Morning all from garden as I take in a few minutes of fresh Essex air ahead of a few days off!
As expected, all the noise around Arsenal is players leaving.
On Saturday it was confirmed Nuno Tavares was off to Marseille on loan. This was quickly followed by the announcement of Folarin Balogun being set to join French club Reims.
It will be a good move for the (not so) youngster as he will get first team football at a lower level in France.
Arsenal will be keeping an eye on his development as well as the performances of Eddie Nketiah. You feel there is only room at the club for one of these in 12 months time.
Also with one foot out of the door is Bernd Leno.
The German keeper has been patient and respectful over the last year despite losing his starting spot.
Some have complained that Leno to Matt Turner is a big step down for second choice keepers, and it is. But then Leno was never really a second choice keeper.
Still only 30, he has played nearly 500 senior games for club and country with his last cap coming in 2021. I really do wish him well.
The last exit reported yesterday was Lucas Torreira who seems off to Galatasaray. I am just glad he is gone.
He has clearly had no intention of playing for us and we had no intention of playing him. I hope he rebuilds his career somewhere.
Leno and Torreira’s departures will be the last of those players signed by Sven Mislintat.
I have a blog written for later in this week (written some months ago) about the disaster of Mislintat and the money he wasted.
We are moving so much better in the transfer market now and we need to start putting more respect on Edu and his team.
I wouldn’t be surprised if another couple of departures are confirmed this week.
It was confirmed Saturday that Nuno Taveras has joined Marseille.
In recent years, Arsenal have used the French club as a “finishing school” sending numerous youngsters to the Mediterranean coast to gain first team experience.
Arsenal’s releationship with Marseille stretches back longer, with OM acting as a bit of a feeder club.
Transfers between the two have had mixed results, with some players going on to be club legends whilst others never played for Arsenal again following their loan spell.
Rober Pires
In 2000, Arsenal opted to sign lightweight Pires from Marseille for just £7.5million to replace Marc Overmars.
It took Pires a while to settle and adjust to a more physical Premier League. But once he found his feet he quickly established himself as one of the best players in the world.
During the 2001/02 season, he was arguably the best player in the world – but a cruciate injury robbed him of playing in the 2002 FA Cup Final and the 2002 World Cup with France. He was a huge miss for his country.
The reaction to him lifting the Premier League trophy in his tracksuit bottoms highlighted how high regard his team mates held him in.
He returned after a spell out to be a key player in the invincible team.
Two league titles, two FA Cups (it should have been 3) and 87 goals in 287 games.
His Arsenal career ended on a sour note as he was sacrificed in the Champions League final following Jens Lehmann’s red card.
A true Arsenal legend.
Mathieu Flamini
Having come up through Marseille’s youth system, Flamini rejected a long term contract with his home town club to join Arsenal on a free transfer in 2004.
Moving on a free transfer would be something that Flamini would become known for – after 153 games for Arsenal he joined AC Milan on a free transfer.
Five seasons later he would be back at Arsenal. Also on free. Before joining Crystal Palace and Getafe.
In total he made 5 moves in his career – and not a single penny was spent on him!
During both his spells at Arsenal he was always a little bit marmite.
Flamini did the nasty work whilst the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Tomas Rosicky, Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey got the plaudits.
Leaving us after his second spell with a total of 246 appearances for the club across 7 seasons. An Arsenal great.
Samir Nasri
A few years after Flamini, Arsenal went back to Marseille to rob them of their greatest youth product in history. Samir Nasri.
At the time, the hope was Nasri would become our Iniesta to Cesc Fabregas’s Xavi. And for a while it looked like that would be the case.
But Nasri’s ability was often overshadowed by his petulance, with many stories coming out that he was a bit of a bad-egg.
Three years after joining the club, and without ever really consistently contributing much or fulfilling his potential, Nasri forced through a move to Manchester City.
He wasted his talent.
