Morning guys.
We are one round of fixtures down in this international break and so far so good in terms of injuries. Jurrien Timber got himself on the scoresheet for the first time in a Netherlands shirt, Viktor Gyokeres continued his scoring form for Sweden albeit from the penalty spot and Max Dowman created history once more by becoming the youngest player to play for the England Under 21’s, adding to his record of being the youngest ever Champions League player, Premier League’s youngest goalscorer and youngest Premier League title winner.
Both Gabriel and Bruno Guimaraes played 90 minutes for Brazil, Martin Odegaard played a full game for Norway and Piero Hincapie played for Ecuador. Declan Rice played 70 odd minutes for England, Ben White came off the bench to boos, how childish England fans, Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino featured for Spain while Riccardo Calafiori played the full game as Italy shocked France with a 3-1 win. Kai Havertz and Christos Tzolis featured for their respective countries too.
The big match this week is between Spain and England when David Raya, Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino could line up for the home team, while Ebere Eze, Declan Rice, Ben White, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ezri Konsa could be selected for England. Unlikely they will all start I know and selfishly, I hope they don’t but either way, it should be a cracking game.
Norway v Wales, not the toughest of opponents for our captain and his teammates but I watched much of it because I wanted to see Antonio Nusa in action and he didn’t disappoint. Strong, quick and direct, exactly the kind of profile we are missing in our team. In my opinion of course. If there is a chance to sign him in January, I really hope Arsenal can take it. Signing players during the winter transfer window is not always easy but as many of us have said before, money talks. RB Leipzig are sitting in 4th place in the Bundesliga, well in the mix for the title but in the Champions League, they are struggling with just 3 points on the board, mind you, there are a lot of clubs with 3 or 4 points including some sitting in the playoff places.
The Arsenal women are back in action today and goodness me do they need a win. I don’t know how they managed to grab a point against Barcelona in the Champions League midweek out but they did. Today they face London City Lionesses at The Emirates with kickoff at 4-30pm. The Lionesses were only promoted to the top division in 2025 but they’ve taken to it like a fish to water.
Manager Renee Slegers:
“Of course, we look forward to being back at the Emirates and impose ourselves and play the Arsenal way and then build on the performance we had in the Champions League on Thursday night.
“It’s the Emirates, we want to play our way. We know we have to be really disciplined, but we want to show what we can do and be our best because the last games at the Emirates haven’t become the results that we wanted to. So we’re really, really driven and want to do everything to get three points on Sunday.”
It should be a full house at Arsenal’s home so I hope the players give the fans something great to watch because so far this season, Arsenal’s women haven’t been particularly good. Especially in front of goal. Cough cough…
Catch up later..
