Internationals are over and it’s time to count the wounded and overplayed and begin to wring our hands over the impending match against Leeds this Sunday.
Bukayo Saka played three matches for England and put in a combined 133 minutes while away for the English national team. That brings his season total to 1178 minutes, or the equivalent of 13 matches in 82 days. That wouldn’t normally be cause for alarm but he has played every three days since October 17th – a string of 9 matches with 7 starts.
The good news is that his play looks sharper than ever. Working with an attacking 343 in the England set-up – where they get 5 players high up the pitch and create overloads on the left side with Grealish, Kane, Foden, and Saka – Bukayo looked exactly like the kind of player we all want him to be. He is one of the best crossers of the ball and especially in tight spaces; he advances the ball in tight spaces; he overlaps; and he even goes inside to create more problems for the opposition defense.
That said, he did spurn chances where I thought he should have been more selfish and he had a couple of chances go begging when he just failed to pull off the shot. Those things come with play and practice, however.
He’s a young player and these young guys will want to play all of the minutes available but he really does need a rest. At the moment, he’s our best LWB (and Kolasinac caught COVID) so resting him against Leeds would seem like a madness so I’m not sure Arteta will go that route here and instead will probably rest him against Molde.
Another big problem is that Tierney played even more minutes than Saka did, clocking in 210 minutes for Scotland in less than a week. There’s no choice here, he absolutely has to be rested. Arsenal have been very good about managing his minutes so I have no doubt he will get a break.
Auba played two matches with Gabon – 180 minutes – scoring a goal. Then was made to sleep on the floor in an airport. I want to get super upset about this and it does bother me quite a bit (it’s a disgrace) but I also understand that a lot of places in the world are being hit hard by COVID and some places don’t have the infrastructure to deal with this. For me? I blame CAF. These qualifying stages have been poorly funded, poorly organized, and I’m sure something else poorly as well. CAF is struggling under quite a scandal and election at the moment. So, while I’m angry that Auba slept in an airport, it’s all just such a huge mess right now that it’s hard to work out exactly which direction to point my impotent ire.
Xhaka only played 135 minutes and Pepe put in 168 minutes of goalless play for Ivory Coast.
The Arsenal trainees either did or didn’t get into a dust up. Ornstein claims that David Luiz “scratched” Dani Ceballos. This has been interpreted as an actual fight. Meanwhile Ceballos went on Twitter and ReTweeted Ornstein with “FAKE”. And then this morning, Arteta was asked about the supposed scuffle and gave an anodyne answer “Nothing. Training is very competitive and issues happen a lot of the time, but those things get resolved immediately within the team. There’s not much to say.” He also said that he didn’t see it.
For me this raises a single issue: why is this being reported at all? There is a narrative building that Ceballos gets into fights with teammates, so I guess that’s newsworthy. But the evidence there is from on the pitch, matchday, action where he has been seen several times arguing with (rather vehemently) teammates. Reporting on that is fine. What happens behind closed doors, on the training ground, needs to stay on the training ground. And this only highlights that Arsenal have a player (I’m fairly certain I know who) who LOVES to chat shit to the press. I’d love it if the club could make this a non-negotiable.
But this international break and the number of matches that clubs are playing in such quick succession has raised the question of why the Premier League still won’t allow 5 subs. The EFL are doing it and most of the other leagues are doing it as well, with some divisions allowing 7 subs. The argument from the Premier League is that this will disproportionately benefit the larger clubs (like Arsenal) who may have more quality in the squad. But the counter argument is that presumably these small squads will also suffer injuries. Though they would then counter that they have fewer players going away on internationals and that’s where I just have to take a step back away from this and just ask “what about the players???”
It’s crystal clear that FIFA and UEFA don’t care about the players but is the Premier League really going to throw in with that? I feel like they won’t and that 5 subs is an inevitability. Hopefully sooner rather than later so that we don’t have to listen to people say that “5 subs is unfair because we played X matches with three subs”. Arteta also says something similar, though his way of putting it is a lot better:
It’s really demanding and it’s never been done, to play the amount of games that we have to play in a calendar year, in the history of football. Obviously, we know the consequences of that and the only thing from my side that I would demand to the Premier League and to the broadcasters is ‘let’s protect the players’. At the end of the day, this industry, yes we can do it without us being together in a room. We’ve been doing it, training individually and doing it without having the possibility as the manager to speak to them all in a room, and we’ve even done it without the fans. But guys, we need the players. We have to protect them as much as possible. They are the protagonists of this whole industry and whatever you can do, if you have to modify the rules and make them a little bit more flexible for them to give them a better opportunity to be fit – and it’s not just physically, I mean mentally as well – then let’s just do it, please.
