Arsenal World Cup Update

With the first round of group games over it’s time for me to take a look how the World Cup is progressing from an Arsenal perspective. We have 10 players representing their countries in Qatar and some of them have made their mark already.

There was no Arsenal interest in the opening game as hosts Qatar lost 2-0 to Ecuador despite getting the benefit of possibly the dodgiest offside you will see this season. The other game in that group saw The Netherlands beat Senegal 2-0 and I would be surprised to see Qatar manage a goal or a point from their remaining games. Group A looks all set for The Netherlands to top it with Senegal and Ecuador fighting for the second spot in the knockout stages.

There was some Arsenal involvement in group B when England got their campaign off to a flier with a 6-2 win over Iran and Bukayo Saka grabbing a brace of goals. He was Arsenal’s star player last season and he has been one of so many exceptional players for us so far this season so it’s great to see him shine on the international stage too. The sooner we tie him down to an even longer and better contract the better as there looks like there will be a lot of interest in him.

Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale were unused subs in that game with Eric Dier coming on ahead of White when Harry Maguire had to go off. I’m not sure if either of them will see much action, but I have no doubt of their ability to impress given the opportunity. In the other game in that group Matt Turner played well in goal for the USA as they drew 1-1 with Wales and they still have every chance of progressing at this stage. There’s still a lot to be decided in the group and it’s not easy to judge until we know exactly how good or bad Iran really are.

There is no Arsenal involvement in Group C, but Saudi Arabia’s 2-1 win over Argentina was the biggest shock of the tournament so far. With Mexico and Poland drawing 0-0 the group is still wide open, but Argentina will probably have to beat both of them if Lionel Messi is going to go any further in his final World Cup.

The only Arsenal player in Group D is France’s William Saliba and he was an unused sub in their 4-1 win against Australia. The other game in that group ended up scoreless between Denmark and Tunisia and it’s far from certain which teams will progress despite France’s win. 

Group E got off to a great start with Japan coming back from 1-0 down to upset Germany and Takehiro Tomiyasu played the second half of the game. I’m not sure why he was on the bench, but Japan must have some very good players if they can afford to leave him out of their starting 11. I suppose he could be carrying a knock as his time at Arsenal has been constantly interrupted by niggling injuries. Spain romped to a 7-0 win over Costa Rica in the other game in this group and Germany will have to beat Spain when they meet on Sunday or their World Cup will more than likely be over after only two games.

Group F has no Arsenal involvement either and the opening two games in that group had only one goal between them as Belgium just about managed to beat Canada while Morocco and Croatia shared the points in the other game. This group is still wide open with none of the teams impressing too much so far, but Canada will find it hard to progress despite probably deserving at least a point against Belgium.

Group G has three Arsenal players on show and the first of them to play was Granit Xhaka who captained Switzerland to a 1-0 win over Cameroon which leaves them in a strong position in the group. It’s been dubbed the group of death and the win over Cameroon gives them a great advantage over Cameroon and Serbia who lost 2-0 to Brazil in the later game. Arsenal have two players in the Brazil squad and both Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli came off the bench in the second half of that win.

Finally the only Arsenal player in group H is Thomas Partey and his campaign got off to a losing start as he played the full match for Ghana in a 3-2 loss against Portugal. There was no Arsenal interest in the other game in the group which ended scoreless between Uruguay and South Korea. Ghana will probably have to win their last two group games to progress to the knockout stages so we might see Partey on his way back to London in just over a week.

All in all it’s been a pretty good start for Arsenal players at the World Cup with eight of our 10 players winning their first game, one of them drawing and only one losing. Of course all of those players didn’t start for their countries with only four of them chosen for the first round of games and three more coming off the bench. Bukayo Saka was the standout player with his two goals for England making him the joint top scorer in the tournament so far.

There’s no rest for the players or supporters as the next round of games gets going immediately and the Arsenal involvement on Friday will all be in the England versus USA game. A win for England would almost certainly see them progress to the next round and top the group too. I would imagine both Saka and Turner will start with both Ramsdale and White on the bench again.

That’s it for today.

See you soon.

Latest Arsenal Transfer Update

With the transfer window only open a few days it looks like Arsenal are attempting to get the much needed business of squad building off to a quick start. With European football to look forward to next season it will hopefully be an attraction to players we are looking to sign even if it’s only the Europa League. We are going to need a bigger squad with more quality in it so we can expect more arrivals than departures. 

Most of those that were surplus to requirements made their ways out of the club in January while there are also a few players out on loan who will ideally make those loans permanent too. I would like to see William Saliba return and fight for a place in the team because he looks like he could be a central defender of the highest quality for a long time to come and from what he has said today he will be at Arsenal next season. Of course we need to collect fees for Matteo Guendouzi, Hector Bellerin, Lucas Torreira, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Konstantinos Mavropanos, Pablo Mari and Runar Alex Runarsson with Reiss Nelson possibly making his way back to the club.

Alexandre Lacazette has already as good as left on a free transfer with his contact almost up while Eddie Nketiah looks all set to sign up on a much improved contract from the same situation. If we are going to improve on the goals tally (or lack thereof) our strikers contributed last season then a top class striker will be a requirement. In addition we have signed Matt Turner as a back up to Aaron Ramsdale which should mean Bernd Leno is surplus to requirements too.

Youri Tielemans is currently looking like he could be Arsenal’s first purchase of the summer. The need to strengthen in the centre of our midfield is there for all to see and Tielemans would certainly improve our midfield as it is and give us more options there too. He only has one year left on his contract at Leicester City so we could get him at a decent price, but that would of course mean he will be expecting a pretty hefty wage from Arsenal.

If we can convince the player to join us I think he would be a very good addition to the team/squad as long as we keep Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka too. Albert Sambi Lokonga still has a way to go before he’s ready to hold down a first team place and I just don’t think Mohamed Elneny is good enough at the level we want to play. Tielemans would definitely give us the strength in depth and options we need to challenge on four fronts next season.

Gabriel Jesus is the striker who’s name keeps coming up when Arsenal are mentioned, but it could be difficult to pry him from Manchester City. His chances there will be limited with the arrival of Erling Haaland which looks to be a done deal, but with the money behind City they don’t need to sell. If he is available I’m still not convinced he’s the striker to solve our problems, but Mikel Arteta seems to think he’s the man for us.

Oleksandr Zinchenko is hardly a first choice at City and again he could be available if they decide he’s surplus to requirements. As it stands Kieran Tierney is our first choice left back and Zinchenko would find it difficult to dislodge him, but Tierney’s constant absences through injury worry me and I imagine a lot of other Arsenal fans feel the same way too. If Nuno Tavares is loaned out next season we will need cover for Tierney and Zinchenko might even think he can make the position his own given a run in the team so it might make sense for him to look our way if he is going to make a move.

Aaron Hickey is another left back who seems to be making his way onto the Arsenal radar and like Zinchenko he’s an interesting option. He’s third choice for his favoured position with Scotland with Andy Robertson and Tierney both ahead of him, but he might feel he can make the position his own at Arsenal for the same reasons as Zinchenko. He’s had a good season at Bologna and he could well be an option for us, but I have no doubt he will have offers from elsewhere too.

Serge Gnabry left Arsenal six years ago and his departure and subsequent move to Bayern Munich just didn’t feel right at the time. If it’s true that he is available then he would be a fantastic addition to the team as he has shown himself to be a top class player since joining Bayern. His goalscoring record is very impressive for a wide player and I would be more than happy to see him in an Arsenal shirt again.

There will be intense interest from elsewhere I’m sure as his price should be reasonable enough given he only has one year left on his contract. Of all the players I have mentioned so far I think he’s the one who could make the biggest impression at Arsenal which makes me think it will be very difficult to get him. He’ll be 27 in a few weeks so this will probably be his last big move and we will have to offer him an awful lot of money to get him back to Arsenal.

Finally it looks like we have secured the services of Brazilian teenager Marquinhos from Sao Paolo despite a possible legal challenge from Wolves. I can’t say I know too much about him and I assume he’s one for the future with the three cup competitions being lined up to give him some first team games. Hopefully he’s going to be as good a signing as Gabriel Martinelli and we can look forward to watching him for years to come.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

More Missed Opportunities For Arsenal

As the Premier League season gets closer to it’s end it’s becoming abundantly obvious Arsenal’s only path to European football next season is through the Europa League. For the second game in a row they went 3-0 down, but they at least started to play against West Ham when that happened two weeks ago. They rescued a point from a game they had to win against West Ham in that game, but there was no turnaround against Liverpool on Saturday night when they lost 3-0 at home.

