It’s early on a Saturday and the sky is kind of eerie at this time. It looks like the kind of slate grey you get in a Sci-Fi film when humans now live in ruins and basements and gigantic alien machines prowl the surface. I really hope there hasn’t been an overnight space coup because I’m going out with the dog soon so that would make things a bit awkward.

At his press conference yesterday Arsene Wenger confirmed the signing of Polish youngster Krystian Bielik, saying a fee had been agreed. The player completed a medical yesterday and will officially sign on Monday. What makes this stuff you already know a bit more interesting is that Bielik himself said he chose London to prove himself as a player but felt that he wasn’t yet ready for first team football, but it looks like the manager wants him ready as soon as possible.

He said:

He will go into the first-team squad. He’s a defensive midfielder, 6ft 2, he has a good energy level and technical level. It’s a gamble but, on what we saw, it’s worth to take the gamble. It’s an awful lot of money for a player if he doesn’t succeed. If he does succeed, then it’s cheap.

Before knickers get completely twisted, it’s worth pointing out there’s a distinction to be made between putting a player into the first team squad and into the first team itself. In the squad he’ll train with the first team, settle in, build relationships, and operate at a level that should improve him as a player. It doesn’t mean he’s going to face Man City on Sunday.

You might remember in January 2006 we made three signings: Abou Diaby, Emmanuel Adebayor and Theo Walcott from Southampton. The first two were used between January and May, but due to his tender years Theo had to wait until the following season to make his debut for us (despite being ludicrously called up to the England squad for that summer’s World Cup). The idea, obviously, was to get him ready for first team football by having him in the squad from the start.

Now, I can’t say for sure if that’s the manager’s idea with this kid, and we know he’s very much a proponent of the ‘If you’re good enough, you’re old enough’ thinking, but even with Arteta absent for three months he’s got Francis Coquelin and Mathieu Flamini who are likely to get the nod over him because of their experience. If he’s admitting it’s a gamble to even spend £2m on a 17 year old, it’s surely even more of a gamble to play him in games for which there’s little or no room for failure. Every point is precious this season.

That’s not to say further injuries won’t mean he has to be played at some point. When Flamini and Coquelin collide in training and are ruled out until 2019 each then we may well have to resort to throwing him in, but all going well I’d be hugely surprised if we saw very much of him beyond some substitute cameos between now and May.

Still, it does seem as if he’s one of the “one or two” players that the manager said he was targetting, and again he stressed his desire to sign a defender, saying:

We are out on the market and we work very hard every day. All our scouts, all our people are working very hard to find a defender.

And while I understand how the market operates, and the restrictions you have to deal with in January as the clubs you ideally want to buy from have no intention of letting their best players go, shouldn’t these scouts have been working every day from the end of August until the end of December and prepared a list of potential targets so we could get active in January? Maybe that’s just me being crazy and hoping things might be done in an optimal way, but there you go.

Certainly nothing is going to be done before Sunday and bar in-game injury I can live with that. If we’ve got Mertesacker and Koscielny, and one of Chambers or Bellerin for right back, then that’s not a bad situation to be in (leaving aside I’d much rather we had a fit Debuchy too).

But sometimes it feels like we’re skating on thin ice and when we get to thinnest part of the ice we jump up and down on it and throw rocks into it and shout “Come on then ice, break! I dare you!”, and at some point the ice is just gonna go “Well, you asked for it”, and then we’ll float along underneath it like that bloke from Omen II. We really don’t wanna be that guy, because the ‘DANGER: THIN ICE’ signs have been everywhere and if they’re simply ignored then you pretty much get what you deserve.

Early team news for tomorrow is that Kieran Gibbs will have a fitness test to see if he can make the bench because I’d stick with Monreal at left back anyway, while Ramsey, Ozil and Walcott are all available and a week fitter. Of the three only Ramsey is a likely starter with the other two kept in reserve on the bench – but what nice options they are to have should we need them.

More on that game in the full preview tomorrow, for now I’m going to venture outside. I’ll let you know if it’s safe. Have a good one.

ps – If you haven’t had a chance to listen to yesterday’s Arsecast, get it into ya here.

There are a lot of things that can make a footballer’s career a successful one. The obvious traits like talent, ability, application, professionalism, commitment, hard work, dedication, and the rest, play a big part in whether or not a player makes it.

But there have been many talented, dedicated men who, for one reason or another, never quite got as far as they should have in the game. Perhaps injuries stifled their progress; they had somebody better blocking their path to the first team; a personality clash with a manager could see them ignored; maybe they just never got the break they needed.

There’s a great example from an Arsenal perspective: Ashley Cole. He’d been on loan at Crystal Palace and the story goes we were prepared to let him move there on a permanent basis until we discovered that Silvinho’s passport had been put together at the local print depot with some sticky-back plastic and a cheap laminating machine. Without so much as a word he was moved on to Celta Vigo in Spain and Arsenal needed a left-back. The rest is history – some of it is not particularly pleasant history, but it perfectly illustrated the benefit of timing.

Back in 2009, Sp*rs were considering letting Gareth Bale leave in a £3m deal to Birmingham. I don’t quite know why it didn’t happen, probably some happenstance and not because Harry Redknapp envisaged him developing the way he did, but it’s difficult to imagine his career being on the same trajectory as it is now had that transfer gone through. Would he be an £80m Real Madrid man? I doubt it.

And right now we’re seeing how circumstance and timing can play a major part in a player’s career. If you’d said 6 weeks ago that Francis Coquelin would be the outstanding midfield performer for Arsenal in a win over the champions away from home, most people would have laughed. That’s not to say that there aren’t people who haven’t rated him, but he’d been sent to Charlton on loan after a fairly dismal spell at Freiburg last season, and that loan deal had been extended, usually a sign that we’ve deemed a player surplus to current requirements.

Fast forward a little bit though and Arsene Wenger finds himself without a single fit central midfielder. The perpetually absent Abou Diaby aside, there was no Mikel Arteta, no Mathieu Flamini, no Aaron Ramsey, no Mesut Ozil, and no Jack Wilshere. There were number 10s, like Rosicky and Cazorla, but nobody to play the deep-lying midfield role, the DM.

So, we terminate Coquelin’s loan at Charlton and bring him back because we simply had no other choice. Desperate times call for somewhat desperate measures, and I’m sure the plan was for him to be a stop-gap until others were fit. Yet here we are now, others are fit and Coquelin has just put in a performance that further cements his place, on current form, as the best option for the position.

Against Man City he was tactically and positionally disciplined, he read the game well, tackled well, used the ball well, won lots of headers against some big men, and answered questions as to whether or not he could do it against the best teams in the league. He’d been good in previous weeks and deservedly kept his place in the team, but at the Etihad we saw a player almost transformed. His teammates are talking about him developing into a top-class defensive midfield player.

If Coquelin had been a January 1st signing from another club, we’d be over the moon with what he’s brought to the team and the difference he’s made in a key area of the pitch. He’s physical, quick, good in the air and on the ball, tackles well (if a little rashly at times), and although he doesn’t tick all the boxes people want from their DM in terms of height/size, can there be any real arguments over the job he’s done?

So, it’s no surprise that there are reports this morning of Arsenal trying to tie him down to a new deal. His contract expires in the summer because, well, nobody, not even Arsene Wenger, expected this from him. If we weren’t the spiritual and physical Home of Injuries he’d likely have spent the rest of this season out on loan then drifted off somewhere in the summer and nobody really would have batted an eyelid (although we’d have missed the headline opportunities his name allows).

Now, it’s all very different, isn’t it? Having done what he did against City, on the back of his other performances, there’ll be no shortage of suitors for a guy who turns 24 in May and will be available for free at the end of June. Not long ago he was starting down a dark lonely path in an overgrown forest, now he’s treading the metaphorical red carpet and the spotlight is well and truly on him.

Timing.

It’s to his absolute credit that he’s seized this chance at Arsenal. Whether he’s taken it because he knew this was last-chance saloon time to make it with us, or a genuine opportunity to put himself in the shop window, I don’t know. Either way, he’s played himself into the first team here, he’s ahead of Flamini – also out of contract in the summer – and if you had to choose between renewing one or the other, there’s only one sensible choice.

It was interesting to hear Arsene Wenger after the game on Sunday talk about how internal solutions sometimes present themselves and this one of those. That it took a clutch of injuries to players the manager had considered better options is fortuitous for both him and for Coquelin. He could have come back and struggled to make an impact; instead we’ve now got one of those situations we all enjoy so much – having to convince a player that this is the right place for him before he leaves on a free.

Can Arsene Wenger assure Coquelin that if he signs on he’ll be given the football he obviously wants? Are there summer plans in place that might impact on the player’s decision or even the manager’s offer? There’s talk of things being arranged already with Morgan Schneiderlin – if that was the case and you were Coquelin would you stay, regardless of the offer from us?

It’s not an easy situation. Indeed, there’s also the nagging voice that says Coquelin has shown Arsenal exactly what they need without necessarily being the right man to do that job in the long-term. Still, it’s an interesting problem to have, an unexpected one too, and if Le Coq can keep it up between now and May, then it’ll either make the decision easy for both parties, or one which leaves us ruing the timing of it all.

Whatever happens, it’s one of the nice stories of a season that has been trying for many reasons. A young guy, brought up at this club, has come out of the cold to make himself practically indispensable. I’ll admit I was dubious when he came back first, but on the basis of his performances I’d have no problem with giving him a new deal.

They’re often handed to players who don’t necessarily deserve them but whose monetary value dictates the need for renewal. Coquelin’s performance have dictated the need for his.

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Just another quick plug for yesterday’s Arsecast Extra which you can find here. Bask in the warm glow of beating City as we discuss the game, the outcome and lots more besides.

Till tomorrow.

Morning all.

The manager’s press conference took place yesterday, a day earlier than usual, so we have some stuff to get through this morning. First up that potential deal with Villarreal for Gabriel, and Arsene admitted that talks were ‘progressing’ between the two clubs saying “There is a chance” that we might sign him.

There was none of the ‘Look errr … if we sign somebody you will be the first to know” or “I do not know him” or “No, we are not in for him” stuff that he usually comes out with regarding players we’re about to sign. To me that speaks volumes about how confident we are of doing the deal with the Spanish club, the rest then is up to the home office as we seek a work permit.

And on that he had plenty to say, suggesting the rules precluded a move for a 17 year old Angel di Maria as we wouldn’t have been given a permit for him (although we did manage to get them for Alex Song, Ryo Miyaichi and Denilson, so it’s not as if it’s been a completely closed system). But Wenger’s main point was:

Ideally it would open completely and anyone can come in.

Ideally, but ideally doesn’t just mean that it would be a good thing for clubs to bring in the best players from everywhere in the world. It would mean that all football clubs acted in a way that was beyond reproach, with integrity and honesty, and always working in the best interests of the players they bring in.

Exactly!

When you look at the way some clubs already stockpile players and loan them out you can see easily how they would be able to take advantage of things if they could snap up bargains from around the world. While we’d like to think Arsenal would act in a responsible way (and I’m saying only that we’d like to think that), wouldn’t it make the scatter-gun approach to youth development the norm?

Why invest in a young local player when you can buy 5 cheap imports for the price of his education and salary? If one of them pays off job done, you might make a few bob off the others but they’ll be left to fend for themselves because they’re not up to it. It doesn’t take much to see how a 100% open system would be completely exploited by football clubs and football itself.

