The Demise of Sky Sports News’ Deadline Day Coverage

Transfer deadline day used to be an experience, almost a sport in itself. But yesterday it died – further highlighting how Sky Sports News is going down the pan.

It used to be great.

An overly excited Jim White next to a calm and composed Natalie Sawyer. Reports outside grounds surrounded by fans. Even if nothing was happening it felt like something was.

And then yesterday it was as dishwater, and almost became a box ticking exercise.

Sky had decided to remove everything that was great about transfer deadline and replace it their fake ITK journalists pretending to take phone calls, reading texts from “agents” and YouTubers sharing their “expert” opinion. Add in a splattering of footballers who achieved nothing and clearly just their for their £500 pay day and you end up with the disaster of a show we saw yesterday.

The two fellas that do the transfer round up. It was just cringeworthy the way they pretended that agents were contacting them whilst live on air.

We had Leanne Sanderson talking about her time in Italy for Juventus where she made just two appearances.

And then the YouTubers.

Sky are clearly trying to appeal to a younger audience by having YouTubers on everything; but how many times do we have to listen to a London based Manchester United talk about Arsenal?

Is there a warehouse of YouTubers somewhere in Chiswick that a Sky presenter just goes down to, picks one out and sticks them on TV? Everyone of them is a Londoner.

The young lady “representing Arsenal” was agreeing with tweets that Arsenal fans were racist just 2 days before. And now she is live on Sky?

Lee Hendrie was no better. What insight does he actually have?

Meanwhile on Twitter they are censoring any criticism by hiding any negative replies to their tweets.

It was just a shit show and what was a great TV event is no more.

The show has eaten itself.

It realised it was popular and became terribly self-aware; attempting to manufacture the incidents that made it popular. A bit like when Big Brother began to hand pick contestants rather than have a dozen random people.

In the end, I am not sure what it was supposed to appeal too.

The younger crowd would have been glued to their phones, getting their breaking news off Twitter whilst the older crowd would have soon turned off – or over to BBC5 Live.

No insight, no breaking stories. Just a bunch of people using a national TV show to promote themselves and increase their online following.

Sky Sports News. The End.

Keenos

Willian, Hector Bellerin, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and More…

Willian

In an era where players seem to put what they earn above how much they play, we have to say fair play to Willian for agreeing to cancel his contract; costing him around £20million.

The 33-year-old is off back to his home team club Corinthians.

The criticism Willian has got for what he earns is often unfair. It is not his fault that Arsenal offered such a high wage and a 3-year contract.

He probably feels that he was sold a lie (which feels like a common theme at Arsenal at the moment) and that what he was promised never materialised.

Likewise I do not think anyone could have predicted just how poor he would be following a very good season the year before.

Older players can “fall off a cliff” performance wise and it looks like that is what happened to Willian.

He has shown he still has a desire to play football, even if it does hit him in the pocket, and for that we must give credit.

Hector Bellerin

It might end up being the biggest piece of transfer drama for Arsenal on deadline day. Hector Bellerin.

Despite him wanting to leave and Arsenal wanting to sell, there has been very little interest in the Spaniard this window.

There were reports late at night that both Real Betis and Barcelona were looking at him, but neither would have the cash to make it a permanent deal.

If he joins Barcelona it will feel like Arsenal have missed a trick – we should have been in for Tottenham bound Emerson Royal.

The worry is that neither Cedric Soares or Calum Chambers have looked particularly good at right back this season. And if Bellerin goes our options to replace him will be thin. Which leaves Ainsley Maitland-Niles.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles

Firstly, I do not condone AMN’s behaviour on Instagram.

It was a petulant action in an attempt to force a move out of the club. But it was an action he was perhaps forced into due to the clubs behaviour towards him.

Last summer he was on the verge of joining Wolves where he would have instantly gone in to replace Matt Doherty at right back.

At that stage he was on the fringes of the England squad with an outside chance of making it.

Someone at Arsenal decided late on that he would not be leaving the club and the deal fell through.

He would start just 5 league games before being loaned out to relegation-bound WBA; killing any chances he had of making the Euro’s squad.

You can appreciate his 12 months of frustration.

On the verge of leaving and then kept at the club. Whatever he was promised to remain did not materialise.

And now we are in the same situation.

He has played just 19 minutes of Premier League football this season and there is an offer from Everton on the table. But Edu and Mikel Arteta have decided that they do nit want to let him go again.

Yes, Bellerin could be leaving. But if AMN was next in line he would have started the 4 games we have had so far. He has not.

I have always been of the belief that if a fringe player wishes to leave us to play regular footballer elsewhere, we should never stand in their way.

If we force AMN to stay for the 2nd summer in a row, it could have huge ramifications on squad moral and future transfers.

The whole situation really paints the club in poor light.

More…

Eddie Nketiah – Looks like Crystal Palace have gone elsewhere. They offered £10m, we wanted £20m. The same people moaning we have not sold him probably also moan that we under sell players. It is easy to say “we should sell Nketiah for £15million” but you can only do that if a £15million offer comes in for him.

Reiss Nelson – A new 2-year contract with a loan deal attached to it feels sensible. I still do not feel he is the quality to make the grade at Arsenal, but a new deal at least secures a future transfer fee. He hits Donyell Malen figures whilst on loan in Holland and his value shoots up.

Tariq Lamptey – People still calling for Arsenal to sign him despite him having been injured since the middle of December 2020.

Houssem Auoar – The fact he has been available all summer yet no club has gone in for him highlights just why Arsenal are right to stay clear. There is a problem player there.

Keenos

Mikel Arteta 10 games from the sack?

It was always going to be tough for Arsenal to get more than 3 points from the opening three games.

Playing the English champions away and the European champions at home was always going to be tough start.

Most of us would have expected to get 3 points at newly Brentford and the optimistic amongst us would have argued for a home draw against Chelsea when the fixtures came out.

That home draw became unlikely as Arsenal players dropped like flies with illness and injury (Gabriel, White, Partey, Aubameyang and Lacazette all missing) and with Chelsea adding the formidable Romelu Lukaku.

But that defeat hurt. Not just as it was our best opportunity of 3 points but also the manner of it. We did not look prepared. Did not look ready.

Brentford looked hungrier. We put in one of those performances where it looked like we thought we only needed to turn up to win.

The defeat against Manchester City was predictable; we have not won at the Etihad since 2015.

So with the international break now upon us, Arteta needs to regroup and turn the ship around.

After the international break, Arsenal should have Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel, Ben White, Thomas Partey, Alex Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang back fit and firing.

If you added Cedric Soares, Kieran Tierney, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Martin Odegaard, you would have 8 players who had been signed whilst Arteta was manager. Throw in Bukayo Saka and it is a starting XI.

So the excuses of it “not being Arteta’s players” is no longer relevant.

Add in the contract to Granit Xhaka, decision to keep Rob Holding, signing of Pablo Mari and Nuno Taveras and development of Emile Smith Rowe; the squad is almost full of players Arteta fought to keep.

So we come onto the next 10 Premier League games:

If you look at those 6 home fixtures, other than Spurs there are no real banana skins. And even with Spurs, they are a team we should be beating at home if we have ambitions of a top 4 finish.

You would feel disappointed if we came out of those 6 home games with anything less than 16 points.

I would say that 18 from 18 should be the minimum expectation; but realistically when was the last time we won 6 in a row at home?

As for the away games, we should not expect much from a trip to Liverpool but the other 3 – Burnley, Brighton and Leicester City – are all winnable.

That does not mean that I expect to win all 3. That would be an unreasonable expectation. But what would be reasonable?

2 wins and a draw? 2 wins and a defeat? Win, draw and loss?

I would probably say our best case scenario would be 2 wins and a draw. Our minimum expectation should be 4 points (win, draw and defeat).

That would leave Arsenal with 20 – 21 points from those 10 games.

Any less than 20 points, taking into account Arteta has the players he wants, we should be injury free and no European football distraction would be a failure.

I am not going to go as far as saying “if Arsenal do not get 20 points from 10 games Arteta should be sacked”, but if do not get darn close to it he should go.

Just 15 points from those games would be a huge underachievement.

Time and patience is running thing for Arteta. Whilst Edu and the Kroenke’s will not quickly fire the bullet (it would have happened already if they were trigger happy), a poor run of results in the next 10 games will surely be it for Arteta.

Keenos