Morning all.
Sky Sports Italy report that Udinese are among the clubs interested in Hector Bellerin. The Italian club are set to need a new right-back apparently as their current player, Brandon Soppy, is expected to complete a move to Atalanta.
There’s nothing floating around about Ainsley Maitland-Niles or Reiss Nelson but with the latter injured and expected to be on the sidelines for a couple of months, I strongly suspect he’ll be staying put.
Nicolas Pepe could be on the move though, to France with Nice. It’s reported to be a loan which is far from the best deal we could have hoped for, but he’s still go two years left on his contract so there’s time for Arsenal to try and get a fee for him. A fantastic season in France would certainly help that. Interestingly, Jim Radcliffe, the fella who supposedly wants to buy a stake in Man Utd, owns the French club and he’s rich! Pepe would join up with another old Arsenal player if he does make the move as Aaron Ramsey joined the French club this summer too. I bet the Welshman wishes he and his agent accepted the deal Arsenal offered him just a few years ago because his move to Juventus turned out to be little short of a disaster for him. A wealthy one though.
Do Arsenal need a winger though? If the interest Arsenal showed in Raphinha is anything to go by, the answer is yes. HITC have a few quotes from Fabrizio Romano which suggest we’re still after Youri Tielemans as well as a winger.
The midfielder, it has always been Tielemans at the top of the list for Arsenal, but still no official bid to Leicester. I’m told Arsenal are still focused on outgoings. – Romano.
There’s roughly two weeks of this transfer window left to run so time is fast running out. The lack of rumours is nothing to worry about in my opinion because it just means Arsenal are probably keeping things quiet, after all, who expected Gabriel Jesus to sign? Lol Seriously though, it might be the club are doing their thing quietly.
Cedric Soares, Pablo Vieira and Emile Smith Rowe all had minutes on the pitch last night with the Under 21’s as they beat Swansea City 2-1. Cedric scored from a free kick around 30 yards out! I watched a clip on YouTube which focused on Vieira, his left foot is wicked but I do think he needs to do some gym work. Premier League defenders and midfielders will bully him off the ball I’m sure, or just kick him to pieces like they did many years ago with Robert Pires and Jose Antonio Reyes, Nicolas Pepe too in my opinion, and with the referees allowing the game to flow these days, it’s unlikely any of them will stop it. Of course we all want to see the game flow just as we want to see more than 50/60% of the 95 minutes of a match with the ball in play, but not to the detriment of a players health. Mathieu Debuchy and Rob Holding both suffered terrible injuries after being given a good old shove and I’m sure they’re not the only ones. Just the only ones I can remember off the top of my head.
On the womens side of the club, Beth Mead is one of the the three women shortlisted for UEFA Women’s Player of the Year, the second international award nomination in as many weeks for our player, who was shortlisted for the Ballon d’Or Feminin alongside Vivianne Miedema last Friday. I think it’s great to see our players being recognised by the footballing world, even if they don’t win it. What we need no though is some of our male counterparts knocking on the mens door for awards. Maybe this season will be Emile Smith Rowe or Bukayo Saka’s year to get the young players awards which are on offer instead of Phil Foden.
See you in the comments.
Morning Rico and all
I still have concerns about Tierney, injured again this time in the shower
Hood Morning Rico,
The team are in much better shape in personnel and psychologically than this time last season. Although another new player (winger) or two would not go amiss. Maybe we will get that that if we can move Bellerin and Pepe on.
I’m very optimistic about the new season.
Morning Geoff, Cg.
That’s an old injury I think Geoff, last season but included in All or Nothing.
Me too Cg, even more so if we can get cover for Partey.
I see we are losing another youngster Salah M ‘hand and like Hutchinson against Edu’s wishes. Are the kids seeing their route getting blocked by too many purchases.
It’s a balancing act. Potter. We are not getting, the maturity, quantity and quality that we need from the academy so we have to buy in. Too many of the youngsters are impatient for the money and kudos that goes with first team football. I’ve no idea what percentage of boys entering the academy go on to be professional footballers at reasonable levels, but I would wager it’s not that high.
They haven’t got much fight in them then.
An option to buy included in the loan deal apparently.
https://arseblog.news/2022/08/report-salah-eddine-to-join-hull-on-loan-option-to-buy-included/
Its a catch 22, if during last season when we had a bench of youngsters during the run-in and Arteta had used them but dropped points in those games he’d have been crucified by the media and social media alike. If we’d been able to put those games to bed earlier then some of the youngsters might have got on but every game we won in the run-in was by the skin of our teeth, our lack of goals killed us and may have cost us Hutchinson and Salah Eddine who probably became frustrated during that period?
Arteta’s focus during pre-season seemed to me, to be preparing all his senior players and have them firing and hitting the ground running in these opening games (the reverse of a year ago) but that meant leaving our youngsters out of the United States tour, no doubt this affected some of our more impatient youngsters.
Yet Reuell Walters still went on the US tour as did Marquinhos!
I don’t blame the kids for wanting to leave after all why wait another 2 or 3 years for a possible shot at the first team if another club offers it now
Depends who the club is?
If they are going on loan it’s important, but if we are selling them does it matter who to?
Talking of going on loan, Pepe could be on his way to Nice according to The Athletic.
‘morning all. A lovely one here in sunny and warm Norfolk.
According to the manager all but one of the squad are available for selection this evening, the exception being Nelson who has a muscle problem.
Craig Lawson is the ref, I don’t like him..but then I don’t like any of the PGMOL muppets, the VAR is Tierney, so I’m not expecting any favours from tonight’s officials.
An unchanged starting eleven tonight?
Morning Cicero. I reckon it’ll be the same starting eleven tonight. I guess if it’s not broken….
I don’t rate Pawson either, toothless. But like you, I don’t many of them, if any really.
New post up now