🔥 Hottest Takes: the Myles Lewis-Skelly transfer saga divides the room

💰 Digging into Arsenal’s contract strategy and why players aren’t getting poached ⚡ Marley Salmon and Julien impress in preseason, plus the Saliba succession plan talk

🎯 Odegaard’s form, Bruno’s debut, and the “eyes test” for judging world class

🔄 The Alvarez-Jokeres swap rumour and Arsenal’s struggles shifting players 📅 A look ahead to City and the Community Shield

Subscribe now

Read more

Arsenal’s pre-season has left me feeling nothing. Like listening to a Lighthouse Family album back-to-back on a drive to Slough. Drinking a Costa Coffee at the DVLA. Listening to a guy at work explain an episode of Andrew Huberman about the benefits of sleep. I’m numb out here, my eyes glazed, I’m in an Arsenal-induced coma of fear… are we going to be alright?

I suspect so.

There are a number of things that we’re dealing with this pre-season that lead me to believe that it’ll probably be ok. The main one, that I’ll repeat ad nauseam, is that we’re coming off the back of a disgusting season of beauty, that had a World Cup attached to it. Players are going through the motions, they are only focused on fitness, the intensity as a result has felt a little like the energy levels when the company does a fun run and St John Ambulance has to be activated after 13 minutes because three people are down with heatstroke.

The Como starting 11 yesterday had Julienne and Marli Salmon in it, two extreme teenagers if that’s the way to frame them. Nothing felt close to normality in a game that was much better from an intensity level than we’ve seen in the last two weeks, but still a ways off being where you’d like to be for the Man City game this weekend.

The main improvement against Cesc’s boys was the intensity of the pressing. We dialed things up, and we put a very good ball-playing team under a lot of pressure. Como didn’t really know what to do with us. They had no answers and you sensed that even the kids felt their superiority against a team that has made a splash with a very fun rebirth under one of the greatest Arsenal creators of all time.

The story that underpinned the evening was the bizarre Myles Lewis-Skelly chatter that hit the airwaves, courtesy of his very own people. An embarrassing mishap after a pretty bland performance of his against Dortmund, where he didn’t put his best foot forward with a lackluster outing against more intense oppo. Myles scored the first and only goal for Arsenal after he blocked an errant pass just outside the box with his head, Martinelli cushioned the ball back to him, the midfielder took control, sorted out his feet, and brushed his shot into the bottom corner. The celebration was a bit bashful. One would hope that’s the end of the story this summer, but I fear it is not, Arteta’s views after were hardly emphatic, he just wanted to focus on the positivity of Myles being linked to big clubs as it was… a reflection on the club doing good things.

Myles had a sturdy outing at the base of midfield and showed that he could be run out next to Bruno, who came on to rapturous applause and a cacophony of BRUUUUNOOOOOOOs. Our new destroyer, who is also a sublime creator, had a steady outing. It’s not clear what the job is for him this season, but he is a very positive player, always moving the ball forward, always looking for runs in over the top, while making sure he has cover for the team. He made a few very good tackles down the other end. A great addition.

I’m afraid I’m gonna call it early, but Martin Odegaard is very much back. He was spraying balls around like it was 2024. His footwork was exceptional, the bravery in his choices was a joy to watch, and the moves he was pulling out were very much final-action balls. He wanted to be in the final third, there was no hiding deep. This could be a big season for him, free of pain, free of concern for a World Cup, and hopefully unburdened after winning the Premier League. If he can give Arsenal 3,000 minutes in the Premier League, we will be in good shape.

The full backs. Marli Salmon and Julienne… oof, it was pretty good. Both of them showered themselves in piping hot glory. Brave, good on the ball, disciplined for the most part, and more than up to the challenge of playing against bigger kids. Julienne really caught the eye, because he felt like the sort of full back we have lacked. Electric passing, keen to be part of the attack, pace to burn, and a nightmare to deal with for Como. These are the sorts of players that Arsenal should be building up and flipping for €30m, but we don’t. Marli Salmon, wow, a different breed of player… thoroughbred, from the same DNA line of exceptional defenders as William Saliba, if this kid was a horse, he’d have billionaire ranchers bidding on his services and the numbers would be eye-watering. I don’t like to gas up teenagers, but f*ck me, this boy looks like he should be starting Premier League games. But… he’s a baby, and in the Premier League, the beasts of more experience will target him and pick him to pieces like hyenas on an injured baby wildebeest.

No loan, according to those that know, but surely, we need to be finding him minutes from January. Get him trained up, manned up, whatever is needed so he’s in contention as soon as possible. If we’re going for Konsa because the succession plan is Marli, then I am all in on this beautiful plan.

Ethan was fairly decent, not spectacular. He was all-action, box-to-boxing, sometimes an 8, sometimes a 10, sometimes he was occupying the 9 role because Gabriel Jesus was trying to be a false right back or whatever he does to avoid the accountability of scoring goals. You do get the impression that he knows the club want to move him on, Galatasaray and Milan are lurking, and the feeling is that the club aren’t throwing themselves on fire fuelling the smoke. That’s a shame, a real shame.

Max Dowman is an interesting player, he wasn’t bad by any stretch, but I wonder how he’s going to cope this season. The world knows who he is now, the player understands that he won’t be able to play with the same freedom, and the pressure is going to mount on him. It hasn’t been a banner pre-season for someone we hoped would be starting on Sunday. Prospect to real thing is a long journey and I suspect there will be bumps in the road this season. Other fans will get on his back. It’ll be tough. That’s the process though, nothing is easy in the Premier League, but at least he’s playing at a club that will elevate him through his second season, with a fan base that will support him all the way.

The forward line-up for Sunday is going to be Tzolis, Kai, and Madueke. Hard to feel particularly enthused by that after the problems we had last season, but I don’t feel totally down and out about it. The manager said after the game we’re looking, but there are limited options to improve Arsenal.

“There is more that we want to do because every time we have an opportunity to improve the squad and bring more quality and depth to the squad, we need to do that.

“We are actively trying to do so. The thing in the market is that it doesn’t just depend on you. We are very clear on that.

“But the approach, the will and the desire of the club, that’s unquestionable. We want to try to do that. But we cannot promise that we’re going to do it because it doesn’t only depend on us.”

I know a lot of fans will scoff at this sort of chatter, but he is right. The last thing we should be doing with our money this summer is squandering it on players that are hopeful additions, for NOW money. There’s a lot of chatter around Godts at Ajax, Yıldız at Juve, and a whole group of other players that have high potential… but we don’t need high potential, we need tried and true magic that’ll blow the lid off The Emirates in big moments. There are very few players capable of that. Barcola, sure, we’ve seen it. Álvarez, absolutely, he’s been doing it for years. Kvara, I mean, come on… what a talent. But those players don’t get exited with ease. The smartest thing to do if you can’t move those players on is to not panic. Clubs that panic and make second-choice moves end up with Gyokeres on their books… and the problem with those types of signings is it’s impossible to sell them when they don’t work out.

The one to keep an eye on is Álvarez… Atlético are going to huff and puff on this deal… they’ll be working all the persuasion magic they can… and the hope is that at the death, they might see the light, and try and sell him for a deal that gets them a Gyokeres or a Martinelli as part of the swap.

… and just to remind you all. Arsenal won the league under extraordinary circumstances last year without too many problems. We managed to win a league without Kai, Saka, and Odegaard. We lost Timber, Merino, and had to plug a teenager into the system to save the legs of Zubimendi. All those players will hopefully play a more starring role this season. You think that’s going to make Arsenal worse? No way. You think having Bruno as an option in midfield is going to close off the way we play? No way. You think Max and Myles as legitimate options for rotation this season makes us worse? No way. You think Tzolis is going to tank on the left? Can’t be having it.

