ARSENAL USA TOUR BEGINS!
Shut the back door… We interviewed Gilberto Silva yesterday, so you must go and take a listen. He’s out with Arsenal in LA before the first proper game of preseason in front of an actual crowd of people (tickets available if you want to go).
Before that, we have to take down Bournemouth at the LA Galaxy stadium. The game is on late for me in Central Time (9:30 PM), so I’d imagine it’ll be too late for anyone in England, so I doubt we’ll be dropping an "On The Whistle." The Arsenal game on Saturday actually clashes with my work team’s game, so probably no "On The Whistle" for that one either… but, we’ll be there for the game in Philly against Liverpool that starts at 12:30 AM UK time. YOU WILL BE THERE FOR THAT "ON THE WHISTLE."
This week is going to be an absolute banger. Club football is back. No more bland international football… maybe forever if the lawsuit against FIFA is successful.
I’m surprised it has taken so long for the billionaire owners of the biggest clubs in Europe to step up to FIFA and demand that their assets be treated with respect. FIFA has expanded all its tournaments and cheekily added a FIFA Club Cup in America next year.
Players are human, they need time off. Loading them up with so much playing time isn’t good for the game, in my opinion. I’m not even sure how good it is for the fans. I don’t think all these extra games are great—a lot of them are filler to get more impressions for bigger sponsorship deals.
I have no idea where the lawsuit will go—I’d imagine the intention is less about a legal resolution and more a starting gun for some meaningful negotiation on transparency. Leagues and unions having no say on these ever-expanding competitions isn’t good for anyone.
Making the complaint in a European court is far more likely to get a favorable judgment than an American one… so let’s see what happens here!
Arsenal plays Bournemouth this evening. We have plenty of first-teamers who didn’t travel for Euro 2024 / Copa America, so the starting 11 could be quite strong. Everyone knows these first games don’t mean much. It’s about gaining fitness, trying new things, and giving Arsenal fans what they want… at least one teenager to fall in love with that we’ll convince ourselves could impact our season before they go out on loan to Wrexham.
This is the squad. Players we could fall in love with are highlighted in yellow.
Goalkeepers: Karl Hein, Tommy Setford, Lucas Nygaard, Alexei Rojas
Defenders: Ben White, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jurrien Timber, Josh Nichols, Jakub Kiwior, Ayden Heaven, Omar Rekik
Midfielders: Thomas Partey, Jorginho, Michal Rosiak, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Martin Odegaard, Emile Smith Rowe, Fabio Vieira, Ethan Nwaneri, Salah–Eddine Oulad M’Hand, Jimi Gower
Forwards: Leandro Trossard, Reiss Nelson, Charles Sagoe Jr, Gabriel Jesus, Eddie Nketiah
Let me know in the comments who YOU think we’ll be getting excited about.
Mikel Arteta was chatty and demanding in his first presser:
“We know there are certain positions that we want to improve and give the squad better resources, especially in terms of numbers where we are very short."
“We will try our best, but the main thing is to focus on falling in love with the players we have and make them better.”
“Perfection in this league requires different standards to relate that word to winning the Premier League.”
“That’s what we need to do, we need to upgrade everything we're doing and improve in every area. That’s what we're trying to do."
“We are so close. There are moments where we had really fine margins. We have earned to be there, and obviously we want much more and we are going to try to get it."
“When you are so close, you really want to grab it. But I think you have to analyze the whole thing. In the end, the outcome of this football club has to be to win major trophies, and we are in the process to achieve that—we are very close. The level that we are showing is extremely high, but it’s not been enough to win it. That’s the target."
The manager hasn’t signed a new deal yet. I said at the end of last season that the most important thing to him is knowing the club will continue to invest in his ideas. That’ll no doubt happen, but I do think Edu will have to shift a few bodies before we open that war chest.
Eddie is still being linked hard to Marseille via L’Equipe. Emile has two suitors. Reiss Nelson has to go. Then there are some stragglers who might get moves if the offers come in: Kiwior or Zinchenko / Ramsdale and maybe Hein / Thomas Partey.
I said at the start of the summer we’d look at a 6/8, a left-sided center-back, a striker, and a forward. I’m less inclined to believe we’ll be landing a forward after losing out on Sesko, but I feel pretty good about the other three positions. Neto, Calafiori, and Merino would do me just fine. But who knows what the club has cooking. We have a brilliant squad already, the players coming in aren’t needed for the first team, so we can all give a little bit of tranquilo to the internet.
I opened the podcast up for EVERYONE. Get on it you beauties xxx
