Morning! Bit of a late blog today and for once it is not because I had a session yesterday!
New Year, New Me, and all of that bollocks. I was up early, smashed a gym session, put a load of washing on and the goat curry in the slow cooker. This is now a coffee and writing break before I am back on it with cleaning!
There was plenty to be taken from yesterday’s pre-FA Cup press conference.
The comments regurgitated the most were about our January transfers was Mikel Arteta said “that is a possibility” that we might not bdo any business at all.
I am not sure why some felt this was such big news. Of course it is a possiblity that we might not do any business. If the right players are not available at the right place, we should not do any business. Buying for the sake of buying leaves you withj Lucas Perez and takes money out of next summers transfer kitty.
Better to buy no one, then buy someone who in 6-month is deadwood.
Arteta also spoke on Oleksandr Zinchenko’s injury saying “he is progressing well. We have another training session tomorrow and we will evaluate whether he is available or not to play and start the game.”
This is why I do not think a new left back will not be on our radar in January,.
At worst, Zinchenko will be back for Crystal Palace, afterwhich we have 3 more games league games until Takehiro Tomiyasu is back from the Asian Cup. Any left back that comes in will have to be a better option than the Japanese full back, and I am not sure that sort of quality player will be available in January.
Arteta backed up my view by saying “first of all focus on the players that we have.”
“As for the rest, there is no actual news” was Arteta’s response to the rest of the walking wounded, although he did then go on to talk about Thomas Partey’s omission from the Ghana national team calling it “common sense” that he had not been selected. He would go on to explain that Partey was not yet back in first team training so “it didn’t make a lot of sense for him to be involved.”
Finally, for those getting their knickers in a twist over our current form, the Boss outlined the situation brilliantly saying:
“Until Christmas Day we were top of the league. Six days later, we are fourth, so you can be very tempted to look at things with a microscope or with a telescope and look a little bit further and with a little bit more perspective.
“My job big time is to look through the telescope and have perspective and analyse things in the proper way, and not get affected by one performance. Not the result, one performance.”
We live in such a reactionary “fast food” world fuelled by social media where after 2 or 3 bad games, fans and pundits begin to ask questions and demand changes.
You do not build a successful team for the long term by continually changing tactics, playing personnel and manager everytime you have half a dozen poor games. As our match reporter Steve says, you stick with the winners and Arteta and this squad of players have shown plenty in the last 18 months as to why we need to stick with them.
Liverpool have gone through the same with Jurgen Klopp over the years. Last year there were calls for him to be sacked and Mohamed Salah to be cashed in on. They are now top of the table and Salah sits top of the combined goals and assists charts.
The likes of Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus might be going through a tough spell, but you do not just dump them due to this. That is not how you build a great team.
Bit game tomorrow as the FA Cup is probably our most realistic chance for a trophy this season.
Stick with the winners.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 