On the other injury news front, nothing new to report at this moment. Chambo was seen in training with the first team (doing jumps) and Mari should start training with them soon. Thomas is out for at least this weekend, maybe more.
Elneny adds to Arsenal’s list of players who caught COVID. That means that Kolasinac and Elneny (also Torreira) will now need to self-isolate for 14 days and will be unavailable against Leeds.
One big question mark is what happened with Willian. Willian flew to Dubai to have some food at the “Salt Bae” restaurant. The club are investigating whether this was a violation of our rules against unnecessary travel. He would be allowed to go if this was a training exercise or something but if this was a “holiday” type trip, he should be sanctioned/fined/dropped. In my mind, if he flew to Dubai for pleasure, he should be immediately dropped because he not only risked himself getting sick but also endangered the health of his teammates and potentially the results on the pitch. However, Arteta backed Willian today, saying that he spoke to the Brazilian and that we needed to put ourselves in his shoes. That the issue has been explained, that it’s been dealt with internally, and that we need to move on.
Ok. I am excited to hear what gets leaked to Ornstein about Willian’s Salt Bae trip next week.
If Willian really flew all the way to Dubai for a Wagyu beef burger @USD $37.00, instead of staying in London to go to any Honest Burger location or better, yet to the Cut and Grind for their most expensive burger @USD $17, he should be fired. For bad taste and poor judgement if nothing else. The Cut & Grind is a 15-minute walk from Kings Cross /St Pancras. Delish! He wouldn’t even need his flash car, not that footballers really walk anywhere.
I’d love to hear your theory about who’s the snitch!
one clue is that he was the snitch under Wenger as well.
another clue is that there have been a lot of these: about Auba and Troopz, about Ceb and multiple fights, about closed door team meetings, and then all the stuff about Emery and how the players were making fun of him. This person REALLY likes gossip and sharing this stuff.
I think that limits it to just one guy.
Ah of course, Matt Macey.
This made me laugh. But yeah, you just know it’s Ozil.
Yup, hard to imagine that there’d be amount squad member with more to gain and less to lose by making this stuff public than him.
Arteta warned of consequences but what can he really do to Ozil? Fine him 2 weeks wages sure, it’s a fair chunk of change. This guy gets that for just showing up for some light jogging. Drop him to the U-23s, it will barely register beyond provoking some kind of veiled sardonic tweet.
Gunnersaurus. That’s why they sacked him. It was either that or a shiv in the back. Lousy snitch!
Every time I hear “shiv” I think of this legendary Phil Hartman scene:
Relevant bit starts at 1:13.
Brilliant. Brings back memories. I used to tell my cellmate, don’t grab my ears, I know what I’m doing!
Also, f**k John Terry:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/nov/20/anton-ferdinand-i-have-kicked-myself-for-years-for-not-speaking-out-john-terry
You want to destroy my soul? Make me wear John Terry Chel$ki shirt in public. With a MAGA hat. And hair dye dripping down my face.
You want to destroy my soul? Make me wear John Terry Chel$ki shirt in public. With a MAGA hat. And hair dye dripping down my face.
I volunteer for The Canadian Legion
Cook and feed and play music. Almost all of the old WWII vets are gone now and the Korean War guys are passing away too. An old vet years ago, told me about meeting this guy in wartime. Great story:
Daniel Cordier, one of last heroes of French resistance, dies aged 100
As secretary to the great resistance leader, Jean Moulin, he helped organise fight against Nazi occupation
One of France’s last remaining French resistance heroes Daniel Cordier, has died aged 100.
One of only two remaining Compagnons de la Libération, an honour awarded by France’s exiled wartime leader, Charles de Gaulle, to those who risked their lives to liberate France from Nazi occupation, Emmanuel Macron said there would be a national ceremony to honour his memory.
“When France was in danger, he and his compagnons took every risk so that France remained France. We owe them our freedom and our honour,” Macron wrote in a tweet.
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Cordier was secretary to the French resistance leader, Jean Moulin, who was killed by the Gestapo in 1943.
Born into a wealthy family in Bordeaux, Cordier admitted he was a monarchist and in his own words “fiercely antisemitic” before the war when he was a member of the ultra-nationalist Action Française.
Daniel Cordier pictured in Paris in 1945
Daniel Cordier pictured in Paris in 1945. Photograph: Musée de l’Ordre de la Libératio/AFP/Getty Images
After the German invasion in 1940, Cordier was appalled as he listened to the radio address by Marshal Philippe Pétain, leader of the collaborationist Vichy government, calling on the French army to surrender, a decision he considered a disgraceful betrayal.
