Category Archives: Arsenal

Jurgen Klopp’s disdain for the FA Cup will not be missed

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What a weekend of FA Cup football that was?

Three out of the four games were FA Cup classics. Manchester City v Newcastle the only damp squib.

The FA Cup is the greatest domestic cup competition in the world, and the weekend of football that we have just had shows why. 3 absolute thrillers that could have gone either way. Comebacks and late goals. It was simply thrilling.

And this is why I have a huge dislike for the likes of Jurgen Klopp.

Klopp, and other foreign managers, are merely visitors to this country. They plan to say for 6 or 8 years, maybe 10, and then disappear to their new challenge. But during their stay here, they will continually complain about our game and propose change. Change that they will often not still be here for.

Over the years, Klopp has shown a huge disdain for the FA Cup. He hates the competition.

In his 9 seasons in England, Liverpool have won just 1 FA Cup. That was also the only time they made the final, and the only time they made the semi-final. Yesterday was just his 2nd FA Cup quarter-final appearance in 9 years. In 6 of the 9 years Liverpool have failed to get past the 4th round.

Klopp has openly spoken out about how many games we play in England. He has been vocal against us have 2 domestic cup competitions, he has demanded a winter break and questioned the need for cup replays. He suggested the Premier League be reduced in numbers.

The simple answer is if he wants a 34 team league, just 1 cup competition and a winter break, he should have stayed in Germany. But no. He wanted to come to England, to earn the Premier League salary, and then has done everything he can to turn the English structure into the German.

Had he planned to spend his career in England ala Arsene Wenger, you could kind of understand his wish to change the game, improve it in his vision. But Klopp is disappearing after less than 9 seasons. He does not care about English football. About the FA Cup.

Jurgen Klopp and his complaints about our game will not be missed.

The FA Cup is a brilliant competition. The authorities need to protect it against managers like Klopp who only care about the 6-9 years they will be here, and not the 100-years that went before and the 100-years that will come after.

A final note on this.

With Klopp now out of the FA Cup, that leaves his honours board with Liverpool as 1 League title, 1 Champions League, 1 FA Cup, 2 League Cups. 5 trophies in 9 years (with a chance they win 2 more). I am not sure he has been the rip-roaring success some make out.

As expected with us being in the middle of nearly 3 weeks without an Arsenal game, there really is not much club news about.

We bought a 16-year-old centre back over the weekend. Braydon Clarke went straight into the U18 team that then thrashed Crystal Palace 8-3. 16-year-old Chido Obi scored 4.

I will be honest, Obi is someone I have never heard of before, but scoring 4 in a game will always lead me to research a player a bit more.

A quick Google shows he joined in 2022 and Danish U17 international. He has 8 goals in 10 games in the U18 Premier League. At 6′ 2″, it is up for debate whether he is a danger at that level because he is a big boy, or because he actually has talent. One to keep an eye on I guess.

The other thing I found out today during the research on the game is that London Colney has been renamed the Sobha Realty Training Centre. The news of the sponsorship deal completely passed me by in February.

The deal is reportedly worth £15m a year, and the luxury Dubai-based real estate company will sponsor the training ground and training kit until the end of the 2027/28 season. In simple terms, the new deal pays the transfer fee for or a new £75m player this summer.

Enjoy your Monday!

Keenos

Latest injury for long term Arsenal target “means a move is now highly unlikely”

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Is everyone have a zen morning? No Arsenal yesterday, so was a chilled Saturday made better by that Tottenham result.

It does not seem long ago that Arsenal were losing at Fulham, and social media was awash with Spurs fans claiming that they were I the title race and Arsenal would struggle to make top 4.

Three months on and we sit top of the league, whilst that lot up the road are 5th.

Media darling Ange Postecoglou is now being exposed as being the average manager we all knew he was – it is all well and good pointing to his achievement in Japan and Scotland, but the English Premier League is a different kettle of fish.

Spurs fans really have overhyped an average manager and average players. I saw one put out his combined Arsenal / Spurs 11 and it contained just 3 Arsenal players (Raya, Rice and Saka).

Despite Tottenham conceding 18 goals more than us, he had the entire Tottenham back 4! Sergio Romero and Micky van de Ven are basically FIFA pace merchants, and they have a pair of full backs that can not defend.

Yestersay’s defeat has Arsenal 11 points clear. By my math we probably only need 3 more wins to ensure St Totteringham’s Day returns again!

All flights and hotels are now booked for Munich. Anyone else on the 11:50(ish) out of Heathrow on the Tuesday, flying via Frankfurt?

I picture and entire plane of people getting off at Frankfurt, then doing the internal change to Munich. They might as well leave us on the plane for an hour grounded, re-fuel and continue the journey.

