Mikel Arteta fully focused on Aston Villa challenge

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Morning from Suffolk! Spring is in the air as I write this with a coffee overlooking some brilliant gardens near Sudbury.

It feels like the calm before the storm of Munich away, but before then we have Aston Villa tomorrow.

For once, we go into a post-European mid week game with the advantage.

We played Tuesday against Bayern Munich, whilst a full strength Aston Villa face Lille in a tough game on Thursday.

It will be interesting to see what Villa team is put out today. Will Unai Emery “throw” the game by making lots of changes like he did against Manchester City? Or will he put out his strongest XI in the hope of showing up his former club.

As always, if we focus on ourselves, on our own game, we should win. but that does not mean we will.

Ahead of the game, Mikel Arteta said: “We will know the results but we’ll still have our duty to win our game which is the only thing that we can control.

“That’s happened a few times already and it’s going to happen again in the next few weeks, so we’ll just focus on what we can do, what we can control and make sure that we perform like we have to do against a really good side to try to beat them.”

When talking about the past, Arteta said: “Reflection done, Bayern gone. Now it’s Aston Villa – we’re only focusing on Aston Villa.”

When it comes to injuries, just Jurrien Timber is out. No one else is injured or suspended, although Arteta does his normal cagey answers insinuating some are struggling to make it. The fitness of our squad in the run-in has allowed Arteta to rest and rotate to keep everyone as fresh as possible.

On Timber, I would be surprised if we see him this season.

Our defence is in a good place, and replacements are also playing well. It does not make sense to bring him back. Better to allow him to continue his rehabilitation, play some U21 games, get a rest then a full pre-season before next year.

Manchester City and Liverpool also both play at home this weekend against Luton Town and Crystal Palace respectively. I do not expect either to drop points.

Tomorrows blog will be written from the train as I return from Suffolk to Islington. I apologise in advance for any spelling errors! UTA.

Keenos

Patino decides to leave Arsenal this summer as club focus on next generation

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Happy Friday! Well done for making it through another week.

Is that it for Liverpool? Not long ago I spoke about how it felt they were in a similar position to us last season – just getting through games, looking like they had run out of steam and about to drop off.

Now I am not saying I am right, but last night against Atalanta they were shocking. A 3-nil home defeat coming off the back of the weekend draw at Manchester United.

In their last 5 games in all competitions, they have won just twice against Brighton (2-1) and Sheffield United (3-1). Before this run, they also needed a 95th minute goal to beat Nottingham Forest.

Now I am not saying they will not win the league. They are clearly still in the title race and things can change quickly. But as we saw with us last season, momentum is a huge thing in football.

I expect them to win this weekend. Then they have those 3 Premier League away games in a row, followed by Spurs at Anfield. Sandwiched in between is the return journey to Atalanta.

The wheels can come off quickly, and they might find themselves out of the title race in a blink of an eye.

There is not much real Arsenal news floating about. Press conferences are today ahead of this weekend’s football, so we will blog about them tomorrow.

There is talk that Charlie Patino has decided to leave the club this summer. Not a huge surprise.

Patino was supposed to be the next big thing, in a long line of next big things. But like most of those before him, he has shown how hard it is to go from dominant youth team football to having an impact in the man’s game.

As a 15-year-old, Patino was part of the England youth set up alongside Jude Bellingham and Jamal Musiala. Whilst they have kicked on, he simple has not.

I have watched him on loan at Swansea City and he still looks lightweight. He has not really bulked him since that performance against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup back in 2022 which showed he was not ready for men’s football.

He has had two OK loan spells at Blackpool and Swansea, but has not dominated. The reports are he wants to see more first team football, but his performances over the last 2-years would not be good enough for The Arsenal.

We are at a different stage of our evolution compared to where we were 3-years ago. The level you need to be playing at if you want to be part of our first team squad is much higher; as seen with the reduced game time of Eddie Nketiah, Emile Smith Rowe and Reiss Nelson.

Smith Rowe is clearly superior to Patino, and if he is not seeing much game time, there is not much hope for the younger man.

Football at a youth level is very fast moving. One day you are the biggest prospect at the club, and within a blink of an eye you are in your 20s and there are other 17-year-olds everyone is talking about.

Ethan Nwaneri & Myles Lewis-Skelly are the pair looking to usurp Patino.

If the club think these lads have a higher ceiling, then they are better off investing time in them rather than Patino. A bit like when we cast aside Henri Lansbury to give Jack Wilshere more opportunity.

One thing you always have to remember is Arsenal’s coaches would have seen a lot more of Patino, and other youngsters, than anyone else. Whilst fans might cry on Twitter about them not getting a chance, they are basing their opinion on very little evidence.

Patino is clearly technically gifted. Someone will take a punt on him and we should get above £5m cash money!

Enjoy your Friday. Grab yourself a beer at 4pm! You deserve it.

Keenos

Arsenal need to seek clarification over goal kicks

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Death and taxes. We can now add to that list:

Harry Kane scoring a penalty at the Emirates
Harry Kane finishing league top scorer
Harry Kane failing to win a trophy

I am not sure why drawing at home to Bayern Munich in the Champions League led to so much negativity towards Arsenal.

We now live in a world of extremes. You can not suffer a defeat (or draw even!) without people making over-the-top comments such as “Arsenal bottled it.”

The bottled it is a boring narrative often rolled out by opposing fans who have never seen their team win a trophy, and Arsenal fans who just hate Mikel Arteta for some weird reason. It is used by the sort of fan that type things such as “assnal” or “totnum”.

Grow up lads and learn to actually have a real opinion on the game rather than just looking to troll and / or be driven by impressions. What is crazy is this sort of talk is not even done by kids who do not know better. I see adults using the terminology.

I guess age ain’t nothing but a number and whilst someone might be in their 40s, their lack of intelligence means they have more in common with a 14-year-old, and that comes across online.

Back in the 90s, if these adults were speaking to kids at the park, they would be called out for what they are. But the current era with social media brings children closer to their mentally deficient predators and no one batters an eyelid!

Anyway, back to Arsenal.

A 2-2 draw in the Champions League is not a bad result, especially since they removed the away goal rule.

The removal of this rule is why we now see much more attacking football in the Champions League (10-goals in the first two games). Home teams can now play more expansive without having to worry too much about the huge disadvantage of conceding the away goal.

Unlike previous Champions League seasons when we have given ourselves a mountain to climb, we are in the tie and that is what your aim is after the first leg.

Harry Kane got his usual goal from the penalty spot. The goal was his 6th at the Emirates, with 5 coming from the penalty spot.

Many of those penalties were soft ones (for fouls on wobbly Son – only takes a gust of wind to blow him over!). If referees were as keen to give Arsenal a penalty at the Emirates as they were Kane, then the Swedish official would have blown up for the blatant foul on Bukayo Saka in those closing minutes.

Manuel Neuer made no attempt to play the ball and absolutely clattered Saka. As has been said elsewhere, Kane going down like that in the Allianz and it would be a stonewall penalty.

Considering how quick the ref was to blow his whistle throughout the game, and give any contact as a free kick, tt just shows that European refs are as inconsistent as English ones.

As for Thomas Tuchel claiming that Munich should have had a second penalty, it clearly was not one.

Whilst the ref had blown his whistle to restart play, David Raya was clearly passing the ball to Gabriel so that he could take the goal kick. It was not handball.

If we start calling this for handball, then everytime a player throws the ball underarm to a teammate so that they can take a throw on, it should be called for a foul throw. People do not seem to understand that whilst the rules are on paper, they allow for ingame infringements like this where a team has clearly not restarted play.

With the hoo-har around it though, Raya and Gabriel will need to be careful in the future. You can see a ref looking to make a name for himself calling it as a penalty. A bit like when Jonny Bairstow was given out last summer.

To crush the situation, we should speak to the PGMOL for clarification. If they say that they deem the goal kick to be taken, then Raya will need to roll it to Gabriel. If they wouldn’t deem it to be taken, then that message will be sent to every English ref and VAR and the directive will be that the goal kick is not deemed as being taken.

We are top of the league, in the Champions League quarter final and just drew 2-2 with Bayern Munich. I am not sure how the narrative is currently being written so negatively.

Onto the next one…

Keenos