horsfall said: ‘We recognise this will be concerning for the local community and want to reassure them that our detectives are working quickly to establish exactly what has taken place.

‘Residents can expect to see an increased police presence in the area over the coming days. If you have any concerns, please come and speak to our officers.’

The Metropolitan Police said: ‘Police on patrol on Horn Lane, Acton at 14.47hrs on Friday, 22 May were alerted to reports that five men had been involved in an altercation, whereby they were assaulted and stabbed.

‘Officers provided emergency first aid to the five people. 

‘Four of the men, aged 20, 22, 42 and 47, were taken to hospital with stab wounds. Their condition has been deemed not to be life-threatening or life-changing.

‘Another man – aged 26 – was taken to hospital where his injuries have also been deemed not to be life-threatening or life-changing. He has been arrested on suspicion of GBH and Possession with intent to supply Class A & B drugs but remains in hospital at this time.’

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Revealed: The staggering amount of Brits who’d swap their dad if they had the chance

Although many people have good relationships with their dad, some are very challenging (Picture: thortful/Cover Media) 

If your relationship with your dad is a tricky one, you’re not alone, new research has revealed.

One in five Brits have admitted they would swap their father given the chance, while one in three pretend they have a better relationship with their parent than they really do.

Many also confessed that they buy Father’s Day cards out of obligation rather than love, according to the survey by online greetings card marketplace thortful.

The research busts the common myth of the perfect dad or hero father, which can leave people agonising over which greetings card to buy.

It also found that one in four would rather celebrate their mum than their dad on Father’s Day.

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Some of the cards from thortful’s Father’s Day, which reflect complex feelings people can experience (Picture: thortful/Cover Media) 

Thortful has launched a new campaign called “Dad’s not perfect… but” challenging the idea of the “best dad ever” stereotype ahead of the event on June 21.  

The company is offering 50 specially designed cards providing an option for those who do not have the perfect relationship. 

They also reflect that Father’s Day can be shaped by loss, absence, distance or a relationship that simply isn’t straightforward. 

Andy Pearce, founder and CEO of thortful said: ‘Father’s Day can bring up a real mix of emotions. 

‘My own experience of losing my father was one of the catalysts for this campaign, because I know first-hand that the day does not look or feel the same for everyone. 

The cards are designed to bust the myth of the perfect dad or hero father (Picture: thortful/Cover Media) 

‘Our research shows that plenty of Brits are navigating relationships with their dads that are more complex than traditional cards tend to allow for, and we wanted to create a range that makes space for that. 

‘These cards are about honesty, humour and genuine relationships, giving people a way to mark Father’s Day in a way that reflects their actual relationship, not the one they feel they are supposed to have.’

Pip Heywood, MD at thortful, added: ‘Our research shows that Father’s Day messaging needs a reality check and at thortful we are championing a new kind of Father’s Day – one that reflects real life, not just clichés. 

‘Ultimately, we want to help people mark Father’s Day in a way that is true to them, without the pressure to pretend their relationship is something it is not.’

Thortful’s alternative Father’s Day card range is available here.  

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