Category Archives: Arsenal

Arsenal set for first 3pm away this season – and TV fans are hating it!

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Morning all.

Another away game today, and this feels like yet another big weekend in the title race.

We are heading to Leicester for our first 3pm away game of the season. Meanwhile Man City face Bournemouth on the south-coast in the late afternoon/early evening kick off.

It feels like one of those weekends where all 6 results are a strong possibility, and I would not be too surprised if one of us or City drop points.

Leicester got smashed last time out against Manchester United, but they could have been 2 or 3-nil up before they went behind.

They have some fantastic forward thinking players, and a double creative threat in midfield in James Maddison and Youri Tielemans. Leicester will carve out chances today.

It is just whether Arsenal can hold out and defend when they have their spell on top. We will get plenty of chances to score ourselves.

Only Bournemouth have conceded more than Leicester this season. The Foxes have outscored 5th place Newcastle with 36 goals in 23 games.

A threat going forward, but very poor in defence.

I have seen a few people complaining that “it is 2023 and we can not watch The Arsenal on TV”.

“Our next 3 games are not televised. Why do I pay so much for my subscriptions”.

Two of those three games are at home. If you have decided to be a TV fan rather than match going, then that is your decision.

This is the first 3pm away game of the season. And just our 3rd 3pm Saturday match this year.

The other two were Leicester and Brentford at home. Bournemouth at home next Saturday is also 3pm Saturday. And I am loving it.

I think TV fans do not quite realise how games not being at 3pm can affect match going fans.

The early starts, the late finishes. Scrapping for trains for away games. We battle on. So I am sorry if we have 5 or 6 games a season at 3pm on a Saturday which means you can not watch your favourite television show.

How about turn the radio on? I am part of a generation that grew up with hardly any football on TV. And very few houses had Sky. Listening to 5 Live or Capital Gold was my childhood.

Football is not a TV show.

Other news is that Bukayo Saka is apparently very close to signing his new long term deal.

I do take this with a pinch of salt as I remember the same journalists writing similar stories about 4 months ago.

Saka will sign, I am sure of that. He (and his people) are just ensuring he gets what he is worth.

Last summer, you would perhaps have offered him around £150k a week. He has now kicked on again and is our most important player.

Saka is our top scorer in the league, and 7th top scorer overall. And with 8 assists, only Kevin de Buryne has more.

17 goals + assists, split almost equally between goals and assists, only Erling Haaland and Harry Kane have more goals and assists in the Premier League this season.

He is the biggest goal scoring and creative threat in the Premier League (Marcus Rashford might out score him, but he does not create much).

Arsenal’s strength this season has been we have mutiple attacking threats across the front line – Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Jesus. Opponents do not know where the goals or assists will come from. But one man is now rising above the others and that is Saka.

He is now well worth the £200k a week he will sign. Hopefully it will be a 5 year deal with an option of a 6th.

Saka is still just 21 and that deal will see him spend many of his best years at the club. Having started so young, you have to think his peak years will be 22-27 rather than 25-30.

It is not just Saka the player that is important, but also Saka the person. He gets what it means to play for The Arsenal.

Take it one game at a time, but it is hard not to think that by this time next week we could be back to 5 points clear.

On the march with Mikel’s Army.

UTA.

Keenos

Proposed new regulator feels like a money grab from lower league teams

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Whistle stop tour of all things football this Friday.

Firstly we have the announcement from the Government that they would be setting up a “Independent regulator” following a “fan led review”.

The review seems to have been led by fans from lower clubs, and in all honesty it just feels like a money grab.

The new regulator will have powers to impose a new financial settlement, which ueffectively means it can force the Premier League to share more money across the pyramid.

Every official on the TV or radio yesterday said “we need to see more money flowing down from the Premier League”. They spoke very little about protecting the traditions of clubs, and acting on what fans want.

The Premier League already filter down more money to the lower leagues than any other top flight league across Europe. I really don’t get why they are demanding more.

Currently, the Premier League “gives away” around 15% of revenue to football across the globe.

Yes, teams such as Southend are struggling financially. And we have seen the likes of Bury go under recently. But this is due to bad ownership, not because not enough money filters down from the top league.

If you gave a club like Southend an extra £1m from the Premier League, they would simply spend an additional £1.5m and be more in debt. And then demand more.

The proposals are just footballs equivalent of “tax the rich more, increase benefits”.