It’s gone beyond sport now, it’s big business and with that comes a ruthlessness that perhaps we can’t really identify with but there are already many casualties as young players from certain areas are snapped up by agents, brought to clubs and, essentially, left to sink or swim. For the ones that make it, it’s a chance for a kind of life they could never have at home, but how many fall by the wayside and are set adrift with no care or thought? Where do they end up?

There are European Union rules re: freedom of movement and work which preclude any kind of system which denies them that right, but outside that I think there’s a good reason to have some constraint over where you can buy players from.

The new system proposed by the FA which automatically grants a work permit to any player costing £10m+ seems flawed too. Wenger is right in that price is not always an indication of talent, that’s true for even the most established professionals, but the idea is to stop cheap imports blocking the progress of young local players.

That’s one way of doing it, but maybe there should be more focus on how to improve the standards of young local players in general. It feels a bit like record companies bemoaning and trying to stop downloads rather than figuring out a way to exist in a changed world.

Anyway, yesterday Wenger spoke publicly about the valuation of Gabriel – around £15m – and even if we don’t pay exactly that I’m sure it was part and parcel of showing that this transfer would go through under the new rules that come into play in the summer. If we can convince them of his ‘special talent’ then all the better (and I’d suggest the tackle on Ronaldo at 1’22 in this video is good enough to do that).

Elsewhere, some nice stuff on Santi Cazorla from the manager, including a lovely little anecdote from the Spaniard himself about that free kick in the FA Cup final. And the manager is ‘confident’ that Francis Coquelin will sign the new deal on offer to him.

Time for this week’s Arsecast and to pore over the week that was in the wake of Man City I’m joined by Amy Lawrence. Up for discussion the effects of that result and performance, whether or not the team have broken a kind of psychological barrier, some transfer chatter, Mesut Ozil and loads more – not to mention all the usual waffle.

You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes).

To download this week’s Arsecast directly click here – 37mb MP3. The Arsecast is also available on our SoundCloud channel, as well as via the SoundCloud app for iPhone and Android. You can now also find it on the Stitcher podcasting app for iOS and Android. Or, you can listen without leaving this page by using the player below.

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Righto, there’ll be bits and pieces throughout the day here and over on Arseblog News. In the meantime, have a good Friday.

Morning all, a quick Saturday round-up for you, as having to get out of bed into the cold this morning was thoroughly unpleasant and now I feel most grouchy.

First things first and the manager says he’s unlikely to risk Alexis Sanchez tomorrow because of his hamstring strain. Sensible stuff really, but I can’t be the only one envisaging Ron Vlaar and Philippe Senderos skipping gayly through a field, full of joy, singing ‘La la la la la’ because the idea of having to deal with someone that fast and that good was giving them turtle’s tails.

Nevertheless, you’d like to think Villa is a game we could cope without him, especially with Ozil and Walcott back, Santi rested, Rosicky resurgent and Giroud playing like a football stallion (I’m sensing a theme to this blog). It would be foolish to risk losing him for more difficult encounters, and I suspect the manager might have to put his foot down a bit.

We know the Chilean loves to play. He’d hop into the training ground having been set upon by a gang of ruffians, holding his amputated left leg in his hand and declare himself ready for action. So even if the test on Saturday doesn’t produce anything too scary, I hope we might just, for once, make absolutely sure.

As for accusations that this injury is because he’s been overplayed, well, there’s no doubt he played through the Christmas period when he’s not used to that, but he played 20 minutes v Brighton, and in the last couple of week it’s been 90 minutes with a full seven days between games.

We’ve had plenty of rest between fixtures recently, so it’s not as if it’s been an every 3 day schedule. I’m sure there’s some accumulated fatigue for footballers in general but I think we’ve discovered that tired does not apply to Alexis (I heard he only needs 8 minutes sleep every 72 hours). Anyway, let common sense prevail tomorrow and he’ll be itching to go against that lot next week.

There’s also some interesting stuff about how the data analytics company we bought in 2012 helped with the signing of Gabriel. From what the manager said, it looks like they set some parameters, let the database make suggestions as to the players whose stats fulfill the criteria they were looking for, and then they went and scouted him in the traditional way.

Speaking yesterday, he said:

We look at interceptions, defensive errors, winning tackles, and what we call tackles is committing to win the ball. Set piece receptions, these kind of things, but the most important thing is through the eye.

Does this system find players for us? That is what we look for, of course, because it is difficult to watch all the games. But what I mean is that if the numbers confirm the eye, it gives you more.

It makes perfect sense that in this day and age you would use stats, not to make a decision outright, but to help identify targets or, indeed, to back up (or disprove) what you see when you watch a player in the flesh. There’s so much data available now that it would be bordering on negligence not to use it. When you see the cool radar stuff that Ted Knutson puts together, it’d be a foolish football club that didn’t use all the information possible as part of their recruitment process.

All the same, it’s got to be a combination of the two things. Buying a player based on his stats alone would be madness, as would just watching him (unless the talent was so obvious and outstanding you were bowled over). Wenger said:

We have our own system with qualities we think are important. After that, you have the attitude of the player. Because you can have good stats for a while but if you go out every night until six o’clock in the morning, it won’t last.

The stats do not include nightclubs attended, pints swilled, Manhattans quaffed and how many times you got less than 2 hours sleep before a game because you were up all night to get lucky with some fancy lady. So there’s always going to be a human element to it, but that we’re embracing more of the analytical side is a good thing.

I suppose the comments are also interesting after comments last month from Gilles Grimandi, who definitely seems a more ‘traditional’ scout. He raised questions about the usefulness of some of the stats, and while he might have a vague point, I think the idea that young players are playing in such a way that they’ll become statistically more attractive, at the expense of actual footballing effectiveness, is a bit far-fetched.

I also enjoyed the bits about the language barrier the new boy is facing. He doesn’t speak any English, so the manager said:

That can cost you goals. If you mix going forwards with backwards, it can cost you. It is a position where you need to know your partners and you need to communicate as well.

We try to teach him the important words. Like ‘Offside.’ And ‘Look at the linesman!’

And in the age old style of football clubs I’m sure they’re teaching him that phrases such as ‘Hello, my balls are mighty!’ is a traditional English greeting, but after 18 months in Spain I’m sure his Spanish is more than reasonable and we’ve got loads of Spanish speakers to help him settle in and learn the important lingo.

Right, back tomorrow with a preview of the Villa game, until then have a good Saturday.

Morning all, welcome to a brand new week.

The rest of the weekend’s results didn’t play out quite as nicely as they might have. Although Sp*rs dropped two points it really should have been three as they came back from 2-0 down against West Ham, while Liverpool’s good form continued when they beat a Southampton side who I think will more than likely fade away over the remainder of the season.

All in all though, I don’t think we can argue too much with how things went for us. We stay in third position, hopefully a place from which we can consolidate and make progress. It looks like a four horse race for two Champions League places, so it’s going to require a big, big effort between now and May. Still, when you look at where we were, and also the way we were, there’s room to be somewhat encouraged by the difference.

Final thought on the weekend: can we assume that any club that is hit with an embarrassing scandal will be allowed send their manager out to distract from that by espousing tin-foil hat conspiracy theories and making a hypocrite of themselves when it comes to nasty challenges?

I thought the Barnes tackle on Matic was horrible and worthy of a red card, so I understand the anger and frustration when officials miss them, but people who live in glass houses and all that.

Having scored his 8th goal in 11 games, and his 11th of an injury hit season overall, Olivier Giroud has drawn praise from Arsene Wenger. The boss said:

When I brought him here, and when you look at him today, I think there’s a hell of a difference. That’s credit to him – to the player he was and the player he is today, plus credit for his whole season, where he has worked very hard. I think there’s still room for improvement for him.

The goal against Palace was his 50th for the club in 117 appearances (92 starts and 25 substitute appearances), a pretty decent return by any standards, and the interesting thing is he’s a player who seems to improve every season. In his first campaign he scored 17 goals, his second 22, and despite missing three months with a broken leg he’s into double figures this time around.

Like any player he can still frustrate from time to time, but I think it’s clear that those moments are far less frequent than they used to be, and the contributions he’s making are more decisive. Goals against the big sides are part of his repertoire nowadays – and for many that was the main issue. He was a reliable goalscorer against most teams in the league until we faced the top sides.

Of course to pin that label on him when the team as a whole struggled in these games was a little unfair, but he’s answered those critics this season with strikes against Liverpool, Man City and Man United. It also seems that Giroud as a central hub around which players like Alexis, Walcott, Ozil, Welbeck and Cazorla can do their stuff is an important part of how the manager wants his team to play.

Last season without Walcott we were pedestrian, and at times that served to highlight some of the weaknesses in the Frenchman’s game. Now, with pace, vision, creativity and movement on all sides, he looks a better player. Scratch that, he is a better player. And there’s an interesting variety to the goals he’s scoring too.

He’s definitely not the quickest but there’s an intelligence to his movement that allows him to find vital space in the box. He showed good poaching instincts against Palace on Saturday and he provides us with a genuine aerial threat as the number of headed goals show.

I think there are always going to be people who can’t, or won’t, appreciate what he does because they long for the days of Henry and Bergkamp. While I’d certainly love us to unearth another Thierry, they’re few and far between and if they do exist they’re usually at a club with greater stature and financial power than we possess. That doesn’t mean that Giroud is some kind of hapless chancer though.

He may not be a ‘world class’ striker, but he’s a very, very good one in the best form of his Arsenal career and somebody who is going to play a massive role in what we do between now and the end of the season. He deserves the plaudits and hopefully he can keep up this run of form for another few months.

As for this week, we’ve got Champions League action against Monaco to prepare for, and obviously we’ll cover that over the next couple of days. There’s the need now for the manager to use his squad well as we start to play midweek games again, so it’ll be interesting to see what he does in that regard.

Elsewhere, typically in-depth stuff from Swiss Ramble on the new TV deal is well worth a read. The figures are still mind-boggling, the benefit to consumers of all kinds still unclear. And as always nice 80s music references – the day he works in a Baltimora ‘Tarzan Boy’ one will be a fine day indeed.

Right, that’s about that. James and I will have an Arsecast Extra for you later on this morning. As always if you have any questions or points for discussion, send them to us on Twitter @gunnerblog and @arseblog with the hashtag #arsecastextra and we’ll try and get to as many of them as we can.

Until then.

As I wrote yesterday it’s time to make some progress in the Champions League, and tonight’s clash with Monaco is a chance to put ourselves in a good position ahead of the second-leg in a few weeks time.

The stuff about Arsene Wenger facing his old club is a nice little sideshow, but that’s all it is. Obviously the game will have some emotional significance for him, but it’s a matter of work for the rest. We have played them recently, but a 1-0 defeat in the Emirates Cup in August is more or less irrelevant as it was pre-season and their goalscorer that day, Falcao, is now the pride of Manchester on £350,000 a week.

In terms of our team tonight, the only bit of news from the weekend is that Jack Wilshere is unlikely to be part of the squad having been left out of training yesterday. Although the manager says he hasn’t had a setback and should be available for the weekend, you do have to worry just a little bit – especially as central midfield is an area we’re a little bit short at the moment. Perhaps he just felt a twinge of something and this rest is precautionary, fingers crossed.

It does seem as if Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is back in full training and could be involved, but beyond that everyone we had in the squad at Palace is available. A number of young players, including Krystian Bielik, trained with the first team yesterday.

