Morning all.
Arsene Wenger turns 70 next week and The Daily Mail have done a nice piece on him. The one thing which stuck out for me was how he hasn’t lost his ability to make a pound or two and regardless of who for. A charity auction, a dinner at some swanky place with him at the table was at £40,000 – two people were going for it. Instead of letting them battle it out, he’ll have two dinners instead so that both get their prize. The charity comes of best though as they doubled their money raised. That’s Arsene though though isn’t it? The decent, respectable and much liked man and there’s a difference between the man and the once Arsenal manager. He’s a book coming out next year and yes, I’ll probably buy it. Better still, get someone to buy it for me. Now I sound like Arsene….
The festive fixtures were released yesterday and what schedule it is. I think most clubs have just cause to complain so perhaps for that reason, they are fair in a kind of weird way. For the first time ever, Amazon Prime will be showing matches live which will be interesting. Sky Sports coverage is the best in my opinion, the footage I mean, not the pundits/commentary.
Our only fixtures on Prime are:
December 5th – Arsenal v Brighton. 8.15pm
Boxing Day – Bournemouth v Arsenal. 3pm
Full Arsenal fixture list for December and the New Year are:
Monday 9 December
West Ham v Arsenal (Sky Sports 8pm)
Thursday 12 December
Standard Leige v Arsenal (BT Sport 5.55pm)
Sunday 15 December
Arsenal v Man City (Sky Sports 4.30pm)
17/18 December – Carabao Cup (if still in it)
Saturday 21 December
Everton v Arsenal (BT Sport 12.30pm)
Boxing Day 2019
Bournemouth v Arsenal. (Amazon Prime 3pm)
Sunday 29 December
Arsenal v Chelsea (Sky Sports 2pm)
1st January 2020
Arsenal v Manchester United (BT Sport 8pm)
Considering the way the festive period has panned out in years gone by, I don’t think we’ve come out of this one too badly. The only two long distance away trips are to Everton and Standard Leige. I wouldn’t want to be a Leicester City fan that’s for sure, not with trips to West Ham and Manchester City either side of a home fixture against Liverpool over a ten day period. City and Liverpool aren’t happy with their schedule either but on paper, Chelsea and Toots have a similar challenge to us.
That’s not to say the fixtures aren’t tough though, far from it. Every match we play is tough it seems as apart from the Cup game and in Europa, it’s been a while since we brushed a Premier League opposition aside with ease. February this year I’d say when we beat Bournemouth 5-1 or maybe Newcastle on April Fool Day. Regardless, in my opinion it was last season.
Yet still, somehow we’re third. Now though, it’s time to dig out better football, better performances and take advantage of the opportunity the Toots, Utd and even City are presenting us. There’s a long way to go in this season but I don’t think the gifts being dished out by other clubs will continue for much longer.
Mind you, with Tierney, Holding, Bellerin and Lacazette back in the team, this Arsenal team might not need to worry about what’s going on further down the table…
Friday is my optimism day, Tuesday though, might not be…
Have a great weekend guys…
Not too keen on the EIGHT PM Man U game on \new years day, there won’t be many trains about , I should be OK but fans living further away than me could have problems , Still if we win it will be a great start to 2020
Good point Sohara. I suspect there’ll be some kind of transport though, perhaps a few additional trains because of the football.
Hi Rico
I think you’re right. I’ve seen it a lot worse.
You must have made a mistake though, there’s a Saturday fixture in there – I didn’t think we had them any longer 🙂
The Ozil think keeps going on, is it going to end in January?
Brian
Another point, Liverpool are putting on coaches for their 8 o’clock game, free with a £5 donation the charity.
Brian
Hi Brian, yep, we’ve had worse in the past that’s for sure..
😂 re Saturday..
According to an interview given to The Telegraph, Ozil has stated that he has a contract that runs until summer 2021 and has no intention of leaving before that date.
Oh, and Rico don’t rush out to buy the book, wait a month and I’m sure you will find it on Waterstone’s bargain books table for about half-price.