“I raced upstairs and flung myself on my bed and I sobbed. But then it must have been half an hour later, I suddenly drew myself up, and I said to myself: ‘But no, this is ridiculous. He (Pétain) is just a stupid old fool! We have to do something,” he later recalled.
He and 16 friends immediately set off aboard a ship from Bayonne to join De Gaulle in London, landing in Falmouth seven days later. Cordier underwent military training in the UK and then transferred to the secret intelligence service of the Free French, learning sabotage, radio transmission and parachuting.
He was parachuted into France in 1942, aged 22, with the codename Bip W, and ordered to make contact in Lyon with a man known only as “Rex”. The man he made contact with was, in fact, Moulin, who had organised and unified the Conseil National de la Résistance (National Resistance Council).
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For a year he was Moulin’s right-hand man, drafting his correspondence and liaising with other resistance leaders. Moulin died after he was arrested by the Gestapo in July 1943, having been betrayed to the Nazis and tortured. He died onboard a train to Germany.
Cordier continued to rally and organise resistance fighters while dodging the Germans himself, finally fleeing over the Pyrenees where he was arrested and interned before being transferred to London in May 1944.
Emmanuel Macron meeting Daniel Cordier in 2018.
Emmanuel Macron meeting Daniel Cordier in 2018. The French president said: ‘To be face to face with you is to find oneself immediately and compellingly face to face with history.’ Photograph: Charles Platiau/AFP/Getty Images
After the war, Cordier opened a gallery in Paris – described by newspapers at the time as the “most original” in the French capital for its promotion of previously little-known contemporary artists.
He also wrote a bestselling and award-winning novel, Alias Caracalla, based on his wartime experiences with Moulin. His death leaves only one surviving member of the 1,038 Companions of the Liberation, Hubert Germain, who is also 100 years old.
In 2018, Cordier was awarded the Grand Croix of the Légion d’honneur, the highest decoration of the French state. As he decorated him, Macron told Cordier: “To be face to face with you is to find oneself immediately and compellingly face to face with history.”
Cordier, who was living in Cannes on the French Riviera at the time of his death, told Le Monde in 2018: “I’m an old but very, very happy old man,” and described his experience as not one life but “successive lives that were so different from one another”.
-The Guardian
As a former journalist, I’ve never seen a leak that I didn’t like. More, please. Arsenal, Downing Street, the White House… bring it on. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. It’d be a sad world if Mikel’s awkward evasions or Kayleigh’s outright lies were all that we, the public, had to feed on.
Share the concern about Saka’s workload, but have to say that I’m delighted to see an Arsenal lad starring for England. He may be the most important gunner for the Three Lions since Ashley Cole (am I missing anyone as pivotal?). This will provide a great incentive for the likes of Willock, and spur AMN to play more for us, in order to get more minutes from Southgate.
Oh, and we have shown zero evidence that it was Mesut. Wasnt it a training ground bust up, during a hard practice match? I thought he liked neither the place nor the thing 🤔 (I jest, I jest)
Interesting discussion about Giroud yesterday. He stopped scoring goals with any regularity and Arsene didn’t believe he was helping the team win games which is probably why Arsene sold him. Giroud has worked with several Chelsea managers who have not used him as their regular CF. Its hard for me to accept that Arsene and the Chelsea managers who watch Giroud in training every day have a staff of assistant coaches and thousands of hours of film do not understand the tactical advantages of having a CF like Giroud.
Yeah, I don’t get that either. Obviously he doesn’t have burning speed, but that doesn’t matter too much if you’re trying to break down a parked bus.
He’s tall, strong, has a good touch, and a good eye for a near post run. How is that not useful in certain situations?
Despite what he did during the Europa Cup loss, I’d take him back for sure if he was available during the winter transfer period.
Oh dear God, Spurs are winning the league this season, aren’t they? Ugh. I’m getting sick just thinking about it.
SLC
Since 2017 Giroud has played for Wenger Conti Sarri and Lampard. All 4 of those managers strike me as tactically competent. 2 have won PL championships. None of those 4 managers have thought Giroud was effective enough to be their regular CF. Unless we really think all 4 are are tactically inept then I think it’s safe to assume we are over rating Giroud’s ability to influence the games.
Well, not sure I’d put Lampard in with those others. But on the other hand, he starts regularly and scores regularly for France, a team not exactly short of attacking options.
Yeah, sure.
First had to hear that villa were going to win it, then everton, and the best laugh for last, spurs…
Get real….
Really real, or just real? Or, like, real?
My thinking goes something like this: S**t rises to the top when the world is s**t.