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
I see the Wenger pile-on is back. Full circle moment for how Le-Grove was birthed.
Last time from Pedro was that Wenger didn't speak up. He speaks up, he spoke up too late. Don't understand how a man he basically put this club on the map globally has become such a divisive figure.
We can revisit history all we want but Wenger did his best for the club. He should have left far earlier than he did and he became near-sighted at the end. Simply shows he is fallible like the next man. But his image is now tarnished? Give me a break, fellas!
Let's not forget that Wenger was always motivated by money and power for himself, I remember he lied constantly to the fans about transfers and our intentions, always the poor mouth in the end but still he was one of the highest paid managers in the world working with total control of the club and then had to be pushed in the end when well past his sell by date, lets not forget there wasn't a queue of clubs chasing him when he said he wasn't retiring.