I’ll be even more patient and wait three months and get it for a pound from a local charity shop.
No surprise re Ozil, he’s clearly about the money alone…
eBay Cicero, that’s my best bet…
Rico. If Mesut isn’t going to leave then surely Emery’s job is to get him playing well again. He could still be an asset I reckon.
Adam, that should have been achieved long before now imo.
Rico. That’s true but I’ll be interested to see what happens next. If he’s costing well over a million a month then Emery should attempt to get him playing properly.
Can’t see it happening Adam..
I think to accommodate Ozil, we need a very strong midfield. Not one which includes someone like Xhaka.
We could do with Tuilagi as our defensive midfielder.
If one of the really top clubs and top coaches wanted Ozil, despite his salary, then we’d have no problem selling him.
But none of them think he is worth it and to me that really says it all.
Kev, I agree that if we sold Ozil we wouldn’t necessarily miss him, but if he doesn’t want to move there’s not a lot we can do. Perhaps he’s happy to sit out the next eighteen or so months, on £350k a week, in the knowledge that his footballing career is all but over.
Incidentally, it would appear that Ozil’s wife was in the car when it was attacked. That must have had a detrimental effect on the player which may go some way to explaining his attitude since that time.
Fantastic performance by England, semi-final in Tokio awaits, Aussies on their way home.
Was Ozil any different before the incident involving himself, his family and Kolasinac? I don’t think so.
The only time I’ve seen him put a really good shift in is when Alexis was at the club, the FA Cup Final v Chelsea and the weeks leading up to his new contract. Walcott got absolutely crucified for doing something similar..
If he’s happy to sit and take the money without playing, it says more about him than anything he can do with his left foot.
We could Kev.
Some really good rugby played this morning, thoroughly enjoyed it…
England will do well to get through next weeks semi-final. The All Blacks look to be in awesome form.
Still, we can always hope…..can’t we?
New Zealand are easily a couple of levels up from Australia therefore England would need to put in probably their best performance in years to beat them, which might be possible but isn’t likely as England have this psychological inferior complex when it comes to the All Blacks.
It’s a bit like when England play Brazil in football, we don’t play the team we play the shirt…
Tbh I find the whole Ozil saga as totally boring as I do Brexit…
If Ozil knows he isn’t going to be a major player at Arsenal, but still sees out his contract, then as Rico said, that tells you everything you need to know about him and is why I can’t stand him…
All this Ozil nonsense didn’t start with Emery, it happened under Wenger and when Wenger was under pressure, where was the might Mesut, why wasn’t he playing out of his skin for the man who gave him so much latitude?
Agree Kev, Ozil has been as he is since he arrived at the club. He’s making more headlines now because Emery has had the balls to drop him.
To this day I wish we’d have kept Alexis and let Ozil go for free. I bet Alexis does too.
Morning Rico.
Alexis was a divisive personality in the club for sure and I don’t know why, maybe he was just anti-social or he didn’t rate his team mates, but for me, in big games, cup finals etc, he turned up when Ozil often didn’t and still doesn’t.
I agree, I would rather have got rid of Ozil and kept Alexis when considering their match day efforts, but maybe the thing to do would have been to sort out their contracts before they ran down and that’s something the Wenger revisionists tend to ignore.
Wenger also prevented us from banking £60m from Man City and left us lumbered in the end with Mkhitarayan, a great legacy from Le Prof.
But don’t let that get in the way of airbrushing his Emirates years, not when you can pass all the blame onto Gazides and bash Emery at the same time.
Morning Kev,
Was he divisive though? Yes he used to moan a bit on the pitch but do we really know what went on off the pitch. He was ambitious that’s for sure and he and Wenger seemed to feel differently about what we were doing or where we were going but I loved his attitude.. I see something very similar in Lacazette..
Well said about his contract situation by the way. When City offered £60 million, he should have been sold but as you say, better still would have been sorting things like that out long before.
Same with Ramsey and a long list of others before.
Thank goodness those days are fading rapidly.
New post up now