FIRST-WORLD ARTETA PROBLEMS

HOW TO HANDLE A DREADFUL WOLVES TEAM

It’s the weekend baby… and I’m not having fun. Christmas, woof, stressful these days. My word. How do you keep on top of tasks whilst consuming a party boatload of booze every single evening? No idea. The most first-world of problems for sure.

You know what else is a first-world problem? Arsenal playing Wolves this weekend with two choices:

• Rotate and preserve

• Batter and progress

Am I the biggest ‘tempting fate’ sicko on the internet at the moment? Damn right. Wolves have two points from 15 games, they’ve conceded 33 goals, and only scored 8. I told you that Vítor Pereira was a terrible managerial hire when it happened and that the name had been floated as a link when Emery exited… he’s a super agent patsy. Well, look at them now.

It’s an incredible collapse of a club that really did win some hearts with their ‘against the odds’ rise into the Premier League. They’ve had some great players there. Rúben Neves, Pedro Neto, Raúl Jiménez, Diogo Jota, Rayan Aït-Nouri… now they’ve taken their eye off the ball, made some bad signings, some poor managerial hires… and it is looking ever more likely the season is done and we’re only in December.

Can’t think of too many sides in history that sat with that few points. I mean, I could just Google it to confirm my feelings.

… ok, I did Google and Sheffield United had two points at this stage.

Rob Edwards, the ex-Luton manager, has taken over the club. I wasn’t sure why until I was told by a Member that he’s a Wolves fan (and ex-player). I think he probably knows the jig is up, and he’s thinking about how he can rebuild the club in his vision.

Arteta has the absolute luxury this week of just one game today, then the Everton game on Saturday… that means he can pretty much do what he pleases, then give the boys a few days off to do some Christmas shopping and rest those battered bones.

The manager has a great problem… his rotation crew from earlier in the week did a VERY tidy job on Club Brugge. There are some players he can’t drop. I don’t think Saka needs to show for this one, Madueke was masterful. If Trossard is a little bit of a doubt, rest him. Saliba? Don’t risk him. Keep him on the bench instead of starting him.

The striker? I’m caught in two minds here. Gabriel Jesus brings more to the starting 11, but Big Vik is on code red for confidence, and Wolves really should be the sort of team he steamrolls. I can’t stop thinking about how bleak the next 3 months are from him with all these players coming back into the starting 11 who can do 9 things to a higher standard than him.

I want him to find his niche… if it’s beating up average teams, this really should be his bread and butter. If he does it, I’ll be thrilled, no caveats. If he doesn’t, then the questions will start flowing from the normies… you know, people who don’t have predictive powers like mine.

Shut up, I never said Fábio Vieira was the one.

What we really want is this: No drama.

If we can creep through this game unscathed, we’re getting pretty close to a full squad. At some point, Kai is going to be dropped into a squad unannounced, and we’re going to be ROLLING in attacking options. Matt Kandela said on the pod earlier that it’s felt like we’ve been two weeks away from having a full squad all season. Can it happen for us? Has Arteta gone easier on the boys this week? Can we make the gap count?

I hope so.

Final point of the day. Juliet Slot has pulled in another big dog deal for the club. The troubled Rwanda sponsor was removed this season after much negative press and we’ve gone and brought in an HR platform to bring some much-needed blandness to the sleeve. These guys are focused on compliance, contracts, scale, and multi-language dominance of the ‘you’re fired’ process. The added bit of spice to this is that apparently Chelsea were close to getting them on the front of the shirt, but Juliet showed them a slide about our globalness and they moved on to Arsenal.

Are we massive? Yes. But full credit to the Arsenal partnerships team for finally kicking us on to a new level with these deals. The days of stagnation are a long way behind us. Have to say, it’s probably much easier to sell this Arsenal than the one Vinai was flogging back when he had a similar role for the club.

Can you imagine the HR related branded content? Can’t wait to see Martin Odegaard do the Deel worker classification quiz in the new year (it’s a thing).

Ok, that’s me done. The On The Whistle will be the four of us. Then the one after will be the four of us, live, in Finsbury Park. Looking forward to getting into London and having to acclimate to my feral friends that drink real pints, never rehydrate, and slap you in the face when you say water with a D. Can’t wait. BIG WEEK. Stay safe my friends. xxx

P.S. Apologies for slow responses this week. Loads going on. Will address on the plane over on Tuesday! x