As performances go it was one of the worst ones I’ve seen from Arsenal this season and that’s a lot to say in a season where we have underperformed more often than not. Since Christmas things have definitely improved, but most of the first half against West Ham and all of Saturday night were a return to our very worst. The players were outplayed and outfought on both occasions and while everyone can have an off day there is no excuse for lack of commitment.

It’s easy to say that we would have been right back in the fight for the Champions League places if we had won both of those games, but it’s absolutely true. Full points in both of those games would have left us in eighth place and only four points behind fourth placed Chelsea, but it seems the players (and probably the manager too) have decided all of our eggs lie in the Europa League basket.

Our route to the final looks like it’s reasonably attainable, but all it will take is one performance like either of our last two games and we can kiss European football goodbye for next season. As bad as missing out on the Champions League for the last four seasons has been, it will be infinitely worse with absolutely no European football at all next season. The ability to attract new players to the club lessens without European football and we need to add to what we have if we’re going to improve next season.

I’ve heard plenty of people saying we need to give Mikel Arteta more time as we are improving and he’s building for the future. I really hope he can get things right and rekindle our glory days, but at the moment it looks like we’re sacrificing the present for an unknown future. When we improved after Christmas it was as a result of changing our attacking formation, but he reversed that formation against Liverpool.

Injuries and sheer desperation made Arteta switch to three attacking midfielders and one striker against Chelsea with the young players he so rarely showed faith in (in the Premier League at least) coming into the team. Performances and results improved immediately and despite some setbacks we climbed the table. We showed ambition and looked far more capable of scoring goals and winning games, but Saturday night was the opposite yet again as he switched back to one attacking midfielder and three forwards.

My biggest problem is his lack of faith in Gabriel Martinelli whose opportunities are few and far between and when he gets them they tend to be last minute cameos. As others who are far more experienced and with impressive careers strolled around against Liverpool he left Martinelli on the bench until the last 13 minutes of the game. I honestly think Arteta either doesn’t rate him or doesn’t trust him and it must be even more frustrating for Martinelli than it is for us fans.

We play Slavia Prague on Thursday night in a game that now becomes our most important one of the season as every Europa League game will be from here on in. After that it’s a trip to Sheffield United on Sunday night and since that time slot was introduced into a Covid infected football world we have lost every single game we have played in it. Sheffield United are on the verge of relegation and despite the numerous experts telling us they rarely lose by more than a goal it’s a game in which nothing other than a win is acceptable.

It’s been a very tough season to be an Arsenal fan and the upturn since Christmas was at least making it bearable, but any more performances like Saturday night and I think questions have to be asked of the manager. He’s sending his players out to play with his tactics and instructions and he has to be accountable when it goes so badly wrong. He managed to change things against West Ham, but he couldn’t find any solutions in terms of personnel or tactics to make any difference at all against Liverpool.

As I’ve said on numerous occasions before I really want him to succeed and I hope he does, but I’m far from confident that he will. The recent signs from some of the players would seem to suggest some of them might not be so sure either and he has to weed out the players who just aren’t giving enough and replace them with players who want to play for him and the club.

That’s it for today.

See you next time.

Arsenal v Chelsea: FA Cup Final Preview

It’s been a very difficult season as an Arsenal fan with the disappointments seemingly far outweighing the few positives, but we have a chance to change all of that on Saturday. Arsenal already hold the record for winning the most FA Cup Finals and they can bring their tally to 14 if they can overcome Chelsea. It would be a great way to end the strangest of seasons and it would bring the added bonus of qualification for the Europa League for next season.

There are those who say Arsenal could do with a season out of European football’s lesser competition and I can understand that point of view, but I don’t agree with it. Not only will the Europa League bring in some much needed money, but it will surely help to attract potential transfer targets if we have some form of European football to offer. Until our untimely exit this season we had done very well in the Europa League in the previous two seasons even if they both ultimately ended in disappointment.

Having finished eighth (yes eighth) in the Premier League we are lucky to have the opportunity to qualify for Europe and it’s one we have to take. We were in a similar situation last season when we again faced Chelsea in the Europa League final with a spot in the Champions League on offer for us if we had lifted the trophy. That didn’t end well for us and it should have marked the end for Unai Emery at the club, but those at the top waited until we plummeted a lot further before making that decision.

When Mikel Arteta took charge half way through the season we were in a bad way and he has managed to turn things around to a degree, but we still have a long way to go. I think he is the right man to lead us forward, but he needs to bring in players who want to play for us and him and who can improve what has become a pretty average team. If it wasn’t for the goals of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang our season would have been so much worse and Arteta needs to find some players who can get us the goals that are lacking in every other part of our team.

Of course this could be Aubameyang’s last game for Arsenal if we can’t convince him to sign a contract extension and decide to cash in on whatever value he has at 31 with a year left on his contract in the current economic climate caused by Covid19. I am of the opinion we might be better to keep him until his contract ends if he won’t extend as it would cost even more to replace him and finding another striker of his ability who would be prepared to join us would be no easy task. One of the few joys I have left when watching Arsenal is Aubameyang’s smile when he scores.

It could be the last game for Dani Ceballos too as his loan spell from Real Madrid is up, but the rumours are he will be loaned to us again next season. I’ve been impressed by him since football returned, but he’s not exactly the most creative of players which probably makes him fit right in with the rest of our midfield at the moment. He has formed a fairly good partnership with Granit Xhaka though and I would be very surprised if they both don’t start against Chelsea.

The other bright moments in this season have come through the emergence of Bukayo Saka and the impression Kieran Tierney has made since he managed to put his injury problems behind him when football returned. Saka signing a new contract was a big bonus for us and I look forward to him developing as a player and finding the position that best suits him. Tierney looks to have all the assets we could ask for in the attacking side of his game and his defending should improve if we can put other good defenders in there with him.

The injury to Bernd Leno looked to have put us in a very awkward situation only a few weeks ago, but Emiliano Martinez has grabbed his opportunity with both hands which is always preferable for any goalkeeper. He will play against Chelsea and he will most definitely give Arteta a few headaches when it comes to choosing his first choice keeper for next season. With the attacking players Chelsea will have on show Martinez will have to be at his best if we’re going to have a chance.

I imagine Arteta will play Hector Bellerin on the right of the defence with David Luiz in the centre alongside Rob Holding. If he opts for three central defenders I would prefer to see Tierney alongside those two with Saka on the left as Sead Kolasinac is an accident waiting to happen all too often. Of course Luiz is the definition of an accident waiting to happen as the five penalties he gave away this season indicate. I really find it hard to understand how we extended his contract a few weeks ago, but we are so limited in the centre of our defence that I suppose we couldn’t afford to let him go. Hopefully William Saliba will very quickly become the player we want him to be when he joins us.

With five at the back and Xhaka and Ceballos in midfield it would leave Aubameyang attacking from the left which is where he gets so many of his goals. I would imagine Alexandre Lacazette will play through the middle with his ability to hold the ball up and harass the opposing defenders. He’s added a few goals in recent weeks too and it would be the ideal game for another blockbuster like we saw a couple of weeks ago.

The last place should realistically go to our record signing, but Nicolas Pepe hasn’t had the easiest first season in English football. I think it’s too easy to keep him out of the game and he needs to find a way to become more involved. He has the ability to be our match winner against Chelsea, but we could see him on the bench with Arteta possibly favouring a player who might give us more work rate.

We had great results against both Liverpool and City so recently and I expect us to try to play in a similar fashion against Chelsea. If we try to take the game to them too much our defensive deficiencies on the break could come back to haunt us so it will probably be a case of looking for our chances on the break or from a turnover. Chelsea’s defence has been no better than ours for most of the season and they actually conceded six goals more than us in the Premier League.