I do think there might be a change or two with Hector Bellerin returning at right back and I’ve just got a feeling that he might bring back Theo Walcott for this one. Personally, I’d be quite happy for Welbeck to start because when we’re playing a midfield as light on genuine central midfielders as ours is right now, he gives us a bit more balance, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see Walcott get the nod ahead of him for this one as we’re at home.

We know he can get you goals, and the parts of his game that are lacking (e.g his defensive awareness) are offset by the fact we’re playing at home and against a team who look set to try and contain us rather than attack us. Monaco don’t score a lot of goals, but they don’t conceded very many either, and their coach set out their game-plan in his press conference yesterday, saying:

Our strategy is to be solid and not allow Arsenal’s key attacking players to unbalance us.

Sounds a bit like they’re going to sit deep and try to frustrate us that way, rather than take the more proactive approach teams like Sp*rs and Palace have in recent games – something we’ve found a lot more difficult to deal with. All the same, when you’re facing a side that has conceded just three goals in their last seventeen games, you know you’re going to have to work hard for your goals.

But that can’t come at the expense of defensive solidity, something the manager is preaching:

In the last four years we always came out frustrated because three times we conceded a goal at home in the first 30 minutes. That goal knocked us out. It was really tight. We have learnt from that and we can show that on Wednesday. Every single minute of these games will be absolutely massively important.

While it’s fair to say on those occasions we were playing better sides than Monaco, you all know how capable we are of conceding even when it looks like we’re going to see a game out (Palace at the weekend a case in point). But while we’re right to be relatively cautious, this is still a game that we should be winning, taking a good lead to the principality for the second-leg. Those away goals can complicate things a great deal.

Yet with an in-form Olivier Giroud flanked by the attacking talents of Alexis (who I fancy to get back on the scoresheet after 5 games without a goal), Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla and whichever of Walcott or Welbeck is selected, we’ve definitely got plenty to worry the visitors tonight. I think because of the way they’re likely to set-up it’s a game that will suit our line-up, in much the same way as the Boro fixture did.

I’d take the same kind of performance tonight, although maybe being a bit more clinical might take the difficulty out of the second leg. Fingers crossed.

—

As for yesterday’s ‘revelation’ that the World Cup final in 2022 might take place on December 23rd, that’s hardly a surprise. Nobody can realistically argue against the fact that if you’re having a football tournament in the middle of the desert, summer is the worst time to do it.

The bigger question, of course, is why on earth – beyond reasons involving lots of people being made rich by obscenely rich people – you would have a football tournament there. And while the objections to the schedule of the tournament and the impact it might have on European football leagues in particular are obviously valid and very relevant to us, that shouldn’t be the principal reason to be concerned the farce that is Qatar 2022.

The country’s treatment of migrant workers (and some footballers let’s not forget), hundreds of whom have died already, is far more important than when some football games are going to be played. As is its stance on gay people. Not to mention if ever anything stank of corruption and dishonesty then this tournament has a stench way beyond the norm. That everybody knows this is one of the most fraudulent, venal absurdities football, or sport in general, has ever witnessed seems almost irrelevant. The show will go on.

The only effective way of countering it, and FIFA’s continued destruction of the game for commercial gain, is for national football associations to boycott the tournament completely, but the chances of that are slim because many the people who make those decisions are the ones who voted for Qatar in the first place.

If it wasn’t so appalling it would be a joke.

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Remember, if you’re stuck in work later and can’t see the game, fear not. We’ll have full live blog coverage of it for you, just check back here for a post with all the details or bookmark our default live blog page and updates will begin automatically.

Until then.

When Arsenal hit a good spell of form, notable trends emerge in the scorelines which invite inference. In 2013-14, Arsenal led the Premier League for much of the season. Injuries to Ramsey, Walcott and Özil and Olivier Giroud’s personal crisis saw the screws come loose and the Gunners’ title bid careered off course. Between August 2013 and February 1st, 2014, Arsenal won 11 of their games by a scoreline of 2-0. It revealed much of Arsenal’s controlled, contained style.

With the aforementioned players off form or unavailable, Arsenal only managed a solitary 2-0 win between February 2nd and the season’s conclusion- on the final day at Carrow Road. A 2-0 victory was the perfect encapsulation of Wenger’s game plan bearing fruit. When the team were destabilised in the spring, it became elusive. Since Boxing Day, Arsenal have won six games by a scoreline of two goals to one. Given Arsenal’s reliance on Ramsey’s goals, Giroud’s hold up play and Özil’s assists last season, Arsene Wenger has sought to vary the team’s attacking threat.

He has succeeded in that respect, with 20 different players finding the net. In each of the last two campaigns, Wenger has looked to surrender possession in favour of control. The formula has not quite settled yet. With the likes of Welbeck and Alexis on board and with Chamberlain fit for longer periods this season, the manager believes he has the personnel in attack required to play this controlled brand of football. That we are dizzyingly fond of conceding when two goals to the good (Crystal Palace, Leicester, West Ham and QPR x 2) signposts that some refinery is required.

This leads us to the current predicament of Theo Walcott. Walcott has played just 49 minutes of Arsenal’s last six games. It has led many to ponder his relative Siberia. Is Wenger making a statement over Theo’s impending contract negotiations? It could be that he is preparing for life without Walcott (and I covered why his renewal will be such a political hot potato back in December), but I think the reasons to be more ‘footballistic’ than that.

The problem for Walcott is that he is becoming a very specific type of player for a very specific type of situation, which simply has not arisen much lately. His technical shortcomings can render him ineffective against deep, well organised defences. Here, the superior dribbling ability of Oxlade-Chamberlain is preferable. His defensive weakness makes him an inferior candidate when the team are protecting a lead. Theo has not really ironed out either weakness during his time at Arsenal, though, in fairness to him, he has not really had the chance to in the last year because of injury.

Last week I appeared on the Arsenal America podcast with Tim from 7amkickoff who explained, that, whilst Arsenal are content to cede possession, players that can dribble are more ideally suited to the starting line-up. Having less of the ball puts pressure on you to be effective when you do have it. Players such as Alexis, Chamberlain and Rosicky are good at carrying the ball and relieving pressure on their midfield and defence and at committing opposing defences. Welbeck meanwhile, has a good work rate and is economical in possession.

Walcott is a player that relies more greatly on service from others, which can occasionally render him a passenger. Wenger recently explained, tellingly in Walcott’s case, “When you have the ball in the modern game you have to attack, when you don’t have the ball you have to defend. All the players who can’t do that, cannot play.” Being happy to surrender possession has defensive consequences. For a start, the team has to be more structured and disciplined and, again, this hardly plays to Theo’s strengths.

He is also unfortunate that the midfield balance has been disrupted so considerably of late. The likes of Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Mathieu Flamini and Mikel Arteta have been simultaneously unavailable. The midfield has, by necessity, taken on a distinctly attacking bent, with Cazorla and Mesut Özil often present together in the midfield three. Ergo, Arsenal’s front three have needed to become more rigid and more structured.

Alexis has suffered a drought of sorts because he does not have the same freedom to move inside. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s only recent goal came from a central midfield position against Monaco. Danny Welbeck’s solitary goal in 2015 arrived whilst playing as a centre forward. (Obviously, there is a caveat here that both players have had their injury issues recently). Again, dangerous player though he is, when you talk about ‘structure’ and ‘discipline’, the words ‘Theo’ and ‘Walcott’ appear next to them only as antonyms.

In the aftermath of the victory at Old Trafford, Mesut Özil revealed that, “We concentrated on our work off the ball”, which would explain why Walcott was not called for from the bench. That omission may have hurt Theo most of all. Much was made of Wenger’s decision to start Welbeck through the centre as a decision informed by psychology. But it’s more likely that Wenger thought United’s defence would leave spaces and were susceptible to swift combination play and runs in behind. Nacho Monreal’s goal was the proof in that particular pudding.

Chamberlain, Alexis and Welbeck constitutes a ‘nippy’ front three capable of exploiting space in behind. Alexis and Chamberlain were able to commit United’s wing backs with their dribbling. Chamberlain attempted 5 take ons, successfully completing four of them. In deference to this threat, van Gaal brought on Carrick and Jones at half time and moved to a more conventional back four shape. Wenger opted for a front three with pace and movement and still did not think Theo Walcott to be one of his three best options to achieve this strategy. Walcott is a player that moves without the ball, in this Arsenal side, players that can move with it and chase back when they do not have it are needed.

Walcott was partly responsible for Tottenham’s winning goal back in February, as his lack of defensive awareness saw Bentaleb afforded time and space to pick out Harry Kane. Three days later, he was on the score sheet against Leicester, but he attempted only 9 passes in his 73 minutes on the pitch, hitting the target with 6 of them. As the Foxes rallied in the second half, Walcott was once again a bystander. As Lukas Podolski discovered to his cost, scoring a goal does not mean your job is done.

With a more varied goal threat (even Ramsey’s goals have not been enormously missed) and other rapid forwards to choose from, Walcott’s shortcomings are becoming more difficult to overlook. There is also the thorny question as to whether he can play in the same side as Alexis Sanchez. They have only started together once, against Leicester in February. Walcott has substituted Alexis twice, which suggests that Wenger sees the former as an understudy for the latter. They are both similar sorts of player, with the Chilean far superior. To play both constitutes a technical risk unless you play one of them centrally, or else have them rotate a kind of false 9 role.

In fairness to Walcott, his cruciate ligament injury has cost him the chance to really work on his weaknesses over the last twelve months, or to find a blend with some of his newer teammates. At this stage of the season, the manager will be much less inclined to experiment or to try to create new bonds in the team with results such a valuable currency. The team spent much of the first half of the season searching for chemistry and Arsene is not likely to create instability with signs of fomentation at hand.

However, Walcott is going to have to prove that he can groove to a new tune, or else he will remain in a sealed envelope marked ‘Plan B.’

Follow me on Twitter @Stillberto

Morning all, and welcome to Friday.

As we play Newcastle tomorrow, the manager’s press conference took place yesterday and in terms of the team news, there really isn’t any. Tomas Rosicky might return to the squad after a bout of illness. Other than that there’s nobody banjaxed from the midweek exertions against Monaco, the likes of Debuchy, Arteta and Oxlade-Chamberlain are still sidelined, and that’s about that.

Not terribly exciting, but then it’s a bit like no news being good news. We’re reaching the stage where even relatively minor injuries can be enough to end somebody’s season, so the less we have to talk about in that regard, the better.

The biggest ‘story’ of the presser was the manager’s call, once more, for the away goals rule to be changed or, even better, scrapped entirely. It seems self-evident that when a certain rule affects you that’s when you talk about it, however many view it as Arsene Wenger using it as an excuse. The truth is that he’s been unequivocal about why we went out of Europe – it was our first leg performance, the late goal, and not taking enough of the chances we created in the two legs.

Of course when you talk about this after you go out on away goals, people accuse you of sour grapes, but if they can’t see there’s a genuine discussion to be had about this rule then that’s their problem. It’s a pain to have to qualify again that nobody is blaming anything but our own ineptitude in the tie against Monaco, but there you go.

The other thing to point out is that he didn’t summon the members of the press specifically so he could rant and rave about the away goals rule. He was asked about it at a pre-arranged press conference because it was relevant to what happened to Arsenal this week, and he gave his answer:

It’s a rule that is outdated now and has to be changed. I’ve fought for that for a long time. It should count maybe after extra time because this rule was created in the sixties to encourage teams to attack away from home. Since then football has changed. The weight of the away goal is too big today.