The curse of being Arsenal is we can’t sell players for sh*t… the gift is that we’re an extremely settled squad. Far more settled than Chelsea, Man City, and Liverpool, who are all dealing with their own mini-crises and consequential turnovers.

Arsenal are Premier League Champions. Not by luck. By proxy of the best system. A system that had us unbeaten in open play in Europe. The biggest challenge we face this season is not the squad make-up, it’s the dip after you reach a mighty summit, and it’s the consequences of going so far in so many comps last season. Combined with a manager who fired all his medical staff.

Leave a comment

Plenty more predictions over the next week… podcast coming later today… in the meantime, get stuck into the comments section! x

I’m scouring the newspapers for some interesting content and I’m like, don’t write about anything weird Pedro, don’t make the internet think you’re a crank… then I run into the spectacular story that South Korea’s footballing body has had to issue an apology to the WORLD for offering sexual services to foreign refs in the 2010s.

The report alleged that the Korea Football Association (KFA) offered such services to international referees on multiple occasions in 2011 and 2012.

This period included qualifying matches for the 2014 World Cup and the 2012 London Olympics held in the country.

Responding to the allegations, the KFA said: “We deeply apologise for causing concern over various issues involving the association, which emerged from a parliamentary hearing and an unprecedented search and seizure, and from reports about events from more than a decade ago, that even many within the organisation were unaware of.”

Why do I raise this? Don’t be naive. Honestly, sitting there at work, palms out, shrugged shoulders, slightly tilted head, confused look on your face… don’t make me do it. You know why.

We don’t take these things seriously in England. We assume that, as a nation of principle, our players and officials are beyond reproach. It would never happen to us, because things like that simply do not happen to countries like England.

That is despite the HUGE betting scandal that happened in Turkey involving 149 officials or the Negreira case involving Barcelona and €7 million allegedly going to the former vice president of Spain’s technical committee of referees. Or the one-off incident involving a top-level English ref who was going out to afters with random fans, caught doing cocaine, whilst calling top Premier League managers ‘c*nts’ on film. Not to mention that we know PGMOL staff had trips approved to nation states that own professional football clubs.

Now, I am not accusing anyone of anything… all I’m asking is this… is the Premier League beyond reproach? How thorough are background checks that allowed David Coote to do as he pleased unnoticed for many years? Do we look at the professionalism of the operation we have in the Premier League, the way the group acts when it comes to substandard talent, and think that we have the right people in charge to have this sort of thing covered?

Hey, don’t shrug your shoulders at me, I’m just asking the pertinent questions out here. Crazy South Korea story though, ‘hey nerds, I know you’re in town to ref a big game, but the top dog at the football federation has someone he wants you to meet… at a massage parlor.’ Honestly, mad how 1975 that sort of sleaze is… but again, it is a warning that 1) this sort of stuff goes on 2) if you are not aggressive about background checks, and very proactive, you can easily find your league in a situation where the reputation of your own game is in tatters. Better to look under the rocks yourself than assume no one else will.

The team over at SportWitness has been putting in a shift to uncover that there are, in fact, clubs looking at two of our players, and those players are Martinelli and Ethan. It’s Galatasaray for both and Milan for Ethan.

It’s good news that a team actually wants our players; it’s bad news because our rep for being awful sellers means no one wants to offer us proper money.

‘Galatasaray, who wants to sign Martinelli on loan with a purchase option, is working to lower the fee. As for Nwaneri, Arsenal isn’t backing down from its high asking price. The management is open to signing the young player on loan.’

Come on… what are we doing here? They won’t pay €60m for Leão of Milan. No chance this offer is satisfying anyone and I just can’t imagine we’d loan Martinelli for a season. No doubt it’ll be the same story for Milan and Ethan, the money they’ll have will not match the ambition of the fee we want. Same old story, Chelsea will hand £52m over for Jamie Gittens, Arsenal can’t get more than tuppence for a Champions League finalist and a Premier League winner? Disgrazia…

There were surprising rumblings about Myles that hit the airwaves and some confusion as to where the rumours came from. My initial thoughts were the noises must have come from Arsenal because the level of newspaper putting out the gossip was too high for it to be an ITK story that jailbroke Arsenal group chats like a Open AI sandbox. But later in the afternoon, when the story had been denied, The Telegraph laid the smackdown on this being the work of an MLS intermediary.

The question you have to ask is: does that happen without approval of his people? We all love Myles, but my understanding is there are still some maturity issues there, and I think some of the people around him can be less than easy to deal with. If you have an intermediary talking to Chelsea and United, that is the fault of the player, however you cut it, and it’s quite embarrassing. There’s no doubt sensitivity over the signing of Bruno and I do think there’s probably a grain of truth that if a big offer came the way of Berta, they’d entertain it, because they want some cash flow in the business, and I doubt Myles is part of the NO WAY NEVER set of players. This line from The Athletic a bit of a tell for me.

Lewis-Skelly has started regularly for Arsenal in pre-season, and it’s understood that the club are not actively offering the England international out for sale.

Equally, there are expected to be departures for Arsenal between now and the end of the transfer window, and the club are conscious that they may have to be flexible in their plans.

There’s fire beneath the smoke… and it’s not middle aged men setting themselves alight at the training ground screaming the name of a beloved Hale-Ender. One to keep an eye on.

The story I am keeping my other eye on because there is no story right now is what we do about Álvarez. He’s really the only target that we could move on that is a level raiser in totality. Atleti have been clear they want to keep him, but the Argentine’s first day back at training didn’t go that well.

“As Mundo Deportivo has learned, the Argentine striker believes his coach lacked the courage to confront this problem and speak with him, knowing he intended to do so to try and resolve the situation. In fact, Julián didn’t expect his coach to leave for Ibiza when it was public knowledge that he was arriving on Monday and wanted to talk to him.

“He’s also fed up with Gil Marín, the other person who could help him resolve his situation, but who, coincidentally, was also on vacation and couldn’t speak with him. The Argentine player wanted to address his situation through dialogue, but they won’t let him.

“As a result, Julián has already warned those present with him on Monday that his patience had run out and that there would be consequences. ‘Count me out,’ was one of his clearest messages. The other was that he’s going to stand his ground.

“Álvarez, who claims to have had a promise from his club since February to transfer him this summer, has now completely lost his temper and is going all out to force his move to Barça.”

My read on this saga is that Atleti are going to push this to the absolute max. They don’t want to sell to Barca, which leaves a door open for Arsenal. Maybe. Possibly.

The reality Arsenal have to wrestle with is there aren’t many players that can change our fortunes. You can suggest all the options from around Europe you want, but they aren’t better than Premier League Champions, bar a few. The easiest place to upgrade would be Gyokeres because of the clear limitations he has on his game. Álvarez would be the player of choice because he complements the talents of Kai Havertz. If Atleti box Álvarez into a corner, there’s a chance that the players could be swapped out with a bit of cash going the way of the Spanish club to sweeten the deal.

How likely is that? No idea. But it’ll be something Arsenal keep an eye on as the options on the left look increasingly risky, expensive, and limited.

The most important signing of the summer, sadly, looks like it’ll be Ezri Konsa. The England centre back is experienced and also has the secret superpower of being able to double up as a right back. This move is arguably more important than any attacking addition we could make because the options we have right now are very bleak. Ben White can’t do more than 5 games in a row, Jurrien Timber has a very complicated issue that is being solved by trial and error, and Mosquera will have to cover two positions and the jury is still out on his abilities. We need someone who can come in and do the job now and Aston Villa know there aren’t many players on our list of ‘can do the job’ right now, so they’re holding out for a fat fee.

