Morning all.
Ethan Nwaneri has put pen to paper and signed his first professional contract at Arsenal. Of course he’s thrilled:
I’m delighted to have finally got to this stage after all the hard work over so many years,” he said. “It’s a proud moment for me and my family to finally be here, so I’m happy and ready to keep working. It was the dream to get to this stage. I’ve always thought about when this day would come and I’ve been looking forward to it, so I’m happy it’s finally here. I didn’t have to think about it – this is my family and it feels like home here. Everyone’s like a family together and they care about everyone. It feels so special to me here.
I think many if not most Arsenal fans will be excited by this news too as he’s a very good young player. 17 is still very young of course and it might be that he goes out on loan next season but you just never know, Mikel Arteta might just want to nurture him himself.
A bit more about Man City:
Man City have two out and out strikers, Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez. A little and large striking option which in my opinion is the perfect pairing. Not necessarily playing together but to have a plan a and a plan b is pretty much ideal if they’re the right players.
Arsenal’s strike force isn’t the best, in fact if there was a table to measure strikers, I think ours would be mid table at best. Gabriel Jesus isn’t an out and out striker and Eddie Nketiah, despite being the more clinical in front of goal out of the two, seems to have dropped off the Mikel Arteta planet. Kai Havertz or Leandro Trossard have been preferred in the absence of Jesus. It’s worked too and rather well.
BBC Sport
Compare the Arsenal figures to those of this weekend’s opponents:
BBC Sport
The overall shot accuracy for City is so much better than Arsenal’s and they have four players into double figures, including both strikers. Both of our strikers are sat on single figures for the season so far. However, we have more goal scorers with good numbers which is why our goals scored tally is the best in the league. Five more goals than Liverpool and seven more than City yet I still can’t help wondering how far ahead of the other two clubs we’d be if we had a 25-30 goal a season striker.
Whilst I’m writing about goals scored it would be amiss of me to not to mention goals conceded, another area we outdo City and Liverpool in. We’ve conceded 2 less than Liverpool and 4 less than City.
I don’t think the ‘Arsenal need a striker’ will go on until we actually sign one or promote one from within. I mean a proper one, a player who thinks only about putting the ball into the back of the net without caring how he does it. Maybe that player will be Mika Biereth.
The Mail, bless them, reckon Edu has drawn up a 10-man shortlist comprising of:
- Ivan Toney, age 28, Brentford
- Alexander Isak, 24, Newcastle
- Viktor Gyoekeres, 25, Sporting CP
- Victor Osimhen, 25, Napoli
- Lois Openda, 24, RB Leipzig
- Benjamin Sesko, 20, RB Leipzig
- Evanilson, 24, Porto
- Brian Brobbey, 22, Ajax
- Santiago Gimenez, 22, Feyenoord
- Victor Boniface, 23, Bayer Leverkusen
I quite like the sound of Victor Boniface, not because of any other reason than his name. lol Seriously though, a) the Mail have zero evidence of the above list of players being on Edu’s list and b) anyone could trawl the internet for strikers in some kind of form and name them as potential transfer targets for Arsenal. If we don’t score against City on Sunday, perhaps The Mail will add a few more names to their list because it’s easy. In fact signing a striker is easy if money is available but not every striker out there in the world is the right striker. He has to fit into the way Mikel Arteta sets the team up and he’ll have to respect and comply with the club’s ethos. I don’t suppose whoever drafted that above list thought of that…
Catch up in the comments.
Morning Rico and all.
Happy Easter
I glad to see signing someone from the academy being given a sniff of making the senior team, If Arteta really does like this kid then I would keep him in house so Arteta can keep a close eye on him and guide him to how he want’s him to play in the future.
This week the media claim we are looking at a striker last week they claimed we are in a bidding war with Chelsea for a defender, what’s next week a new keeper.
Morning Geoff.
Happy Easter to you and all too.
Really pleased Nwaneri has committed to the club as I think other clubs were sniffing around. I read Beireth is attracting interest across Europe too.
Morning Rico and Co and Happy Easter.
Is Victor Boniface related to Lord Binface, who, as we all know, is standing in the London Mayoral race?
An amusing anecdote in the paper today. Larry Lloyd, who back in the day, admitted to being a thug of centre half, was on loan at Nottingham Forest. Brian Clough wanted him to sign on a permanent transfer and, as an inducement, offered him a washing machine plumbed into his house. Lloyd signed and on walking into training the next morning was asked by two blokes, who did the clubs laundry, if he was Larry Lloyd, they then said “because of you we’ve lost our washing machine”, “Cloughy sent to men in to pick it up and fit in your kitchen.
Morning Kev, Cicero.
Living far from London I’ve no idea Kev.. We in the sticks don’t have such things.. 😂
I wonder if he was also given a dryer, you know the sort, it come with 2 long tubes and a handle to wind the clothes inbetween to rinse the water out before putting on the line.
Totally off on a tangent but radio 2 is brilliant this morning. Tony Blackburn and Jonnie Walker reflecting on their life on pirate radio. Oh those were the days…
Nah! Rico, Radio Caroline are newbies by comparison with Radio Luxembourg who were the pop music broadcaster of choice as early as 1951 when they moved from long wave to 208 metres medium wave.
The Station of the Stars!
Agree Cicero, I listened to Radio Luxembourg as a kid and loved it but the two guys were on Caroline so it’s their story. I thought it was good.
1933 for Luxembourg though, I read about it this morning. Never realised it started up that early.
Who remembers Horace Batchelor ?you know from Keynsham thats K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M !
wonder if anyone won the pools with his method.
I’m far too young. lol
New post up