Arsenal focus “100% on exits”

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We are unlikely to buy a replacement for Jurrien Timber.

Mikel Arteta recently spoke about the difficulty in replacing the versatile defender.

Timber plays across the backline, and you are not recruiting someone else to do that without spending big, big money. Money that Arsenal will not look to invest on temporary replacement.

I think we are likely to look at Takehiro Tomiyasu as being first choice cover for both Ben White and Olexsandr Zinchenko out wide, with Jakub Kiwior, Ben White and Rob Holding as the cover in the middle.

Arteta also rates Arsenal teenager Reuell Walters highlighy. Thre 18-year-old is developing nicely and could be called upon if we need further cover at right back.

White Saliba Gabriel Zinchenko
Walters Holding Kiwior Tomiyasu

With a week to go in the transfer window, our focus is 100% on exits.

Nicolas Pepe has begun to receive admiring looks from Saudi Arabia.

I am actually surprised the Saudi Pro League did not come in for him earlier. He seems like the perfect profile for what they have previously bought.

My theory is that they did make contact with his people early in the transfer window but were rebuffed. Pepe still had hopes of “making it” in Europe and preferred the challenge of playing in a relevant league above earning loads of money infront of one man and his camel.

With a move to another top European league not materialising, Saudi looks to be the only option. My bet is Al-Ittihad following Jota’s exit…

Next in the shop window is Folarin Balogun.

Not long ago I blogged about how I think the Balogun transfer will be a deadline day one.

Premier League clubs such as West Ham and Crystal Palace will waiting until late in the window in the hope we drop the price. But likewise, Arsenal will be waiting for deadline day to sell in the hope clubs become desperate and “pay whatever is needed”.

The fake-American has recently been linked with Chelsea.

This would be a surprising move considering the driving force for his Arsenal departure is not being a starter. Can I see Balogun getting in ahead of Nicolas Jackson or Christopher Nkunku (when fit again)? No.

But then if Chelsea offer him an 8-year deal on £100k a week, I am sure he will suddenly give up his wish to play regular first team football.

Balogun has shown that he does not have the heart for the challenge. Opting to not fight for his place at Arsenal. Opting to play for America rather than England or Nigeria. It is the easy option every time.

Sit on bench for Chelsea for 8 years and pocket £40m. I am sure he will enjoy the easy life.

Arsenal are still trying to find a buyer for Albert Sambi Lokonga and Nuno Tavares.

Both have recently been linked to lower Premier League clubs, but solid deals have not yet come to light.

Lokonga to Brighton is an interesting one.

Not too long ago, I compared Lokonga to Moises Caicedo. The aim of the blog was to highlight the difference between being a young, up and coming player at somewhere like Brighton against playing at Arsenal.

Brighton were able to give Caicedo the game time to work through kinks in his game and develop. Arsenal were unable to do similar with Lokonga. I wondered if in 2021 Arsenal had signed Caicedo and Brighton Lokonga, their careers thus far would have been the opposite of now.

Lokonga’s development would have massively benefited from playing week in, week out for Brighton, whilst Caicedo would have stagnated sitting on the bench at Arsenal.

Tavares has received admiring glances from a couple of Midlands teams – Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa most recently. Both seem to be put off by Arsenal’s asking price (reported to be £20m).

With both men on a fairly low wage, and with 3-years still left on their contracts, Arsenal are in no rush to undersell either, and a loan could be the likely outcome.

If no club meets our asking price, we will probably be happy to agree loan deals where 100% of their wages is paid and a small loan fee.

That loan fee will be around £1.5m for Tavares and £3m for Lokonga. Or what their 1-year amortisation value is.

We would then hope that after 12 months of performing well in the Premier League, there will be more interest (and therefore higher transfer fees) in 2024.

I can certainly see a situation where Brighton loan Lokonga, with an option to buy for £25m, and Aston Villa loan Tavares with an option to buy for £20m.

As for Rob Holding and Kieran Tierney, I think there exits are up in the air.

Holding may be kept as a back-up to the back-ups following Timber’s injury. He is not on high wages, we will not command a huge transfer fee, and Mikel Arteta is probably happy to keep him around as an extra defensive reinforcement.

He has been with us for 7 years and is settled in North London with his family. My feeling is he will only consider leaving us if it is another London club that comes in for him. It is basically up to Rob Holding whether he leaves or not. 

As for Tierney, it is damning that Timber, Tomiyasu, Gabriel and Zinchenko have all played at left back for us this season whilst Tierney has not even been in the matchday squad.

Clearly Arteta does not fancy him, but we have also not had a bid come in that we deem acceptable.

