Emile Smith Rowe England omission should drive him to become even better

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Morning all.

Today’s plan is to get the garden “winter ready”. That involves giving the grass one last mow, getting rid of all the fallen leaves, wash down the patio and lock up the garden bar. Goodbye garden. I will see you in March.

Whilst we are talking about gardens and garden bars, our friends over at KickOffMerchants.com have just released their second set of Arsenal beer mats. This set is inspired by some Highbury Heroes.

Anyone that bought their first set will highly recommend them as a cracking Christmas present.

So we do not play tomorrow which is why today will be a good day to get any chores done.

A 2pm kick off against Watford. Great.

I hoped that the silver lining of no European football would be more 3pm Saturday games. how wrong was I.

We are 10 games in and have had just two 3pm games – home to Norwich City and away to Burnley.

Of the next 11 games already announced for TV, only Southampton at home and Norwich City away are 3pm kick offs (not sure what norwich have done to upset the TV companies, but can we follow their lead – just without the relegation?).

That will be 4 games out of the first 21 that have been at 3pm Saturday this season. It just is not good enough.

It has been a quiet week for Arsenal news. The biggest story is Emile Smith Rowe’s omission from Gareth Southgate’s England squad.

I actually feel sorry for Southgate when it comes to naming his squads because due to the strength in depth England currently have, players will miss out and fans of their clubs will be offended.

The likes of Smith Rowe, Aaron Cresswell, Mason Greenwood, Ben White, Jarod Bowen, Ben Johnson, Lewis Dunk, Fikayo Tomori and Connor Gallagher might all feel miffed that they missed out. Their form certainly put them into contention.

And looking on social media, fans of the clubs they play for are collectively angry about their omissions. but the simple fact is Southgate can not select anyone.

England boss discusses Emile Smith Rowe call-up as 'very close' - Just Arsenal News

Take centre backs.

Above I have named White, Dunk and Tomori. All have been good this season. But Southgate was never going to select them all. At best it would have been one (with Conor Coady missing out). But that would still leave fans of the other two annoyed.

Likewise in the attackign midfield position. It is an area of the pitch England are strong.

Smith Rowe, Greenwood, Bowen are joined by Jesse Lingaard and Jadon Sancho to miss out.

In the squad are Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling, Jack Grealish and Phil Foden.

Southgate can not select a 35 man squad, and it makes more sense for the likes of Smith Rowe and Gallagher to play with the U21s and get game time, rather than just do training sessions with the senior team.

Smith Rowe has an outside shot of making England’s next World cup squad. But he needs to keep up his current form. His omission should be used as a motivator to continue puttin gin the effort.

Personally, I am happy that England are now at a stage where players are no longer being selected off a run of 5 or 6 good games.

The last bit of Arsenal stuff has happened with the first meeting of the Arsenal Advisory Board.

The move is a postive step and hopefully gives fans a bit more of a voice. whether it is enough to stop a future European super League incident is yet to be seen.

I have seen some criticise the make up of the board. Labelling it as “filled with white men”.

Let’s remember that it is down to the supporters groups involved to submitt a representative; not for Arsenal to pick and choose who the supporters groups should put forward.

Interestingly, one of the biggest critics of the board make up focused on the lack of women; questioning how men could make decisions on womens football.

Two things come to mind.

Firstly, the site in question has a “womens football” section. Both writers are white men. Maybe they should sort out their own “diversity” first?

Secondly, why do you have to be a woman to have an opinion on womens football? The best women’s football journalist out there at the moment is Tim Stillman of ArseBlog.

Without knowing those involved on the advisory board, we should not comment on their experience of supporting the womens game.

Finally a little something that passed me by.

Former Arsenal youngster Ryan Garry was named as head coach of the England U18s at the end of September.

Garry made his first Arsenal starting appearance in the very first match of the 49 game unbeaten run against Southampton (6-1, Jermaine Pennant and Robert Pires hat trick).

His career was blighted by injury and he was forced to retire at 27.

Garry spent a bit of time coaching Arsenal’s youngsters before taking a job in the England set up.

We wish him a lot of luck in his coachign career.

Right, I am off to do the garden. Wrap up warm. Drink plenty of coffee. And have a good day.

Keenos

Antonio Conte becomes a “former serial winner” overnight after Tottenham appointment

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We have seen it all before haven’t we.

Spurs sack manager. Spurs bring in “serial winner”. Spurs fans get all excited. Serial winner wins nothing. Spurs sack manager.

The appointment of Antonio Conte has a bit of deja vu about it.

It was not too long ago that their fans were celebrating bring in serial winner Jose Mourinho. Claiming that he would turn them from trophyless laughing stock to a winning team. We all know what happened.

Conte is actually not too dissimilar to Mourinho.

He goes into teams, spends a lot of money, brings in a functional brand of football, wins trophies, fills out with players and then leaves.

Like Mourinho, Spurs will be a different challenge for Conte than his previous clubs.

He is not coming into to talented but underperforming squad. Not will Tottenham hand him hundreds of millions to spend – despite rumours of him getting a “£150m January transfer kitty”.

Changing manager does not change Spurs’ precarious financial situation. Having to finance a £1bn stadium in the post-Covid19 era is going to be tough.

Finances were the reason Conte did not take the job in the summer.

He wanted to much money. And wanted to spend too much money.

Daniel Levy has relented and agreed to pay Conte ÂŁ15m a year. But they still do not have a pot to piss in.

Their biggest mistake last summer was not selling Harry Kane.

That decision has cost them over ÂŁ100m and left them with an unhappy striker.

Conte might get a tune out of him for the rest of the season; but will he push once more for a move next summer? Or is he now mentally shot that he has little interest in football? Maybe early retirement and life on a Barbadian golf course is in his near future.

So Spurs fans are all getting excited. But ultimately we will all know how it ends.

Conte will win nothing. Will leave in 18 months. And Tottenham fans will be talking up their new manager like he will return the club to greatness.

Over 5000 games without a trophy.

Have a good Wednesday.

Keenos

BBC blame fans for footballs growing carbon footprint

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I have heard it all now.

The BBC have published an article on “how to be a sustainable football fan”.

What it basically does is blame match going fans for the ever increasing carbon footprint of football; and more specifically the Premier League.

The first line lays out the intentions Emlyn Begley, the author of the hit piece. It is to fan shame.

“You drive to the game, have a beef burger, hand over your ticket, watch the match and give the third kit you bought a rare outing.”

In blaming the fans, Begley is moving the blame away from the authorities and the TV companies. All of whom act without regard for match going fans or the environment.

For all of Sky’s “Game Zero” marketing, the decisions by them, BT Sport, the BBC and other broadcasters often force fans to “drive to the game”.

Given the choice, most fans will almost always take public transport to games; especially those away. This usually results in train journeys – the most environmentally way to travel long distances.

Yet TV companies reschedule games with no regard to how fans will trace to them. Often putting games at times of the day when they know match going fans will struggle to get a train home.

This is what forces more fans to drive to games. More fans on the road, in cars.

It is also the clubs, alongside kit manufacturers, that bring out 3 kits a season for every club. And multiple more training kits.

This is a perfect example of putting profit before the environment.

The BBC blame the end consumer, but why not focus their attentions on the clubs and the likes of Nike, Adidas, etc.

What is the carbon footprint or manufacturing and shipping 3 kits a year? Millions more made in China, India, etc to satisfy demand.

Premier League clubs are attempting to export the game throughout the globe.

Instead of encouraging fans from around the world to support their local team, which would result in a lesser carbon footprint, they attempt to draw them into supporting a team many thousands of miles away.

This leads to some fans having to take long haul flights to see the club they support; rather than maybe just walking down the road to watch their home town team.

Likewise the clubs then go on these money spinning world wide pre-season friendlies.

In recent years Arsenal have been to Australia, China, Singapore and America to play fellow Premier League clubs.

What is the environmental impact of these pre-season tours in comparison to playing Barnet, QPR, Dagenham & Redbridge and Leyton Orient? Once again it comes down to money.

And then we have the owners themselves. Flying around in their private jets from whatever tax haven they live in to watch a game.

The BBC calling out fans for “driving to a game” whilst their owners fly, or park their multi-million pound yacht at Chelsea Harbour.

And then hey also use their private plans to bring back their pampered stars from Brazil, Argentina, or wherever they have gone to represent their national team.

Is getting back into England half a day earlier really more important than helping save the environment?

We tweeted Emlyn our concerns over the article and it resulted him in blocking us.

Clearly he / him was more interested in attacking match going fans rather than highlighting what football clubs, the authorities and the TV companies could do to reduce the carbon footprint of football.

In the ashes of the Super League debacle, once again a journalist has shown that they do not care about match going fans. They only care about their paymasters and not upsetting them.

Keenos