Morning all.
Headlines in the Mail read:
- Arsenal have reportedly tabled an offer for Galatasaray right back Sacha Boey.
- Boey has been a vital in Galatasaray’s pursuit of the Turkish Super Lig title.
- Galatasaray are claimed to be demanding £21million to sell the 22-year-old.
- Galatasaray’s vice-president Erden Timur is claimed to have travelled to London to discuss the potential transfer.
Surely it would be Arsenal’s employees travelling to Turkey if this story had any legs to it? We’ll see but apparently Man Utd are interested in the Frenchman too. They are interested in Mason Mount and Declan Rice too, both who’ve recently been linked with Arsenal. James Maddison is also rumoured to be on Arsenal’s radar and I strongly suspect Youri Tieleman’s name will again appear in headlines relating to a move to north London.
The Champions League and Europa League places are now confirmed after Utd thrashed Chelsea last night so all that’s left to be resolved as far as European football next season is who out of Aston Villa and Totts will finish in the Europa Conference League place.
At the bottom of the table, two out of Everton, Leeds Utd and Leicester City will be relegated. All three are playing their final fixture at home with Everton facing Bournemouth, Leeds taking on Totts and Leicester City playing a West Ham team which is probably thinking about their upcoming Europa Conference League Cup Final next weekend than Sunday’s game.
Back at Arsenal, it’s time for fans to vote for their player of the year via the official website. I’ve nominated mine but it was hard. It’s almost like players had two different seasons within one. At Christmas, any one of the ‘first team’ could have won my vote now, well, it was a different story. For me anyway.
I was reading through the list of previous Arsenal player of the season and a few surprises popped up. Flamini in 2008, Ozil in 2016, Lacazette in 2019 and Ramsey in both 2014 and 2018. What about Lehmann in 2006?
Also on the official site is the launch on our 2023/24 kit. Good news, Emile Smith Rowe is wearing one which in my opinion, suggests he’s going nowhere this summer.
Photos – AFC.com
William Saliba can been seen in his kit too which hopefully means he’s staying put too. Kieran Tierney and Takehiro Tomiyasu are sporting the new kit too. No Granit Xhaka, Matt Turner, Reiss Nelson, Thomas Partey or Jorginho though. Yes, I love a conspiracy theory.
Photos – AFC.com
Lastly, BBC Sport has a interview with Pepe Reina. He talks about Mikel Arteta and it’s good I think. You can read it HERE.
Catch up in the comments.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fp3bhn
Arteta – the making of Mikel.
Reiss Nelson is reported to have signed a new long term deal.
Nice read Rico. Really nice. It’s a pity how the season panned out but still a few of the players maintained a quite good level even with the abysmal end to the season.
As for the previous players of the season, because of the way his time at arsenal ended, people tend to forget how good and majestic ozil was in his earlier years at arsenal….especially when he had willing players around him like Sanchez and runners like Ramsey. It was truly a joy to watch him play then.
Anyway, like they say, no need crying over spilt milk….
Thanks Keni. Ozil was imo, a player who needed workers around him to take the load which we all knew he wouldn’t or couldn’t do. Ozil and Alexis was a match made in heaven at the time but once one left, the other suffered.
Morning Rico and all.
Does the photo above mean ESR is staying or is it a farewell photo. Hopefully he is staying. 😊
I’m surprised the media have not started reporting that Zaha is joining like they have every other transfer since Arteta arrived.
just watched YouTube highlights of Moussa Diaby after reading several comments, stating arsenal are interested in him, I know highlights are only guide but he looks quick and could be a good addition to the squad to keep Saka and Jesus on their toes.
It’s the transfer silly season where players are linked by all and sundry in the hope that one or two come off. It’s inevitable that anyone being linked to us will be pursued by the other teams looking to improve their squads. At least so the media hacks would have us believe, they need the hits and make up the stories as they go along to keep themselves in the manner to which they are accustomed.
We no doubt will be buying players , if we want top of the range premier league experienced players , they will cost . If we want to gamble on prospects we get Vieira he second again or if we are lucky we get Vieira the first..
Lastly if it is true that Nelson has signed on again and Cedric Soares has said that he wants to stay , then it goes to prove that Champions League is still a draw to players.
Hi Geoff, staying I think but then my glass is usually half full.
Ornstein is the man behind the Nelson story and he’s usually reliable. Sky Sports are reporting that Rice prefers an Arsenal move but as we know, so did Mudryk (spelling)
I don’t think the club will take a risk on hopefuls this summer, especially after the way we faded.
Arteta and Edu should have fun. By leaking that we are after players that we really don’t want just to piss the media off, and hopefully get our competition to buy crap players.
The Daily Mail is claiming Arteta blames himself for not getting enough out of the squad, if this true that’s why I say a manager/coach should concentrate on coaching and not worry about the running of a club.
There’s no evidence to suggest Mikel Arteta does though Geoff. We’re long past the days of having a manager who runs the club imo. In the Arsenal documentary, it was clear that the board run the club, Mikel just deals with the players and who stays/goes etc which I think is right.
I admire his honesty about getting more from his players because to me that shows he knows he can improve. He’s possibly talking about rotation etc.
He needs to because failing to rotate can halt the development of the young ones coming through. Our biggest problem was that even when we were ahead we never put teams to bed and always had to protect our leads and didn’t have the margin to let young players have 20 minutes at the end.
Agreed. It was the same last season.
I’m looking forward to the transfer season to see who we buy and sell, fingers crossed Arteta gets who he want’s.
Arteta is saying all the right things, Mourinho or Ten Haag would be blaming the players.
Cozier-Duberry debut tomorrow perhaps?
That’s certainly the vibe that seems to be coming out via the media ITK’s.
Would make sense as tomorrow is ostensibly a dead rubber.
There is a doubt about Saka’s fitness ahead of tomorrow’s game, he will take a fitness test before the starting eleven is announced. If it’s true that Nelson is about to sign a new contract, it would be nice to see him start.
With Martinelli definitely out and Trossard doubtful, it will be interesting to see our attacking formation.
I think Nelson has an injury or is unwell too.
Considering tomorrow’s match makes no difference to the ladder, why not select as many bench players as possible to start.
He might yet..
New post up now