More broadly, I am looking at the squad that Berta is building, and it is starting to look like he’s taking us down the path of Atleti. We’re loading up with players 26 and older and my concern is that the kids coming through are fodder for pure profit motives that’ll age us up, vs act as the succession plan for a future that doesn’t all of a sudden see Arsenal old and broken in 5 years’ time. The salve of older players is they can do things in the now, the issue is, if they don’t deliver, you are stuck with them, because no one has much interest in players of a certain age.

Just one to keep an eye on as we head into the next 3 seasons of Arteta… where will we be left squad-wise? You could say, a team of Champions, but my hope was that Arsenal would keep the sustainable model of football operations going, so there’d never need to be a total reboot that’d lead to steep decline on the pitch. That is looking less likely as we slump from 26+-year-old to 26+-year-old.

Ok, Arsenal will be welcoming Como to the home of football a little later today. Expect to see players like Madueke on the pitch and be sure Mikel has all the players fit and firing ready to go. This is probably a more important game as we’ll have more of the parts available we’re used to seeing. Hopefully we can get those back-up keepers back on the bench.

Ok, finally, please check out the Yildiz scouting report as part of the Members package and sign urself up as a member if you are not one already. I have a tasty offer in the hopper for you as a preseason gift to secure your eyeballs for the upcoming season.

Subscribe now

Hard to grasp what exactly is going on with the Arsenal transfer window, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s going as well as one would expect it to, given the nature of our challenges and how clear they are.

I shouldn’t get too heated; the grace we can give all clubs around the globe is that the massive international tournament that just dropped genuinely clogged up business for everyone. There aren’t many teams you can point to who have smashed it out of the park. World Cup years are a shambles. I don’t even understand why, not like every player is there, but it seems to turn into that dead period between Christmas and New Year… all the sporting execs are at Congo vs Portugal watch parties, getting wasted no doubt, and they all give up on business; no one is capable of Zoom calls or texts.

Arsenal have come back to reality on a bit of a losing streak… Morgan Rogers was gazumped in a special owner-to-owner deal, Vini THE TRAITOR Jnr used our fearsome name to land a mega deal of his own… and that has left us with only two deals so far this summer.

Yeah, just the best centre midfielder in the league… and only the most productive winger outside the big clubs in Europe… pretty rough to look at both those deals too positively because that NEW-CHINNED WONDER said no and signed for Madrid. But really, when you peel the curtain back, we have two pretty good players who will elevate our abilities next season.

What my tiny lizard brain needs to understand is two things…

The second thing you need to remember is that Arsenal won the Premier League under crazy circumstances last season. The system was king, not really individuals. We played with a back-up striker who wouldn’t look out of place at Fulham, our captain managed about 1,000 minutes, none of our ceiling-raiser signings really blew it out the park, bar Zubimendi who faded HARD in the back end of the season, we lost Mikel Merino at the crunch end of the season, Saka was unfit all season, and Timber missed 3 months. Let me reframe this… we had one of the worst records for individual injuries last season, and still won the league.

It is astonishing that we won. This season, we’re channeling the LIKE A NEW SIGNING mantra because Arsenal have a lot of very good players who will be available from the get-go. That changes the shape of how we play and gives us so many new and exciting options.

Now, you have to counter all of that against Mikel Arteta’s tendencies to do things like convince all the players that the Community Shield is the most important game of the month, but getting all the players back from holidays early, getting them pumped up, and throwing them into the team a week early when they should be resting. It is my fear that all the table-banging like ‘I SAW MAGIC IN DECLAN’S EYES WHEN HE TOLD ME HE DOESN’T FEEL FATIGUE’ combined with literally seeing players turning up at friendlies unannounced to be with the team will bite us in ways you cannot imagine. But that’s a story for another day.

One story I do want to address is the Myles Lewis-Skelly one. Apparently he's been offered to United as a left back for £75m… a 19-year-old Hale Ender that started the Champions League final is apparently being moved to recoup some of the £75m we spent on a soon-to-be-29-year-old we bought from Newcastle. It is the most diabolical sacrifice I can imagine. 'Pure profit' cannot be the rationale. Sell the training ground, Win the dog's image rights, The Armory, do a crypto rug pull… do anything before you entertain self-immolation like this. Selling him as a LEFT BACK. Man made it to centre midfield against PSG in a CL final, and we’re shoving him off to play under Carrick? I’m feeling sick. Gotta put the keyboard down and take five over this. GRIM.

The only cope I can give here is that we have a deeply clogged midfield. If we move on Ethan and Myles, bring in a world-class winger, ship out Gyokeres, and sign Alvarez… we’d be happy. A lot of ifs there. A LOT.

Ok, back to it.

There are four clear objectives between now and the end of the window.

1. Arsenal have to sell a lot of players.

2. Arsenal need a left winger of difference-making proportions.

3. Arsenal need a back-up centre back, who can play right back, with experience (most important given White/Mosquera/Timber issues).

4. Arsenal probably need to think about a right back of sorts.

2-4 becomes very difficult if you don’t sell players. Sure, there’s money for a banner signing like Vini Jnr, but reports from The Athletic today seem to allude to Arsenal needing to sell before they buy on the left wing. That is either an admission that Vini Jnr was a special-circumstances signing… or that they are struggling to find a player with better numbers than Martinelli in the market right now for a good fee.

I’ve done a little bit of a deep dive on one player that has caught a lot of Le Grove readers’ eyes because of his sparkly nature… Kenan Yıldız. As part of the premium writing package, you get access to scouting reports and the slide shows I create off the back of them. I have a special offer going on memberships; get one now before the season starts.

Subscribe now

Read more

🧤 Hottest of Takes: Pete argues the goalkeeper situation is genuinely dire, with Kepa and Mellier sharing the same maddening flaw despite the talent in the frame

⚡ Solis First Impressions: big shoes to fill after Trossard’s numbers last season, why the fitness levels and end product already stand out, and whether he starts more than expected

😤 The Pedro Neto Fear: Arteta’s two known addictions (fullbacks and Chelsea reclamation projects) rear their head again, and why Pete wants nowhere near this one

🛡️ Romero Reaction: the centre back rumour that had Pete recoiling, the Mascarell comparison, and why the average age of incoming targets keeps climbing

📊 The Yıldız Scout Report: the promised slide deck arrives, with Champions League quality of action rankings stacking him against Martinelli, Saka and Trossard, plus the honest verdict on his pace

🏆 Community Shield Predictions: score calls for Como and the weekend showdown with City, plus what’s left on the schedule before the season proper kicks off

Remember, there’s a sexy deal and a members deck if you sign up right now. Lock in for the year, feel like a hero. That’s the pitch! x

Read more

🔥 Hottest of Takes: Pete makes the case for why Arsenal’s attack looks strangely toothless right now, and why there might only be one name left who can fix it

😬 Zubimendi’s Exit: Chelsea and Javi Alonso circling, the London Stadium moment Arteta hasn’t forgiven, and the João Pedro fantasy swap deal Pete can’t let go of

🥅 Dortmund Despair: back to back preseason losses, Saliba and Timber both missing, and whether the defensive wobbles are actually a genuine cause for concern

🏆 Community Shield Litmus Test: why Pete wants Ethan Nwaneri, Max Dowman and Myles Lewis-Skelly properly tested against City, not just a preseason trophy

🏥 Timber Setback & Marli Salmon: the minor surgery timeline, the Halloween deadline for Liverpool, and the 16 year old defender making a real case for right back cover

Part one is ad free. Part two, including a full Yıldız scout report and slide deck, is members only!

