INJURY JOY (FOR ONCE)
Let’s get into a little Monday morning blitz for you.
Manchester United: Still bad.
Those three attackers I was FAWNING over last week haven’t managed an assist or goal between them. United drew 1-1 with Fulham. Amorim has managed more United games than he has points. He’s yet to win two Premier League games back-to-back. The football is still deeply turgid. He’s added new players, but his system doesn’t have the names he needs to implement his ideas, so they’re kind of rough to watch.
How long will this last? You can be an idealist all you want, but if £250m+ goes into your system and those ideals can’t be realised, maybe you have to pivot? Arteta was doing mad things like dropping Xhaka into left back to get a turn out of his squad. His tactics were so basic at the start it was painful, but you could see the green shoots. We were defensively good, but awful in attack. Arteta went through similar phases of misery, but the club stuck with him… and there were underlying numbers that suggested the system was really good. Does Amorim have that? I’m not so sure.
But do I feel for him? Yes. He bought three attackers of note this summer and not much else. Same old dross behind those attackers. He still has Fernandes as his lead creator, who was so rattled by a bump with a ref he skied his penalty. It’s just a deeply rubbish squad no one is getting a squeeze out of.
But do I care? No. It’s also match day 2. Probably a little early to be writing season obituaries. But why not be a little knee-jerk first thing on a Monday?
Injury News
I told you yesterday Saka was wandering around in flip flops after the game and Odegaard would be fine… well, scans have come back and the prognosis appears to be positive. Starting for Liverpool positive? We’ll wait and see. No doubt Arteta is going to weaponise their absence to backfoot Slot this week. I’d say there’s a 100% chance of Odegaard returning. I wouldn’t want to guess on Saka, but certainly lower, thought that lip reading where he told Arteta he’d be ok before coming off has me thinking he could be around.
But not one to double down on something you just read, but you did get the part where I was right? (for once)
Winger Politics
We’re about a week out from seeing out the transfer window, and my word, what a window. The best ever? We can only measure that by how the season goes… but if this summer had its own Netflix series it’d be called The Inevitable and I’d have David Fincher direct it, dramatising me refreshing Twitter all day for the BIG DROPS. Would be magnificent content to iron your shirts to. No doubt.
But it’s far from perfect, because it would seem it’d be easier to shift a collection of NFT monkeys than get a decent bid for our deadwood. Sambi, Vieira, Kiwior, Reiss and Zinchenko are sitting on the shelf with less appeal than the Hawk Tuah girl’s crypto rugpull… and I’m struggling with this reality. Because Chelsea are moving utter dross around Europe like they’re in possession of rare fine art collections. They are €256.45m in sales! OBSCENE. They sold a player called Lesley Ugochukwu to Burnley for €28.70m. Sure, he might be incredible, I’ve never watched him. But Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to Everton for €28.65m is an affront to my senses.
I thought someone was going to move this week and my gut felt it’d be Martinelli. I’ve gone over why, but for him to move he’d have to take a move to Saudi, and if he takes a move to Saudi, he’d jeopardise his World Cup spot. But if he stays, is he really getting meaningful minutes this season?
Where are they coming from?
Eze will be our starter on the left
Trossard didn’t get a fat pay bump to take on Reiss Nelson benchwarming duties
Madueke already started on the left despite being purchased to play on the right
How are we going to live in a world where Martinelli is in our top two left winger options?
If Chelsea were running this transfer deal, they’d have a small Belgian club stumping up £97.5m for his services. We don’t have that option, which is why the obvious reality is he ends up at Atletico on loan with an option to buy at the end of the season.
Same will be true of Reiss Nelson. He has a salary no one wants to pay, an injury record no one wants to take a chance on, and he seems to have limited desire to lose that Arsenal connection. One suspects we’re going to get a very, very poor deal here. This was ALWAYS a terrible deal and one of my cousins insisted it was genius. Well Tony, if this was indeed a genius move, where are the bids? That’s it, no response because you don’t read the website.
Fans Having Fun
Celebration police took over the airwaves last season, harshly picking on any player who dared to celebrate after scoring a goal… and I regret to inform you that the scourge of joy slayers has reached fans. Yep, we’re policing each other with fan on fan action and it’s not good.
I’ve seen people popping off at Arsenal fans for doing the Gyokeres celebration, I’ve seen people slag Leeds fans for singing despite losing, it’s happening everyone.
Can someone please tell those people to fuck off?
Football is about joy. You want to celebrate a shit trophy, enjoy it. If you want to have a moment of unity when you’re 5-0 down, do it. If you want to be that mental Southampton fan who looks like he’s coming up off something deeply class A, have it. The game is a release from judgement. For 90 odd minutes a week, you can forget about your problems. If we have to put our celebrations in check for the Joy Police VAR team, what even do we have?
There was a time, not so long ago, where the Arsenal intelligentsia thought it was common and uncouth to want a manager who showed passion on the touchline. “Passhun merchants” they were called. It was a thing. Klopp changed that all, now we love it. Football is about joy. If you’re shitting on someone’s joy, we can’t be friends (unless it’s Spurs joy).
Now, here’s where I will clamp down on joy… if you’re making TikTok videos in the stadium to capture your passion, you need to get in the bin. The only thing worse than those people are the folk that film themselves in the gym.
Man City, it ain’t right
They have spent €393m euros since January. Yes, I know, you didn’t notice. But it happened. And it ain’t right my friends. Pep brought in Pepijn Lijnders as his assistant and it’s still all wrong. They’ve signed a whole bunch of players who look like b-rate versions of the players they replaced. I’m not saying it’s over… but Pep Guardiola is… say it quietly… starting to look a little bit stale at Man City. He’s Elvis getting rolled out at the end, he’s playing the hits, but they just aren’t landing like they were. Has he lost his passion for the project over there? They’ve turned over so many people there, has the magic gone?
We’ll see…
Ok, that’s enough content for you today. Quick word for the loyal crazies who stalk the comments section… I added the rules from the old site to the top bar so you can see and I will be policing based on it. I police because out of control comments sections reward extremists and bullies. If you insult people, you’ll get a ban. If you drone on about the same thing and bring down the thread, you’ll be warned, and it could result in a ban. If you come onto the blog after a 5-0 slagging the football and the team… you’ve just red flagged yourself as a troll and you’ll be removed.
No one should have to waste their time entertaining low-brow trolling, especially in a comments section where there’s so many awesome ideas being floated that I regularly repurpose as my own in the post.
Ok, if you want to get the 2nd ratings of the season, sign up for a membership and join the damn party.