Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

Qatar World Cup a success – in sports washing

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Morning all and happy Sunday.

I hope you have all done your Christmas shopping by now. If you still have stuff to get, I would suggest heading out to your local High Street.

Most major postal companies (Royal Mail, DPD, Evri, etc), have huge back logs and “next day delivery” will mean 2-3 days across most of the country. I have hardly seen Amazon fans on the streets in the last week, and normally at this time of the year you can’t cross the road without one nearly hitting you!

So the World Cup finishes today, and I am fairy non-plussed.

I do not really care who wins between France or Argentina. We don’t have a horse in the race (or player on the pitch), so I do not really care who wins – yes, William Saliba is in the French squad, but he won’t play and my connection with him is certainly not that of Henry, Vieira, Cazorla, Ozil and others.

I also have no interest in the Lionel Messi debate.

There are two types of football fans. Those that support a single club, and those that support a player.

I support Arsenal. Have only ever supported Arsenal, and will only ever support Arsenal.

The likes of Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mesut Ozil and more have fans that support them rather than a club. They change the club who they support depending on what club their favourite player is performing for.

And with many of these sort of fans coming from lesser nations, they end up supporting the country that their favourite player starts for, rather than the country they are from.

Win or lose I am English. I find it a fairly odd concept that people will be fanatical about Argentina even though they are from Nigeria, from Dubai or Singapore. They almost treat international football like they treat club football. Where they “pick” the country they support and continually change it.

Where will Qatar sit in the list of great World Cups? Again, I do not care.

The PR merchants will be out in force making Qatar seem like the greatest World Cup ever. But in reality the quality of football, shocks and competition is no different to any other World Cup of the last 30 years.

Every World Cup has shock early exits, some great football and goals, some horrendous games and a country that reaches the latter stages on passion rather than talent.

FIFA and Qatar will go into overdrive, trying to show the winter experiment in a non-football country as a success. But this is just diversion to take your thoughts away from the thousands that died building the stadiums. The states human rights record, treatment of women and more. Qatar is a perfect example of sportswashing.

On a side note, I did find the virtue signalling of the likes of Alex Scott hilarious.

Happy to holiday in Dubai, happy to go to Qatar to earn some money, but will wear an armband and talk out against the regime.

If Scott (and others) really cared, they would not holiday in these sort of countries. But I guess getting some winter sun is more important than slavery, human rights and journalists being murdered.

The next World Cup is in Mexico, America and Canada. Another sham hosting it over 3 countries that span such a huge land mass.

As for FIFA’s proposal for a new “Club World Cup”, it just shows all these international tournaments are just about generating money to fill the pockets of those that “run the game”.

Corruption in FIFA (and UEFA) is still high. It is all about how many millions those in blazers can take out of the game.

The best 32 teams in the world are European. There is no need for a competition to find out who is better between Real Madrid and some Chinese, Australian, African or Emirati club. Even the best of South American clubs are no better than your average Portuguese side. Brazil and Argentina are just Europe’s academy.

If you’re watching today, enjoy it. Celebrate however you want. I’m heading to Oxford Street for some Christmas shopping.

Keenos

Is investment in the defence required?

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For the first time in a long time, I look at our defence and think “we do not much investment”.

Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel and Olexsandr Zinchenko are all 25 or under and is up there with the best back 4s in the league.

It would be hard to upgrade on the existing back 4, but what about what is in reserve?

At full back, alongside White and Zinchenko we also have Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney. And coming through the youth team is Brooke Norton-Cuffy and Lino Sousa.

The odd one out is Cedric Soares.

With White’s move to right back, he is surplus to requirements. I wouldn’t be surprised if he left us in January.

Where we do perhaps need investment is in central defence.

In the summer, I would not have said this. We had Saliba, Gabriel, White and Rob Holding. A solid set of 4.

But since then, White has made the right back position his own. We now need to disregard him when talking about our 3 central defensive options.

When a player is injured, you should always look to make as few changes as possible.

Whilst if Saliba of Gabriel picked up a knock, we could move White inside and play Tomiyasu outside, that would require two changes. And Rob Holding is not good enough to be 3rd choice centre back.

A case can easily be made for us to sign a new centra defender – although I imagine this will not happen until the summer.

Someone that can provide Gabriel and Saliba with better cover than Holding currently does. The name Evan Ndicka has been floated about a bit.

The French defender is just 23 and playing for Eintracht Frankfurt. A classy left footed individual, he looks ready to take a step up. His contract also expires this summer.

Recruiting him would give Mikel Arteta like-for-like cover and competition for Gabriel, and the squad depth needed for the Champions League.

Ben White would then become the 4th centre back option – 1st choice right back and 4th central defender.

We have seen with Manchester City over the years how tough it is to find decent ball playing defenders that can also defend. They have gone big to recruit John Stone, Aymeric Laporte and Ruben Dias. They also have Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji.

We do not have the money to recruit this strength in depth (not make the mistakes they have in the transfer market), so it might be preferable to stick with what we know in Rob Holding.

The defence is certainly not a priority over the next two windows – midfield and attack is where we need to invest heavily. But if the scouting department can spot the right player, at the right cost, we should move for them.

Keenos

Do Arsenal need another 8?

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Yesterday we blogged about how a new midfielder – and more specifically a defensive midfielder – should be top of our transfer list.

In the blog, we discussed about how the likes of Youri Tielemans and Sergej Milinković-Savić do not need to be mentioned in the discussion. Neither are defensive midfielders.

But in discussing the blog, some did make the case that we should be looking to recruit a new 8, as well as a defensive midfielder. And that would open the door to someone like Tielemans.