Read more

It’s really hard to write about pre-season because it doesn’t mean anything… ever. The only time you can weigh in is if there are clear cultural issues. Players fighting or horrible rumblings of disunity. We don’t have those issues, we’ve just witnessed two pretty average results over two very rusty games. It’s unpleasant, no doubt, but it’s a part of the process no one remembers… bar all the fans that went to The Emirates expecting a Mexican wave and did not get to partake in such an activity. Imagine that?

This post will cover off the good, the bad and the ugly. If you want some of the primo writing action, get subbed up, there’s a special pre-season deal going off right now that you might fancy. All the pods, all the writing, all the discord, all the joy of knowing you support independent writing. x

Subscribe now

Read more

Here’s what’s inside:

🔥 Hottest of Takes — Johnny’s take is about Max Dowman becoming Arsenal’s number ten hub — and it’s more profound than it first sounds. The Henri right wing comparison, the contrast with Ethan, and why this might be the most important positional evolution at the club in years. Pete has received ITK intel from training camp that he can’t fully verify and absolutely cannot stop talking about

👶 Max Dowman — Number Ten In The Making? — Johnny makes the case that what we saw at Girona wasn’t a winger doing winger things — it was a playmaker finding his natural home. Pete and Johnny debate whether this changes the Ethan calculus permanently

🏥 Kroupi — Buy Or Walk? — Johnny goes all-in on the Frenchman.

📊 Zubimendi — The Quiet Theory — Pete has a theory about where Zubimendi fits this season that nobody is talking about. It involves Bruno, Rice, and what happens when the full squad is finally fit at the same time

🏆 The Title Race — Who’s Actually Coming For Us? — Man City without Rodri and Bernardo, Chelsea in transition, Liverpool finding their feet. Pete and Johnny go through every rival and land somewhere optimistic — with one significant caveat about United that Pete refuses to take seriously

Read more

FINALLY, Bruno G has landed at Arsenal.

And we are ready to be fans of your warrior-like tendencies. Just a group of medieval wives, watching our guy go off to battle. Here for support. We’ll pack the sandwiches. We’ll never betray your honour.

The Brazilian landed to another very awesome launch video.

These still remind me a touch of Raheem Sterling, but I’ll get over that with time. Andrea Berta, who is getting a little beaten up this summer by the mean people online, had this to say.

“Bruno is a player with a great mentality and great quality, who will bring strong leadership to our squad.

“With Bruno joining us, we are further strengthening the heart of our team. As we have all seen, Bruno can play as a defensive midfielder and as a box-to-box player. He combines quality with quantity, and has provided goals and assists for his team every year.

“Bruno will allow Mikel to further develop our playing style and will also increase our internal competitiveness, which is essential for maintaining the standards required when we are aiming to win major trophies.”

The main part that stands out here is the ‘development of our style’ line. Despite winning the Premier League last season, it was clear that our ability to deal with deep blocks actually declined last year. Sure, we were on the side of better fine margins, but it didn’t feel like there were as many tools in our attacking Arsenal as there had been in prior seasons. Some of that was down to injuries, some of it down to one-dimensional players, some of that was down to Carlos Cuesta leaving for Parma… but some of it was down to not having enough variety in our play.

Bruno really is the most Roy of the Rovers player in the Premier League. He can play as a 6, an 8, or a 10. He’s extremely progressive in the way he shapes his passing, always looking to find strikers, always moving the ball forward, driving teams on with relentless positivity.

This will work well for our wide player, who he’ll be able to find earlier with sharp long balls; think back to how good Granit Xhaka was for Martinelli. This will work well for Gyokeres/Kai who will have a partner who might be able to find his darting runs (Swede’s speed might be a problem). This should work well for a team struggling in a mid to deep block because he has bravery and accuracy.

Newcastle laid out the one negative of the deal… this is the most expensive midfield deal, ever, for a 28-year-old in the Premier League in that position. We have 3 good seasons out of this player. This is very much a now-type of signing. I’m not a massive fan of Berta and Arteta and the desire to keep loading up with players 26 and older. This can lead the team to a crash in 4 years’ time when all of a sudden, you look old, players are broken all the time, and you’re facing up to a massive rebuild the funds might not be able to support. But look, this is someone who the club have clearly said, f*ck it, we don’t care about resale, we care about preserving our ability to fight in midfield while we rest players.

Great signing. Love the player. We can all see the vision. This is going to be fun.

This isn’t a fun tweet. Romero being open to joining Arsenal is both not a surprise and very worrying. This is the sort of thing Arsenal were doing under Raul Sanllehí. I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone has looked at the player’s performances, his body language, his public statements, his red cards, or how he treated Spurs last season and thought… yes, this is a name I want to push to the centre of the table.

Someone said Spurs won’t sell to us? Are you sure? No one hates the club more than their captain. I’m sure they’d send him our way in a heartbeat. This is worse than the Willian deal because at least the Brazilian was a top professional revered by team-mates and coaches alike. I have no interest in the captain of Spurs. You should be able to make a move like that and have Spurs fans crying about it… not celebrating, begging for the £38m that would come from Arsenal that they could spend on a new air conditioning unit that’d do more for the team than him.

The only way I could love this signing is if they’re putting the rumour out to soften the blow of Ezri Konsa. You know, like when a doctor tells you that you have something terminal just to soften the blow that you’ll need to take pills for a few weeks. Oh, your doctor doesn’t do that? Hmmm…

Kenan Yıldız is attracting attention in the rumour mill. The story is that we’re making him a target for a £100m bid this summer. This feels like a Houssem Aouar type story. I like the player from an aesthetic perspective. He has a bit of the Rayan Cherki about him in terms of magic and occasional crazy output in terms of wonder goals, but I’m just not having it that anyone from Serie A is carrying a price tag that extreme. Especially a player who was so dismally underwhelming at the World Cup against some very average teams. 10 goals, 6 assists, in Serie A last season. 1 goal, 2 assists in the Champions League. Honestly, it’s just not a deal that moves the needle for me. What problem are you solving at this point? He’s not the next level and he’s not better than Martinelli.

I am very firmly in the camp of ‘don’t spend without guarantees’ and you might say there are no guarantees in football. Sure, but there are players who everyone can agree are level raisers, and there are players who need a season at Chelsea, Newcastle, or Bournemouth to see if they’re going to fly. Too many players Arsenal are being linked with have NOW prices, for high-ceiling potential. Our high-ceiling potential on the left is Tzolis, the biggest output merchant in Europe last season. Martinelli is a top player, if he has to stay, no problem for me.

Anyway, plenty of window to go. Arsenal adding Bruno to the midfield is really something. I’m pretty happy with Tzolis. Now we have to move on a centre back and see if we can do something sexy on the left… we also have to sell some players. Just hoping we don’t cut into some of my favourites. Let’s see what Berta has for us!

P.S. I have an apology to make about something I said in the podcast. I read that Kroupi had a 5th metatarsal injury. I read it as his 5th injury of the same metatarsal, not the injury of the singular bone called the fifth metatarsal. Damn, I am dumb as a rock. I’m still not signing a player with a broken foot regardless.