With Lewis Hall joining Newcastle on a season long loan with an obligation to buy for £28 million plus £7 million in add-ons, that is one door shut. But that deal also shows why we are justified in holding out for £25m+.

The issue for Tierney is that not too many Premier League sides need a new first choice left-back. Those chasing Tavares are looking at him as their 2nd choice.

When you look at the Premier League, you get to West Ham in 7th as the first club where Tierney would start. They could become a real option if Aaron Creswell departs.

Next up would be Nottingham Forest in 10th and maybe Crystal Palace in 11th.

I think a bit like Balogun, teams might be waiting until the last minute to launch their Tierney bid.

Finally, Cedric Soares. I do not think he is going nowhere.

No-one seems to want him. And with 1-year left on his contract he might be happy to sit around and watch TV for 12 months. I suspect it will be a bit like last year where he gets a January loan move.

Enjoy your Thursday…

Keenos

Unbeaten Arsenal Unbalanced

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It feels wrong to write a negative blog despite us being one of just 3 teams to win our first two games. But I know full well Mikel Arteta will not be happy with the performances in those matches and is seeing what I am.

Arteta threw everyone a curve ball on the opening day of the season, putting out an XI that had not played together in pre-season, in a formation that he had not used in any of our summer friendlies. The changes led to a bit of a chaotic performance.

Against Crystal Palace, Arteta doubled down.

It was the same formation, same tactics, with just Takehiro Tomiyasu coming in for Jurrien Timber. And whilst we might have got the 3-points, the performance was certainly not impressive.

The issue is Arsenal look unbalanced right now, and it feels like we have moved away from our strengths of last season.

Starting at right back, I think it is clear and obvious to all that playing Thomas Partey there does not get the best out of the Ghanaian.

He is sort of playing in that inverted role, often dropping into midfield, but I think we lose too much of his dominating presence when he plays outwide.

Against Crystal Palace, his best spell came in the last 10 or 15 minutes of the game when he moved more centrally.

One of our strengths last season was Ben White at right back.

White was solid defensively, which allowed Bukayo Saka to play more aggressively in attack. Saka very rarely had the ned to track back.

But White was also a factor in attack. He would get up and down that sidline like a prime Gary Neville, supporting Saka in attack.

This gave Saka more space to work his magic, as teams had to cover the marauding White, and also always gave him an easy outball to his England colleague if things got a little tight.

Partey does not (or is unable to) get up and down the pitch as much as White did. He does not do that lung bursting run which sees him get beyond Saka and hit the by-line. The result is Saka ends up isolated.

Moving inside, Arteta seemed to be obsessed with a right footed and left footed right back. This allowed defenders to play that dangerous out to in spinning ball over the opposing full back for our wingers to run onto.

Whilst White and William Saliba have looked solid in the middle, it does feel a little less balanced then having Gabriel and Saliba.

I am concerned by the Gabriel links away from the club, with interest reportedly from Italy, Spain and Saudi Arabia.

What I would say, if his head has been turned he should be sold. And if he is not in the right headspace to start games, he should also not be on the bench. Personally, I do not think his exclusion is due to an impending transfer.

The left back also looks worse off with Oleksandr Zinchenko.

Jurrien Timber was very good in the inverted role last weekend, and Tomiyasu had a decent game againts Palace. The Japanese man was unlucky to receive one, let alone two, yellow cards.

I think Arteta needs to be careful about shoehorning players into his system.

Yes, he wants to play with an inverted full back when Zinchenko is on the field, but if the Ukrainian is out injured, he should alter the tactics to fit the players he has available.

If Zinchenko is not fit to start against Fulham, and with Timber and Tomiyasu out injured, I would go for a flat back four of White Saliba Gabriel Kiwior (assuming that Kieran Tierney is likely to depart over the next 7 days).

Arteta has shown that Tierney is his 4th choice left back. There is no point him remaining at the club, even with Timber’s injury.

The centre of midfield is a work in progress.

Declan Rice has fitted in perfectly. His performance against Palace was world class. Martin Odegaard has also picked up where he left off last season.

The left side of the trio is not quite there yet.

I think Kai Havertz will become an excellent player for The Arsenal, but he is perhaps not yet at Granit Xhaka’s level from last season.

The German is basically learning a new position and new tactics in a new team. He was never going to hit the ground running. But he is getting used to the Arsenal way and I am confident will soon be back at that Leverkusen form.

Saka has had a quiet start to the season after an unbelievable pre-season. Although the fact he has 1 goal in 2 games (and would have been 2 from 2 if Odegaard had not taken over penalty duties) shows how high the expectation of him is. Incredible that he is still only 21-years-old!

Saka misses Ben White’s runs.

