Morning all.
The draw for the World Cup took place yesterday and a few interesting groups came out of the pot.
England’s group could see players from Arsenal up against old friends and new. Matt Turner, who’s expected at the club in the summer, could line up against Bukayo Saka, Ben White, ESR and Aaron Ramsdale if all are selected for their country. Auston Trusty however, is yet to make his debut for the USA senior team. Aaron Ramsey, if Wales qualify, will face a couple of old team-mates too but if Scotland qualify, Kieran Tierney will be the one up against his English team-mates. Iran is a footballing nation I know nothing about, in fact I didn’t even realise they’d qualified.
Takehiro Tomiyasu, if he ever recovers from injury, will be up against Spain, Germany and one of New Zealand or Costa Rica.
Cameroon and Serbia await Granit Xhaka as do Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel’s Brazil whilst Thomas Partey’s Ghana are in with Uruguay, South Korea and Portugal with Cedric Soares and Nuno Tavares being potential opponents.
Sambi Lokonga may very well be in action for Belgium as they face Croatia, Morocco and Canada and William Saliba is likely to be in the French squad who join Denmark, Tunisia and one of Australia, UAE or Peru.
Other current Arsenal players will be in Qatar in November but I doubt they’ll still be at the club when the tournament kicks off. They are Bernd Leno, Matteo Guendouzi, Lucas Torreira, Pablo Mari and Hector Bellerin. Xhaka and Cedric might even be gone by then, but who knows. I certainly don’t.
As a good friend once said to me, it matters not who leaves Arsenal, who joins are the important ones. I don’t think I’d be agreeing if Arsenal sold the likes of Saka and ESR though but that potential scenario is years away in my opinion, if at all.
Despite being beaten by Liverpool in March, Mikel Arteta has been awarded the manager of the month award. His second of the season so far.
He’s in that photo somewhere, I promise. That’s Mikel Arteta though isn’t it, fully aware that Arsenal’s current form and results is not just down to him. Every single person he works with is behind this award. From the players through to the chef including all the folks who make living life at Arsenal easy and enjoyable. Travel, accommodation, special diets or religious beliefs, contracts, wages and day to day problems which life throws our way, all have to be dealt with and solved. If a player has a problem, the people stood behind Mikel Arteta, are probably the ones who help solve it. A football club has to be a well oiled machine for it to be good on the pitch. I think that by including the back room staff in the photo above, it’s his way of saying ‘this award is for all of us’. I’ve not seen Guardiola, Klopp, Tuchel, Conte etc do that, mind you, in Conte’s case he’d need to be winning the award in the first place.
The award is for the players too, and the fans who’ve been absolutely fantastic this season both at home and away.
Arsenal have a long way to go yet, I’m sure we all recognise that but it does seem that the club is in a much better situation than it’s been since the invincible squad broke up. The club are signing proper footballers and not just any player going cheap. Players for a specific position rather than a player who might fit in somewhere. Young players who will I hope, be part of an Arsenal team/squad for the next 5/6 seasons at least. Players who’ll love the club, it’s history and it’s fans.
So yes, well done to Mikel Arteta for picking up this award. He certainly deserves it. Two more this season and we’ll all be happy. Lol
See you in the comments.
Good day Rico, I guess everyone is out enjoying the sunshine. We are hosting our younger son’s dog for a week so it was an early walk for me this morning, an hour on Marsham Heath where the gorse is in full bloom, a magnificent spectacle. 😎
Hi Cicero, sounds ideal.
Hi Rico.. did you watch the draw? Omg didn’t it drag on 🤣 Jermaine Jenas and all those red balls… I’d had enough after about 30 (!) minutes and turned over..
Really glad the football is back; a pain having to wait until Monday night, but save the best till last, hey?!
Have to admit I thought Klopp would win it, as I’ve been informed (numerous times) that he was unbeaten 🙄 Good on MA..
Hi Sue, I spared myself the pain of watching that. The CL draw is bad enough.
I too thought Klopp would get it, mr golden boy…
Good on you, Rico! I’ve just returned from a shopping spree to see the Chelsea/Brentford score hahahahaha!!
Evening rico, house. When I went out for a walk Sue, Chelsea were one nil up!
I was shocked, Andrew!! Great result for us
Evening Andrew.
Fantastic result at Chelsea, made our 2-0 defeat on the first day look respectable 🤣🤣
I couldn’t believe it either Sue.
Utd drew at home against Leicester so another good result. All we need now is a Newcastle win tomorrow afternoon. Oh, and an Arsenal victory on Monday.
And now United drop 2 points at home against Leicester could have been 3 except for a debatable VAR decision near the end.
Monday is now taking on a massive importance.
To be honest I am not particularly happy that 2 and a half days between out London derby with Chelsea (Wed Apr 20 – 19:45) and our key #4-spot fixture against Manchester United (Sat Apr 23 – 12:30). But when I saw Chelsea’s path my arguments on an anti-Arsenal schedules disappeared. They will play against Real Madrid twice in 6 days with a trip to Southampton in between, they play in the Wembley against Palace on the 17th, thus have 1 day less to prepare for the Arsenal game – as we play with Southampton a day earlier – and host West Ham on the 24th.
Still I would prefer if we would play with MU on Sunday and even Monday instead of Saturday noon, especially as they have a day more for preparation, and play their next fixture (away at Brentford on 02/05) even a day further, but it doesn’t seem so terrible now as it did a week ago. Chelsea has a squad 25% larger than Arsenal, but this is a tight schedule, and we can see that they are already struggling mentally. And losing out against Real Madrid wouldn’t help much either.
Some great results in our Favour last night, with a win this week we will be only 2 points off 3rd place. Glad to see the other teams helping us.
Good results I agree Geoff but only if we consolidate things with a win tomorrow.
Pbarany, the fixture list is what it is no use griping about it.
Good morning all.
Hi all.
Agree re the fixtures, I’m sure the PL have done us no favours but it’s been a weird season with all the cancellations.
Morning Rico and all
We have to take part blame in this tight fixture, after all if we had a deeper squad and won some of our easier matches at the beginning of the year we would not be under the pressure we are in.
Hi Geoff, to a degree perhaps but we only postponed one game and that’s yet to be played..
Watching Arsenal’s ladies team play shame it’s such a small crowd
Usually is for the women’s game.
Things going tits up for us at the lane
Good evening Rico and all
Potter….I dont think that the result at the lane is tits up for us. If anything its a blessing since the lads know that they have to win so they will dig in deep. We have two games in hand on the spuddies so the boys will stay on their toes and win them both.
We cannot expect everyone to drop points at the same time. So the mindset will be different tomorrow. Had the spuddies lost, the players’ attitude might have relaxed a little.
Tomorrow is a big game. We simply must not lose.
Totally agree that it ‘s all in our hands but my reference was about Newcastle’s total capitulation . It was bad enough that Spurs got the 3 points but shoring up their goal difference as well.!!!!!
Morning all,
New post up now
Never fear, we’ll beat Totts at their place. 😀