It’s going to be very strange watching the FA Cup Final with no fans in the stadium, but it has become the new normal. I hope we can put in a performance to be proud of and it has to be better than what we saw against the same opposition in the Europa League final last season. It would be great for Arteta and our future if he could inspire the players to put in a performance to win the cup. 

I won’t say I think we will win, but I definitely think we have a very good chance. Chelsea are rightly the favourites as they finished fourth in the league and we had our worst finish in 25 years all the way back in eighth place. It’s a one off game though and City realised in the semi-final that we can give just about any team a game if we’re at our best. All I wish for is Arsenal to be just that and hopefully it will be enough to finish the season in some glory with a nice shiny trophy.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal Set To Return To Action Away To City

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything about Arsenal, but then again it’s been a long time since we’ve actually had any football to read or write about. When the Premier League season paused for the present pandemic Arsenal had eventually found some form and had looked capable of possibly pushing for top four spot. Who knows exactly where they’re going to take up again when things get going but they couldn’t have had a much harder fixture than away to the current champions Manchester City.

When this season came to an abrupt halt Arsenal were on a fairly good run as they had been unbeaten in eight games though they only won four of them. They currently have eight points to make up on fourth placed Chelsea which is a bit of a stretch, but they do have a game in hand and that game is away to city or what looks like June 17. There is a chance that the fifth place team will qualify for the Champions League though given the current issues Manchester City are having with financial fair play and Arsenal must certainly have a chance of catching fifth placed Manchester United.

They only have 10 league games left to play in fact so when things get going on June 17 the season will finish pretty quickly I imagine as long as they continue to play. It’s been a very strange time for the last three months and I can imagine things will seem even more unusual when the players finally get to play in front of empty stadiums with the possibility of crowd noise being piped in. We had a preview of what it will be like with what has been going on in Germany since the Bundesliga returned I can’t say that I’ve been overly thrilled by what I’ve seen and/or heard.

It’s something that we’re going have to deal with though and I suppose like anything else in time we will get used to it. As well as the Premier League Arsenal still have to finish off the FA Cup this season and we’re down to the last eight with a tie against Sheffield United to play at some stage. It’s our only chance of a trophy this season so I think Mikel Arteta  will treat it fairly seriously.

During the shutdown they’re been rumours and counter rumours about what players will be coming and going at the end of the season, but to be honest I can’t see too much being sorted and it probably won’t be sorted until they at least manage to finish this season. The late finish will of course mean next season starts later and all of the transfer windows will have to be moved in every single league. There  is also the issue of players contracts that are up at the end of June and whether they will extend those contracts to stay with their current clubs to finish this season too.

Now that I’ve eventually managed to write something about Arsenal I’ll try to do so a lot more often. The news should ramp up bit by bit over the next couple of weeks as the return gets closer. It will at least give us something to do as we will be saturated with live Premier League games every Saturday and Sunday in particular.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal Smash Their Transfer Record To Sign Nicolas Pepe

It’s been some day to be an Arsenal fan as they broke their transfer record for the third time in two years to sign Nicolas Pepe from Lille. When news of his imminent arrival first broke a few days ago I didn’t dare to believe as I pondered all the obstacles in our way, but my doubts were proven wrong when he signed on the dotted line today. It’s still hard to believe a club with supposedly only £40 million to spend this summer could splash almost twice that amount on one player.

Of course we won’t be paying all of the money up front and we have brought in a little money through sales recently with possibly more sales to follow. Pepe joins Gabriel Martinelli as a permanent fixture in the squad this season while Dani Ceballos is on loan from Real Madrid abd William Saliba has signed for us, but been loaned back to St. Etienne for this season. It doesn’t look like we’re finished either with Kieran Tierney looking likely to join us from Celtic very soon and a mystery central defender lined up too if the rumours are to be believed.

Martinelli definitely looks like one for the future and Ceballos will add a lot to the team for the season that he’s with us, but Pepe is the marquee signing us fans were longing for. He had a fantastic season with Lille last season with 23 goals and 11 assists from a wide role and he’s exactly the type of player we have needed for so long. His ability to take players on and beat them at pace is something we badly need in our team and we need someone else besides Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette to score consistently.

There’s still some work to be done though and we haven’t added anyone to a very dodgy defence. It looks like both Shkodran Mustafi and Laurent Koscielny could be on their way out which would make our need for more defenders crucial. The returns of both Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin will be of real benefit to the team and they can’t come soon enough for me.

We have some incredible attacking talent in the team and our forward line has to be one to be feared by any other team. However, if we don’t sort out our defensive issues we’re probably going to have to score at least three goals in every game if we want to win. A few weeks ago I might have said I had no real faith in the club signing the players we need to strengthen the defence, but it’s hard to argue with the players delivered in recent weeks and I really hope they can keep up the fantastic work.

I think the demise of Mesut Ozil in the last couple of seasons was strongly influenced by the departure of Alexis Sanchez and I hope the dynamism offered by Pepe can bring the best out of Ozil again. With the contract he’s on he’s going nowhere so it’s very important for us to get the maximum return possible from such an important and expensive asset. I, for one, can’t wait to see what our attack is capable of this coming season and we don’t have too long to wait.

I could put up links to various videos showing us exactly what we’re getting with the arrival of Pepe, but there’s no real point as they’re so easy for anyone to find themselves. In just 10 days time we should see Pepe unleashed on Newcastle United and hopefully it will be the start of a long and fruitful Arsenal career. He’s only 24 years old so he still has his best years ahead of him and maybe he can be the player to help change our fortunes and get us back into title contention and bring back Champions League football too.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

My Kingdom For Some Arsenal Transfer News

Is it just me or is the wait for the new football season just really dragging at the moment. I know the qualifying rounds for the Champions League and the Europa League have started, but it’s the Premier League we’re all really waiting for. Arsenal play their first game a month from today when they travel to Newcastle and I really hoped they might have got their transfer dealings under way by now.

They haven’t been completely inactive I suppose with Gabriel Martinelli already signed and William Saliba supposedly about to sign on the dotted line too. As promising a prospect as Martinelli might be he’s only just turned 18 and it would be expecting an awful lot for him to have a real impact at Arsenal this season. He might well be a star of the future, but we need to improve our team considerably for this coming season.

Saliba is another 18 year old who looks like he might have a very bright future in the game and he’s going to be an Arsenal player very soon if the rumours are to be believed. Those same rumours would also seem to point to Arsenal loaning him back to St. Etienne for all of next season as part of the deal and that would negate any impact in our team. It makes sense to help him develop as a player and it might be a good thing for us in the long run, but again it doesn’t help us this season.

And there you have the sum total of our signings with a month to go before the window closes and the players heading off for a tour of the USA. We have also promoted Reiss Nelson, Joe Willock, Eddie Nketiah and Emile Smith-Rowe to the first team squad as “project youth” appears to have made a full return despite Arsene Wenger departing over a year ago. Those four players all look like very good prospects and some of them could have an impact in the team this season.

Rumours still abound with Wilfried Zaha, Malcolm,  Ismael Bannacer, Dani Ceballos, Everton Soares and Mario Lemina among those currently linked to Arsenal. While one or maybe more of those players might end up at the club we don’t have an awful lot to spend and any purchases would have to be on the never never unless we can generate income from player sales. There are certainly more than a few players who we could probably do without next season and their departures would free up squad places for new arrivals.

One player who might not be at the club much longer is Laurent Koscielny after the club issued a statement saying he had refused to travel with the squad for our tour of the States. It’s totally unacceptable behaviour from one of our “captains” and the club’s reaction would seem to suggest he won’t find it easy to get the free transfer he apparently wants. With funds badly required for the purchases we want to make we have to get whatever we can for him even if he is 33. 

He has been a great servant to the club in the last nine years and I’ll be sad to see him go, but he’s under contract and he simply cannot be allowed to dictate what we do. We’ve been through this scenario so many times in recent seasons with so many captains and all of them got what they wanted in the end. I would be very surprised to see Koscielny play for us again and his impending departure only increases our need to strengthen the centre of our defence.

There seems to be a fair deal of interest in Kystian Bielik and there’s every chance we might be able to raise a few bob through his sale to add to the modest fee we received for eventually managing to sell David Ospina. Bielik did very well in League One with Charlton last season and he looked good for his country in the European under 21 Championships this summer too. If the rumours are true he’s not in Unai Emery’s plans and if that’s the case we would do well to cash in on a player with two years left on his contract.

With the team playing four games in nine days in America starting next Tuesday we should hopefully get to see plenty of football. I know they’re only pre-season games and they don’t count for an awful lot, but we’re up against some pretty good teams. We start off with Stan Kroenke’s American team when we play Colorado Rapids and we follow that with games against Bayern Munich, Fiorentina and Bayern Munich. 

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal Transfer Latest

With the first friendly of Arsenal’s pre-season just under two weeks away it’s time to take a look at our activity or lack thereof in the transfer market. With an awful lot to be done before the season kicks off in just under seven weeks you would hope the club would already be on top of things, but as always activity seems to be at a minimum. We’ve already seen the exit of a few players when their contracts ended and there’s no doubt a few of the younger players will get a better chance in the first team squad next season.

With Freddie Ljungberg moving from the youth set up to the first team set up it would seem logical that some of those young players who played under him will get a bigger role in the first team. The statement from Raul Sanllehi that we will be returning to “project youth” in some form would also point to those players getting more game time and also to us probably looking at younger and less expensive options in the transfer market too. I’ll attempt to take a look at some of the players Arsenal are interested in and assess their chances of actually playing for Arsenal next season.

First up it has to be Kieran Tierney who is currently the most likely player to be Arsenal’s first signing of this transfer window. If the reports are to be believed we have had our first offer turned down and we came back with a higher offer which still falls short of Celtic’s valuation. This one has a bit to play out yet, but it seems quite likely that we could have a new left back at the club quite soon.

I’m not sure where his arrival would leave Sead Kolasinac and whether we might consider selling a player we got on a free transfer only a couple of seasons ago. It didn’t take us long to turn the best left back in the Bundesliga into a very average defender and I wouldn’t be surprised if we sold Kolasinac to fund other targets. Tierney is certainly a very good prospect who has already played a lot of games for such a young player, but it would be a step up in class from Scottish football to the Premier League and he’s had a few issues with injuries too. Overall I think we might just get our man and I hope he can be one of the defenders we so badly need to improve the team.

Another player who won’t seem to go away is Wilfried Zaha and his abilities would certainly be a real asset to our team. However, our limited funds due to our inability to qualify for the Champions League would most likely rule out our chances of signing a player from another Premier League club considering the prices players of his ilk obtain in domestic transfers. Zaha had an unsuccessful spell at United a few years ago before returning to Palace, but he has grown as a player since then.

Personally I would love to see Zaha in an Arsenal shirt, but I can’t see us being able to afford him or the player wanting to join us for Europa League football next season. If he’s going to leave Palace I think he will probably end up at a club playing in the Champions League and the money changing hands will be far too much for Arsenal’s limited budget. Who knows maybe Stan Kroenke will dip into his very deep pockets to stump up the fee and maybe I’ll win the Euro Millions in the not too distant future.

Florian Thauvin is a player who’s name seems to come up season after season alongside that of Arsenal once the transfer window is open. He might have had a bit of a nightmare when he was a Newcastle player a couple of seasons ago, but he has had very good returns in the last two seasons in France with Marseilles. With the team needing to add some flair in wide areas he certainly looks like he might be one to fit the bill, but like so many other potential targets it comes down to price and availability.

I’m not so sure this one is a runner and we’re probably only hearing his name mentioned because it’s one that’s mentioned in virtually every transfer window. I’m not discounting it either because his stats would point to him possibly making a difference and we really need players who can make a difference at the moment.

The stories relating to Yannick Carrasco seem to have gone a little cold recently and the chances of him returning from China seem remote. He’s a little older than some of our other so called targets, but again he’s a player with the ability to make a difference and that’s probably why we’re interested in him or at least rumoured to be. With his Chinese club saying he’s not for sale and a likely high fee if he was I would be very surprised if there was any chance of him plying his trade at the Emirates Stadium next season.

If we’re still on the look out for a central defender we could certainly do worse than Lewis Dunk, but I just can’t see how he’s an improvement on what we already have. He had a very effective partnership with Shane Duffy for Brighton last season, but it’s a big step up from playing for a relegation threatened team to trying to challenge at the top of the table. Given the money exchanging hands for transfers within the Premier League I can only imagine Brighton would want an absolute fortune for what I see as a fairly average player.

He’s certainly no better than who we have already and I can’t see how his arrival would improve our defence. With our defensive problems in recent seasons we need to bring in players who are better than we have already and I don’t see Dunk fitting into that category.

Dan-Axel Zagadou is a player I can’t admit to knowing too much about, but he’s the latest Borussia Dortmund player to have his name linked with Arsenal. Again he’s a central defender and it’s definitely a position where we need to improve, but I’m not so sure a 20 year old with very little first team experience is what we’re looking for. If the reports are to be believed Dortmund have an over supply of players and could be looking to offload some, but I would be surprised if they were to sell a player who looks like he will probably increase in value quite a lot in the next few years.

They did get him on a free transfer from PSG though so it would be all profit for them if we can afford their asking price. At almost six and a half feet his height would be a welcome addition to our defence and according to reports he played well for France in the recent under 20 World Cup. I would still be very surprised to see him play for any team other than Dortmund next season and I certainly can’t see him making his way to Arsenal.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Where Now For Arsenal

It’s been a week since Arsenal forgot to come out for the second half of the Europa League final against Chelsea and ended up losing 4-1. That defeat condemned them to another season of Europa League football and also meant their transfer budget for this summer is severely hampered. With a squad that needs a huge overhaul it means we have very little wiggle room and will have to offload more than a fair share of the players we already have to give us more spending power.

I fancy myself as a bit of a pundit when it comes to predicting the results of football games and a few friends like to ask my opinion before placing their weekly bets. As an Arsenal fan they always think I have some sort of insight into my club, but my advice is almost always to steer clear of Arsenal because you just don’t know what you’re going to get. The Europa League final was a case in point where we most definitely could have beaten Chelsea, but ended up on the end of a 4-1 drubbing.

Before the game I said Unai Emery’s first season at the helm would be judged by the result of it after the late collapse in the Premier League saw us miss out on a top four finish. Our failure to finish ahead of both Chelsea and Spurs when they struggled to get over the line was a direct result of making the Europa League final in my opinion and the sacrifice was not worth it given the outcome of that game. To have ended up with all of our eggs in one basket and then to have failed so miserably in the final was a damning indictment of both the players and the manager.

I can’t say I’m anywhere near sure Emery is the man to lead us forward considering how the season finished and also considering our progress throughout the season. I can’t honestly say I have seen any sort of improvement in any of the aspects of our game which had become so unacceptable in the later years of Arsene Wenger. Our failure to make the top four and in the Europa League final would surely have been easier to take if there were any genuine signs of progress.

Instead we were treated to comical defending week after week with Arsenal leading the way in goals conceded from defensive errors in the Premier League. When we went behind away from home we only came back to take one point in our 19 away games which tells us so much about the character of the players when sleeves needed to be rolled up. The manager didn’t have the faith in his players to continue their early season attempts to play the ball out from the back and they lost anything resembling a style of play as the season progressed.

With Aaron Ramsey on his way out of the club this summer and Mesut Ozil seemingly unable or unwilling to perform consistently under Emery we are a team bereft of creation. Our lack of genuine width and players to take on the opposition is worrying with the full backs expected to do that work all too often. If it wasn’t for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette we probably would have found ourselves a few places further down the table.

When we went on our 22 game unbeaten run early in the season the stats people told us it couldn’t last as we were defying all the stats which generally even out in a season. Those stats did nearly catch up on us in the end, but thankfully our goal conversion defied them enough to at least finish fifth. It’s impossible to say things were any better than last season though and the late collapse made them feel worse.

The only saving grace was Spurs losing the Champions League final to Liverpool though as they yet again finished the season with their trophy cabinet bare. They will have Champions League football next season though and the money that goes with it as we make our way to the extremities of Europe for meaningless games against nothing teams. It’s no barrell of laughs being an Arsenal fan at the moment and yet we have played in five cup finals in the last six seasons and won three of them.