As above, with Partey behind him he is having to do more work on his own. Often faced with two defenders with no full back making a run to take one away.

The rest of the attack is also not yet working fluidly. The same happend last season when Gabriel Jesus went of injured.

Jesus’s USP is his ability to float around the front 3, creating space for others to run in to. He had Gabriel Martinelli do this exceptionally on the left hand side. Jesus drifts left, Martinelli has space to run into, goal.

Last season when Jesus was out injured, Martinelli had his worst spell of the season.

As much as I love Eddie, he does not have that movement Jesus does. He prefers to stay centrally, making runs down either side of the centre back. He does not look to drift too far wide.

We begun to play Leandro Trossard last season up top, and his movement was much closer to Jesus’s. I would say it would be a big call to drop Eddie after 2 games, and it is something the Englishman might never come back from.

Nketiah is supposed to be a brilliant trainer. Hopefully he is doing some one to one training and learning how to make those runs Jesus does.

I am not too concerned about things at the moment. The teams that are often there at the end of the season tend to have a slow, but winning, start to the campaign and then build into the season.

Last season, we started in 5th gear and then run out of the steam.

If we can get to that first international break with 4 wins from 4 games, without getting out of 3rd gear, then it is energy saved for later in the season.

And to finish on a positive, Arsenal’s performances can only get better from the last 2 games. 6 points from 6 is certainly not something to be disappointed about!

UTA

Keenos

MATCH REPORT: Crystal Palace 0 – 1 Arsenal

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Crystal Palace (0) 0 Arsenal (0) 1

Premier League

Selhurst Park Stadium, Selhurst, London SE25 6PU

Monday, 21st August 2023. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-3-3) Aaron Ramsdale; Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White, William Saliba, Thomas Partey; Martin Ødegaard (c), Declan Rice, Kai Havertz; Bukayo Saka, Eddie Nketiah, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Gabriel Magalhães, Emile Smith-Rowe, Jakob Kiwior, Leandro Trossard, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Fabio Vieira, David Raya, Reiss Nelson, Oleksandr Zinchenko

Scorers: Martin Ødegaard (54 mins, penalty)

Red Cards: Takehiro Tomiyasu

Yellow Cards: Takehiro Tomiyasu, Kai Havertz

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 54%

Referee: David Coote

Assistant Referees: Marc Perry, Wade Smith

Fourth Official: Thomas Bramall

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Jarred Gillett; AVAR Neil Davies

Attendance: 25,189 

Some very good news tonight is that Oleksandr Zinchenko is on the bench after recovering from a calf injury; but unfortunately, our new defender Jurrien Timber has suffered a serious knee injury last weekend on his Premier League debut and it is looking like he will be out of the first team for around seven months, which is extremely bad news for both club and player. However, Takehiro Tomiyasu will deputise for the injured Dutchman, and other than this tragic injury, everyone else in the squad appears to be okay, thankfully. 

After a minute’s applause for the lives of Trevor Francis and former Millwall chairman John Berylson, Arsenal started the proceedings here at Selhurst Park tonight. In this electric atmosphere, within a minute of the kick-off, the home side tried to get in behind us down the right wing, but Takehiro Tomiyasu halted their advance with a strong tackle. We squandered an early opportunity to score when Gabriel Martinelli was found in acres of space on the left-hand side of the penalty area, but instead of shooting first time, he cut inside right into defensive traffic and saw his shot blocked. We are having the best of the game in the early stages with strong possession and pinpoint passing, all of which is serving to break down the home side. Another one of our forward balls went into the direction of Eddie Nketiah in the box but he fouled his marker sadly and gave away a free-kick to the home side. It is good to see that Thomas Partey is operating more in a midfield role, leaving a solid back three of Ben White, William Saliba and Takehiro Tomiyasu when we advance, which is comforting to see. After some pressure from the home side, we broke at speed, in a smash’n’grab raid, but Eddie Nketiah could not get a ball over to Gabriel Martinelli out on the left wing. He then set up Bukayo Saka in the penalty area but his effort was blocked and pushed behind by the Palace goalkeeper. At the other end of the pitch, Aaron Ramsdale dived to save a shot from range from Eberechi Eze, and we broke out with Takehiro Tomiyasu’s attacking run winning us another corner. Gabriel Martinelli’s first corner was nodded behind again by Palace and his second was headed away by a home defender, and again Palace broke out and ran for our goal, but Joel Ward over-hit a cross from the right wing, and they came back through Eberechi Eze, but his shot went way off range. Arsenal are being very patient tonight here in SE25, carefully building up play, attempting to break down Palace across the pitch in different places. We had a penalty appeal denied by the refereee when Joel Ward brought down Eddie Nketiah out on the left wing, and a minute or so later, Jordan Ayew received the first yellow card of the evening when he fouled Kai Havertz badly. After a Thomas Partey header going wide of the Palace goal following a Martin Ødegaard free-kick, Eddie Nketiah hit the post when he turned Joachim Anderson outside the penalty area, managed to hold off another Palace defender, and watched his toe-poke hit the inside of the far post and out into play again. So close. The home side had a penalty appeal turned down when William Saliba brought down Jordan Ayew in our penalty area, but neither the referee nor VAR could see an infringement fortunately. Nine minutes before the break, Declan Rice found Eddie Nketiah with a superb ball; he had just goalkeeper Sam Johnstone to beat and chipped the ball over both the ’keeper and the crossbar as well. Minutes later, a superb Bukayo Saka shot flew over the bar, and our captain tested Sam Johnstone with a strong shot from twenty-five yards, but the Palace goalie pushed the ball over the bar for an Arsenal corner, which went nowhere sadly, despite some pressure from our forwards on the Palace defenders in the six-yard box. Despite some frenetic play in the two minutes injury time, the first half finished honours even.