But do Arsenal need a new 8?

Granit Xhaka going nowhere

After a rollercoaster of an Arsenal career, it finally feels like Xhaka has become the player we all hoped (or at least me).

I remember when we signed him, I predicted that Xhaka was everything we hoped Jack Wilshere would become.

Xhaka was just 24, had a wand of a left foot, and combined aggression in defence with a wand of a left foot.

He and Wilshere were both born in 1992, and as Xhaka joined, Wilshere was being sent out to Bournemouth to try and resurrect a career blighted by injury.

My prediction also included that Xhaka would captain us for many years to come.

He may no longer wear the armband, but it is clear he is a leader on and off the pitch. You don’t need a (c) by your name to be a captain.

This season, in the more advanced 8 position, Xhaka has been exceptional.

Some will argue he was never really an out and out defensive midfielder.

His best performances for his country always came in a more advanced position – with Denis Zakaria in behind him.

The days of him being almost out the door to Roma (for F all money) are long gone. Xhaka is now one of the first names on the team sheet.

But he is now the wrong side of 30

Xhaka will turn 31 at the start of next season.

Whilst we do not really need to be discussing replacing him as a matter of urgency, we will need to look at this down the line.

He has 2 years left on his current deal, with Arsenal having an option to extend for a further year.

There is little evidence that he is on the decline, and is actually playing the best football he ever has. You would expect him to be able to keep up this level of performance for another 18 months.

That would take him to the end of his current contract, at which point we extend in by the year.

That same summer is when we should probably consider “going big” and signing his longer term replacement.

We would then have a year of Xhaka, with his experience, playing in competition with a younger team mate, with the torch being passed as the season progresses.

As with the Thomas Partey discussion, this would be smart succession planning.

There is just no rush to even buy him cover right now.

3 into 2 goes, but 4 is 1 too many

Last summer we signed Fabio Vieira.

The Portuguese midfielder has shown glimpses of his ability, and the hope is he will come back from the winter World Cup break a new man.

Vieira is our “like for like” replacement for Martin Odegaard. But in turn is also the cover for Xhaka.

As we move into the second half of the season, I expect Vieira to get more game time. I would also like to see Mikel Arteta to pick him alongside Odegaard against “lesser” teams where we do not need that extra bit of defensive cover Xhaka provides.

So if we agree that we already have 3 top 8s for 2 positions, do we really need a 4th?

3 into 2 goes, but I’m not sure 4 into 2 does.

Lokonga, Smith Rowe and Patino

Albert Sambi Lokonga is not an out and out defensive midfielder.

For the rest of this season, I expect him to be the 4th option behind Odegaard, Xhaka and Vieira. He will get the opportunity to show he is a long term solution there.

We also have Emile Smith Rowe – who I have always thought would suit playing more centrally.

ESR has fabulous technique in tight positions and drifts into the box to score like a prime Aaron Ramsey.

When he has played more centrally for Arsenal, he has struggled (think Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup last season). But from memory he has never played centrally with Thomas Partey behind him – it has often been Lokonga.

Playing more centrally would also protect his fragile body a bit more – his injuries have all been muscle related, and playing on the wing he needs to be explosive. In the middle Smith Rowe would not need to show that initial burst of pace, which strains his body, as often.

Moving into next season, we also have Charlie Patino.

I do not expect him to leave us in the summer – he might have even signed his new contract by the time this is published.

Patino is clearly a talented kid, and the loan at Blackpool has seen him kick on further.

If Lokonga doesn’t do it this season, Patino will certainly get his chance next.

And in 2024, when Xhaka will be turning 32, Patino will be just coming up to his 21st Birthday.

If he has continued to kick on, then it wouldn’t be too hard to foresee that torch being passed from Xhaka to Patino as the 2024/25 season progresses.

But should we miss the chance of Tielemans on a free?

Like many, Tielemans came into my radar as a teenager whilst playing for Anderlecht.

In 2014, he was the best player on the pitch as Anderlecht drew 3-3 in North London. He was just 17. That night he faced a certain Mikel Arteta in midfield.

I was disappointed that we did not sign him in 2017 when he joined Monaco. And that disappointment was double downed on in 2019 when he joined Leicester City.

He has the ability, technique and experience to play for any team in the Premier League. And he is still just 25.

Those who question his work rate are being unfair. They base this on a single moment where a referee sprinted past him whilst he jogged.

This season he has played deeper for Leicester, putting in more defensive work than ever before. And much of his career at Anderlecht and Monaco was played as a central midfielder rather than attacking.

It must be said that for a 25-year-old, he has a lot of miles on the clock. By the end of the season he would have passed through 500 games for club and country.

That being said, he has never really suffered any persistent injuries.

I have spoken about looking at replacing Xhaka in 2024, but should we really pass on the chance of signing Tielemans – for free – in 2023?

Ok, it might be a year earlier than we wanted, but with Champions League football there will be enough games to go around.

And on Tielemans we know what we are getting. And the longer term replacement for Xhaka will be in place.

The issue with Lokonga, Smith Rowe and Patino is they may never grow into a replacement for Xhaka, whilst we know Tielemans is good enough.

And as for Patino, he is still just 19. Signing Tielemans would allow him to go on loan to a Premier League side for 2023/24 and continuing his development.

He then returns in 2024, a few months shy of 21, to be Tielemans cover. Give it another year and he’d be Tielemans competition.

Come 2027, Tielemans would be 30, and probably declining due to the amount of games he has played. Patino would then be 24 and ready to be the main man!

So what do you think? Should we move for Tielemans in the summer?

Keenos