If we’re going to get anywhere near the level we need to reach to challenge for a top four spot next season we need to invest heavily this summer and we will have to raise a lot of money through sales to do so. There are so many players who are or should be surplus to requirements in the squad, but selling them and getting a good price for them won’t be an easy task. If we can add a few quality players to those that are good enough to stay and bring through a few of our really promising youngsters it might just give the squad the the balance and impetus it so desperately needs.

The manager showed little faith in those young players this season just passed, but he has to make Joe Willock, Reiss Nelson, Bukayo Saka and possibly Eddie Nketiah a bigger part of his plans next season. They can save us so much money in the transfer market and hopefully fill some of the squad places vacated by players who need to move for our sakes and theirs too. I’m not saying they should all be in the team week in and week out, but surely they can play a bigger part than a few minutes at the end of a game that’s already won or too far gone to get back.

I can’t say I have the faith in those in charge at the club to do any or all of this and it’s difficult to believe we’re anything other than an afterthought to our owner. He has never shown any interest in putting a single penny into the club and it’s difficult to believe he was the man the board thought would uphold the values of the club when they all decided to jump ship. At the time he seemed the better alternative and I’m no lover of Alistair Usmanov, but surely he couldn’t have done any worse than Stan Kroenke is currently doing.

I wish I was looking forward to a summer of rebuilding for a brighter future for Arsenal, but it’s hard to believe it. I hope we can make the changes that are needed and move the deadwood on, but I remain to be convinced by the owner, the manager and quite a few of the players too.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal v Chelsea: Europa League Final Preview

It’s been a fairly eventful first season as Arsenal manager for Unai Emery and the real judgement on that first season will come in Baku tonight. We finished one place higher in the league with a few points more, but our inability to finish fourth due to an awful run at the end of the season means we didn’t qualify for the Champions League. We do have another route to the Champions League though and that route comes to a culmination tonight.

It’s hard not to think the players left an awful lot of what they had left towards the end of the season for those Europa League quarter and semifinals and ultimately that’s what cost us in the league. If that’s the case they need to make sure they have done enough in the last two weeks since the end of the domestic season to make sure they take the trophy and the Champions League place that goes with it tonight. Any other result will surely see Emery’s first season in charge judged as less than a success.

The absence of Henrikh Mkhitaryan has already been gone into at length and it was the player’s choice to stay at home despite assurances of his safety. When you see Arsenal fans in the streets of Baku been stopped by the local police for wearing a Mkhitaryan shirt it’s easy to see why he felt those assurances weren’t enough. If Arsenal are to fail tonight the Mkhitaryan excuse will be offered by some and UEFA will certainly be partly to blame.

However we still have some very good players who have shown already this season that they can beat Chelsea. We won 2-0 at home to them in the league in January thanks to goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Laurent Koscielny and we lost 3-2 away to them in the league in August. If we can create as many clear cut chances as we did in that August defeat tonight I think we will lift the trophy.

The rumours of unrest at Chelsea are rife with Maurizio Sarri apparently off to manage Juventus at the end of the season while star player Eden Hazard is entering the final year of his contract and should really be sold to get some money to reinvest in the team. They have a transfer embargo though thanks to their dodgy dealing in the past and they cannot afford to sell a player of his ability if they’re unable to buy a replacement. Hopefully all the supposed unrest can have an effect on the way they play, but really it’s up to Arsenal to go out and win the game.

I assume the manager will stick with Petr Cech as his cup goalkeeper despite him being off to Chelsea as a coach when he retires after this game. I can’t see that making a blind bit of difference to a keeper with a career like Cech’s behind him and I have no doubt he will give his best if selected as expected. However if it came to a penalty shoot out I think I would prefer to see Bernd Leno in goal given Cech’s abysmal record at saving penalties.

I think we’ll probably see three central defenders deployed as playing two worked better when we had Aaron Ramsey as one of the midfield trio, but sadly we’ll never see him in an Arsenal shirt again as he’s injured for tonight and on his way to Juventus shortly. He might have been just the player we needed tonight given his form when he has played this season and his penchant for cup final goals. Certainly missing him as well as Mkhitaryan tonight will decrease our creative abilities from the midfield as well as taking two players who know how to find the back of the net out of the reckoning.

In midfield I expect an axis of Granit Xhaka and Lucas Torreira with Mesut Ozil playing behind Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The front two have been crucial for us this season and surely we will be depending on them again tonight. I know he misses his fair share of chances, but Aubameyang might just be the difference between the teams tonight.

At the other end if we can keep the ball from Hazard and stop him when he has it Chelsea will struggle. He is by far their biggest threat and we have to be fully aware of his ability to go down very easily in our box. I’d hate to lose this final to a dodgy penalty, but there are few players more capable of fooling a referee than Hazard.

It’s been 13 years since our last European final and that didn’t end well despite us leading for so long with 10 men. We only have two European trophies to our name and it would be so sweet to add to that tally considering we have lost four European finals too. Two of those finals went against us on penalties and I really hope this game doesn’t go to penalties too as I don’t have the greatest confidence in our ability from 12 yards.

There’s an awful lot at stake for us tonight when you consider how big this game and it’s rewards are. Playing in the Champions League and the money that goes with it is so important as well as making it easier to attract new players it would also mean we can afford to spend more on them too and maybe get a better class of player. There’s also a big shiny trophy to be won and after all surely that’s what football is all about.

COME ON THE ARSENAL !!!

Formation 

5 at back

4 with Ramsey 

Arsenal Look To Win The Europa League Without Henrikh Mkhitaryan

Arsenal play their first European final in 13 years tomorrow night when they take on Chelsea in the distant and unwelcoming venue of Baku. I’m sure there will be a welcome for the Arsenal fans who have somehow managed to make the almost 3,000 mile journey, but as a country Azerbaijan can hardly be called welcoming to our club or fans. We will have to do without Henrikh Mkhitaryan for the game because he didn’t feel safe travelling to a country that’s still technically at war with his homeland despite assurances from UEFA that it was safe for him to travel.

When you read up on the recent history between the two countries I have no doubt Mkhitaryan made the right decision and I’m sure it was helped by the veiled threat to him from the Azerbaijani ambassador to the UK. It has also been reported that Arsenal fans of Armenian lineage were refused visas and unable to enter the country for the game. There is only one reason UEFA chose Baku for the final, but their official line is the fans in Baku deserve to have the game played there and other countries have problems too. 

Of course we all know it’s got nothing to do with all the lovely oil money that makes Azerbaijan such an acceptable host for the final. Even besides the political climate there’s the problems fans of both sides have had trying to make their way to a city that just isn’t ready to cope with a large influx of fans. Arsenal had to return a third of their allocation of tickets while Chelsea returned two thirds of theirs despite both teams only getting 6,000 tickets each for the game. 

It’s an absolute disgrace that UEFA have decided to play the final in Baku, but at this stage that’s not going to change. The only protest open to Arsenal was to refuse to play, but I don’t think UEFA would have backed down and Chelsea would have been handed the trophy. It’s not a road the club were ever going to go down, but a part of me wishes they had the guts to stand up to UEFA and take the consequences.

However the prize of qualifying for next season’s Champions League was far too much for the club to turn their backs on. I have no doubt UEFA would have come up with further punishment than the €500,000 fine for not playing and I wouldn’t be surprised if we were chucked out of European football for a few seasons too if we had shown some backbone. I can’t say I’m glad we backed down, but I don’t see what real choice we had.

It means we’ll have to do without our joint third highest scorer this season and Mkhitaryan has also played more Europa League minutes than any other Arsenal player this season. While he hasn’t exactly set the world alight he also has the ability to have made a difference for us in the game. We’ll never know what that influence might have been though and we’ll just have to do without him.

Hopefully his absence can galvanise the rest of the players and they can go out and give that little bit extra that might be needed on the night. It’s a game which could go either way and any edge we can gain will be very welcome. 

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal’s Season Review In Limbo

At this stage of the season I would expect to be writing my season review for Arsenal, but I’ll have to wait around two weeks to do it. During those two weeks there isn’t a game to play until we face Chelsea in the Europa League final in Baku on May 29th. It’s going to seem like an eternity waiting for that game and our fate for this season hangs on it.

