Morning all.
I found the following information on Arsenal.com
As well as a few rule changes this season which we’ve already talked about, six new officials have joined the group Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO). They have been added to a supplementary list for the Select Group 1, which serves both the Premier League and EFL for 2025/26.
These include Lewis Smith, Farai Hallam, Adam Herczeg, Tom Kirk, Ruebyn Ricardo and Ben Toner. Smith already has experience within the Premier League, having had the whistle for nine top-flight matches already when part of the PGMO’s Development Group.
As well as those on the pitch in charge of matches, former FIFA official Kevin Blom has also joined PGMO in the role of VAR performance coach for 2025/26. Blom is a former referee, having officiated matches in UEFA and FIFA competitions, as well as operating as a video match official at EURO 2020.
Blom is the most interesting addition for me because of his nationality and experience. Perhaps he can show the buffoons who operate VAR where they are going wrong! Bearing in mind those bodies can often be spotted on the pitch as well, could we start to see some improvement?
If one could ask Mikel Arteta what Arsenal’s aim is this coming season, I’m sure he’d say it’s to win every competition we are in. Whilst achieving the quadruple would be a dream come true, it’s extremely unlikely to become a reality anytime soon.
Top four, whilst important in its own right because of the money it brings in, it’s nothing to celebrate. Not without a piece of silverware to go with it and not in my opinion, after nearly six years of building a squad good enough which I think is more than capable of winning the league. Three years of coming second is a vast improvement on where we as a club were back in 2019 but ultimately, fans want to see trophies in the cabinet and an open top bus parade in north London.
Our record in the League Cup has been atrocious for a long time now and it’s been four years since we lifted the FA Cup and even that was won win a squad totally different to the one we have today. Not one player in today’s squad started that 2020 final against Chelsea and only two were in the match day squad – Bukayo Saka and Reiss Nelson and neither made it off the bench.
As a group, these Arsenal players and the manager need to taste success. If that’s comes in the FA Cup or League Cup, it’s a start. Of course it’s only natural to want a Premier League title or Champions League trophy ahead of either of the domestic cups but sometimes, beggars cannot be choosers.
Not for one minute am I suggesting Arsenal’s aim at the start of the season should be winning either domestic cup but as the fixtures come around, we should be aiming to win them. All of them. Of course no one goes onto the pitch not caring about the result but now we have a deeper squad, there is no reason why we can’t fight harder to win either or even both English cups.
Many many years ago, Mr. Lowndes, the famous Secretary of the Treasury, in the reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the First, used to say,
“Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.”
One could apply the same rule to sport. Win the small cups and the bigger ones will soon come along. In theory anyway. Seriously though, once this group of players have a winners medal around their neck they will want more. They will know what it’s like to push hard for something and instead of walking away with nothing, they will walk away feeling on cloud nine. Personally, I think we’re at the “any cup/silverware” will do stage.
As said, the Premier League would be the icing on the cake but when one considers how much other clubs have strengthened, the challenge will be even tougher this time around. That’s not to say it’s unachievable for Mikel Arteta’s squad, after all, we as a club have also strengthened well, plus we finally have a proper striker at the club!
I suppose what I’m asking is, as a fan, what do you realistically expect from the club this season?
Catch up in the comments…
Mikel Arteta exclusive: His ‘evolution’ as a manager and the ‘gift’ of young talent
By Amy Lawrence – The Athletic
Aug. 14, 2025
“Every artist has their critics.”
That is the title of a striking piece of artwork hung high above the London skyline, depicting a brooding photograph of Mikel Arteta marking out something that looked like stream-of-consciousness ideas in black paint.
The notion of Arteta the artist is an interesting one for a manager whose team is built on core values of control, work ethic, unity and a specialism in set pieces.
