And just like that, Arsenal are into the semi final of the Copacabana Cup.
Without even trying, putting in zero effort, Arsenal are still on course for a visit to Wembley in early 2018 and a chance of a first bit of silverware for the season.
Having already beaten Doncaster Rovers 1-0 without breaking a sweat, Arsenal fans got a little bit of excitement with the late Eddie Nketiah equaliser and subsequent extra time winner. The 1-0 win over West Ham was back to boring boring Arsenal in the League Cup.
1-0, muted celebrations at the end, fans barely bothered to turn up, even less staying till the end, and even less celebrating making a semi final of a domestic competition.
The fact that Arsenal have made the semi final without putting any effort in is testament to our current status as the premier cup kings of English football.
Whilst the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham failed in the competition, ensuring a continuation of their trophy droughts, Arsenal made the semi final in 1st gear.
Contrast the muted celebrations of Arsenal to that of Manchester City.
The Premier League runaway leaders celebrated making the semi final like it was a World Cup quarter final that they had just one.
Yes, they had the excitement of penalties, which always raises the adrenaline, but seeing their fans and celebrate like mad, and Pep Guardiola fist pump and sing along to his own song, well it was a little cringe. Although in hindsight, making any semi final is something to celebrate for a small club like Manchester City.
The League Cup is the only trophy they have won in the last 3 years and Guardiola is still searching for his first piece of silverware in England, despite spending half a billion quid.
The players City used to beat Leicester cost them over £250m. When you take into account this was their B team, it shows how much they have invested. It was only a little less than what Arsenal’s entire squad cost.
With City through, and Chelsea and Manchester United with fairly routine ties, it could make for 2 gigantic match ups in the semi finals.
It will be interesting to see who sticks and who twists in terms of squads.
League Cup semi finals, and progression into the 4th round of the FA Cup, will make it 8 games in January. A heavy work load. I have already expressed my opinion that Arsenal should prioritise the cups over the league, putting our resources into competitions we can win rather than a competition that is impossible to win this season,
Do that and we might have a final to look forward to. A trophy to lift at Wembley. A 4th trophy in 4 years.
Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez, 28, has turned down a £400,000-a-week offer from a Chinese club because he is determined to join Manchester City.
That is this mornings Arsenal related news according to BBC Gossips column.
Personally, I love the BBC Gossip column. It is what I read when I have my morning poo. It collates all that mornings BS transfer rumours in one place, meaning that I none of the media outlets who make them up generate any advertising revenue from my click.
When I read the above, I had to laugh. Not because I think it is ludicrously made up, I imagine there is some truth into it. I laughed because I thought to myself Why would Manchester City want Alexis Sanchez.
Now Sanchez is a top player. In his 3 years in England, he has been amongst the best in the league. Only Sergio Aguero and Eden Hazard get close to him. He would improve almost any team in the world based on past form. An individual talent capable of winning any game on his own.
But then you have this seasons form, when he has been awful.
And that is one of the two reasons why I would be surprised if he go’s to Manchester City.
The first reason is a simple one. Manchester City do not actually need Alexis Sanchez.
P 18 W 17 D 1 L 0 F 56 A 12
Now I fully understand that in football, if you stand still you go backwards, and you should always be looking to improve your squad, but how much would Sanchez actually improve Manchester City?
Manchester City are averaging over 3 goals a game in the league at this present time. They have an array of attacking talent that is the envy of the world. And it is not just their starting attackers, it is who can come off the bench.
When a striker as class and consistently brilliant as Sergio Aguero is not guaranteed a start, you know they have quality. Competing with Aguero is 20 year old Brazilian Gabriel Jesus. A fantastic young talent.
Then you have Raheem Sterling. The boy has become a man this season and is Manchester City’s top goal scorer with 15 goals in 23 games. And quite a few of them important late winners.
Leroy Sane is another terrific young talent. It shows Manchester City’s financial strength that they could spend £37 million on a youngster for the future, give him a year to settle, and not expect him to perform from day one. Other clubs, like Arsenal, do not have the luxury.