I think it’s one of the most ridiculous rules in football. A goal should count as one goal, the location of where the goal is scored ought to be irrelevant. The idea that it promotes attacking football is a fallacy too because it makes conceding at home so costly. Even look at our situation, Monaco had no attacking intent on Tuesday – and why would they? They knew the onus was on us after messing up in the first leg so they could sit back and defend.

Here’s Jack Wilshere talking ahead of Bayern Munich at home last season:

If it is 0-0 at home we still have a big chance of qualifying, because the away goal is massive, especially in this competition when it comes to these big games.

Ok, the idea of us playing out a 0-0 at home is kinda ludicrous, but it does illustrate the fact it’s a good result for the team playing at home in the first leg. Does that then make it more likely the away team will play an attacking game? I’m not sure it does.

Here’s Wenger from December 2013:

I have asked for UEFA to cancel the away goals. Sometimes I think there is a counter-effect as teams play at home not to concede goals. At home the first thing managers say is let’s not concede goals.

There are those who suggest that a goal scored away from home is more difficult, and therefore worth more when it comes to deciding a tie. A few people on Twitter yesterday questioned whether or not an arbitrary reward also should be given to keeping a clean sheet on your travels. It’s a reasonable question in the context of this discussion.

My personal preference would be to settle games via a penalty shoot-out. Critics of that complain that it’s a lottery, when it’s anything but. It’s a test of skill, character and nerve in a high pressure situation. It’s an exciting and fair way to decide a game that has ended when both teams have scored the same amount of goals and can’t be separated after extra-time.

It means games are won or lost by what players do with a ball. This is football. Not geographyball. If you fail from 12 yards, that’s on you, rather than an archaic ruling based on whose name came out of the hat first. I’d like to see it scrapped altogether, I doubt that it will be though because organisations that think it’s a good idea to have a World Cup in the winter in the desert can’t really be trusted to do the right thing for the game.

Right then, time for the Arsecast and on this week’s show I chat with Philippe Auclair about the Champions League exit, how we might make progress in Europe, our current form, the away goals rule and more. And there’s the usual waffle as we look ahead to a game against Newcastle which is followed by an untimely Interlull.

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Right, that’s that. News throughout the day on Arseblog News, The Gent should be here later on, and we’ll be here to preview, live blog and all the rest for Newcastle tomorrow.

Until then have a good one.

Good morning.

It’s Saturday and I am somewhat hungover. Sometimes I look around a bar I’m in late at night with envy because I see people and think ‘I bet none of you lot have to get up and write something first thing tomorrow morning’.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the bar is full of secret bloggers who have to do exactly that. Like the chap who runs MyLittlePugblog where he dresses his pugs up as My Little Ponies and makes them have adventures and all those strange people who like My Little Pony read them and start their day with a smile before they think about how they’re going to dispose of the people they keep captive in their basements.

However, I doubt it. If you run a blog like that my guess is you don’t spend a lot of time out late at night because you like to stay indoors and do things to yourself. With implements, and that. If I’m unfairly stereotyping then I apologise.

Us football bloggers are, of course, the epitome of normality and quotidian existence. I mean, what’s more everyday than getting up every day of your life to write about some chaps who like to welly a round sphere around some grass for living?

Exactly.

There’s not a lot happening, as you would expect. Danny Welbeck apparently played well for England last night as they beat Lithuania 4-1. He scored and got an assist so he’ll be feeling good about himself this morning. His oats or granola, or whatever he’s going to have for breakfast, will taste extra delicious. However, the fact that he’s returned to us with ‘knee tweak’ is something of a worry, so let’s keep fingers crossed it’s nothing serious.

Meanwhile, Arsene Wenger has spoken about new FA proposals which would require top-flight clubs to have 12 ‘home grown’ players in their squads. As you would expect, he’s not a fan, saying:

I believe that we are in the world of competition. Competition means either you or me is the best one. We have to accept that. That means as well that the rules of the game must be structured to favour the best or we are not in a competition anymore.

So we can say one of two things – we protect the mediocre or we produce the best players.

I am in complete agreement. For some reason England’s lack of success in international tournaments is seen as being the most important problem for those who run the game to solve. I think we all remember back in the 1970s and 80s when foreign players were rare and England won the World Cup and European Championships all the time, but then foreigners arrived and they took our jobs and now England are terrible at football.

So clearly the way to solve that is to hamstring club sides because that’s where the issue us. And then when English clubs get knocked out of the Champions League at an early stage we can see the problem will be because the foreign players in the squads are keeping the super-talented English boys out of the team and new schemes will be put in place to make sure that each squad has 25 players all born within a vicar’s jizz of the stadium of said team and that local spirit will see them bring success and glory back with a jolly how do you do, a throw of their flat cap in the air and manly hug for all around them and certainly not a continental kiss on each cheek.

I think most people want to see local players do well. At Arsenal we’ve certainly given them plenty of chances and made room for them in squad. The much vaunted ‘British Core’ is great to see but ultimately those players should only play if they’re the best players, not because of their passport or where they were born. It’s up to them to fight their way into the team, because if they’re there by default then it will do absolutely nothing to raise the standard of player which, I assume, is the thinking behind such a scheme.

Could the FA not consider more investment in youth football, better coaching, a focus on skill and technical ability above and beyond stamina and aggression, and countless other measures that would improve young players? That’s what will make them better, and give them a better chance in a truly competitive environment rather than one that has been artificially weighed in their favour.

It’s the real-life equivalent of giving every player in your FIFA team 100 speed, winning every game you play with a doctored team, but then wondering why you’re still losing when you have to play with everything reset to normal. But then actual joined up thinking regarding football, especially by those who have authority, is rare, so I don’t think we should be surprised by this proposal despite how stupid it is.

Right, that’s about as much as I can manage. Catch you tomorrow, have a good Saturday.

“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” So said sage philosopher Joey Barton Friedrich Nietzsche. I think we can all agree that Jose Mourinho is both a monster and a huge festering abyss on the football landscape and he will be tucked away in his lair staring deep into the soul of this Arsenal team. (Whilst indulging his favourite hobby, ‘puppy discus’).

Much has been written about the rivalry between Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho, the opposites that do not attract. Both are habitually used as a journalistic tool to describe the extreme ends of a spectrum. Mourinho is effectively football’s answer to Nigel Farage. He’s a WUM that harnesses the negative energy he attracts from others to empower him. He’s quite successful at doing this, which makes us despise him even more and, in turn, fuels his fire further. It’s a vicious cycle.

Wenger often plays down the personal angle between the two managers. I do not doubt his sincerity when he says that the game will only ever be about both sets of players on the day and how they perform. But I also think that in his private moments, Wenger’s record against Mourinho will wound his pride. I think Arsene’s distaste for the Chelsea manager is reasonably obvious, culminating in a number of spiky ripostes down the years, verbal and physical.

To lose any match deeply hurts Wenger, but to have lost his 1,000th match as Arsenal boss 6-0 to a Mourinho team would have been the vinegar in his stigmata. He might not obsess about it and certainly would not reveal it publicly, but his well publicised record against the Portuguese is a monkey on his back, make no mistake. A sore on the inside of his cheek that would heal if he could only stop tonguing it. In truth, I’m not sure Mourinho reserves a special dislike for Wenger compared to any other manager. Any one of his competitors is fair game as far as Jose is concerned. Even the mild mannered Pellegrini has earned his acid tongued wrath on occasion.

I am almost certainly viewing this through a prism of Arsenal bias, but in an ideal world, I think most people would want somebody like Wenger to triumph over an oligarch funded cynic like Jose. If this match up were a Hollywood script, Wenger would eventually triumph against the non-diegetic backdrop of a string quartet, the credits rolling over a freeze-frame of Arsene punching the air in delight.

However, we do not live in an ideal word. We live in a world where the prevailing ideology is the one backed by the most wealth and power. The financial disparity between Mourinho’s teams and Wenger’s teams is the primary reason for the Indian sign that the Chelsea man holds over him, but it is certainly not the only reason. Lesser managers with smaller resources than Arsene Wenger have bested Mourinho in fewer attempts.

As a coach, Mourinho is a spoiler, prepared to morph into rock, paper or scissors depending on what the situation calls for. It’s made Wenger’s more fluid approach into meat for Jose’s carnivores to feast on. Wenger is a coach that looks to accentuate strengths. To embrace loose logic, if your dribbling ability is at about 90% and your heading is around 50%, Wenger will work to get your dribbling closer to 100% and leave your heading be. Mourinho will identify that opponent with a weakness in the air, and he’ll have his team hit high balls towards him.

This week, Mourinho will be assessing and probing for chinks in Arsenal’s armour. He’ll look at their recent unbeaten run and try to identify weaknesses. This means that Wenger will probably have to profile his team’s recent weaknesses if he wants to defeat Mourinho. I suspect this makes Wenger, the confidence coach, uncomfortable, which may go some way to explaining his poor record against his adversary. Arsenal’s form tends to be very consistent in that you often get spells of bad results and prolonged periods of good results. His tenet is reliant on confidence, which is why his team’s form is rarely patchy one way or the other.

That said, with better players and some harsh lessons learned last season, Wenger has shown signs that he can exploit opposition weakness. He suffocated David Silva at Manchester City, he had his forwards ravenously pressure the Liverpool back three and he had Fellaini shackled at Old Trafford. Even at Stamford Bridge, Arsenal showed a greater willingness to be compact, Jack Wilshere practically man marked Fabregas on that occasion, but little details went against Wenger’s side that day. Francis Coquelin has become a key component since then and he has had a big role to play in the aforementioned successes.

It’s one thing identifying an opponent’s weaknesses and strengths, as Wenger has done for games against City, Liverpool and Manchester United. The difference with facing a Mourinho team is that it will be tailored to your specific weaknesses. So whilst contingency plans will need to be made for the likes of Hazard and Fabregas, Wenger is going to have to consider his own team’s foibles. For instance, the Gunners looked susceptible to the counter attack against Reading, Burnley and Liverpool. Reading and Burnley did not have the attacking quality to take advantage.

One can also quite imagine that Eden Hazard would have made a lot more of a particularly threatening Liverpool breakaway than Lazar Markovic managed a few weeks ago. The Gunners have also indulged a peculiar habit of beginning second halves very slowly indeed. Against West Ham, Newcastle, Liverpool, Burnley and Reading, Arsenal allowed their opponents to start the second half on the front foot. Chelsea do not have to win, so I expect them to be very conservative, but don’t be surprised to see them try to up the momentum at the beginning of the second period.

In the past, Chelsea have been quite happy to squeeze Arsenal and force them to congest all of their play into central areas. If Arsenal are to persist with Aaron Ramsey on the right hand side, Wenger is going to have to consider this from an attacking perspective. At the same time, Hazard starts nominally from the left for Chelsea so defensive caution will be required on the right too, so there may be a temptation to play Danny Welbeck there, or else to move Alexis to the right and Ozil to the left, with Ramsey playing in the centre.

Ozil and Alexis are Arsenal’s best players, so Mourinho will certainly make some kind of plan for them. Moving their positions may add an element of surprise, but could equally risk the recent chemistry the two have been creating. There are a plethora of questions to consider, but to some degree, Wenger is probably going to venture outside his comfort zone to slay his greatest foe. He is going to have to turn the microscope inwards to the weaknesses of his own team, whilst taking care not to over-think them.

It’s a delicately perched tightrope, but it’s about time Arsene made it to the other side to deliver Mourinho a well deserved uppercut.

Follow me on Twitter @Stillberto

Good morning to you.