As for the other part, Arteta is very accustomed to living with critics, so that part feels less open to interpretation. He is also a strong self-critic. For any manager, there is a fascinating contradiction in that they have to be unbendingly sure of themselves in order to lead a group of highly-tuned performers in the face of heavy public pressure, but also be open-minded enough to question themselves, adjust their own principles and absorb new ones. The game moves. So must they.
Which is exactly where we find Arteta in the summer of 2025.
He is about to begin his seventh season in charge of Arsenal and is speaking to The Athletic after being announced as sportswear company Under Armour’s new global ambassador and director of sporting performance. Just like Arteta’s football philosophy, the culture he wants to cultivate and his methods for pushing the boundaries are not fixed. They remain in development — and the way his mind works, it will stay that way until his last day in management.
“There is much more to come,” he says. “Because the manager that the boys needed three years ago is a different manager than they need today. The team has grown so much in every sense of that word that they need somebody else — and that somebody else has to adapt and identify what is really important, what is really going to get that fire in the belly to get the best out of them. That’s the evolution of the manager.
“It’s not just the idea of changing. If we go to YouTube and the next evolution is, ‘Oh look, he has put this player in this space!’ that’s not evolution of the manager.”
So what does he want to be for his players now that he wasn’t before?
“Exactly what they need, and each of them are going to require a different manager,” he explains. “Each of them are going to require at some point a certain something that they don’t expect from the manager. And that’s the beauty of it. When it’s something new — ‘Oof, that is going to make me better and I didn’t see that coming’.”
Arteta’s mind is constantly whirring to come up with an idea that might bring a spark, new motivation, a tiny detail that can make a difference. It might be a team challenge or a private talk, an unexpected metaphor or a trick. Where do all these things come from?
“Put in the hours,” he says. “When you are working on something, that triggers something else. Having a conversation with somebody about one topic creates so many other things, and that stays in your brain and sometimes at night, sometimes in the shower, sometimes when I’m on the pitch looking at something, I say: ‘I’ll have this.’”
It all stems from what he calls “the power of the conversation”. Ideas are everywhere if you just care to listen out for the flicker.
Arteta has more one-to-one chats with his players these days. “It’s not always easy, though,” he counters. “Because the player always wants something from the manager and that is more game time. But the player needs to understand: the more competitive it gets, the squad gets bigger and you’re going to have to share. You will be extremely important whether you play 60 minutes or the last 30 and that’s something to learn.”
Surely that will be one of the most sensitive challenges, to get, say, Viktor Gyokeres and Kai Havertz to collaborate to share game time. Or Myles Lewis-Skelly and Riccardo Califiori. Or Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli. And so on. It is a modern football requirement.
“We cannot take away the fact that the desire to play every game is something super positive,” Arteta says. “What we need to understand is that I have to make a decision to play a player for a certain reason, and maybe I pick the player next to you, and that’s not easy.”
So much so, occasionally Arteta goes home and feels sad. Because if, on the one hand, giving someone an opportunity can “transform his life”, on the other hand, a player on the downward curve senses his raison d’être diminishing. These are big feelings to manage. “That person is probably in this country alone without his family and the only reason why he’s in this country is to play football, to play minutes, and you’re taking that away from them. That’s tough.”
It weighs heavily sometimes. The life of a football manager is pretty unusual.
But it demands the ability to keep moving, keep demanding, keep inspiring, and keep taking the big decisions.
Day one of pre-season is always a big one. It’s the time for a manager to look directly at his players and see how much desire he can detect. This time, Arteta was very pleased with what he
“I look at their eyes and their bodies, and they tell you straight away how much they want it. They looked in great shape. You can talk. ‘Yeah, yeah, boss, it’s gonna be a great season. I’m gonna do this…’ They come on day one and they have three or four kilograms. Big problem. Our players came in and they were looking incredibly fit.”
They are ready. He is ready. Vamos.
.
Arteta is talking ambition, vision and values — the aspects he picked out about Under Armour which persuaded him to work with the sportswear company.
At the launch event, there is some discussion about how Under Armour has a reputation for scrapping it out, but how they want to take big, audacious steps to be a serious player in the football market.