This year Sane has kicked on from last year, and at just 21, I struggle to name too many better young wingers in the Premier League. His composure, pace and skill is going to make him a dangerous player as he continues to develop.
Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva. I do not need to say much about either. They are terrific with the technique and vision of players you used to associate with Arsenal.
Finally we have Bernardo Silva. Manchester City paid £43.5m for the Portuguese winger in the summer. He has started just 4 games in the league.
In the summer, you could see why City wanted Sanchez.
Sterling was stagnating and Sane had not yet kicked on. Sanchez was one of the best in the world. Had they signed Sanchez, the likelihood is that Sterling would have left, maybe even to Arsenal.
Football is easy in hindsight, and I bet Pep Guardiola is glad that he has Sterling over Sanchez this season.
It is not just the quality of Manchester City’s players that sets them apart from Sanchez, but the age too. Jesus is 20, Sane 21, Sterling 23. It is a high quality front line that could play and develop together for the next 8-10 years. Alexis Sanchez is 29 tomorrow. He would be a short term fix to a problem that does not need fixing.
Then we come on to Alexis Sanchez himself. He has been in poor form this year.
Has he become distracted with wanting to leave? Is he carrying an injury? Or are his powers on the wane?
I mentioned to a mate after the Newcastle game that Sanchez is clearly not the same player he was. He does not look at sharp, as explosive. When was the last time he beat a man and ran away from him?
He has lost a yard of pace. And his brain seems to have slowed down as well, which has led to his sloppy play and giving the ball away too much.
A lot of players who have relied upon their explosiveness fall off the cliff quickly. As soon as that acceleration and speed go’s, even just a little, they are no longer the same player. Has Sanchez gone over the cliff this season?
And how much has Chile failing to make the World Cup damaged him psychologically?
He has always been an emotionally driving player. With no World Cup at the end of the season, and at a club who he wanted to leave in the summer, perhaps the motivation to push himself, both in training and on the pitch, has gone. He is just going through the motions. He has nothing to play for.
Maybe he is just an unhappy employee who has been told that he must work his notice period?
Sanchez has never been much of a team player. A terrific individual talent, but selfish. And with the goals and assists drying up this season, his selfishness has been exposed.
Manchester City attack as a team. It is quick, sharp and clinical. Would Sanchez’s selfishness, his dwelling on the ball, slowing the game down, suit their one touch passing? Probably not.
The only thing in Sanchez’s favour is that he is not European cup tied for the Champions League. But with so much talent, would he actually get much game time for City in the Champions League.
I think Sanchez will leave Arsenal in January, but Manchester City is not a logical destination.
These days, players from all clubs stumble off the coach, oversized head phones on, in their tracksuits, carrying a little handbag filled with their moisturiser and other toiletries.
The players look scruffy coming off the coach. Unkempt. With their headphones in, they become distant for the fans, usually young fans, waiting for them to cheer them into the stadium.
Arsenal used to be known for their class.
Former Arsenal goal keeper Alan Miller, who was at the club for 11 years having joined as a 16 year old described about the respect that the club once commanded throughout the game;
“When I was elsewhere, the likes of Bryan Robson, Graham Souness, Mike Kelly all talked about THE Arsenal.”
Arriving in a suit made an impression on the opposition. Other sides looked in awe when we turned up. It made an impact. The Arsenal had turned up.
These days all players wear tracksuits. We are no different to every other club. Your University 6th Football Team wears a tracksuit to a game. Arsenal players turn up to games looking like students.
On the other side, fashion has changed. Suits is no longer the thing to wear. A lot of offices have done away with suits. And when was the last time you wore a suit on a night out? Fans used to wear suits to games back in the day, they no longer. And surely if you are on a coach, travelling to a game, you want the players to be comfortable.
But then again, most away games Arsenal players stay in a local hotel the night before. The journey from hotel to ground is short, so its not like they are travelling 100s of miles uncomfortable.
When the players are travelling from London Colney to the hotel, whether by coach or flying, by all means wear the tracksuit. George Graham used to make players wear suits to travel at all times. This is perhaps a little dated and if you are flying thousands of miles to for a European game, you want to be comfortable for the long journey.