I see that Ivan Toney has once again spoken about his desire to leave Brentford this summer. The more the fella speaks the more I do not want him.

Yes, saying he could go Real Madrid was tongue in cheek. But when a player is constantly talking openly about the door being open to depart in the summer you have to question their mentality.

Toney should be concentrating on playing football, scoring the goals that would keep Brentford in the Premier League and secure him a spot on the plane to Euro 2024.

Clubs these days care as much about character as ability, and I imagine everytime Toney speaks, another Head of Recruitment ends up wiping his name off the whiteboard. My bet is he will end up at Tottenham or Manchester United. They are the sort of clubs that will be desperate for a striker regardless of character.

Another one we will unlikely move for this summer is Pedro Neto.

I like Neto, but have never been fully on the hype train. He always came across as inconsistent and his injury issues worried me.

The Portuguese winger has now been ruled out for the rest of the season. His injury record does not make pretty reading.

One reason why we are top of the league this season is due to having a squad that has remained fairly fit.

We still have a handful of players (Tomiyasu, Zinchenko, Partey) who cannot be relied upon. But on the whole we have avoided losing key players for any length of time.

If we are looking to recruit another winger, it has to be someone who is able to stay fit and ready to be called upon. There is no point spending £50m on Neto, only for him to miss half the season injured.

Neto has been on the clubs watch list for a few years now, and we were close to launching a bid for him a couple of summers ago. Injury stopped us progressing our interest back then, and his latest issue means a move is now highly unlikely.

Enjoy your Sunday. I am off to the tip to get rid of some old tyres!

Keenos

Bayern Munich, Ben White, North London Forever and more

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Bayern Munich

Hello my old friend, we meet again.

It was always going to happen wasn’t it? In yesterday’s blog, Bayern Munich were my 2nd least favourite potential opponent. Only Manchester City below them. So we go and get Munich, and then if we beat them it is Manchester City.

Even though they were my least attracted trip abroad, the flights and hotels are already booked.

As always, airline prices jumped straight after the draw, and we are paying £230 return via Brussels. Go the week later and you can get return flights direct to Munich for just £61…

It is probably the worst Munich team in decades, but they are still a danger.

10 points behind Bayer Leverkusen, it is unlikely that they will win the Bundesliga. I would not be surprised if they rest players in the league and go all out for the Champions League.

Ben White

Two bits of Benjamin White news in the last few days.

The first was his new contract. Well deserved. The second was the news that he was making himself unavailable for England selection.

On the contract, the way White continually rises to the challenge shows what sort of player he is.

Signed a central defender, he was shifted across to right back to cover the injured Takehiro Tomiyasu. He never complained and just got his head down and did what Mikel Arteta demanded of him. When the Tomi returned, the Japenese right back did not walk straight back into the first team.

Then this summer we signed Jurrien Timber. White has since taken his game to another level which shows he is the sort of player that is not scared of competition.

White is one of the leaders of the team and, unlike Tomiyasu, his fitness can be relied upon – incredibly he has never missed a game through injury for The Arsenal.

And all this brings into light the issues with England.

Arteta and his coaches will be much more demanding of White than Southgate and his goons. If White has risen to the challenge of Arteta, and our manager backs him, then you have to ask what actually happened on that England camp.

I also find the criticism of White to be a little odd.

One of the loudest critics has been Stan Collymore. The woman-beater pitches himself as a mental health advocate, yet has spent the last 48 hours piling on Ben White for his decision.

The other biggest critics are Liverpool fans. You know them fellas that spout “Scouse not English”. You would think they would back as player deciding not to play for England. But instead the accuse him of letting their country down. It just shows they are a fanbase with zero morals. But that is nothing new.

At the end of the day, it is Ben White’s career. If he decides that he does not want to play for England than that is his choice.

North London Forever

Love this from Gabriel Jesus…

Fixture congestion

I saw an article yesterday about how “European football has thrown Arsenal’s fixtures into chaos”.

The article began by mentioning that the Aston Villa game would now be moved from Saturday to Sunday due to them now playing in Europe on Thursday. This game always had an * against it for this reason, so it is not like this is something the club knew nothing about.

It is the norm for teams playing on Thursday to have their games moved to the Sunday. A real non-story.

But the article continued pointing out that we have to re-arrange the Chelsea game, and potentially the Wolves game, and how this will create end of season conjestion.

Liverpool and Manchester City are both in the exact same position in terms of potentially re-arranging league games due to the FA Cup. And in-fact they will have more congestion than us if they remain in the completion. Likewise Liverpool will have every Saturday game after their Europa League matches moved to Sunday. Yet it is only Arsenal who get the negative press over fixture chaos and congestion.

It just shows again that Arsenal are the most newsworthy club in the world, whilst no one really cares about Liverpool on Manchester City….

Enjoy your Saturday.

Keenos