Our failure to make the top four means our Champions League hopes hang on the outcome in Baku and we have to win to show genuine progress this season. We finished the Premier League campaign with a few points more than last season and one place higher too, but fifth place isn’t enough for a team with Champions League aspirations. Not only are the financial rewards from Europe’s top competition better, but it’s easier to attract new players with the prospect of playing against the best players in the world.

On the face of it gaining a place in the league and going one stage further in the Europa League should be a mark of progress, but it’s difficult to see any progress this season. Unai Emery came in at the end of Arsene Wenger’s 22 year reign at the club and we hoped he could do things differently to how they had been done under the last few seasons under Wenger. He tried to get the team to play the ball out from the back at all times at first, but as the season progressed he gradually had to at least cut it back.

It’s hard to see what our style of play is and how we set about taking on opponents. Surely managing to introduce a new style, or just a style, would have shown a sign of progress, but he quite simply hasn’t been able to do it. I know it was only his first season at the helm, but I don’t think he has lived up to the expectations.

Our biggest problem in recent seasons had been our defence and it’s got even worse in my opinion. We added a goalkeeper, a central defender and a full back, but the same individual errors and team lapses seem to happen game after game no matter who is playing. There have been a few notable exceptions along the way, but all in all it’s not been easy to watch Arsenal this season.

The absolute collapse in our chase for a top four finish was the low point for me, but it came right in the middle of four very good Europa League performances. The performances in those games at home and away against Napoli and Valencia were very good, but we only took four points from six league games at the same time. It’s hard to believe the Europa League doesn’t mean more to the players than fighting for a top four spot in the league.

Of course the hectic schedule and list of injuries played a part in our league downfall, but somehow the players found a way in Europe that was missing in the Premier League. If they can pull one more of those performances out of the bag then maybe we can get hold of that nice shiny trophy and end the season on a real high. I think it would only be papering over the cracks, but it’s still infinitely superior to ending the season without a trophy and not qualifying for next season’s Champions League.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Road To Nowhere For Arsenal

With qualification for the last 32 of the Europa League already in the bag Arsenal face the long trek to play FC Vorskla in the Ukraine tomorrow night. Due to the current political climate and the introduction of Martial Law in some parts of the Ukraine the game has been moved from Vorskla to Kiev and even then it’s not certain to go ahead. It’s a crazy situation and who knows what the outcome will be if the game doesn’t go ahead.

With not too much to play for and topping the group a certainty if we win our final game at home to Qarabag Unai Emery has opted to rest most of his first choice players. The only players from Sunday’s starting 11 against Bournemouth who have made the trip are Rob Holding and Henrikh Mkhitaryan and I can only assume they will be in the team. It looks like Holding is the one player who the manager has decided he needs in every single game.

Petr Cech should return to the team with Bernd Leno still at home while Stephan Lichsteiner and Karl Jenkinson should both be in the defence too. In midfield we should see Matteo Guendouzi paired with Mohamed Elneny while I assume Aaron Ramsey will play too. With Danny Welbeck injured it looks like Eddie Nketiah might get the chance to show what he can do from the start.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Emile Smith-Rowe as the final player in the attack which only leaves a central defensive partner for Holding to find. If Ainsley Maitland-Niles can be snuck into the team somewhere that would finalise the lineup and it’s possible he could play in midfield with Elneny dropping back to play in defence. I don’t pretend to know enough about any of the other youngsters in the squad to predict which of them might play, but I’m sure we’ll see one or two at some stage.

Up to now the manager has had a pretty strong bench in our Europa League and Carabao Cup games, but he will have no such luxury in this game. If things are going awry he won’t have any cavalry to call on and he will have to hope the players he has brought can get the job done. With Premier League games against Spurs and United coming up in the next week the manager has to cut his cloth to suit his measure.

We were too strong for Vorskla in the game at the Emirates, but a couple of late goals from them made it look a lot better for them than the final 4-2 scoreline. Vorskla still have a slight chance of qualifying from the group, but only a win will do for them at this stage and even then they would have to win away to Sporting in their final group game. It’s a highly unlikely scenario, but I have no doubt they will give it a go and of course they would like to get one over on Arsenal.

It’s really all about getting this game out of the way for Arsenal and moving on to the important business of Spurs and United. A win would be great, but avoiding defeat would be perfectly acceptable too given the travel and the squad we have brought. The most important thing is that the first choice players will have had plenty of time to prepare for Sunday and hopefully that will pay off.

We are unbeaten in 17 games though and it would be great to continue that run ahead of two huge games for us. All good things must come to an end though and if we have to sacrifice that unbeaten run for the sake of being ready to face United and Spurs then so be it. I have a feeling that run won’t come to an end though and we will get at least a draw from the game.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal Are Coming To Town

It’s been a very long time since Arsenal played a game in Ireland, but I will get to see them play in my home town of Dublin on Wednesday night. Of course I get over to London to see them as often as I can, but it’s a heck of a lot easier just to pop on a train and get off 10 stops later at the stadium rather than setting off at 3.30am via the Air Coach, a plane, a train and finally the tube. Without doubt some of the joy is in that pilgrimage and it’s always a bigger buzz to see them in a competitive game. Having said that it will be great to see them play in Dublin and I can’t wait to meet up with some of my fellow Arsenal fans over a beer or two.

With the new season only 10 days away I expect to see a fairly strong Arsenal team on display and the pre season games have gone pretty well so far. We drew with Atletico Madrid before losing on penalties and went on to beat PSG 5-1 in Singapore, but from here on the games are a lot closer to home. Of course pre season games don’t count for an awful lot and it’s all about building fitness and preparing for the start of the season. There’s more scrutiny on pre season this time around for Arsenal though with a new man at the helm for the first time in 22 seasons. 

I would imagine we’ll see a pretty similar team to the ones that played in Singapore and I’m not sure if the players who have just returned after World Cup duty will make the trip. Of all of those I am anxious to see Lucas Torreira the most because he looks like he has the potential to be the player this team has been missing for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him make an appearance against Lazio on Saturday in Stockholm though and hopefully he’ll be ready to go for our opening game against City.

The player I’m looking forward to seeing most of all is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and I can’t wait to see what his impact will be in a full season at Arsenal. He has scored goals for fun everywhere he has played so far and I expect him to be one of the top scorers in the Premier League next season. For the moment though I’ll be more than happy to see him put a few goals past Chelsea.

Besides Aubameyang I’m looking forward to seeing Mesut Ozil in action and I imagine he will get a great reception from the Arsenal fans after his recent trials and tribulations. For me there are few players in the world with his ability to make chances for others and we might just have the players at the club now who can put away a higher percentage of those chances. The final player I’m excited about seeing is Aaron Ramsey and I hope it’s not the last time I’ll get to see him in our colours. His future is still uncertain, but hopefully Unai Emery can convince him Arsenal are the club where he can make the impact that his talent deserves to make.

I’ll be going with my youngest son after his sister and him chipped in to get my ticket for Fathers Day. My eldest son will be at the game too as well as my brother in law and my nephew. It’s going to be a real family affair for me in more ways than one as my actual family will join me at my football family. It’s been a long time coming and I am really looking forward to it.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal Say Hello To Bernd Leno And Wave Goodbye To Jack Wilshere

It’s been an eventful few days for Arsenal with comings and goings at the club as we signed a goalkeeper and lost a midfielder. Bernd Leno joined from Bayer Leverkusen just a few hours before we heard the news from Jack Wilshere that he will be playing his football elsewhere next season.

Leno looks like a pretty decent keeper to me and his arrival will surely see the exit of either Petr Cech or David Ospina or maybe even both of them. I think we needed a new keeper as neither Cech nor Ospina have been impressive and we need a keeper who the defenders can depend upon. I’m looking forward to seeing him at least compete for thr first choice keeper’s role with either Cech or Ospina and I hope he is good enough to make it his own.  

Wilshere has been in negotiations with the club about a new contract for quite a while now, but it appears those discussions have come to an end. He said he was prepared to take a pay cut, but following discussions with Unai Emery he made the decision the best thing for him was to move when his contract ends at the end of this month. I can understand why Emery might want to bring in his own players, but I will also be sad to see Wilshere leave.

For me he was a player with huge potential who never really got to live up to that potential mainly due to injuries. He has missed an awful lot of time due to a series of injuries which all seemed to stem from an ankle injury a good few years ago. That’s not to say he hasn’t had his good moments at the club, but it has been a few years since we have seen the best of him.