The manager’s press conference ahead of the Chelsea game took place yesterday. My favourite bit was his face at around 8’35 in when it’s put to him that Mourinho is something of a ‘tactical genius. I tried to do a screengrab but it doesn’t lend itself to that – you need the animated GIF experience and I’m not sure how to do that and I just can’t be arsed learning at this time of the morning. You can watch it yourselves here.

Anyway, the team news is that Per Mertesacker hasn’t trained all week and is 50-50 for Sunday. If I were a betting man I’d say we’re going to have to do without him, which is a bit of a blow because he and Koscielny look to have settled into a very nice rhythm recently. Maybe we can give him an injection or something but we run the risk then of doing further damage, and with Gabriel in the squad now the need isn’t as pressing as it might have been.

Mikel Arteta is back in full training but unlikely to be anything more than a substitute if he’s involved, while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain remains sidelined and reports this morning suggest that his season is done due to the groin injury he’s suffering with. It was interesting how much football he’d played this season until the injuries kicked in. It felt like the manager was starting him on a much more regular basis and not just because he had to either.

He’s still to nail down a single position as his own, the versatility is both a help and a hindrance to an extent, but I think he’s made real progress. It’d be a shame if his season was over, but if there’s a problem that needs fixing, it’s not as if we don’t have the depth to cope right now. We should get him back fit and ready for August and I suspect he’s going to become an important cog next season.

It seems early to preview the Chelsea game in any way, but obviously there are sideshows to this particular fixture. The manager called for respect for Cesc Fabregas, saying:

I want Cesc Fabregas when he comes to the Emirates on Sunday to be respected like he deserves.

Which, when you read it properly, is quite open ended. I mean, I think the manager genuinely wants former players to be remembered for what they did on the pitch rather than how they left, even if it was contentious, but he often phrases it in such a way that it leaves it very open for people to take their own interpretation from it. Different people will feel he deserves a different reception, but it’s all part of the pantomime of football.

Stories this morning about how he hasn’t spoken to the former captain since his return to England are little more than the papers adding a bit of extra spice to a situation that doesn’t really need it. What are they going to do? Spend hours on the phone reminiscing?

“Remember that time you left for Barcelona?”

“Remember that time you made me play with Denilson and Song instead of buying Xabi Alonso?”

“You hang up”

“No, YOU hang up”

It’s all nonsense. And of course there’s the issue of the managers. They’re never going to be friends – Tim Stillman touches on the two in his column this week – and obviously after the touchline shenanigans at Stamford Bridge the media, and every neutral, will be hoping it all kicks off again and we can witness the Chelsea manager cower away from a 64 year old man.

Arsene played that down too, as you’d expect, saying:

It’s not a confrontation of two managers, it’s a confrontation of two clubs, two teams. What is important is when the game starts at four o’clock, to have a great game. That’s what English football needs, to know that Arsenal against Chelsea is a big game and is not about the relationship between the managers.

Naturally, I’m not concerned in the slightest about what English football needs. What I need is for us to win this game, to get that Mourinho monkey off our back then to boot the monkey in its monkey balls then put it in a car, go speeding off down a motorway then throw it out the window and see how good it is at dodging traffic (hopefully not very – like your Grandad playing his first game of Frogger).

We shall see how it all plays out, but right now it’s time for this week’s Arsecast and I’m joined by Dan Levy of France24 to discuss getting to the FA Cup final, Olivier Giroud and the progress he’s made as player this season and the reasons behind that, the Chelsea game this weekend and the return of that Spanish fella. There’s all the usual waffle in there too and perhaps a little rant about the source of all the world’s evil or something.

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Right so, that’s your lot for today. The Gent will be here later on with his weekly review, more from me tomorrow.

Morning to you. There’s a delicateness to my head which can only be cured by coffee and pork related products. I must make this happen.

There are some headlines about Jose Mourinho ‘hitting back’ at Arsene Wenger over something the manager said about defending being easy. The Chelsea manager made some kind of vaguely snide comment about how if defending was easy we wouldn’t have lost 3-1 to Monaco and I suppose we’re all meant to go crazy about this, but if this is the extent of the pre-game sniping then there’s not much to get upset about.

Yeah, we lost a game which we shouldn’t have by playing poorly but I don’t have any context for Arsene’s quote so I don’t really know how it was presented. My best guess is that when Mourinho held his pre-game press conference it was put to him in a way that provoke a reaction and didn’t include all the complimentary things he said about Chelsea’s season and their position at the top of the table.

Things like:

Nobody has given Chelsea the points. They had to fight for it and they made it.

And:

They are the team that have lost less games than any other team so the Premier League rewards the consistency and on that front, they have been defensively very strong and very consistent.

Of course it wouldn’t make for much in the way of a story if they said that Wenger had acknowledged that they’ve been the most consistent side in the league this season. And lest anyone think that this is some kind of Chelsea love-in, it should be noted, for the record, that they are worse than war criminals who put pineapple on pizza, just for balance, obviously.

As I mentioned yesterday the media would love another coming together of the two managers, and in an interview with Sky Sports Olivier Giroud spoke about the touchline incident at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season when Arsene reacted to a shocking Gary Cahill challenge on Alexis:

He’s got good self-control but we were a bit surprised by his reaction. But it’s a human reaction and I’m well placed to speak about that because I’m an emotional player. I don’t keep my feelings for me and that’s why sometimes it happens.

And then:

Honestly, from my point of view I was more proud of that. It shows his character and if he has done that maybe it was justified.

If this was a Facebook status update or an Instagram post I would LIKE the shit out of it. I recall criticism of him for the way he got involved with Mourinho at that time, but it’s a manager pushing one of history’s greatest monsters after one of his stormtroopers got away with a tackle that could have snapped Alexis’ leg. What’s the problem?

Obviously it would be better if there was no repeat tomorrow – from the very basic perspective that it means one of those wankers in blue hasn’t gone in studs up and over the ball on one of our players – but if it had to happen again I’d back our manager 100%. I’m not saying that the Premier League needs to see Jose Mourinho taken out with a blunderbuss, only that if it happens there’s probably a very good reason for it.

Meanwhile, ticket prices for the FA Cup final have been announced and there’s been an increase on last season. The 25,000 allocation has been confirmed and that will obviously leave a large swathe of the Arsenal season ticket population unhappy after the ballot.

The fact that we’re wearing yellow is also now 100% and I have to say I love that. I know that the last few times we’ve worn yellow in a final it hasn’t gone as well as we might have liked, but what makes it easy to deal with is the fact that what colour shirts we had on had absolutely no bearing on what happened in those games.

Kick-off time is 5.30 which, as we all know, is goddam stupid and supposed to suit the people who are going to watch on TV. Every year the FA do more to diminish a great competition and having the game kick off so late in the evening is part of that when a good old fashioned 3pm would suit everybody just as well. It’s a Saturday, it’s not like you have to schedule it for people coming home from work. Still, the really expensive consultants they hired probably suggested this was the ‘optimum schedule’ or something so they’ve gone with that.

Right, that’s just about that. Today is the traditional Arseblog 5-a-side tournament, a majestic showcase of football and certainly not an event where really hungover people wish they’d been a little more abstemious the night before. It’s a rum-powered display of scintillating attacking, creative midfield play, no-nonsense defending and, perhaps, a little bit of vomiting on the side of the pitch.

Up the Greens! Till tomorrow.

Happy Saturday to you. It’s absolutely pissing down with rain here in Dublin, it’s grey, my head is somewhat *boilked* after one too many pints of Scraggy Bay last night.

Still, I came home and wrote what I think is possibly the most insightful, informative article of my life on Arseblog News last night. It’s no wonder so many writers are inveterate drunks when this is the kind of quality you churn out when you’re working half-cut – I might even have been three-quarters cut, in fairness.

I do like the idea of Chile trying to stop Alexis playing in the FA Cup final. I know they wouldn’t, but imagine if they tried. This is a man who lives for football, as you can see by his performances, so trying to invoke some flaky FIFA rule to stop him turning out in a showpiece game like this would be utterly fruitless.

I heard that sometimes after training Alexis is out there doing things with the football and he has to be called in to stop him just playing all day. He challenges some of the young players to games of three-and-in. From time to time he’ll come up to Arsene Wenger and ask ‘Do you need anything from the shops? I’ll run and get it. TIME ME!’, to see if he can beat his own record. His car door can only be opened by him kicking a football into specially designed bucket 50 yards away. His fridge contains no food, just fresh footballs. After years of garden practice his dogs, Atom and Humber, are both good enough to play for mid-table Premier League sides.

So, I don’t think there’s any danger of him missing out. However, because the Copa America runs from mid-June until the final on July 4th, there is a danger of him being not quite ready for the start of the new season. You would hope that the lessons of this season will be learned and that, despite his huge importance, he’s given the proper rest to ensure that his season isn’t afflicted in the same way as some of the World Cup returnees this year.

Not only that, we have to make sure that the squad is strong enough to cope without him for a while. That wasn’t the case this season. We had to throw Per Mertesacker back into action after just a week of pre-season training and he remains the player with the most Premier League minutes to his name. The same with Mesut Ozil. It’s not quite as intense as the World Cup but still, let’s make sure that whatever we do with our squad this summer – and I think there’ll be a few things going on – we don’t put ourselves in a position where Alexis is necessary early on and we suffer the consequences of that (of course if they don’t get our of their group then it’s a moot point, but we’ll see).

The manager’s press conference was pretty uninteresting yesterday. There was some stuff about Mourinho and ‘respect’ but frankly it’s too dull to go into. I don’t think anyone could argue against the fact he can be a classless boor at times, but that’s just the way he operates as a manager. I’m sure he likes his kids and does a lotta good for charidee but doesn’t like to talk about it, but as some players are different animals on the pitch to off it, his Modus operandi is well known.

I don’t think it’s anything that unduly bothers Wenger, and he’ll know that looking for the Chelsea manager to behave more respectfully is like asking a dolphin not to be a complete arsehole, but hopefully now this whole thing is trickling to a close. The only way I want this to resurface is if the boring becomes boaring, and it’s a giant pig tusking the shite out of Mourinho, but I’m not holding my breath.

Not much else happening this morning. If you haven’t already you can check out yesterday’s Arsecast with Paolo Bandini and Jeorge Bird – who many people have pointed out sounds uncannily like Jack Wilshere. Thankfully Jeorge is not quite as injury-prone and you can check out his latest column on the Arsenal youth over on Arseblog News too.

I think some coffee and bacon is in order now, then I have to get into the right gear to take the dog for a walk. Till tomorrow.

Good morning, a very quick Saturday round-up for you after what was a pretty dull press conference yesterday. Normally the build-up to a game against Man Utd would be a little more intense, but with the top four secured for both sides, the prize for victory is now just avoiding an early season qualifier.

If we win, we finish at least third, and even if we lose the game we have in hand on United means that if we win our final two games then the benefit of not having to play two legs in August is ours. It’s not quite what it used to be for either side, but maybe next year there’ll be more to it.

So, with the title, along with the race for the top four and two of the relegation places are all wrapped up, there’s little else for press to focus on except what might happen this summer. Already the silly season wheels are turning and I suspect it’s going to be one of those summers where it goes completely bananas. No World Cup, no European Championships, the Copa America and Copa de Oro are too far away to have a real impact, so it’s going to SWOOPS and BATTLES and STARLETS and agents and clubs fanning the flames like nobody’s business.

