What is up, freaks and geeks?
I don’t really think you are a freak or a geek; it just felt good to write.
What doesn’t feel good is seeing that Nottingham Forest and that monster, Sean Dyche, are trying to tear up Zinchenko’s contract and send him back to Arsenal in January.
Doesn’t this move feel like an East End dad from the 60s walking in on his son practicing Freddie Mercury tunes in the mirror?
‘We won’t have that malarkey in my house; get out in the garden and shovel some gravel.’
Dyche cannot tolerate artistry in his dressing room. The idea of an ‘inverter’ repulses him. Like Roy Keane seeing and Arsenal player do things he used to do as a player… it simply has no place in this modern world and must be destroyed.
Zinchenko wasn’t in the squad for the West Ham game and managed 99 minutes in the prior four Forest losses. He was also yanked at halftime in the Wrexham game, presumably because Dyche thought he was slacking. Managers like Dyche need a head on a stick to show the fancy boys who’s boss. I think he had a big falling out with DCL at Everton because the player was getting irritated at having to keep heading the ball in training—so he started scoring with his shoulders (nothing to do with him wearing a skirt on a magazine front cover of course).
Zinchenko should come home, sit on our bench, drop some wonderful 7-minute cameos for Arsenal, or give us one of his amazing 4-game stretches before getting injured.
Whatever is going on, knowing he’s in danger every day, playing under a manager so untrendy he had a brief moment of being the most trendy manager in the league a few months ago… where am I with this line? Oh yeah, bring Zinchenko home.
I am struggling slightly with the whole Nottingham Forest saga—they had a good thing under Nuno until the owner went nuts on the last day of last season when Forest tanked their chance at UCL football. Then they tried Ange, and it was a cataclysmic disaster; now they’re working with one of the most rugged joy destroyers in the game, and it isn’t really that good to watch.
Their last 10 games have seen them win 4 and lose 6. They are boom or bust in a big way. They can beat Liverpool 3-0 or lose to Everton by the same score. They were chasing top 4 last season; now they’re one place above relegation. What am I getting at here? This won’t be an easy game away from home. That’s not based on electric form there like Bournemouth, because the stats reveal they are picking up a point per game home and away… more that Arsenal have just played a big emotional away day in the cup, and they’ll have had 9 days to prepare against us after that terrible Wrexham outing.
Sean Dyche hates what Arsenal stand for—if Arsenal’s Ultras organized a fight on Facebook Groups, Sean would take down the details just in case he fancied it. He’ll have his team fired up like your dad after he’s seen a GB News segment on non-binary farm animals… you will not believe how incredulous that team talk is going to be.
If we show up half-baked and concede early, it’ll be a filthy afternoon of roughhousing, long balls, and deep, dirty, frustrating mid blocks. All the plonkers that make out there’s a sophistication to this can get in the bin; this will be cynicism 101… and I just find it hilarious that Edu left the comfort of Arteta football and Arsenal prestige to have to sit in a meeting room with someone who gets angry at the frivolity of Pret A Manger pastries.
‘It’s a London company, Sean. They’re London pastries. I promise.’
I would love to put gloves on Forest. Getting three points against them is a good build heading into a United game that would be very United of them to win… then lose 6 in a row. The Carrick bounce could be real because they have a lot of very good players who can create magic moments. We need some cushion heading into that game, and we can’t let our league form dip because of a post-cup hangover.
It was interesting to read that United have made the most of being out of the FA Cup by booking a £10m friendly in Saudi… possibly bringing Ronaldo into the mixer to face his old club.
Hold on? You want to know what the prize money for the Carabao Cup is? £100k.
The FA Cup? £2.1m.
Crazy, right? United doing the right business thing by being very bad at football right now.
Final part of the blog… what are the Gyok heads playing at right now? Taylor Swift fans, the Swifties, are nuts, but the Gyok heads are online right now, slandering our best player for not passing to him? Saka is now the problem? We’re at the Rashford phase of ‘we just need Saka to trust him more to unlock his super stardom’?
I am getting people in my messaging apps down so bad, they’re trying to say he wasn’t bought for goals despite the player saying this last night.
‘Thats what I need to do but I will do it more often.’
Gyokeres is not a decoy. The idea of signing the most prolific striker in Europe was, categorically, to score goals.
It’s weird, man. If you’re slagging off our best player for not doing enough for an underperforming striker, you need to delete the apps and go for a walk. Terrible to see these radical cliques form online and cause problems like this.
For a bit of levity… I read this in The Athletic about Wenger and his IDGAF era over at FIFA making up rules for the game.
Wenger has also suggested legalising corners which bend out of play and then drift in again, which seems like an incredibly niche issue in the first place, and, once again, who benefits from this? Those teams who want to ‘get it in the mixer’ and challenge the goalkeeper in the air.
You know why you don’t get to be taken seriously saying mad shit like this? Because you’re not Arsene Wenger. I’m here for this. All day long. Most of us just hope we can get away with being rude and belligerently out of touch in our latter years… this is really where I want to be. Imposing my will on billions of people with crazy stuff like this.
Ok, my friends, that takes us to the end of the blog. Thanks for reading, check out the excellent Sam Dean podcast with Jacobs. I’ll do a little ‘Before the Whistle’ later—might go solo because it’s been a crazy week of pods, and the reception was good for the solo last time. Check out Sam below.
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