Matteo Guendouzi
After a good intial start at Arsenal, young Frenchman Guendouzi began to show behavioural problems. To put simply, he continued acting like a kid despite being an adult.
A move to Germany failed to get him back in line, so Arsenal decided to return to an old friend in the hope they would sort him out.
Whilst Guendouzi’s form improved whilst on loan in Marseille, his attitude did not.
Just last week he got into an on-pitch scuffle with Spanish legend Joaquín in a friendly.
Now 23, Marsielle were unable to iron out his attitude problems, but did decide to make his loan deal permanent.
Arsenal used the loan deal to perfiction. It showed that Guendouzi will never be mentally ready to play for a top team and allowed us to cut our losses.
William Saliba
Joining a few days after Guendouzi was Saliba.
A few have comapred the two but this is unfair on the younger Frenchman.
Whilst Guendouzi was loaned out in the hope it would improve his attitude, Saliba was loaned out to continue his development.
Talented young man joins big club, but is not ready to play. Has loan deal cut short due to global pandemic. Club recongise he still needs to get a full season udner his belt. Loaned out to development club playing at a lower level. Becomes top player. Returns.
Saliba will have a big season this year and we can thank Marseille for developing him.
Nuno Tavares
In the last 12 months we have seen two paths of two talented youngsters that joined Marseille on loan.
One did not really change his attitude and never returned to Arsenal. the other knuckled down and will be a big player for Arsenal this season.
So which path will Tavares go down?
He is a raw diamond with all the physical and technical atributes to be a very good wing back. But he lacks mentally.
Nuno makes too many poor decisions – especially when passing and dribbling.
The problem is Arsenal can not give him the game time to sort these out.
Hopefully, like Saliba, Tavares goes to France and plays an entire season. He then comes on leaps and bounds and returns to us next season as a more polished player.
And if it does not happen? I am sure Marseille will happily make the deal permanent like they did with Guendouzi.
The link up between Arsenal and Marseille is a fruitful one for us.
We sign their best players. We send youngsters to them. And they sign players who are not good enough for the Premier League (but will start in Ligue 1).
I wish Tavares well at the Arsenal finishing school.
We have been in scintillating form during pre-season, so it was no surprise we beat Sevilla.
The manner of how we brushed aside the Spanish side was however unpredictable.
Yes, it was just pre-season. And yes, we are a week ahead of Sevilla in terms of preparation – La Liga starts a week after the Premier League. But we should celebrate our impressive performance.
Sevilla finished 4th last season in La Liga, and had the best defensive record conceding just 30 goals in 38 games.
They have sold their senior defender Douglas Carlos to Aston Villa and their talented young centre back Jules Kounde didn’t play due to his impending more to Barcelona.
But we scored 6 goals. And they were impressive goals.
The type of goals where you could see the types of attacking situations that we were attempting to manufacture. The attacking patterns that came straight off the training ground.
A hat trick for Gabriel Jesus. Brace for Bukayo Saka and another pre-season goal for Eddie Nketiah.
The front 3 of Jesus, Saka and Martinelli looked versatile and electric. Whilst Martin Odergaard ran the game behind.
Thomas Partey dominated the midfield and Granit Xhaka kept the game ticking.
William Saliba and Gabriel looked solid in defence whilst Ben White and Alex Zinchenko were untroubled as “inverted” full backs.
At one point in the second half, Zinchenko pushed into midfield and we went into a back 3.
All in all a very good performance.
The XI that played was also the XI that faced Chelsea in our last pre-season game. It is also the XI I expect to start against Crystal Palace on Friday.
10-goals in our last 2 preseason games against sides in the Champions League.
That makes it 5 wins from 5 pre-season games – the behind closed door games against Ipswich and Brentford were no more than training matches.
20 goals scored in those 5 games for Arteta’s new attacking Arsenal. 3 clean sheets.
A pre-season that will all get us excited.
We now need to back it up against Palace on the opening game of the season.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 