Even yesterday Arsene Wenger was asked about signing Petr Cech from Chelsea. Arsenal need a goalkeeper see. That’s the thing that’s the story. I mean, I’d be quite happy if we got an excellent new goalkeeper who was better than the ones we have, but I’m not 100% convinced we need one and even at that I’m not sure a guy who can’t get into Chelsea’s team is the right man. Maybe I’m alone in that, but there you go.

Again, just for clarity, if you can find a keeper better than Ospina and Szczesny, go for it, but I don’t think our inability to challenge for the title this season had much to do with either of them really. Anyway, as expected he was asked about Cech and if he might be interested. His reply:

I don’t deal with the ‘if’. We have world-class goalkeepers, we’ve got three (Ospina, Szczesny, Martinez).

I did notice some people get a bit bent out of shape over this particular quote, but it’s one of those where there’s little else he can say. We’ve got four games left this season, including a cup final in which he might pick his second choice stopper; he can hardly suggest that they’re all inferior to a bloke wearing a hat who can’t get a game for Chelsea.

He might need all three of them between now and May 30th, you just never know, so to say anything in public that might be damaging to their confidence would be daft. But let’s say that he does think that all three of them are worse than a bloke who wears a hat and can’t get a game for Chelsea and he wants to sign that bloke, letting the world know you think your keepers aren’t as good as that hat wearing chap doesn’t do much for your hand in the transfer market.

“We offer you £10.99 for Ospina”

“No, we consider him a fine player and would want more than that.”

“But you said the other week he was worse than a bloke who wears a hat who can’t get a game for Chelsea. Fiver.”

“All right then. *sigh*”

So look, take him at face value or don’t, but there’s so much of what a manager says in public that could be at odds with his private thoughts. That’s not just true of Wenger, it’s true across the board. Whether we’re in the market for a keeper this summer or not, I have no idea. If the manager thinks the bloke in the hat is worth the money, then he’ll pay it – assuming that Chelsea will allow him to come to us and, also, that he might not want to go elsewhere in his career.

I think our money could be better spent this summer. Bar Szczesny’s do-lally day at Southampton, I don’t think either he or Ospina have been especially culpable for points dropped. Sure, they’ve had a couple of shaky moments between them, moments where they might have done better, but overall I don’t think it’s as pressing as finding the extra 15 goal a season player, or ensuring that we have the requisite depth in all areas of the pitch so that we can cope properly with injury – which is the thing that really had the biggest impact on this season for me.

Anyway, there’ll be plenty more of that to come over the next couple of months, but we do have a season to finish first so let’s get on with that.

Right, that’s just about that, other than to point you in the direction of this post which gives you details of some new Arseblog merchandise. There are various t-shirts and the long-awaited return of the *boilk* mug which does have magical properties* when filled with coffee the morning after a long night on the hooch.

To celebrate the launch there’s 20% off all t-shirts until next Friday, and the final few copies of the Together: the story of Arsenal’s unbeaten season are available at a small discount too (it was launched a year ago yesterday, time flies).

Right, have yourselves a good Saturday. Back tomorrow with a preview of the United game.

* magical properties not guaranteed

I had the oddest dream this morning that my office was in the house next door and I had to do some really early morning work. I woke up one of the girls who lives there and she said, quite grumpily, ‘Well, I suppose I’d better go and do the make-up for the team’.

I knew this to mean that she was going to do the Arsenal team’s make-up before the FA Cup final photo shoot, so she picked up a large tin of white emulsion, a battered old paintbrush and stormed out the door. Then I discovered I was carrying a bag full of baby owls, so I left them there and went back home because owls freak me out. Odd.

Thankfully my actual office is an owl free zone, so we can get on with this morning’s blog, and we’ll start with some unfortunate news ahead of the final on Saturday, and that’s that Danny Welbeck has been ruled out of the game by Arsene Wenger. Speaking yesterday, he said:

Welbeck will be short because he has not practiced yet.

Of course we know things can surprise you from time to time and he might recover, but that’s a bit of a shame, especially as he played such a big part in the win at Old Trafford and provides a very decent alternative to Olivier Giroud in the centre-forward position. It’s offset by the performance of Theo Walcott against West Brom and I think – even if you have to take that game in its end of season, West Brom not giving a fish’s tit, context – he’s got to be pushing for a start on Saturday.

I guess that’s going to be one of the talking points of the week. Will it be Giroud or Walcott up front? That, along with Szczesny or Ospina in goal, will have everyone guessing because, for the most part, the rest of the team picks itself. Players like Mathieu Debuchy, Mikel Arteta and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have spent so long out that even if they were declared fit you couldn’t risk them in a final as their first game back.

At this point I think it’s going to be: GK, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Cazorla, Ramsey, Ozil, Alexis, FW. I don’t expect any hints from the manager at all so unless something happens that makes it obvious we’re going to be speculating right up until kick off.

At this moment in time, if it were up to me, I’m leaning towards an Ospina – Walcott combo. I prefer Szczesny as a player, but my concern is that he hasn’t played in 5/6 weeks and I think if the manager was going to play him at Wembley he should have played him against West Brom. I’d be worried he’d come into the game slightly too ‘cold’ as it were. But then I remember I much prefer him to Ospina and I second-guess myself.

The same goes with Walcott. The quality of his first half performance was unquestionable, but we know he’s capable of that from time to time, not always consistently. Still, it was a cracking hat-trick and he’s got that going into the final whereas Giroud hasn’t scored in 8 games and looks a bit leggy at the moment.

But is scoring in one game ‘form’? I don’t think it is. Isn’t Giroud bound to find his shooting boots sooner rather than later and might not his defensive contribution be important – especially if you’re playing a small goalkeeper who has just had a game where that part of his game was exposed? Decisions decisions, eh?

Anyway, as I said this will go on throughout the week but we’ll try not to revisit it until much closer to the game, if possible. And for a little more on the goalkeeping issue in particular, there’s some good stuff in the latest By the numbers column from @7amkickoff.

Meanwhile, some strong words from Arsene Wenger who is concerned that the early start to next season and the late finish to this one won’t give players anywhere near enough time to get some rest. He says:

The players have played the World Cup, then you have no winter break, and when you reach the FA Cup final, you play on May 30, then the European players who are called up by their international teams play until June 14, then you start on August 8.

If you count six weeks’ preparation, where is the time for recovery? As a manager, you usually have a bit of time to relax after the season when there is no international competition, but this year we finish at the end of May and start again at the end of June.

He also had a little pop at FIFA too (why not?!) about the scheduling of the Copa America which could see Alexis play into July, which is obviously a bit of a concern simply because there has to come a point where even his boundless energy is depleted.

It is disappointing that they speak a lot about the health of the players, but when you look at the competition that is organised, this Copa America, and look at the date of the start of the Premier League, it is not reasonable.

Little by little common sense is being removed from the game as commercial interests dictate what happens. From ticket prices to last-minute fixture changes, Friday night football, pointless summer international ‘friendlies’, World Cups that can be bought by the highest bidder and nobody can – or is willing to – do anything about it, money spinning pre-season tours, kit launches, overly-inflated summer tournaments (some of which aren’t even worth bothering with), and everything else you can think of.

I get the manager’s concern, the break this summer might be just over four weeks before pre-season training begins and for some players even less than that, but they’re all in on it. The Premier League, UEFA, FIFA, the clubs, their sponsors and commercial partners who are trying to squeeze every last drop out of every possible area, and ultimately it will come at the expense of the game and the players.

There IS such a thing as too much football. I mean, we all love the game, but it is possible for us to live without it for more than a few weeks each summer. If anything going without restores your enthusiasm a bit, but in the end when there’s no football they’re not making money and that’s what drives all these decisions. It’s a bit sad really, but that’s the world we’ve allowed to be created and there’s no going back on it now.

Right, keep an eye on Arseblog News throughout the day for updates, videos and more as we build up to Wembley. We’ll have an article a day from Tim Stillman here as part of that too – his first looks at classic encounters between Arsenal and Villa.

And if you haven’t yet had a chance to listen to yesterday’s Arsecast Extra, I’d say it’s easily in the top 50 episodes we’ve ever done so check it out here. There’s also some info about an event we’re doing in The Tollington on Friday night, so tune in for that (and I’ll give you more info on site during the week).

Till tomorrow.

ps – It’s St Michael’s Day, relive it again because why the hell wouldn’t you?

The year is 2036. Many changes have occurred in the world. British Prime Minister Jon Terry of UKIP, IKIP, WEALLKIP, has just been sworn in after his ‘If it ain’t white, it’s shite’ campaign caught fire. Literally, as all his opponents ended up a charred mess.

“It’s a great day for us to go back to what made this nation great”, he declares as he munches on Britain’s favourite indigenous snack, the salt and vinegar poppadom. Via his NetEye©®, he receives an instant message of congratulations from Bullwinkle J Bush, president of the United States of Amexico and Canadia, no longer the land of the free and home of the brave but a place where families with less than 18 children and a 100% attendance rate at church on Sunday are known as Obamanarians and routinely persecuted and forced to live underground.

Literally, they dwell beneath the cities in fear as those above continue their war with Australia where 800 years worth of oil was discovered beneath Ayers Rock – now re-branded as ShellCorp Oil Mountain. Their First Mate, Kevin Muscat, refuses to accept that his policy of shattering citizens legs just because he doesn’t like the colour of their shirt is undemocratic and accuses Bush of profiteering as its revealed a company in which he’s a director is involved in the war effort.

The assassination of HyperAsia’s ruler, that fella from The Raid movies, sent the region into turmoil and the famously football mad population refused to pay for tickets for a Sp*rs summer tour game against Christmas Island FC – holders of the both the World Cup and winners of the Eurovision song contest.

Meanwhile, in Ireland the newly elected Guardian of Equality, is Taylor Swift, whose ancestry was linked back to the creation of the Book of Kells.

As the rest of the world implodes, Ireland is the place everyone wants to be as there’s a free, functioning healthcare system, women have control over their own bodies without the deeply entrenched patriarchal hangover of times past, there’s an understanding of addiction and mental illness, and childhood obesity became a thing of the past in 2024.

People are free to marry who they like, the river Liffey is so clean it can used as drinking water, and even though there’s the occasional nasty incident involving the brainwashed minions of the spiteful Ahern/Haughey clans, they’re crucified … with kindness until they break down and promise never to be so mean again.

In football, Arsene Wenger has just signed a new contract with Arsenal with people calling him the ‘sprightliest 86 year old ever to manage in the Watery Beer That Recent Legislation Doesn’t Let Us Advertise But You All Know Which One We Mean Yeah The One With The Cool Horses In The Ad What A Shame Horses Are Extinct Now Premier League’. It is referred to as the BPL for short.

Sadly, the Gunners lost their final, crucial, league game of the season when veteran skipper Hector Bellerin – who returned to London when the city of Barcelona was destroyed by Russian bombers after President Abramovich took umbrage at Cesc Fabregas calling Chelsea fans ‘Thunderous Dickheads’ (but in Catalan) – missed a penalty in the last minute of the final 8th period of the game. Hector was consoled by mates Trevor Arteta and Godfrey Mertesacker, sons of famous ex-Arsenal players, but he felt so bad he refused to do his mandatory commercial endorsement after the game and was handed a subsequent 3 game ban by FIFA (Football Is For Advertising).

The fans, however, don’t mind, because although the team has finished 4th behind champions Crystal Meth Palace, runners-up Grimsby and third place FC United of Manchester, the title is no longer decided by arbitrary notions of sporting achievement like ‘Who has the most points, scored the most goals, and won the most games’.