They saw in Arteta someone they identified with, as founder and CEO Kevin Plank explains: “We brag about being underdogs — being for all those not born big enough, tall enough, fast enough, strong enough, smart enough, pretty or handsome enough, for all those that didn’t feel like they were born in the pole position but had to work for it, to struggle to fight through something, of striving to be more, striving to be better.
“And Mikel has led a very similar story as a player: he played in the biggest clubs but there were always others he had to compete against, so you watched him work with the hand that he was dealt and having the ability to rise to the highest level.”
Plank is a highly successful businessman. He saw something compelling in Arteta straight away. He tells the story of their first meeting. It was scheduled for breakfast at the manager’s north London home, the morning after the final day of the 2023-24 season. Plank went to the game. Arsenal beat Everton 2-1 but the mood was loaded with what might have been as they finished up second in the league after Manchester City bulldozed past them. Plank figured the meeting would be cancelled.
It wasn’t. Arteta showed up, ready to have a conversation.
As a manager, there is a steeliness mixed in with all those creative ideas he loves. “Every artist has their critics.” It is beginning to make a lot more sense.
And here’s another apparent contradiction about Arteta. Not so long ago, detractors created a narrative that he was not a believer in young talent. Evidence in recent times obliterates that, with the emergence of Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri last season and the extraordinary elevation of 15-year-old Max Dowman to the first team being carefully managed by Arteta, his coaching staff, the club’s safeguarding team and the teenager’s family. Two other youngsters, Marli Salmon and Andre Harriman-Annous, featured in Arsenal’s first team for the first time in pre-season.
The truth is, overseeing the transition of a youthful talent into the first team is one of the most rewarding and stimulating aspects of Arteta’s job. It is, he says, “a massive gift and a big responsibility” that requires the greatest consideration.
“There’s nothing guaranteed in sports. It’s not about giving the opportunity for the sake of it. When someone is really knocking on your door and giving you every reason, every single day, to earn that opportunity, you have to give it to them. If there is a passion that I have and something that I love, it’s that. But at Arsenal, especially at this level, you really have to earn it and be so good.”
Arteta is a father to three sons. He likes to take them to Hale End, Arsenal’s academy, when he drops in several times a season to see how things are going. That paternal instinct impacts how he assesses the balance between looking after a prodigy from a human perspective versus recognising the platform to allow brilliance to flourish at their best level. As a father and a manager, he feels the nuances deeply.
“With Max, for example, my eldest is 16,” he says. “When I look at Max, he is one year younger than my son, you know?” He smiles at the madness of it all.
“I know the conversations I have with my son and the things that we have to be on top of, so I can imagine exactly how Max lives at home and the conversations that his parents are having with him and the things that they need to be constantly teaching and educating him with. So it’s something fascinating. But he’s showing great maturity, and it’s a credit to his family as well, the way they are raising that kid.”
Arteta has observed a transformation in youth development since his own days as a kid at La Masia, Barcelona’s fabled academy. “It’s the evolution of the game. I think if you asked me at 15 if I could play with the first team? Impossible. It was honestly impossible. I could not do it, not mentally, not physically.
“All the tools, all the training, all the education and all the development that they are now having at a very young age are paying off. A lot of work has been done in this country and that’s why those players at 15, 16 years old look ready to play men’s football, and that’s very, very strange.” Even for him, it is taking some getting used to.
The environment is another key, and Arteta credits the senior players at Arsenal for being thoughtful and welcoming role models. “We are lucky because the players that we have,” he adds. “They are really caring. They are really supportive and they are genuinely happy to see somebody do that. Sometimes that is not always the case, but I think they have the right environment at Arsenal to grow and fulfil their potential.”
Arsene Wenger — another keen promoter of youth — always tempered his enthusiasm with realism. One of his sayings was, “You pay with points”. But when he considered burgeoning ability unstoppable, he would do it, no question.