Oh, why not sign up to the podcast of a person who gets things like that wrong? Yeah, it’s good fun. Get onboard before the start of the season. Members pod dropping later today. x

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Here’s what’s inside:

🔥 Hottest of Takes — Johnny makes the case that the Vinicius saga was never really about Vinicius — it was about the Martinelli question we’ve been avoiding all summer. Pete’s take reframes the entire window: the system is still the star, and a tweet from a fan account called Josephine of Arsenal might actually be the most rational thing said about this whole saga

😅 Moving On From Vinicius — a tweet doing the rounds makes the case that Madrid panicking and keeping Vinicius has cost them Rodri, handed City a weakness, and set a wage precedent that will haunt their dressing room. Pete and Johnny take the copium and run

🛡️ Ezri Konsa — Not Bowled Over, But Fine — Pete admits he’s not jumping up and down. Johnny makes the Xhaka under Emery comparison and makes a genuinely compelling case for why Arteta might make a man out of him. Both agree: if he does well, this podcast gets deleted

💸 Last Summer’s Signings — The Honest Verdict — were Gyökeres, Eze and Madüeke successes? Johnny says the system raised the floor when fans thought it was raising the ceiling. Pete defends every purchase. Eze’s Bergkamp goal at Newcastle alone changed the title race

📺 FPL Picks — Members Only — Johnny is pretty good at FPL. He’s putting his picks out. You’re not getting them unless you’re on Patreon (NEXT EPISODE)

Subscribe now

Read more

The dream ended in a cold sweat, Vini Jnr, signing a deal until 2032, worth a lot of cash money.

It was fun while it lasted.

My personal view is this story has done a lot for the reputation of Arsenal. To be a stalking horse with Vini Jnr is quite simply a space we’ve never occupied. Call it cope, call me a weak melt, say what you like… it is just an unfathomable position for us to be in when you think back to 5 years ago when we were put in a similar position with… Vlahović.

What have we learned?

Big dawg moves are competitive: There’s a section of the fan base that struggles with the idea of competition for signatures. Signing footballers at the high end of the game takes time, it requires patience, and quite often it involves a large slathering of disappointment. You have to be in the mix, you have to be serious, and you have to have the finances… we’ve never had all three of those things… now we do.

Stalking Madrid: I’m not sure how much of a lesson this is, but I’d certainly question stalking Madrid players. Not because the talent isn’t outrageous, but their culture is very questionable. Players do as they please, they are treated like royalty, and they tend to love where they are. Vini Jnr, if he signed, would have been fabulous… but, we can’t discount the feeling we all had in the pit of our stomachs here. This was NOT an Arteta player. Vini Jnr had a huge role in downing Alonso — and quite simply, he had not been coached properly in 8 years. He’s raw, unadulterated talent… but how far does that go in the Premier League? A place that requires hard work, a tactical aptitude that is higher than most other leagues, and a desire to share the load.

Move Quick: The thing I liked about this whole bag of nonsense is the club sprang out of nowhere to make the offer, and we landed the resolution really fast. This didn’t drag.

Moving forward, there are some things I’m watching out for… my biggest concern? That we sign someone to sign someone. We did that last year. The club powered through and won the league… but I think when you look at overall value, we didn’t get a lot out of the signings. Like, be honest here, how many players would Arsenal get a return on right now? Eze… no chance. Madueke? Give me a break. Gyokeres? Almost certainly no. We overspent and we put money down on players that weren’t really totally suited to the club. Now, we’re lumped with them.

The danger now is you sign a left winger for the sake of it and you overspend again. Iliman Ndiaye for £70m would feel like that sort of signing. 15 goals in 67 appearances. Like, why would we do that? What problem are we solving here?

Look at this chart here! The whole point about restoring the left was that we’d bring in players who are output machines… and the output machine on our list is Martinelli? Those numbers haven’t been adjusted for league difficulty either. We’re really thinking about getting rid of Martinelli to take a chance that one of the above players can IMPROVE their output in the hardest league in the world, for a team that faces the lowest deep block over the course of a season? Get out of here…

It’s better to do nothing than spend £100m on someone who isn’t right. Remember, we’re the Premier League champions, we made the Champions League final, we did that without a whole group of excellent players. We are not Spurs dropping £100m on Tonali here. We can be cute with our cash.

The player I want to see at Arsenal is Julián Álvarez. He’s world class, can occupy the left, can play in the hole, he makes everyone around him better, and the combo of him and Kai Havertz working together could be truly mesmeric. My one concern? This boy wants Barcelona. That won’t stop him being effective for Arsenal, I’m just not sure I want to go into battle for a player who has Arsenal firmly as our second choice. Or maybe I’m just being a wet lettuce here and I need to remember the first rule of football… you go where the money is and where you can get the move. After all, these guys are top professionals. That said, Miguel Delaney, friend of the pod, reckons the player is more likely to stay at Atleti than exit… that stalls any exchange for Viktor as well, which makes me REAL sad.

Álvarez comes with less risk for me. He’s played under two psycho managers, he’s done it in the Premier League, and he has the technical capabilities we love… extremely hard-working, and just incredibly efficient creatively. The numbers weren’t great last season, but nor were Atleti. The thing I like about Álvarez is he’s a big game player. He scored that screamer in the World Cup when Argentina had nothing… and he scored that wild free kick against Barca in the Champions League. He’s a ‘give me the ball and watch’ kind of attacker that’ll give us a different type of edge. But overall… he’s just incredible in all aspects of his game.

One rumour I find deeply disturbing, mostly because it comes from Gunnerblog, is that we’re interested in Romero. There are two ways of looking at this rumour.

1. We are declaring interest to spark interest. Villa are looking for a centre back with the hope of maybe shifting Konsa who I suspect wants out to Arsenal. Villa are a stepping-stone club, Emery is a stepping-stone manager, it’s good for the project to sell players to Arsenal because it makes it easier to bring in top talent that might go to more glamorous places. Arsenal declaring interest in a player like Romero creates a market of interest.

2. This is a Heinze nudge. One of the most influential coaches at the club is the Argentine, who is friends on and off the pitch with Arteta. He is Argentinian and the only way I would ever imagine Arsenal considering a signing that is this toxic is if there were personal assurances in some capacity.

I find the whole idea deeply troubling. It’s a banter era link. It makes no sense against any of the values Arsenal has as a modern club. He’s not a winner, he’s toxic to the dressing room, his public spats are cringe, his lack of discipline nearly relegated Spurs last season… and remember, to cap it off, the captain of Spurs had to be persuaded to be in London for the final relegation battle of the season because he wanted to go and see his hometown club play.

Why would we go there? Even my Spurs mates were messaging me laughing at that story. The caveat of ‘Spurs wouldn’t sell’ is so funny to me. Of course they would sell to Arsenal. They’d sell to anyone with money. He’s not a protected player. This isn’t like we’d be signing Sol Campbell. This would be like inviting a Trojan horse to the door… and inside, is just a sludge of stale milk. I’m not having it. A crime of a link if ever there was one. This is worse than Raul trying to get Vítor Pereira in to replace Unai Emery.

Player exits are anything but hot right now. Not only are we stumbling on signings, we’re also doing a pretty average job on exits. The only story with a hint of spice to it is centered around Jesus, who has attracted a bid from Napoli. Kind of perfect really, great club, competitive, and at a level that suits the player. It’ll be a league that is softer on his body and I suspect his tekkers will serve him well there. I’d take any number. Just get him off our books and fast.

Beyond that… I hear we’re hawking players around Europe in a variety of roles, and we’ll have to wait and see how it all pans out.

One last thing… Man City have lost Rodri to Barcelona. The rumor is Maresca is targeting Enzo to right the ship there. Good player, but the sort of player Pep G would have nowhere near Man City. So I like the move. I also like that he’s targeting Pedro Neto as well. The slow diminishment of excellence is a good thing.

So… it’s starting to look like an unkind window for Arsenal. I don’t think the club needed a huge amount this window, but I certainly hoped that we’d have more options on the table and that we might have had more of our business wrapped up at this point. But the key here might be that there isn’t a lot to be done this summer and we wait. Fans won’t like it, but honestly, it’s better than loading up on more 26+ players that are filler vs thriller.