Who wears a suit when they fly? I have my flying clothes. They are baggy tracksuit bottoms and a hoody. Keeps me warm and comfortable. So yes when they are travelling longer than a few hours they should be comfortable, but from the hotel to the ground it should be always suits and no headphones.
The ones Arsenal have produced recently for FA Cup Finals have been smart. They look good.
Get the players back in suits, tell them to take their headphones off before getting off the coach, and phones away. Show about of respect to those who have come out to see you.
The Arsenal should be in suits.
Captain picks the sleeve length, and all players follow
A recent lost tradition is that of the captaining picking the length of sleeves he wants to wear, and then others follow suit.
It was a combination of Theo Walcott and Mathieu Flamini that eroded this tradition a couple of years ago, and this year we have seen the tradition go out of the window completely.
The sleeve length tradition is actually a fairly recent one.
According to our friends over at The Arsenal History, the tradition began some time during the Bertie Mee era, which was late 60s.
It might be a fairly “new” tradition in the grand scheme of how long the club has been around, but it is a tradition that has been around for 50 years.
It is a tradition that needs to be enforced. It is one of those things that set us apart from the commoners.
Good Ole Arsenal
Back in the day, Arsenal used to come out to Good Ole Arsenal.
The tradition stopped in the late 90s when the players started to come out to Right Here, Right Now by Fat Boy Slim.
that tradition was stopped in 2006 when Arsenal tried to create a pre-game atmosphere song like Liverpool have with You’ll Never Walk Along. They picked the horrendous Elvis Presley song Wonder of You, which flopped. I wonder who was actually consulted on this.
Recently, Right Here, Right Now has begun getting played again as the players come out of the tunnel. Arsenal should go further back in time and return to Good Ole Arsenal.
It should be simple really, play the montage on the big screen, then Right Here, Right Now as the players are lining up in the tunnel, then Good Ole Arsenal as they come out.
Having been to Chelsea away and heard their crowd go mental when they win a game and Madness is played, a similar thing needs to be done at Arsenal.
Currently the club has a “playlist” of a few songs that get played randomly after the game. Recently Sweet Caroline has been played and has really gone off, but for me this will always be associated with Eddie Hearn and boxing.
Personally I would love Gold by Spandau Ballet to be played at the final whistle. It is a great song, everyone can get involved, it’s lyrics are appropriate, and they are an Islington band and Arsenal fans.
The Cannon Badge
We all know that when the club changed the badge from what I tend to call the Victoria Concordia Crescit (VCC) one to the current cartoon badge, that a part of the club died.
The concept of having the club crest on the club shirt is a relatively new one. 1967 seems to be the year that sides started to have their crest on the shirt. Prior to that date, it only tended to appear for FA Cup Finals.
The VCC badge only came into use in 1990 and was abolished in 2002 when, after a court case over merchandise, the club decided to rebrand the crest to something copyrightable. It was all about money.
Interestingly, Arsenal eventually won the case against the stall holder on appeal in the European Courts, so there was actually no reason for Arsenal to change the badge.
The west facing cannon was the first badge that Arsenal used beyond just cup finals. This was used for 22 years in its two different forms. Even though the club would also claim that they do not use this badge as it is not copyrightable and enforceable, they have recently taken action against the She Wore Shop to stop any merchandise being produced with this cannon on.
The club provided a trademark number which indicated that a version of the club cannon was copyrighted by the club.
So this brings me to the conclusion, if the west facing canon that we used for 22 years between 1967 and 1989, is trademarked by the club, why is it not being used as our badge?
Red and White / Yellow and Blue
Now I know that shirts is all about commercial income, and the likes of Puma or whoever manufactures the shirts need to make them different to the last to force people to buy the new ones – which now come out 3 a year rather than 1 a year – but it should be very easy.
The home kit should be red and white, the away kit yellow and blue. It is as simple as that.
With the recent invention of a 3rd kit, that is where Puma or whoever should experiment. This year, shirt sales have shown that the black and pink kit has been very popular.
Do what you want with the 3rd kit, but keep the home and away to the traditional colours.
Are there any traditions you wish the club would bring back? Comment below