“Arsene used to say that a lot and I understand why,” Arteta says. “The temptation will always be to give the opportunity to the players who have experience, and if they make mistakes, it will be less and they have probably made mistakes already. But if you have the choice between a young player that you are so convinced about the qualities, and another player, and take a little risk? I think it’s worth it.
“In football, nothing guarantees winning games. It doesn’t matter what age you have in your passport, what experience you have. You have to have the sense that the player is prepared to handle a certain situation and has the personality to overcome exposure at this level.”
Interestingly, he also uses the safe space of London Colney to get a few bumps out of the system away from the mega-scrutiny of competition. Kids need a few hard knocks on the way. “Let kids make mistakes and then support them. Sometimes we have to make them fail in training so they can learn to overcome these situations when they come up in a game.”
When Arteta and Andrea Berta, Arsenal’s sporting director, spend time planning the squad, Hale End is central to the conversations. “The first thing that we do is look in the academy and see if there is any potential there that can really help in the first team, and if the answer is yes, you have the solution. If the answer is no, then you have to go to the recruitment policy.
“Ideally, you know what you want to recruit: very young, very talented and cheap. That’s easy on paper! Then you have to go to the markets.”
Across football, younger teenagers are making such remarkable strides that Arteta believes the governing bodies need to address the regulations about game time and freedom of movement. There are restrictions at Premier League level which are not necessarily the case worldwide. Provided someone is advanced enough and every aspect of their wellbeing is looked after, holding players back here while they can be progressing elsewhere is not something he agrees with.
“As the game has evolved, the law has to evolve,” he says. “It is also in relation to the talent that we can recruit all over the world, because if there is great talent here, great, but we have to open our doors again. It’s going to make the league, country, grassroots football, much better because the more capacity we have, the standard is going to be raised. It might take two or three, four years, but everybody afterwards will be better because the standards are higher.”
The countdown to the new season is getting louder. Arteta hopes he has made the right tweaks to push his squad that little bit further this time. They have been bolstered by new signings in all departments of the team, each of whom has the capability to be challenging for playing time more or less straight away.
Arteta outlines the three pillars that he leans into often when dealing with players in general.
“I always ask three questions. Can he do it? Does he know how to do it? And does he want to do it? Maybe he can do it, but he doesn’t know how to and I can teach him. If a player doesn’t want to do it, it’s better to leave him alone. If a player is willing to do it but doesn’t know how to do it, let’s work on him because we can still overcome that barrier. When the guy is not willing to do something, I think, long-term, it won’t work.”
The newcomers are welcomed into a group who demand of themselves and each other. They will have to lock into that, too. Arteta wouldn’t have it any other way.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-14998409/Arsenal-Tony-Adams-Mikel-Arteta.html
I agree with Adams..
Good read rico, morning. I think if I was offered just League Cup now, I’d probably take it, just to get the five year thing over and done with. Obviously I feel this squad and Manager should achieve more. But so do five or six other clubs, and they will no doubt, get a better rub of the green from refs and VAR! Ever year you hope it’s different and in the first few weeks you know it isn’t.
Saw that Adams video spring up in my X feed, certainly agree Rice is the man, but no way Arteta will change now, he has that Wenger stubbornness on decisions, rarely seen him backtrack.
Thew it’s hot, used my buss pass yesterday, only perk I can see of getting older, but crikey, nearly passed out, only drivers seat has Aircon😀. Not sure there wasn’t under seat heating on. We not adapting in this country!
Morning Andrew, I thought I was running solo today. 😜
Potter mentioned this yesterday and I’m in agreement really, a cup would be great. Obviously we all want the PL but if that’s not happening, a cup..
Can’t see Arteta changing the captain either. Sadly.
I love the hot days but not the lawn turning into straw! Don’t worry first drop of rain and it will be back . Until then it will take spin after about 20 overs.