He played plenty of games last season, but his return in terms of goals and assists was minimal to say the least. He was loaned out to Bournemouth the previous season after appearing unwilling to fight for a place at Arsenal having missed all of the previous season through injury. There’s no doubting his love for the club and I’m sure leaving us will hurt him, but there’s little room for sentiment in football.

I wish him well wherever he goes except when he plays against us of course and I hope he can overcome his injury problems and do really well for the rest of his career. His exit opens up a place in the squad you would imagine and we look like we could be lining his replacement up already. If the rumours are to be believed Lucas Torreira will join us from Sampdoria quite soon. I won’t be counting any chickens until he signs on the dotted line though.

With Wilshere on the way out it was interesting to see Granit Xhaka extend his contract and you can only assume he has done so as Unai Emery wants him at the club. He’s a player that divides opinion, but I think the right manager and the right coaching could make him a very important player for us. I’m looking forward to seeing how Emery can influence him next season and I’m hoping we’ll see a lot more consistency and defensive stability from him.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal Face A Tough Start To The New Season

Was it only me who thought the opening day of the World Cup was a strange day for the Premier League to release the fixtures for next season. That’s just what they did though and it took our minds off the biggest competition in World sport for at least a few hours. It’s no so easy to get embedded into the World Cup when your country didn’t make it, but I’ve a feeling I’ll be addicted before the weekend is over.

I hoped to get a good team in my family sweepstake to peak my interest a little, but I can’t see South Korea making too much of an impression. There are prizes for the first three teams, the best goal and also the team that comes last so technically I still have a chance of claiming a prize. The last place prize already looks like it could be heading the way of my sister in law who drew Saudi Arabia.

I digress and it’s time to get back to the fixtures for the new season. Arsenal start with a game at home to last season’s record breaking champions and as games go it doesn’t really get any tougher. That follow that game with a trip to the Champions from the previous season as the pay a visit to Chelsea. It’s certainly a baptism of fire for new manager Unai Emery and he’s going to have his work cut out to get anything from those two games. 

The next few months bring a run of less high profile games with the exception of a home game against Liverpool in early November before we start December at home to Spurs and away to United within four days of each other. There are seven League games in December and the proposed winter break certainly won’t be happening this season. We finish the calendar year with the return trip to Liverpool before the return games against Chelsea and City in late January and early February. March starts with the return games against Spurs and United and we finish the season with a run of eight games which could see us go on a good run. 

Of course the dates of plenty of those games will change as they’re scheduled to go on TV and I expect our first two games to be shown live. Dates will also change due to Cup competitions for us or potential opponents plus the weather always seems to play a role at some stage in the winter. 

There are pre season friendlies to come before the season starts too and it’s great to see Arsenal heading to Ireland for the first time in over 30 years. I’ll definitely be at the game despite it being a work day and having work the next day too. I’m looking forward to the game with Chelsea as the opposition and I hope we play a fairly strong team with the new season starting 10 days later.

Finally for today we haven’t signed any more players since the arrival of Stephan Lichsteiner, but if the rumours are to be believed we have a fair few lined up. Players who do well at the World Cup tend to rise quickly in price and we would be better off snapping up the players we want before they can make too much of an impression on the biggest stage of all. Let’s just hope it can happen as Emery looks to build a team for the future.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal Lose To Newcastle As Seventh Place Looms

The deja vu feeling reared it’s ugly head again for Arsenal yesterday when they lost 2-1 to Newcastle. Like so many times already this season (Watford, Bournemouth and Swansea) we took the lead away to a team at the wrong end of the table and ended up losing. We have only won three of our 16 away games this season and we have lost nine of them.

To make matters even worse it was our fifth away defeat in a row in the league which is our worst run away from home in 34 years. Burnley are only two points behind us and will move ahead of us into sixth place if they beat Chelsea on Thursday night. That might seem like an unlikely scenario, but they have won their last five games and Chelsea might just have their minds on their FA Cup semi final against Southampton next Sunday.

We are the only team in the four leagues in England without a point away from home since the turn of the year. The Premier League season doesn’t run to the calendar year though, but it’s still a harsh statistic. It makes you wonder exactly what Arsene Wenger has to do to make those who are in charge actually consider removing him from his post.

Up to now I have thought the best thing for the club would be for him to realise the job is beyond him and walk away. I know he has never walked away from any contact and he’s not going to change that, but I had hoped against hope that he would come to his senses. It has now reached the stage where the club have to take control and remove him from his position at the end of the season regardless of how our attempts to win the Europa League pan out.

Speaking of which the thought that we can somehow beat Atletico Madrid over two legs seems laughable at this stage. They are a team that know how to defend and while they might not be a thrill a minute to watch they look ideally suited to making our semi final as painful as the Champions League semi final was against United in 2009. I can’t see us holding them at home or away and our only hope is to outscore them over the two legs, but we will have to go a long way to score away to a team who haven’t conceded a home goal in 10 games.

We might have had a sub strength team yesterday after the trip to Moscow on Thursday night, but the team we had out there was good enough to win and particularly after we had taken the lead. Newcastle didn’t even have to do an awful lot to get back into the game as we handed them the goals with yet more individual mistakes. Our ability to self harm is unbelievable and nobody has a clue how to change it.

When the manager tells us after the game that he can’t understand it and the players are lacking confidence away from home because of the run of results it’s hard to take. It’s his job to prepare them for games and instill the required confidence and belief in them. He is the man who told us there is no reason for the difference in results for a team away from home compared to at home and yet his team is the one with the biggest disparity in those results.

I don’t normally like to single players out, but Shkodran Mustafi is having a torrid time at the moment. He seems to have a huge part in almost every goal we give away and he seems incapable of learning from his mistakes. I think he ideally likes to attack that ball from distance and win challenges, but when it goes wrong for him the whole team suffers.

With Laurent Koscielny nursing an injury which is severely limiting his playing time and will do even more so going forward I imagine we are left with Mustafi as our senior central defender. He should be the one leading by example and telling others what to do, but the way he is playing he should really be on the bench. We don’t appear to have enough defensive options and I wonder if Nacho Monreal could be played centrally again with Sead Kolasinac getting a game on the left.

For me we just haven’t invested properly in our defence (or goalkeepers for that matter) and we are paying the price. The money was there last summer, but we got a left back on a free transfer and the manager doesn’t trust him enough to play him now anyway. I think it’s more than just the players faults though and I cannot see how the same mistakes could be made game after game if they were being coached properly or believed in the coaching they were getting.  

We were on a very good run before yesterday, but that was disguised by five of the last seven games being at home and the away games being in the Europa League where our away form is the opposite of what it is in the Premier League. With the Europa League so important to us now we could be set for more Premier League horror shows and finishing seventh is a very real possibility. We still have to visit United, Leicester and Huddersfield and it’s difficult to see where our next away point will come from.

We have to play at home to Burnley too and the result of that game could have a huge bearing on our final league position. For the sixth or seventh richest club in the world to finish seventh in their own league is almost laughable, but it’s a very real possibility. Other clubs among the current elite of English football have suffered the same or similar fates in recent seasons and the common outcome was the manager was shown the door.

We had our worst season ever under Wenger in terms of our league position last season, but that will be surpassed this season without doubt. When his contract was renewed last summer the talk was of strengthening and building for the future and looking to get back into the hallowed top four. We will spectacularly miss that target and while the Europa League might help us achieve the Champions League goal it’s impossible to believe this is a team or club that is building for the future or progressing. The only way we will progress is with a new man at the helm with new ideas to depart to the players and the sooner it happens the better. I’m not sure what the catalyst for that change will be, but it is coming and it’s only a matter of time and possibly how low we can go before it happens.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal v CSKA Moscow: Europa League Quarter Final First Leg

With the rest of the season a write off at this stage Arsenal at least have a chance to make it to a European Final this season. The Europa League might be the second class trophy of European football, but winning it would be a big thing for Arsenal. Besides the nice shiny trophy the winner also qualifies for next season’s Champions League and it’s the only way Arsenal can make it back to the top table for next season.