Instead, the winner is declared by a vote on the world’s largest multi-media Connection Network – Orwell. With each baby born automatically implanted with the required chip at birth almost 20 billion of the earth’s 24 billion population are connected at any moment, but for some reason there appear to be more mobilised Arsenal fans than any other team. They crack into action, thinking momentarily about the result which registers a vote in the Mind Cloud which is then transmitted to the HQ of the Watery Beer That Recent Legislation Doesn’t Let Us Advertise But You All Know Which One We Mean Yeah The One With The Cool Horses In The Ad What A Shame Horses Are Extinct Now Premier League.

Within minutes of the final whistle Arsenal are declared Champions for the 18th consecutive year. “I told you to judge us in May”, winks Wenger at his post-game press conference. He is accompanied as always by his faithful servant who he brings in on a lead and who gnaws a nasty looking bone, growling occasionally but nobody pays him any mind.

“My name is Reek”, he says in a Portuguese accent. “You’re goddam right it is”, says Wenger as he then parades the trophy around the Apple Stadium, renamed in 2029 as the world’s richest anything took over from Emirates whose decision to make their female flight attendants to wear suits of armour sparked outrage in Ireland who declared them an enemy and now everyone flies Ryanair who can fit hundreds more people on their standing flights.

It’s another triumph for the club, the trophy cabinet is overflowing, and on BBSKYC 4, Gary Lineker shakes his head sadly at the predictability of it all. “Shat on the Watery Beer That Recent Legislation Doesn’t Let Us Advertise But You All Know Which One We Mean Yeah The One With The Cool Horses In The Ad What A Shame Horses Are Extinct Now Premier League again”, he Tweets.

Hashtag: #youmadeitwhatitis

—

Meanwhile, some shit’s going down with FIFA. Blimey. Let’s see where that takes us.

Lookout for more FA Cup build-up throughout the day here, more from me tomorrow. Until then.

Because of all the build-up and the brouhaha this week, the manager’s FA Cup final press conference took place yesterday. There was something of a festival of media with the presser, open training (that sadly doesn’t mean you can join in), player interviews and all the rest.

He was giving little away in terms of his team with the only absence of note being Danny Welbeck. It’s a shame for him as he played a big part in getting us there and was never involved in a final for Man Utd, but other than that everyone seems to be fit.

There was even a sighting of captain Mikel Arteta back with the group, Mathieu Debuchy is training again, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s 15 minutes against West Brom provide him with the best chance of being involved in Saturday’s squad. You have to think it’s way too risky to include the other two as anything other than subs – and even then we have enough fit bodies so they’re likely to miss out.

Speaking about the selection for Saturday, Arsene said:

I just think it is important to focus as a whole squad on winning the trophy. Most of the time the heroes are the people who come on in an FA Cup final – they make the difference. That’s why it is important as a reward for the whole team who have fought very hard the whole season to get there. Let’s deal with it as a whole squad.

I have some big selection decisions to make on Saturday. Even to leave some top internationals out of the squad shows that we have a very big squad.

He refused to be drawn on the goalkeeper issue too. Asked if there was a reason why he might play David Ospina ahead of Wojciech Szczesny, ostensibly the cup keeper, he said:

There’s no obvious reason, but I will not tell you anything today.

I continue to vacillate between the two. You can make a reasonable case for both of them starting, or not starting, but what strikes me about this situation in general is how daft it is that we’re in this situation at all. How about next season, if we’re in a cup final, we just play the very obvious number 1 goalkeeper who is clearly better than the others. Like when David Seaman didn’t play in any round until the final but played the final because he was the best and gave you more chance of winning the game.

It was the same with Jens Lehmann in 2005. Manuel Almunia was given a run out in the 5th round against Sheffield United (and the replay), and I think he might have saved a penalty in the shoot-out but in every other round of the cup it was Jens. Because Jens was the best. I mean, I get the idea of using the cup to keep your second choice keeper sharp and to give him some playing time, but to have this kind of selection issue for the second year running is, to me at least, a sign we need to get our goalkeeping shit sorted once and for all.

You could argue that it’s because the two keepers we have are so close in standard that it’s hard to choose between them, and I get that, but I would counter by saying neither of them are of the highest quality and maybe that’s where we should be looking. Anyway, that’s one for the summer.

And speaking of the selection decisions for the manager, Tim Stillman takes a look at the potential areas where the manager might be having some thoughts. From my point of view I see the keeper and striker as the only decisions he has to make. I’d be very surprised if Nacho Monreal didn’t start at left-back – he’s been miles ahead of Gibbs this season in terms of his performances and consistency, so he’d be very unfortunate to miss out.

Wilshere, despite his good display against West Brom on Saturday, hasn’t done enough to take Aaron Ramsey out of the team, and the only way I could see him start is if you drop someone like Santi Cazorla. And doing that for an FA Cup final would be a massive gamble. So, it’s just Ospina or Szczesny and Giroud or Walcott.

I won’t speculate just yet – mostly because my mind keeps changing depending on the time of day/cloud cover/how hungry I am/what’s on the radio etc – but will try and nail it down in the next couple of blogs.

—

Elsewhere, the FIFA stuff is extraordinary. Dawn raids, arrests, an FBI investigation, a Swiss investigation into the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and even Swiss nationals like Sepp Blatter being told they cannot leave the country.

The scale of the corruption would be mind-boggling if it wasn’t just about what we were all expecting. ‘Oh, they took hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bribes and kick-backs? I would never have guessed’. That they’re even considering going ahead with Friday’s ‘presidential election’ tells you everything you need to know about them as an organisation.

It does feel as if the whole house of cards could come tumbling down, but like many of you I live in a country where the powerful and the rich tend never to be held accountable for their misdeeds. Church, state, politicians, banks etc – except on a very superficial level now and again – waft through a crisis and ultimately never pay the price they should.

I hope that this is different, that the obvious corruption at the game’s governing body means that those involved are fully brought to task. There’s a hugely distasteful hubris to Sepp Blatter and the FIFA Executive committee, who have grown so accustomed to having all that power that they have made decisions only those who feel truly untouchable would.

A World Cup in the desert in a country that has no football stadiums where slave labour dies to build them. Shouldn’t that have been the final straw anyway? Where was the moral stance from Football over this abomination of a decision? Where was the disquiet or disapproval from sponsors and advertisers whose support – both explicit and implicit – has gone such a long way to fund and maintain the lifestyles and power structures?

Now FIFA has been touched, and I hope it’s not the gossamer brush with the law that so many powerful people feel. What a number of people have said to me is that these US prosecutors don’t mess around, so fingers crossed that it takes out everyone who deserves to be taken out, and that those who profiteered and more are punished accordingly.

Especially Sepp Blatter. He might claim to not know what goes on underneath him at all levels, but even if that were true it simply highlights his unsuitability to be in such a position. I should point out that I don’t believe that be true, he’s up to his wobbly fat neck in it, and as such ought to take the fall. I hope those around him sing like canaries. Let’s be ‘avin ya, Sepp.

—

Right, that’s about that for now. Just a reminder that James and I will be doing a live broadcast from The Tollington on Friday evening from around 7pm. Come along, have a beer and a chat. We’re not 100% sure what exactly we’re going to be doing, but all going well from a technical point of view we’ll be listenable in the pub itself and streaming online here on the website, but I’ll give you more details of that tomorrow.

I’ll be back then with an Arsecast, until then have a good day.

George Orwell once said that the biggest struggle in life is seeing what is perched on the end of one’s nose. He wasn’t wrong, but sometimes it’s just as difficult to exert focus away from that which is staring you in the face. The question as to whether Arsenal have demonstrated progress in 2014-15 compared to 2013-14 is one that has raged across the Internets for a few weeks now. Understandably so, because it’s such a fascinating question with no definitive answer. In the warm glow of a strong finish to the season and a serenely sourced trophy, it is easy to hitch a ride on the crest of the FA Cup wave and say that Arsenal have definitely progressed.

This season has arguably been an inversion of the last, a kind of 2013-14 glimpsed through a fairground hall of mirrors. In 2013-14 we started like a freight train before our league campaign fell apart. The Gunners huffed and puffed their way to a trophy at the end of it all, a redemptive balm after burning up in the heat of the title race. This season, the Gunners started terribly slowly and were out of league contention before the clocks went back. They finished strongly and won a consecutive FA Cup in matter of fact fashion.

The euphoria of Arsenal’s electric start to 2013-14 has dimmed in the memory banks and been replaced by a much more current “isn’t everything swell”-ness. In the autumn of 2013, the Gunners harnessed a good run that actually started at the back end of the 2012-13 season and threw in the Özil factor. At the outset of this campaign, spirits were unusually high, with the FA Cup as a springboard and some swiftly concluded and exciting transfer business, optimism permeated a fanbase that had previously worn fatalism like a hair shirt.

In the summer of 2013, Arsenal were able to capitalise on their stability, with Manchesters City and United, and Chelsea, all embedding new coaches. But this year, it was the Gunners who were briefly marooned in transition. The famed World Cup hangover, injuries to key players, the loss of Koscielny and Sagna to the backline and a new shape taking time to brew were all factors in this period of stasis. The Gunners eventually finished a place higher in the league, but with an inferior points total compared to 2013-14, which emphasises the schism between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers of this particular debate.

In measuring Arsenal’s progress (or lack thereof) what is quite extraordinary, is that, on a micro level, the team have developed in almost every measure. Yet in doing so, they probably failed in their primary, overarching aims. Second guessing Arsene Wenger is something of a fool’s errand, but there are some main areas I think he identified last summer to facilitate progression. For a start, he hired Shad Forsythe in an attempt to curb Arsenal’s injury woes. As the season advanced, the squad’s bill of health became increasingly cleaner, leaving experienced, trusted performers kicking their heels on the bench. (Sometimes, they didn’t even make the bench). Having a deeper squad doubtless helped. Wenger wasn’t forced into rushing players back as he has so often in the past in lieu of quality alternatives.

I think Arsene wanted his team to share goals around more freely and vary their threat. In 2013-14, they became too reliant on Aaron Ramsey’s purple patch. The trio of Ramsey, Giroud and Özil pretty much constituted the entirety of their threat. This season, Wenger gave up on Lukas Podolski and added the bombastic Alexis Sanchez and Danny Welbeck to the mixture. Last season, six Arsenal players scored more than 5 goals in total. This season, seven players managed that feat. (Walcott was effectively missing for half of each season, but made it into this bracket on both occasions).

As well as adding Alexis to the mix, Wenger tried to sneak another creative midfielder into his formation. Initially, he tried to chisel Wilshere and Ramsey into the centre of midfield together, which proved to be an uneasy relationship. Wilshere’s injury actually saw Santi Cazorla move into a deep lying playmaker role, which enabled Santi to carve out his niche in this Arsenal side. The Gunners were the 7th most creative side in the Premier League in 2013-14 in terms of chances created, they moved up to second in that metric this season.

Wenger’s team were actually quite functional during their good run of form at the beginning of 2013-14. They had racked up eleven 2-0 wins by February, which reveals a fairly predictable pattern. This season, Arsenal have created more chances and taken more shots. They scored 99 goals in 2013-14, compared to 106 this season, having played a game less. (Though the extra fixture in 2013-14 proved to be a 2-0 defeat to Chelsea in the League Cup). Wenger always wants his teams to be exciting, but above all, dangerous and I think Arsenal achieved both of those aims in this campaign; admittedly this was due almost entirely to the Alexis factor.