As for the captain in the pre -match huddles it’s Rice and Gabriel that do the geeing up , maybe Odegaard has merits that we don’t see off the pitch. Maybe the solution is a club captain and an on pitch one .
We can’t sort the NHS or the small boats out, no chance of sorting air conditioning on buses out. 😜
Good morning Rico and all.
Rico you must be tired after all that typing above.
(1) A great manager is one that is willing to listen and take onboard any advice and if needed admit he made a mistake and move on by fixing it.
(2) in-regards to our captain, It’s just my opinion but I feel Odegaard needs replacing as I feel he has lost what it takes be a captain.
(3) ref’s, well lets play some reverse psychology on them and make a stricked rule that only the captain and the player involved approach the ref for any issue they are not happy about.
Well I am off to see the psychologist, as my wife has booked me in to try and stop me from smashing the tv when we play bad. personaly I blaim the players and believe the club should buy me a new tv to replace the ( 2 ) I have broken due to the players putting a crap performance.
Rico, other teams have strengthened their squads but not to the extent that Arteta has done for us. Get off to a decent start and we will definitely be in the mix for the Premiership title. I think we could win it.
Ha ha Potter..
Afternoon Geoff, thank goodness for copy and paste..
If all our signings hit the PL running Cicero, there’s no reason why we get off to a fast start but then it’s over to Mikel to manage his squad better so we’re not only fit at the start of the season but at the end too.
Still think we’re a left sided midfield player short though..
Rico, you have little faith in Keir then, he will smash the gangs and if you say otherwise you are just Far Right 😉 He also sorted the NHS with over 20% straight away to Junior Doctors and was smug he had averted all strikes. That lasted well ……. anyway, better not get into politics, although Kier is an Arsenal fan so a tenuous link 🙂
Geoff, you have it bad, better watch out Arsenal dont lose you more money than gambling. I am worried about Man U away first off with their new front three, better get your wife to put up a guard round the TV! Don’t think Odergaard has lost any captain qualities, he is what he is, a great chap, but I would like British Bulldog qualities like Adams & Terry etc, and Rice would be a great modern day equivalent.
I’m seeing a Double, not sure what kind of Double but a Double all the same…
We need to ensure that we don’t give referee’s the opportunity to stitch us up, because they will if they can.
Trossard and Rice cost us points last season, in situations that could have been avoided, we have to be smarter than that. Arteta needs to be calmer and if those situations look like occurring he has to act, by taking players out of those stressful situations and he does now have the strength on the bench so there’s no excuse.
Sunday will be a tough assignment and as much as I want to win at Old Toilet I’d take the draw, not least because of the occasion and the officials who I have zero confidence in.
Good post Rico btw…
Chelsea worry me, they’ve been quietly putting together quite a strong squad, so why we may focus on the Lucky Scousers and the Arabian Mancs we’ve gotta watch out for the Bohley Boys creeping up on the outside… 😬
You’ve got it in one Andrew. 😂
Thanks Kev, always said the same, don’t give the officials a decision to make because we know they will only be too happy to make it.
I like the idea of the Dutchman joining VAR, whether Webb and co listen to him is another matter.
The first match away to Man u, is never going to be easy, but hopefully by not playing this stop / start style of play or waste time with throw in’s, we could snook in a early win,
I’m a little bit concerned that we moved out as many players as I would have like by now. fingers crossed we can still move some on,
Have I missed it or are things a little bit quiet about Man court case
We will I’m sure Geoff, but possibly late in the window.
Newcastle have agreed a fee with Aston Villa for Jacob Ramsey in a deal that could reach £43m.
The deal is for £39m plus £4m add-ons.
The midfielder is travelling to undergo a medical tonight.
Shame…
Aren’t Villa looking at one of our players?
Not sure Kev. I read Brighton are after one of our academy players.
Spuds are, reportedly, confident of signing Eze for around £68 million from Crystal Palace. Daniel Levy must be getting desperate. 😉
Good morning all.