Plenty of time to go… let’s see how Friday plays out. x

P.S. Get subbed up for the season right now… it’ll be a big one. 200+ podcasts. 2 premium articles a week. Access to the Discord. Members specials on data. Feel good factor OFF THE SCALE. Get involved. x

Subscribe now

Here’s what’s inside:

🔥 Hottest of Takes — Johnny’s take is a hot pre-season defence: it’s not about the result, it’s about the pattern. And one pattern is worrying him. Pete’s take is about Hector Bellerin’s haircut and why he has irrevocably fallen out of love with the man. Calafiori and Myles are his new style icons

😤 Big Vik — His Own Section — Pete and Johnny give Gyökeres the space he deserves. Dropped balls, a stinker of a game, and a frank conversation about whether this is just a blip or something that needs addressing before Coventry

🧤 Kepa — Still In The Crapper — a look back at Palace, a look at Betis, and a consistent pattern of errors that neither of them can explain away

👶 The Academy Kids — the ones who caught the eye, the ones who didn’t, and Pete’s very specific admiration for a teenage defensive midfielder who’s making everyone’s head turn

💸 The Bargain Bucket Problem — Fabio Vieira, Reiss Nelson and Gabriel Jesus all got minutes. Pete is furious. Johnny explains the Arteta logic. Arsenal still can’t sell anyone and Oxlade-Chamberlain remains the most expensive player they’ve ever sold. It’s crazy

😬 The Squad Clog — Who Actually Goes? — Pete and Johnny go through the names. The surprising one is Eze — Johnny raises the possibility that if the right bid came in, the club might listen. Ethan is likely gone. Martinelli triggers the domino. And Berta is apparently sending out a brochure

Members only — thank you for being part of the AOP family.

Read more

Pete and Johnny. It’s Thursday. The Vinicius deal is dead. Pete needs a wellness check on Johnny. And there is a lot to get through.

Here’s what’s inside:

🔥 Hottest of Takes — Johnny delivers a nuanced defence of Arsenal’s pursuit: Vinicius wasn’t choosing another club over Arsenal, he was choosing to stay put. That’s a completely different thing. Pete’s take is the hotter one — Arsenal might have dodged a bullet. The Özil parallels. The pressing demands. The cuckold behaviour. Pete is processing

😤 Vinicius — The Full Debrief — what actually happened, what it says about Arsenal as a global force, and why the fact that Florentino Pérez panicked and wrote a new contract says more than anything else about where this club now sits. Johnny invokes Apple vs Samsung. Pete invokes Anelka to Madrid in 1999

🎵 Bruno Guimaraes — Give Him His Flowers — he deserves more airtime than he’s been getting this week. Pete and Johnny go through what he offers, what the midfield combinations now look like, and why Zubimendi’s future suddenly looks more complicated

🔮 Could Zubimendi Go To Madrid? — an unexpected twist. Rodri’s gone. Madrid have space. And there are whispers. Johnny has a very specific and quite brilliant strategy for how Arsenal should handle any approach

🌟 Who Plugs The Vini Gap? — Barcola is back in the frame, and Pete makes the case for why both clubs flirting with other targets means there’s common ground to find. Kvarascalia is also discussed. The window is not closed

📅 What Happens Now? — 17 days to the season. One more winger needed. A squad clogged with players who need to move. Pete and Johnny map out what the rest of August looks like and why they’re still excited

Read more

Arsenal were hammered by Real Betis in the second pre-season friendly in Ireland. The gap in quality led me to believe that someone in the Arsenal camp had introduced the fresh-off-the-boat immigrants to Guinness in a bid to pilfer their pink boots. It was a leggy showing against a team that maybe took the game a little too seriously… making just a single change by the 73rd minute.

This blog will have some thoughts on the players, the Vini Jnr mess, rumblings on exits, and some chatter on who is smashing it up in training, enjoy!

Subscribe now

Read more

My word, these daily mini-drops of Bruno G progress… It’s floating on a Texas river in summer with an average light beer in hand… no, it’s like going to one of those beauty salons in Thailand, with the little fish that clean up your disgusting feet… NO, it’s like a wet razor to the back of your neck after a fine haircut at a Turkish barbers in north London.

‘What do you think boss?’

I love it, I truly love it; no one has ever shaved that part of my neck so well.

That is me to David Ornstein’s tweets, in private. Simply, I love it… I’m applauding my laptop in a coffee shop, a little misty-eyed; I’m inviting the patrons to look at the content, to share in the moment; I’m whooping and slapping backsides with people I don’t know because we’re all sharing in this beautiful historic timestamp, together, as friends. I might even give the Americans a bone here and shout ‘LET’S GO BRUNO’ because Americans love saying that phrase for literally any reason.

Ok, so I’m no longer in that coffee shop writing the blog. But I am having a good time. I wrote this the day after we were robbed of the Morgan Rogers deal.

I have heard there are strong feelings of positivity that Arsenal will get the Bruno deal over the line in the coming weeks. The fee will not be £100m, Newcastle have to sell him, I have my doubts that United would go to £100m in a gazump move. I also have faith that this player does actually want Arsenal, and so does his agent (I know what I said earlier). A deal is there to be done and there are absolutely no doubts about his ability to impact the club. For me, Bruno would be a better signing for our needs than Rogers ever could be, even with the age issue.

My overall thesis of the summer was that Arsenal were going to stick to valuations — and the valuation Arsenal didn’t want to go over was £75m and that is what the deal has been set at. It’s a spicy number for someone who is 28 years old, but it’s still within the realm of universal reality. There was a big concern a month ago that Premier League player valuations were going through the roof and the starting number for anyone good would be £100m. Well, I think we are starting to see that this sort of viewpoint is tainted.

There is the traditional view of market value, which is… the value is what the market will pay. But I don’t think we can accept that as how it is. We’re not buying a 2 up, 2 down in Newham here. We’re buying fine art. Art values are in the eye of the beholder, or more often than not, who you are buying against… and sometimes you’re buying against a madman.

Man City do not represent the market, they are a nation state unencumbered by reality (when they want it to be that way, we mustn’t forget that prior to the last 2 years, they generally stuck to valuations and often walked from deals). Elliot Anderson isn’t a £116m player, but they’re in a rush for some reason, and they just went there with that number.

Chelsea are also manipulators of the traditional view of the market. They signed Morgan Rogers to much hoopla. £117m was, in fact, a trap. They signed the deal, then Aston Villa used that money to overspend on Garnacho, which brought the net of that deal down to about £72m… a number we can all agree looked far more appropriate for Morgan.

The rest of the league is mostly doing deals that look pretty normal. When it’s club-to-club and there’s nothing weird going on, you can get some value in the market.

Talking of weird, it has not gone unnoticed that Fulham ownership is very close to Madrid ownership and their dealings this summer have looked very weird. Arbeloa was an odd hire as were the two Madrid benchwarmers they added.

Back to Arsenal…

What I am worried about is that Arsenal seem to be quite incapable of getting value for their own players. Reiss, Jesus, and Ethan are all still here… and it would seem that the most likely exit of them all is going to be the English teenager who is attracting interest from serial flipper… RB Leipzig.

Vidal reckons the fee will be €40m with a buyback option.

I’m sorry… what?

This is a kid who scored 9 goals in his breakout Premier League season. Leipzig are collecting €120m for Yan Diomandé. How have we landed with a lower fee than we picked up for Oxlade-Chamberlain in 2017? How can the fee be about the same as the Balogun one 3 years ago? This is a crown jewel in a market that overspends on teenagers. I feel affronted… there just doesn’t seem to be a premium on Arsenal players. Jamie Gittens moved to Chelsea for £52m last summer! We can only get £35m for Ethan? Crazy… just crazy.

The only positive I can take from this deal is that we basically have a regret clause in it. My view is that Ethan is going to get a very good education at a club well known for turning raw talent into the exceptional. Klopp has given the bland out-of-possession football the heave-ho, so he’ll be learning a better game out there… this was a snippet David Raum, their fullback, on the changes at Leipzig.

"With the ball, we play a little bit different,"

"A different formation but we play with clear wingers now and this helps us as fullbacks because we have very, very good wingers, good one-v-one players and if we can bring them into the game, it's very hard for every opponent and last season we played more with a [No.] 8 and wingers, they played more from the middle so I had the full line as a fullback and this season, it's more different because I have one in front of me and we can play with double wings. A little bit different but I like it."

Sounds good for Ethan, depending on where he plays… and my view is he’ll smash it in Germany and be a hot prospect for the Premier League in 18 months’ time. He just needs minutes.

Finally, we should start to hear rumblings today about whether our summer BIG signing is going to happen. Vini Jnr had his people in with Florentino. The discussion was about getting his pay up to Mbappé levels. If the President agrees, then Vini stays, if he doesn’t, they will push Arsenal to pay €140m to bring him to London. I find that a little rich for a player with one year left on their deal, but honestly, it’s not my cash to worry about. Vini would represent a significant shift in how Arsenal are viewed globally and if we can make it work, then we should make it work.

Arsenal face off against Real Betis this evening. I’m reading the club won’t have it on the website behind a paywall, but they should have it on YouTube later. I think. I can’t find much on the .com. Quite a messy site if we’re honest.

Anyway, I’m off to read that Bruno story one more time… also, check out the latest podcast with me and Johnny!

Subscribe now

Here’s what’s inside:

🔥 Hottest of Takes — Johnny has changed his mind on Ethan Nwaneri after watching the Girona game and he’s brave enough to say so out loud. Pete’s tak…

Read more

I was always fascinated as a young man by public personas and their lack of apologies when it came to owning their errors.

‘Why not just say sorry, is it that hard?’

Then I became a hardened adult and realized that apologies actually seem to do nothing in this ridiculous culture of ours, just as changing your mind is oddly seen as a sign of weakness, versus being an enlightened viewpoint. Apologizing is perceived as weak; the admittance of guilt makes you more likely to be canceled; it’s almost never worth it.

Oh, you thought I was gearing up for an apology of my own? No, my friends, you’ll not be hearing a more nuanced view from me on Vik, nor shall I apologize for my crusade against his touch. I was here to talk about Arsene Wenger and his response to the FIFA debacle.

The recent events at FIFA deserve some clarity from my side.

At FIFA, I am the Chief of Global Football Development.

Together with my team, I oversee the data analysis of the game, the FIFA online training centre, the development of youth education through 60 academies across 60 countries where they are most needed, and youth competitions around the world.

In addition, I am a technical adviser to IFAB. I was not involved in this strategic plan and first became aware of the project through media reports.

The decision to withdraw the project was absolutely necessary and beyond question, because I firmly believe in an independent FIFA that serves our game with commitment, transparency, and integrity.

This is where I become part of the unenlightened… the statement we all wanted isn’t good enough, is it? Coming in, on your white horse, to a battlefield strewn with bodies, to declare moral clarity over something his very reputation was at least partially used for to create moral cloud cover is… meek leadership.

You could say that it is not normal for folk to go against their boss, but my response would be that Wenger isn’t in a normal job. He’s not living pay cheque to pay cheque. I am going to go out on a limb here… he’s not the most qualified person to perform that role. He’s there because he is famous, and the optics of him there are a credibility cleanser.

I just don’t understand how legacy isn’t the most important thing for him right now. He’s well into his seventies, has £50m sitting in the bank, and he’s spent much of his career railing against the damage money has done to the purity of the game… how does he not recognize he has an obligation to speak out? Arsene waited until the coast was clear, put out the bare minimum, absolved himself of any involvement, and… didn’t resign like some of the others at FIFA. Even the Goldman guy showed more backbone…

‘Yeah, it was a bit shit lads. As you were, I’ve got an offside rule to butcher, and a wonderful dinner planned with JP Morgan’

Arsene Wenger’s statement was so slow, we actually heard from Gianni Infantino first. It’s like offering your endorsement to a mayor after the election. Nice, but really, timing was everything here. FIFA uses star power as a heat shield for the things they get up to. This was not good enough from someone we kind of expected more from, especially considering the last 15 years of his career were spent complaining about unfairness and a lack of transparency in the game.

Vini Jnr has Arsenal fans in all sorts of emotional mess. I couldn’t believe that people in the comments section here were complaining that we were competing for his signature… just in case he said no. Online cowardice! This is NOT the way. We are jungle cats, at the top of our game, and we are now the hunters… the dinosaurs are gone, we are the apex predator. Trust the process until the process can be trusted no longer.

Top players always have competition for their signatures. But when it comes down to it, the one thing that usually sways deals… is money. It’s always money. Kids giving their careers to Man City over Arsenal are doing it for… money. Doesn’t matter if they’ll be at Celtic in 2 years; money is the driving force for 99% of deals. Vini might learn to love Arsenal, but what he’ll love more is a massive signing-on bonus and a pay package that will make him feel like a king. I don’t need to see Thierry posters on the wall; I don’t care about his old tweets not containing content supporting Lacazette as a number 10 due to his lack of speed and ability to press defenders, I care who wears the Arsenal shirt at the start of the season… and we are in the mixer for Vini Jnr, and no serious person in the world should be complaining that it might not go our way. This is sport; give me a club that will fight in the ring versus an exec team that cowers from the competitive nature of the game.

My view is that the deal Arsenal have sent Vini Jnr’s way was not used as a bluff, it was used as a way to show Madrid that another club could love him, and he will run towards the love. The aggression from his camp is to get a yes or a no from Madrid. He doesn’t want to do one more year on the bench getting booed when he goes to Mercadona for leche; he wants to play, unencumbered, in a place that makes him feel like a king. If the deal rests with Perez, we’ll see what happens, but I think he might have to think about future deals, and Vini might be in for a shock.

A lot of hope there, but hey, if we listened to the wisdom of the crowd, we’d have signed Maddison over Odegaard, because the Norwegian was boring. Arsenal SHOULD be in for Vini Jnr; this is where we want to be as a club; this is the future: be in for headline-grabbing players and grab headlines in the biggest games. What a move this could be…

Arsenal only went and did the damn deal for Bruno G. What a signing. Magnificent. I am at ease, finally.

There is now, however, a desire among all parties to bring the situation to a close and a deal is on course for completion. Guimaraes is awaiting permission to undergo a medical and seal a move to north London.

There has been a lot of spleen venting from Newcastle media over this deal, mainly, I think, because it represents a total end to their current project. The club, owned by PIF, has given up on a generation of stars who were about to enter their peak, instead, opting to go young with top foreign talent. Must feel kind of rank if you stood outside St. James park wrapped in a Saudi flag to see this happen to your team. They’re now a budget Brighton.

Arsenal have returned to what they know best… signing top-tier Premier League talent to help them retain their first in 22 years. This signing is about leadership; it’s about aura, bit, aggression, and relentless dedication to moving the ball forward with incisive passing and bold shot-taking.

You just can’t knock a signing this bold. Readymade, all the way. I am extremely excited what he’ll do for the mood of the club and what he’ll do for our likability. We’re a box office hate watch of the highest order. Magnificent.

Also, a couple of things I wanted to address for any new readers. I try to write this blog daily during the season. I started this article at 5am. Sometimes I write during the day. The evenings are good to me, but that’s harder when I’m out of the country. I also manage the podcast; I mostly write the topics, edit the show, manage the transcripts, and make the silly graphics. It’s a lot. I don’t tell you this for sympathy; I mostly like doing it, but in 2026, I am fully admitting to you, so you are under no illusions: I use AI to support me. I know some people have made it part of their personality to hate on AI. For me, it’s the only way I can be present with my family, whilst servicing my online best friends (you) with disgusting amounts of content about the etam we love.

Two reasons I tell you this:

1) I move at speed and make mistakes (NO APOLOGIES FOR THAT), like leaving AI prompts in posts sometimes. It happens. But if you saw my one earlier in the week, it’s to auto-correct my spelling and grammar.

I don’t use AI to write, I use it to make sure there are no dumb mistakes, it’s basically my editor, but just for typos.

All ideas are mine, and you know they are because AI would steer me away from writing about raspberries and the fineries of craft ice. My tools are Grammarly (spelling plugin), Claude (post editing, research, financial data synthesis, transcript conversion to pod descriptions), Midjourney (little graphics), Opus (social clips), and Adobe (thumbnails). Everything is about speed with this site; there’s no world where I’m taking jobs from people, because there’s no way I could afford to hire people to do jobs that don’t really offer that much heft to the blog. My needs for a good experience are quite basic… the site needs to look pretty, my words need to be error-lite, content needs to land fast.

2) If, for some reason, you wanted to check the veracity of my statements, there’s a tool built into Substack called Pangram that allows you to see how much of my work is written by me. Could you imagine LinkedIn if they did the same? I don’t think you need it, but if you want to police me with AI, here’s how.

Ok, podcast coming out later with Johnny; until then, get in the comments section and battle with the naysayers on Vini Jnr. x

Subscribe now

I think the American equivalent of the World Cup food odyssey so many Europeans went on is a bunch of Midwest soccer fans going to Sainsbury’s and experiencing the fresh produce aisle. America is being ravaged here by a berry scene so bland, it might need an investigation. They don’t know what is happening in the UK berry farms. They are not prepared for what £3.25 can buy you. Their strawberries should be indicted on fraud charges for crimes against taste… I have been spoiled, truly, by Sainsbury’s.

Don’t even get me started on the innovations I’m seeing at M&S. It’s too unfair for me to write those things on a global blog. It’d be like introducing a Nokia 3210 user to an iPhone 17. We just can’t be taking responsibility for the outcry this would cause, so I’ll save it for another day.

Final point about London. The lady from The Economist, telling the guy that never goes to London that he didn’t know what he was talking about when it comes to London burning narratives, was so, so right. I just can’t quite grasp how so many people in America ask me about how dangerous London is because a bunch of nerds on Twitter say it’s like Baghdad 25 years ago. I spent 4 days walking the city with my kids, all over the place, and the only complaint I had was the heat. London, without doubt, is one of the greatest cities on the planet, and the pleasantness of just walking it can’t really be matched by many others (personal bias, but walking New York doesn’t measure up to walking London).

I’m also blown away by how much newness there is everywhere and the diversity of what they are building - everything connects, the design language is varied but seamless, and so much care goes into the important things. You are so blessed in big cities to have the range of things to do, at any price point, and have so much of it be at such an outrageously high quality. If you live in the city, you are truly blessed, and I might actually be jealous of you… and if we meet, maybe I try and bring you down in other ways that aren’t immediately clear… but trust me, it’s related to the jealousy, not your t-shirt looking a little frumpy.

Talking of things that make me happy… how about the journalist from The Telegraph finally coming to the table with the reality of what is happening to Bruno?

I love this brand of ‘yeah, but I was right hactually’… but the deeper point here, outside this all being quite amusing, is that the Bruno story is going to culminate in a closure of sorts very soon, just as so many have said for weeks.

I don’t need to keep saying the same things here, you know my view, I think this could quite possibly be the most important signing of the summer. It’s one of those unassuming deals that gives Arsenal a quality injection that will feel totally seamless when we need it most. Bruno represents a pressure release valve in midfield for the concentration of minutes that led to dead games last season… and he also gives us an injection of quality attributes that we maybe lack. He’s very good going forward, he’s progressive in his thinking, and he gives us shot action threat that we kind of have… but it’s underutilized.

The Vini Jnr story hasn’t had any notable updates. It seems pretty set. The player has an Arsenal offer that is very rich. He’ll take a lesser deal from Madrid, but they have to budge on the loyalty bonus. Arsenal think they have the funds to pull him out of there if the player decides he wants to be a global superstar at the bigger club.

Do I have that right? Of course I do. I’ve been fuelling my brain with Sainsbury’s raspberries; I think I know what I’m talking about.

Being an Arsenal fan, I do have to protect my feelings, and think about the worst case… because I’m not sure what that is right now. Nothing will feel like a Vini transfer, but we do have some problems to solve on the left if that’s the case. Will we pressure Atlético for Álvarez? Will Barcola be an option? I also have questions about the budget, because one senses there isn’t a set pool of money dedicated to anyone on the left. What I mean by that is this: if we miss out on Vini, I don’t think there’s £400k a week and £140m for Bradley Barcola. Again, could be totally wrong here, but this whole mega push by Arsenal isn’t a deal that has been on a whim… it feels like the club has been working on it for a while, and everyone is in lockstep on doing a madness because it’s Vini Jnr, he’s a big f*cking deal, and he comes with far more guarantees than anyone else on the market on the left (I include Kvara, who had quite poor numbers last season, and has played in slow leagues).

You know what else I have my eye on? The 6 or so players we should be shifting this summer to bring in some cash money. I’m not sure I read too much into Arteta saying Gyok is staying, anything can change in football. I think there are plenty of names that could exit if bids came our way… I’m just not entirely sure there seem to be too many bids at the moment. Martinelli is the most shocking of them all, because he’s an objectively top talent, who stays fit, and does big things in big games. How can no one be at our door with a begging bowl, but they’ll be ready with an £80m bid for Kroupi?

I just can’t get myself excited about £15m for Vieira or £7m for Norgaard. Get me some proper cash. I want to see big numbers. I can’t have Ox as the biggest sale ever. How am I reading £35m for Nwaneri yet Man City paid €31.20m for Oscar Bobb last season? Are Arsenal being discriminated against for sale? Have we been blackballed for saying something unsavoury at a Premier League meeting of the minds? Did someone cook fish in the office microwave at the Sporting Directors Selling conference? I need to know, because the lack of deals is fishy. BAD fishy, if you get what I’m saying.

I’m not too dialled into everyone else’s pre-season games yet, but it was interesting to see Chelsea lose to Spurs, and concede 4 against Western Sydney. You’d best believe I was dialled into Leeds walloping Liverpool 4-2, with Iraola’s players having a little bust-up. I also had to listen to Enzo Maresca say that Man City have to try and win the Premier League, or at least fight until the end, but he feels it’s too early… staggering. How does chatter like that go down in a dressing room that I’d imagine might need convincing on Maresca as the heir apparent to the greatest winner of all time? Badly, is my hope.

Ok, I’m at the end of my post, I’m back at home this week, so the good blogs will flow like wine, and the podcasts will get back on track.

Just a quick 1300 word post from me today as I am traveling out of Great Britain back to the sandy shores of Missouri.

This is a little mix of a Girona breakdown, some Vini chatter, and a roundup of some transfer rumors bubbling (one horrible one as a trigger warning)… sign up for a membership and be free to get all the content you need this season! I’ll get back to all those who requested comps for the season when I’m back home. x

Subscribe now

Read more

Expect serious Vini discussion, Brazil vs Brits, the fight for 7 and hope for outgoings.

Read more