Arsene Wenger has almost a full strength squad to choose from with the exception of the injured Santi Cazorla (remember him) and the ineligible Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Petr Cech is available again after missing Sunday’s win against Stoke with an injury and there’s even a chance he might play despite David Ospina being the “cup goalkeeper”. We should also see Laurent Koscielny and Granit Xhaka come back into the team after both of them were rested against Stoke although Xhaka did come on in the later stages.

I would expect to see a back four (which more or less picks itself from the manager’s perspective at least) as the experiment with three central defenders now seems dead more than a year after it saved our season last season. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a midfield trio of Xhaka, Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere with Wilshere in an advanced role. That would leave Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan either side of hopefully Alexandre Lacazette who we have been told has recovered enough from his injury to start.

I’m not so sure Wilshere is the ideal player to play as I can’t say I’ve been impressed with him in the last couple of months, but I would be surprised if he didn’t play. It might not be the worst idea to play Mohamed Elneny alongside Xhaka and let Ramsey play a more attacking role as the chances are he’s going to push forward anyway and he offers a lot more in the attacking third than Wilshere. With both Ozil and Mkhitaryan in the team I’m not sure Wilshere has a place to fill and both of them certainly offer a lot more end product too.

I’m not sure Lacazette will start as he has only had 15 minutes since he returned from his injury and there is every chance Danny Welbeck will get the nod. I’m not a fan of Welbeck and a less than fully match fit Lacazette is a better option in my opinion. Welbeck may well have been the player who managed to see us home in the home game against Milan, but I just cannot see his value to the team.

We are on a pretty good run of results at the moment with four consecutive wins and 11 goals scored in those games and only one conceded. On the face of it that’s quite impressive, but anyone who has watched us knows we have not been exactly impressive in most of those games. I would say the away win against Milan was probably the exception, but I struggle to see how we can win the Europa League playing as we are at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong, I want us to win every game we ever play, but for me the team is broken and it won’t take too much to bring it out again. The arrivals of Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan have certainly improved us in an attacking sense, but nothing has been done to change how badly we defend as a team and as individual players too. If we come up against a team who know how to defend and close their opponents down we will be in trouble and Atletico Madrid are standing in the way of any team who wants to win the Europa League this season.

CSKA will be no pushover either, but we are favourites to progress and rightly so when you look at the players we have. It’s how those players play as a team and how it seems the manager is incapable of inspiring them to excel or coach them to cope against the best sides (or any side away from home this season). I have long ago given up hope of him turning things around and I think the only way forward is for him to leave.

He’s going nowhere though and I still want the team to do the best they can with him in charge. I’d gladly take the glory of a Europa League win even though there’s every possibility it could prolong the manager’s time at the club. That might sound a little strange, but surely it’s not as strange as some fans who seem to want us to lose to hasten his departure.

I think we need to get at least a two goal start from the home leg as a trip to Moscow next week is one that should give us some cause for concern. We have a pretty poor record in European games in Moscow and I wouldn’t like to be going there needing to get a result. I’m not going to dare to predict an outcome, but like always when Arsenal play I honestly think beforehand that they will win despite any or all evidence to the contrary.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Welcome Back Arsenal

It’s been far too long since we’ve seen Arsenal play football and international friendlies just do not make up for the teal thing. By the real thing I mean Arsenal of course and not competitive internationals which are only marginally better than their friendly cousins. The season is drawing towards a close now and there’s still a lot to be decided at the business end of it.

Unfortunately we have to wait an extra day for Arsenal to play this weekend as they don’t face Stoke at the Emirates until 1.30 on Sunday. It’s another must win game for us as most of our games will be from here until the end of the season. A top four finish might be beyond us at this stage, but we still have to make sure we finish sixth to at least assure ourselves of Europa League football next season.

The teams below us haven’t really put any pressure on us at all, but both Burnley and Leicester are capable of closing the gap if we drop points. We have crucial games against both of them to come and the outcomes of those games will probably decide whether we have to fight to finish sixth or whether we can really concentrate on trying to win the Europa League. There is no doubt that the Europa League has to be our number one priority with the prize of Champions League football on offer to the winner, but we cannot completely ignore our bread and butter.

Ahead of Sunday’s game there’s fairly good news on the fitness front of the squad with almost everybody available to play. Of course Santi Cazorla is still injured and who knows if we’ll ever see him in an Arsenal shirt again, but Jack Wilshere looks likely to recover from the knock which kept him out of the England games and Alexandre Lacazette is almost ready to play again too. It’s going to give Arsene Wenger a few selection headaches for Stoke on Sunday and against CSKA next Thursday too.

I think he’s going to go with a pretty strong team against Stoke and the strongest team possible against CSKA. His options are a little easier with Pierre-Emireck Aubameyang ineligible on Thursday so he should be unleashed against Stoke. It will be a straight choice between Danny Welbeck and Lacazette agsinst CSKA with Welbeck likely to get the nod and Lacazette probably gradually introduced in the next couple of games from the bench.

We have had our run ins with Stoke over the years and it would be great if we could push them even closer to the Championship for next season. The treatment their fans dish out to Aaron Ramsey is still a bone of contention and it would be nice to see the player who shattered his leg that day getting relegated. Maybe his mother will come and collect him if it happens and wipe the tears from his eyes.

Besides that horrific incident we have had to listen to their constant chants of our players always cheating when they have the termerity to go down after being kicked by Stoke players. We have struggled up there far too often for my liking, but their record at the Emirates is hardly one to write home about. If we can play our part in relegating them it will at least put s smile on my face in a season which has given us very little to smile about.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Waiting In Vain

Is it just me or does the current international break seem even longer than usual from an Arsenal perspective. I suppose the FA Cup games on the weekend before the break didn’t help with Arsenal’s participation in the competition this season a distant memory of an awful Sunday afternoon in January. At least we’re still in one cup competition though and it should hopefully be all guns blazing towards Europa League glory when the real football returns at least.

For the moment we just have to hope all of our players come through their international games unscathed and come back in tip top condition. It’s not something which we can usually rely on and it hasn’t started too well with Jack Wilshere missing England’s win over the Netherlands thanks to a knee injury. With his injury record any slight knock has to be a real worry and Arsene Wenger seems to have found a way to play him in midfield recently along with both Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka.

Wilshere’s contract is up at the end of the season and there’s every chance he could be on his way once the season is over. It seems he’s not overly happy with the new contract offer from the club and he could probably look to earn more elsewhere. Given his injury history he might find a lot of “pay for play” offers are coming his way and that could prove problematic for a player who has been injured more than he has been available to play or so it seems at least.

When the players return they will get the chance to push Stoke closer to the Championship before they get back to Europa League action and it’s a chance they have to take. Sixth place is still by no means certain with both Burnley and Leicester hoping to catch us and we have to play both of them before the season ends. We probably need five wins in our last eight games to guarantee sixth place, but that would be even less if we beat Burnley and Leicester.

The following Thursday it’s CSKA Moscow at home and the chance to get ahead in the first leg of the Europa League quarter final before heading to Russia the following Thursday. There are some very good teams still left in the Europa League this season and winning it is going to be a huge ask for an Arsenal team which has been far too inconsistent this season. That has to be their target though with Champions League qualification for the winners as well as a lovely shiny trophy.

The additions of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang And Henrikh Mkhitaryan in January seems to be having an effect and Aubameyang should play all of our remaining league games as he’s ineligible to play in the Europa League. At least Alexandre Lacazette is back from injury for those European games even if Danny Welbeck managed to play such an important role in putting Milan out in the last round. Our attacking options are looking pretty good at the moment, but our real problems lie in our inability to defend individually or as a team.

When it comes to playing a team like Atletico Madrid those defensive deficiencies could be cruelly exposed against a team who have defending down to a fine art. Of course they could be knocked out before we get to meet them in a semi final or the final if we even manage to get past CSKA which won’t be an easy task in itself. I’m hopeful of progressing though and I think we will finish sixth, but I still think hopes of lifting that trophy in June are a long way from being fulfilled.

As the international break drags slowly into it’s second week it’s hard to think of much else from an Arsenal perspective though. Despite all of our shortcomings in recent seasons we have been pretty good in cup games, with the exception of Champions League knockout games, and that has to give us some hope. It’s the waiting that’s killing me at the moment though and I just have to hope that wait isn’t in vain.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.