Crystal Palace kicked off the second half, and with no half-time changes from Mikel Arteta, we carried on where we left off, personnel-wise. We had a let-off when, shortly after the restart, a clever flick by Jeffrey Schlupp found Tyrick Mitchell but his ball that passed safely between Aaron Ramsdale and the Araenal defence failed to find a Palace forward, thankfully. Minutes later, a great shot by Bukayo Saka went straight into the arms of Sam Johnstone. After fifty-two minutes, a clever through ball by Gabriel Martinelli found Eddie Nketiah, who was brought down by Sam Johnstone; despite some queries from the VAR team, a penalty was awarded to us, and our captain made no mistake from the penalty spot with a sweet left-footed strike into the bottom corner of the net, sending Sam Johnstone the wrong way. After the restart, Palace came back at us, and a dangerous Jordan Ayew shot went into the side netting on the left side of Aaron Ramsdale’s post. The home side had a couple of good chances following the Jordan Ayew shot (mainly from the boot of Eberechi Eze), but nothing has come of their efforts. Ridiculously, referee David Coote booked Takehiro Tomiyasu for time wasting in taking a throw-in, and just after the hour, Bukayo Saka set up Thomas Partey on the edge of the penalty area; he hit the target, but Sam Johnstone stuck out a hand and pushed the ball away. Kai Havertz was unlucky in not scoring when his left-footed shot from the left-hand side of the penalty area flashed across the goal. We went down to ten men when Takehiro Tomiyasu was sent off for a second bookable offence, which was absolutely criminal, to say the least. Gabriel Martinelli was replaced by Gabriel after sixty-eight minutes in order to reshuffle the pack after the sending off, and there was controversy in our penalty area when it looked like the home side was going to be awarded a penalty, but thankfully the VAR team confirmed to referee David Coote that it was not, thankfully. We are now digging in, and with ten minutes of the match remaining, Jorginho replaced Eddie Nketiah for the remainder of the game. Kai Havertz has had a couple of good chances that were extremely unfortunate not to go into the Palace net, but the opposition keep coming forward to test our defence as we are a man down owing to the unjust sending off of Takehiro Tomiyasu earlier. Time after time, the home side are throwing everything including the kitchen sink at our defence, and time after time, we are repelling their efforts to score. With two minutes of the match remaining, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Jakub Kiwior are on for our captain Martin Ødegaard and Bukayo Saka, and we are holding onto the ball well now, despite the announcement of seven minutes injury time. Kai Havertz was caught badly in the Palace half and Cheick Doucoure was booked for his trouble, and a couple of minutes later, Kai Havertz himself was booked by referee David Coote for kicking the ball away. In the last two minutes of injury time, despite some incredible constant pressure by the Palace strikers, we managed to hold them out to take a hard-fought victory here at Selhurst Park tonight.

Two matches, two victories, an excellent way to start the season. Make no mistake about it, we had to dig deep after the dismissal of Takehiro Tomiyasu, but we stuck together, played our game plan and ended up taking maximum points. A well deserved win, even though Palace made us work really hard for it. Every man played their part, every man stuck to the game plan, and our goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale was utterly immense, as was our inspirational captain tonight too. Kai Havertz and Eddie Nketiah were utter nuisances to the Palace defence, and Thomas Partey just oozed class as well. All in all, a fantastic victory, one that takes us to third place in the Premiership tonight. Well done, chaps.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Fulham at the Emirates on Saturday, 26th August at 3.00pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon