Eze is good, TV companies are bad

Morning all.

A very quick Saturday blog for you. After a flurry of news over the last couple of days, things have quietened down. The name of Eberechi Eze has popped up a few times in the last 48 hours, and that’s certainly an interesting link – even if there’s nothing to suggest anything more than him being a player Arsenal like, or have on a list.

The arrival of Martin Zubimendi suggests strongly that Declan Rice is going to play a LOT of football as the left-8 next season, not to mention Christian Norgaard as the understudy for the 6 making that even more the case, so it isn’t necessarily easy to see where Eze would play in a squad that also has Mikel Merino, Kai Havertz and Ethan Nwaneri. I know he can play on the left, and has done in the past, but I think he’s best in the interior, so the idea he’s the left-winger signing doesn’t really make sense to me.

As I said earlier in the week, I love the idea of a player like him, but the plan in Mikel Arteta’s mind is to have Zubimendi and Rice on the pitch as much as possible. That means a big money signing (which Eze would be) arrives with an even bigger money signing ahead of him in the first XI. Could he play on the other side sometimes, as an alternative to Martin Odegaard? Potentially, it’d be an interesting idea, but again he’s scrapping with the club captain for a place. Let’s see what happens with this one, but unless the manager is about to do something we absolutely don’t expect with his tactics/formation next season, it feels like a bit of a long shot.

Meanwhile, in developments nobody wants or ever asked for:

Premier League broadcasts will feature interviews with substituted players, as well as more on-pitch and dressing room camera access from next season.Broadcasters will also be allowed to enter the pitch in order to capture close-up footage of goal celebrations.

— The Athletic | Football (@theathleticfc.bsky.social) 2025-06-27T15:14:41.870Z

Call me old fashioned if you will, but this is a big load of shit that will add nothing to coverage of the game, beyond another layer of superficiality and snack-sized soundbites that will bring nothing to anyone’s enjoyment of football – beyond the people who exist in a world of memes and GIFs and online bantz.

I understand. We live in an age when social media rules, where 90 minutes of football is too much for some people so they have to experience the game through snippets and clips and all that, but surely there are lines we don’t need to cross. For me, the dressing room in particular should be sacrosanct. If clubs want to release some behind the scenes stuff, fine – but allowing the goons from Sky and TNT Sports in there before and after games seems wrong to me. It should be a space where the players can be free from the glare of the camera, and not worried about some wanker with a Steadicam.

I feel the same way about the pitch too. Cameramen running on to stick their lenses into a group of players who are trying to enjoy a moment doesn’t seem right either. You have ‘zoom’, you twats, use it. I think it should be fair game for any player to push any kind of equipment away with impunity if this is allowed happen. As for interviewing subs, it’s just pointless. They’ll either be tired or pissed off, and the chances of eliciting anything useful are close to zero. Clubs will ensure the media training is ramped up. Maybe once or twice a season a player annoyed at being taken off might react negatively, and then that will become a whole thing, a furore, a meme, a scandal they’ll go on and on about all week and that player will have to do an Instagram mea culpa, but they’ll never be able to shake it off permanently because this shit is forever.

TV companies don’t care though. It’ll just be great #content for them, while having real-life repercussions for the careers of young men who, I’m sorry to inform you, can occasionally act rashly in the heat of the moment. It’s garbage, lowest common denominator stuff, and it’s not even a new idea. It’s just lifted wholesale from American sports where it has been part of the culture and just widely accepted as the norm. It’s the opposite in football.

It’d be nice to think that those in charge of how most of us view football wanted to bring us the best possible coverage, with genuine insight and intelligent discussion of the important aspects of the game, but they think most of you are idiots (you’re not!) and have decided to serve you up a steaming hot moron pie with a side of dispshit ice-cream. Dickheads.

Have a great Saturday folks!

The post Eze is good, TV companies are bad appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.