I think Arsene will have wanted his team to be more defensively solid and he certainly would have wanted a better showing against direct rivals in the league. The two points are intertwined given some of the shoeings administered to us last year. Arsenal were defensively much more sound against their rivals (which is a low bar, in fairness), but they discovered a more formidable foundation, aided by the tenacity of Coquelin and the discovery that Santi Cazorla’s twinkle toes are actually a potent defensive weapon. Together they formed a pleasing, if unlikely, partnership that provided the platform for a pair of away victories in Manchester.

Whilst not as valuable a commodity as points, goal difference is a good barometer for how well a team is balanced. The Gunners improved their GD by 8 in 2014-15, which demonstrates the value of not losing 5-1 and 6-0 to the teams around you! The team conceded 35 goals in the league this season, compared to 41 last. The FA Cup win in 2014 represented the purging of a troop of baboons from our backs, which was lovely. But it was also meant to be a building block, a platform from which to deliver future success. Retaining the trophy suggests that that objective was at least partially achieved.

The experience of last season’s final served Arsenal well as they dismantled Villa at Wembley. With two deserved wins in Manchester also at their backs, the team played the game much like a league encounter, whilst Villa were blinded by the soda light of the watching world. There is less of a sense of imminent implosion in this team. Our options are undeniably better and more varied too. Lukas Podolski and Yaya Sanogo played an hour a piece of the 2014 Cup Final. Even if they had not been out on loan, neither would have made the bench this year.

Yet despite these acorns of progress, Arsenal failed in their two biggest objectives. They did not challenge for the Premier League in any serious way. Handicapped by a slow start, they allowed Chelsea to race clear of them well before Christmas. They also suffered another disappointing Champions League campaign. The European failure has been distilled to a catastrophic collapse at home to Monaco, but much of the Champions League campaign was challenging to watch as an Arsenal fan.

The team struggled past a very average Besiktas side in the qualifier, they performed poorly in both matches against group whipping boys Anderlecht and were thoroughly schooled in Dortmund. The upshot was that Arsenal finished behind a declining Dortmund side in the groups and were subsequently knocked out by functional Monaco. More than half of Arsenal’s European performances were a profound disappointment. This is probably explained by the fact that most of the fixtures occurred during our dicey early season period.

Compare and contrast to our victorious FA Cup campaign, which occurred in the second half of the season, when we saw something closer to the real Arsenal. Ultimately, the season has come full circle. A strong finish and another FA Cup win has restored us to the optimistic pedestal upon which we perched last summer. In real terms, our overall achievements in 2014-15 are very similar to last season. However, the feeling that we have made progress is informed by the fact that it feels as though Arsenal are in an even better position to push on than they were this time last year.

With no World Cup this summer, there are certainly fewer excuses for false starts next season and fewer obstacles in our way.

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It is the first day of pre-season. A tanned Arsene Wenger arrives at the training ground having spent some glorious days hurtling into the sea down a rubber slide off David Dein’s boat. He remembers the fun times, the sunshine, going “WHHEEEEEEEE!” before splashing into the ocean. But now that’s all done, the serious business of a new season is all-important.

There’s a pile of post on his desk. The usual, bills, more bills, a poorly scrawled postcard from Manchester saying ‘I am sorry boss please take me back, I always felt chinniest at Arsenal’. He laughs, tears it up, puts it in the drawer marked ‘Stuff for my book’.

He drinks a coffee, begins to think about the season ahead. What number will Cech wear? How much time is Calum Chambers going to need with Steve Bould as he’s moulded into a centre-half? Can he continue with Santi Cazorla in midfield? Has Theo signed his new deal yet (the negotiations were intense but the provision of a helicopter and a private beach should swing things)? Why is Flamini?

It’s still early, so the sound of an expensive car of some kind pulling up outside surprises him, but pleases him also. One of them is showing the kind of desire and dedication the whole squad will need if they’re to win the title. He goes back to his planning. Should he pay all that money for Morgan Schneiderlin or is there enough left in Arteta’s legs to provide cover for Coq-

*BANG*

He looks up.

*BANG* *BANG*

What the hell is that noise? He can’t concentrate. It’s muddling his mind. Szczesny at centre-half. *BANG* Ozil left-back. *BANG* *BANG* Kieran Gibbs as midfield enforcer. *BANG* NO.

His brain is scrambled. He gets up from his seat to try and find out the source of the noise. The training ground is quiet. Colin Lewin is in his office cursing Shad Forsythe (‘Used to be so busy till that American came along. Think they’re so great, making our players all fit and that’ he says as he prepares to slowly overdose one of the youth team with salt just so he can fix him), but other than that there’s nobody around.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

Wenger hurries towards the source of the noise. It’s coming from the indoor arena. What if there’s a pipe come lose in the renovations and the place might explode?

*BANG*

He prepares himself for the worst.

*BANG* *BANG*

This is the club of his life though, and if it’s down to him to fix it, even if it costs him dearly, he’ll do it. He smiles to himself: I played Denilson for years, this sacrifice is nothing compared to that.

*BANG* *BANG*

The noise is insistent, persistent. It’s getting louder, more frequent.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG**BANG*

He reaches the door of the arena, pauses, prepares himself for the worst.

*BANG*

Oh God. He pushes his way in, wincing, ready for an explosion, a gas leak, noxious fumes, sabotage, terrorism, something, anything awful.

“¡Hola Boss!”, says Alexis, still in his Chile kit from Saturday night, a Copa America winners medal around his neck.

“Alexis!”, he says. “Jesus Christ, you scared me”.

“Nobody here,” says the club’s leading scorer from the previous season, “so I play against wall. I’m win but is close!”

“But you shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not?”

“Pre-season is only starting for the players who didn’t have a summer tournament. You’ve been away with Chile all summer. You just played on Saturday night. 120 minutes in an exhausting final before scoring the winner with a cheeky penalty. You need some rest, some time off.”

“No, todo bien!”, he says before launching the ball against the wall, trapping the rebound on his chest and rifling it on the volley into the top corner of the goal 60 yards away.

“Wait Alexis. Listen to me. You have to have a rest. You must go on holidays, relax, let your legs recover, come back stronger. We have a long season ahead. You are bound to be tired both physically and mentally.”

A look of dismay crosses the Chilean’s face.

“Seriously”, says Wenger. “I insist. As your boss I am telling you to take some time off.”

“But … but … football?”, he replies mournfully.

“There will be lots of football. Stop running while I’m talking to you. Get back in your car, go on holidays, try and do nothing for a little while. You will feel the benefit of it, I promise. This is not punishment, it’s for your own good. Understand?”

“Entiendo”, he says downheartedly. He knows his manager is right, but … but … football. However, he understands the need to do what he’s being told to do.

“Ok”, he continues. “I take a little rest.”

“Good”, says Wenger. “Enjoy yourself. Play with your dogs. Do some Instagram videos lip-syncing to your favourite cheesy artists. You have my permission to have fun”.

He takes off his Chile shirt, his perfect nipples capturing the sunlight that is beginning to stream into the arena, and turns towards the exit.

“Hey boss?”, he says, pausing in the doorway.

“What is it?”, says a relieved, but strangely proud, Arsene Wenger.

¡Hasta mañana!”

—

ps – James is still away on his holidays, so we’ll have an Arsecast Extra for you tomorrow.

I woke up this morning thinking I had a transfer exclusive after a between Snooze dream saw me gain exclusive information about our pursuit of Stoke’s Steven N’Zonzi. Of course it was all just in my mind and he’s signed for Sevilla anyway, so shut up brain.

From Singapore, the manager has been talking about further arrivals after the £11m capture of Petr Cech, saying:

That doesn’t depend only on us, it depends on whether we can find them, but if we can find one or two players we will do it.

This summer there’s no need for signings to make up the numbers, so to speak. We’re not short of bodies in any particular area. We have pretty much enough of everything. Whether you think those options are sufficient to win the title is another matter, but the bottom line is we have them. It’s not like last summer, or the beginning of last season, when we had to play full-backs at centre-half and so on.

I know we went over this the other day, but I’m more and more convinced that if we sign any more players they’re likely to be ‘blue chip’ purchases that really improve the first XI. In the same way that Cech was brought in to improve a position that wasn’t really a problem, we might sign a striker if the right one becomes available despite the fact Giroud did pretty well last year, and that we also have Welbeck waiting in the wings.

I know there’s some unrest about what other teams are doing, particularly Man Utd who have bought Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin. To my mind, while we could have used the latter, their midfield situation was one which really required them to spend a lot, while our only real issue in that area is if we have the right kind of back-up/competition for Coquelin.

Like, we’re not getting bent out of shape over Chelsea signing Begovic from Stoke because we’ve got three keepers already. Schneiderlin might well have been a useful purchase but at £24m, and as player who I think is closer to a traditional CM than a DM, it’s becomes harder to make the case that he’d have been worth that investment when you’ve got Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere. Still, from the way the manager is talking, if the DM of all DMs was found or became available then I think we’d do it.

I also firmly believe that focusing on what other teams do in the transfer market is the easiest way to drive yourself mad during a transfer window. Remember how crazy people went over United signing Falcao? We have a good squad – which can be improved, no doubt about it – but for me there just isn’t the urgency or demand for us to do quick business just because others are.

Since signing Ozil we’ve spent £144.5m on eight players, and the level of the team is much higher than it was. Back in August 2013 BO (Before Ozil), we were far from where we should have been, but over the last couple of years we’ve seen an almost unprecedented level of investment in the squad. I don’t expect that to stop or for us to start resting on our laurels, I just think that it’s easier to find players to improve a weak squad. When you’re trying to make good one better, it becomes more of a challenge, and that’s where we are.

Interestingly, Mikel Arteta (who also spoke about the reason he delayed his contract signing), touched on the way things have changed since he joined the club in 2011:

Instead of selling the best players, they decided to keep the players and keep adding the quality every year Once we do that we start to show more consistency, start to win trophies , confidence, atmosphere, everything gets better.

And he highlighted Cech’s arrival as a signal of that:

His ambition is still there even though he has won everything in England and in Europe. Those type of signings give a lift to the whole team. He’s not just a good goalkeeper. He has experience and ambition. He’s not here just to sit on his back. He wants to compete, he wants to keep winning.

So, if that desire to improve applies to the goalkeeping position, why wouldn’t it apply everywhere else? The issue, of course, is finding the players who can make that improvement. Everyone talks about the need for a striker, but as we discussed on yesterday’s Arsecast Extra, it’s a position almost every team would be interested in signing someone for, but for which there aren’t really a wealth of established, stand-out candidates.

The challenge for our manager, and all the others too probably, is to find the next big thing before he makes that breakthrough. So then you’re having to take a chance on potential, hoping he’ll make the step-up to becomes something special, something better than you’ve already got, and that might require a leap of faith that’s perhaps at odds with the strategy of only buying better than what you’ve already got.

Anyway, interesting times. I still think we’ve got at least one purchase left in us before the window closes (not so much before the season starts), but who, why, where and when etc? … your guess is as good as mine.

Finally, as you’d expect, the manager has shot down stories linking Mesut Ozil with a move away from the club:

Ozil is our player, he will remain our player and he wants to remain our player.

And on the spurious links to Juventus:

During this period the newspapers are creative, and have to be creative, but many times the stories come from agents.

Whether that was a dig at Ozil’s people, I don’t know, but I love the diplomatic way he described some of the stuff that’s in some of the papers. Creative, haha.

Right, that’s your lot for today. More from me tomorrow.