Fernabache, Porto and Real Betis are all interested in signing Zinchenko. Perhaps Senor Berta could get Flog It’s Paul Martin to arrange an on-line auction to drum up a few quid in order to buy non rainbow laces for both our men’s and women’s squads. 😉
Morning Cicero, all.
Rainbow laces would be expensive so good idea 😂
Rico, I was going to advise you to either lock your car in a secure garage or put it up on blocks and remove the wheels, then I realised the Bournemouth/Liverpool match is at Anfield, so no worries. 😉
😂😂 Cicero, that’s funny.
Yeah , but do they know that ?
Of course they are at home champions and favourites and all that.
T.V wouldn’t have it any other way.
I doubt they care regardless of where the game is…
Would love to see Bournemouth get something from the game but they’ve sold a few players this summer.
Good afternoon Lady and Gentlemen
My expectations???? Well, to relive the atmosphere of listening to NORTH LONDON FOREVER after winning a cup. It DOES sound different after you have won a tinpot
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Yb8WLP4dgDM
Off to read the post and comments. I only just read the headline.
Afternoon Devil. It’s a quiet day in the world of Arsenal.
Well I don’t even think what Arteta’s expectations are. I want to win every cup we are in. Plus the more clean sheets we get on the way the better (Personally when I concede a goal I feel that its an insult. Yes I know that the other team is playing as well however, if I know I have a superior team, then its always an insult to concede and not keep a clean sheet) And yes I want us to win the record of goals less conceded in a campaign. And yes I want Raya or Kepa or whoever goalkeeper we have to break Cech’s record of 24 clean sheets.
What I feel was Arteta’s only big mistake was neglecting to win one of the two knock out cups, the FA and Carabeo or whatever it is cup. Imo he should have taken them more seriously and won at least two more because as you pointed out Rico, once this group of players sniff a winner’s medal they would want more.
Out of the present squad we have got players who have a winner’s medal, Kepa, Havertz, Odegaard, Gyokeres, Trossard, Timber, Merino, Madueke. They have all won with previous clubs especially Kepa so they know what it means to cross the line. So all that experience should be put into practice with the rest of the team during games.
It does get tedious and nauseatic mentioning the PGMOL and their refs antics against us. However its there. Arteta and the winners should know that for the refs not to fuck it up can only happen if we dont give them decisions AND most of all take the chances we get in front of goal. Because if we convert at least 30% of our chances no matter how many fuck ups a ref makes we would be miles ahead for the other team to catch up.
Wenger did only one mistake when they injured Eduardo and other players. he kept blaming the refs and the opposition players. Had those things happened under GG I can assure you he would have turned the players into a them against us mentality. When the Eduardo injury occured I am sure GG would have won that league.
Maybe Arteta can learn a thing or two from GG as well
Nottingham Forest have reportedly reached an agreement with Ipswich to sign England Under 21 international Omari Hutchinson for £37.5million. 😳
I don’t think Arteta neglected the cups Devil, it was imo, the only time he perhaps felt comfortable to rotate his players. With a deeper squad this year, maybe, just maybe he’ll trust every player and use them more.
Didn’t we let him go for nothing, Rico?
We did Cicero, to Chelsea, where he originally came from I believe.
Just read that Trossard might be off to Aston Villa. 25million pounds
I read that too. We’ve had the best of him I reckon..
Jammy jammy scousers…
Didn’t watch the game, checked in it was 1 – 0. Checked a bit later it 2 – 0. Third time it was 2 – 2 and I thought Liverpool had gone all Spursy throwing away a two goal lead. But it finished 3 – 2. Tough luck Bournemouth. 😕
Good bit of business if he goes at that price.
4-2 in the end..
I think so too..
Tottenham got a nice wedge for Son and he’s older than Trossard. 🤞
Don’t Saudi and the MLS clubs pay more in general though?
New post up.
I hope that if we do manage to sign one or even two more players this window that they’re more in the Mosquera mould than expensive toys?!