Morning all.
I thought it was the 1st April when Arsenal made an announcement about pre-season.
Our men’s first team will play our north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur in Hong Kong on Thursday, July 31 as part of our preparations for the 2025/26 season. The match, which kicks off at 7.30pm local time (11.30am UK), will be played in the recently opened 50,000-capacity Kai Tak Stadium in Hong Kong and will see our men’s first-team squad returning to the region for the first time since 2012.
Managing Director, Richard Garlick said:
Everyone at Arsenal is excited to be visiting Hong Kong in July. It’s great to be back with our men’s first team squad after 13 years, and gives us the opportunity to meet so many of our fantastic supporters in the region again. As well as training hard and playing the match, we cannot wait to connect with our Hong Kong supporters in this wonderful part of the world. Playing against Tottenham Hotspur in the magnificent new Kai Tak Stadium will be a great experience for both teams and supporters, and will be a very important part of our pre-season preparations ahead of the new season.
I thought it was bad enough playing Liverpool and Man Utd during a pre season but Totts?
There are four games to go in the WSL and Arsenal sit just six points behind current leaders Chelsea. Beth Mead scored her 50th and 51st goal for the club during Arsenal’s 4-0 defeat of Crystal Palace yesterday afternoon and then later in the day, West Ham came back from being 2-0 down against Chelsea to nick a point.
The men’s and ladies teams need the club above them to go on a rotten run of results but sadly, both scenarios are very unlikely.
After the confirmed appointment of Andrea Berta yesterday, Arsenal’s transfer gossip has gone up a level. Having been heavily linked to us in January, Matheus Cunha has now told the world he wants to move to a “bigger club”. The Observer on Sunday quoted Cunha as saying that he didn’t feel comfortable moving away from Wolves mid-season because relegation was still a possibility but now they are pretty much safe, he’s ready to move on. Perhaps if he’d been that concerned, he’d have focused more on avoiding bans.
Whether or not he’ll end up at Arsenal I don’t know but it won’t stop the media from suggesting he could.
The Athletic report that Arsenal are developing a strong interest in Sporting forward Viktor Gyokeres as they consider their options to sign a striker this summer. It is claimed Arsenal’s new sporting director Andrea Bertais a long-term admirer of Gyokeres. Well, who isn’t an admirer of him?
Already the media are going on about what Berta “must” do this summer which is in itself amusing because I’m sure the Italian has forgotten more about the transfer market and signing players than these writers ever knew in the first play and our need for attacking players is hardly something new. Creativity and goals is something we have lacked but whether that means Arsenal will sign an out and out striker or not remains to be seen.
What would be better, goal scoring wingers/attacking players or a striker or two? All would be every fans answer I’m sure but Arsenal won’t have a bottomless financial pit. I suppose I think about Darwin Nunez who hasn’t exactly been a success story since moving to Liverpool, neither has Rasmus Hojlund at Man Utd and my guess is both were expected to kind of emulate what Haaland has done at City. Take Haaland and Isak out of the equation, the next “striker” on the goals scored list is Chris Wood.
So perhaps a “striker” won’t be coming in the summer but a player or three who scores goals will.
Catch up in the comments.
Morning,
Personally I would not like to see Cunha at Arsenal. Too hot-headed for me and as we all know we have had our share of hot-headed/stirring it up players!
Hopefully we will get either Gyokeres, Sesko, or “another”
I’m sceptical too Laura, for reasons you suggest.
Morning all.
Sometimes I think that the club needs to read the more serious Arsenal sites like Untold who are running an interesting comparison between the 3 top London clubs and the three top North Western clubs . Taking into account the locality of PGMOL referees it is noticeable that on average ARSENAL are seen to commit 1.6% more fouls yet get7.2% more yellows and 114% more reds.
Across Arsenal , Spurs and Chelsea it appears that going on fouls to cards a London club will be 20% more likely to get a yellow and 64% a red.
So as these figures have been compiled over 5 years it seems that we are the prime target but the others are getting done as well.
My reason for retelling this is because we need to be careful about who we sign and how the refereeing community will react . Obviously Cunha has a bad rep with us it would be horrendous if he was to come . We could roar to the top of the red card list and play with ten every other week .
There are a lot more stats and figures in their posts but I have just taken a few relevant facts to stop boring everyone
Untold never seem to amaze me with their facts and stats. We all believe the officials don’t officiate us as they do the northern clubs but those figures are scary.
It’s not just Arsenal who need to read that article but people in the media etc too. This has gone well beyond “same old Arsenal, always moaning…….”
Afternoon everyone.
I hope we don’t sign Cunha for the same reasons mentioned above.
If Kiwior leaves and given Tommy speaks more to the physios than his team mates we’ll need some cover in defence. I also think Arteta will target a striker and two midfielders.
Personally I hope we hold on to Trossard until next season even though he hasn’t performed quite as well as last season, but as the saying goes “better the devil you know than the one you don’t”.
I’m ambivalent about Cunha, there’s pros and cons about him, but if Wolves want £60m plus then I’m sure that there’s better value out there for £60m, come on down Signor Berta.
Gyorkeres can play on the flanks so getting him doesn’t mean that we can’t use Havertz thru the middle with him in the team. Even if we got him I’d still go in with a cheeky bid for another striker, maybe the boy at Villa? We need as many options up front as we usually have at left-back…
Good afternoon Rico and all.
Having watched both England and Crystal Palace games in the last few days, I was impressed by Eberechi Eze. Attacking midfielder or left winger he has pace, ball control and the ability to beat defenders at close quarters, he also has a wicked shot with his right foot and can pass with his left. A replacement for Trossard? Or even Martinelli.
I agree about Eze,in fact the recruitment by Crystal Palace has been very good. No director of football is going to get 100% success but they do well.
The two most in form Premier league teams are probably Palace and Everton. We play both.
Afternoon Cicero, all.
I’m all for Eze too.
To think we let him go a few years ago… 😜
I wouldn’t be disappointed if Trossard heads off to the MLS or Saudi. I think we’ve seen the best of him.
Kev, he’ll probably end up at Forest if Edu does join them. Being Brazilian and all that.
Arsenal are drawing up plans to demolish the Emirates and the old Highbury Stadium and replace them with a 100 thousand capacity super stadium with a retractable roof and a pitch that can be lowered to allow a sectional floor for concerts and other events to be dropped in.
Happy April Fools Day to you too Cicero. 😂
😉
I was up early too. 😂
New post up.