For some people, it does not matter how much they are paid in benefits. They will still be jobless. Still spend money on cigarettes and alcohol, still have sky tv and £50 phone bills, and still complain that they are living in poverty. Go and give these people an extra £500 a month and their lives don’t change.

They need education and encouragement. And football is the same.

Lower league clubs that get themselves into financial trouble often do so because they spend more than they receive. And if they received more, they’d spend more. It’s as simple as that.

Do I think we need better governance over our game? Yes. But consulting fans on badges, kit colours, stadium, etc should be separated from “increasing what the PL pay to lower leagues”.

Late last night news broke that the Bukayo Saka deal was close, with a salary of £10m a year mentioned.

This certainly felt like Saka’s people leaking a story to say “if he gets £10m a year, he will sign”. I guess the ball is in Arsenal’s court now.

Would I pay him £10m a year? Probably.

Saka probably Arsenal’s best player, one of the top 3 right wingers in England, one of the top 5 in the world. £200k a week does not feel too unreasonable for what he does.

Let’s get him secured to a nice long deal and then we can get back to concentrating on the title chase. Starting tomorrow against Leicester.

UTA

Keenos

The three Hale End boys ready to step up to the Arsenal first team in 2023

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In a recent blog, we explored that up to a dozen players could be set for a summer exit from The Arsenal.

Including those out on loan, we have 34 “senior” players at the club. If all 12 left, that would leave us with a 22 man senior squad.

Obviously 22 is not enough. We need 2 for every position, a 3rd keeper and then an extra couple utility players.

Premier League rules restrict us to 25 registered players. Although that does not mean we do not have to have just 25 players as U21s do not need to be in the “List A” of 25.

With Champions League football, we need to ensure we have squad depth to compete on all fronts. That probably means a first team squad of 26-27 players.

If we reduce the current squad to 22 – which would be the core players Mikel Arteta has used this season – that will see us needed 4 or 5 additions.

That does not mean we will be signing 4 or 5. I expect us to only recruit 2 or 3 new players, with the majority of our funds going on a centra midfielder.

The remaining players in the first team squad will come from youth promotion.

So who do I expect are the 3 or 4 youngsters to step up into the first team squad next season?

Charlie Patino

The current diamond of the youth team.

Patino struggled during his first attempt at senior football in the FA Cup last season. He looked a boy playing a man’s game.

A year on loan at Blackpool has seen him grow physically and mentally. He now looks ready to step up.

Patino is the reason we are not looking to recruit someone to cover Granit Xhaka. Patino is the heir apparent.

Brooke Norton-Cuffy

The right back has been touted as one for the future for some time.

We ended his loan spell with Rotherham early, and sent him off to Coventry. I am not sure why.

Ben White is clearly first choice right back right now. He is backed up by Takehiro Tomiyasu.

White also covers centre back whilst I expect Tomiyasu to be 2nd choice left back next season. That means we could do with a 3rd right back option to cover injury.

Cedric is currently 3rd choice right back and likely to leave permanently in the summer.

We really do not to invest much in that a 3rd choice right back so the promotion of BNC makes a lot of sense.

Lino Sousa

The situation at left back mirrors what is happening at right back.

I expect Kieran Tierney to depart in the summer. Tomiyasu would then replace him.

We will be in a situation where White and Zinchenko are the first choice full backs, and the Tomiyasu is first choice cover on both.

As above, we then need a 3rd choice on both sides to ensure we are not too stretched.

Lino Sousa is a highly rated teenager that we signed from WBA last summer. He is potentially a long term replacement for Zinchenko.

Only just turned 18, he may well go out on loan next season. Maybe with a recall clause in case injuries hit.

He is already training with the first team, so it feels a natural transition from Tierney to Sousa.

We add these 3 youngsters to the first team squad, and sell/loan out the 12 previously mentioned, we have 25 players.

I would then expect us to buy another defensive midfielder. A big money lad. Declan Rice or Moises Caicedo.

A Rob Holding replacement might also be recruited if Arteta decides to further strengthen the defence.

We might also see a right winger come in if the club decide to cash in on ESR.

The squad is looking good and healthy. It is now about recruiting quality that can make an instant impact rather than quantity.

We then use Hale End to fill those fringe gaps and (mainly) to raise funds for those big transfers.

There are a lot of other talented youngsters in the system. Some exciting players. They need to be kept under wraps right now.

Keenos