GRIM DISTRACTOR COMES KNOCKING

MEANDERING THOUGHTS ABOUT A LOT OF TOPICS, BUCKLE-UP

Just mooching around thinking about the fixtures this season - and how badly Arsenal have had it so far. Then I noticed that Manchester City have this run in February.

Why is this interesting? Well, the assumption from the bookies was that Manchester City were almost a dead cert to avoid the Champions League playoffs by qualifying in the top 8. That would have meant no Champions League games in February, while Arsenal (second seed) would have to slog it out in the Premier League with mostly three games a week. City managed to somehow find the perfect part of the season to play their biggest rivals with 7-12 days of prep time. Mad to see the random fixture generator performing minor mircales again.

Good news for us? They're not making Champions League playoffs. Arsenal and Liverpool will most likely be in the mix for that. So that means that a Manchester City that is broken and beaten up will now be dealing with their hardest stretch of the season whilst managing two unexpected extra European games. Their gift of an advantage now looks like a curse. Their battered squad might be so blitzed, the fatigue could affect their top 4 push.

A third-party IT company with global reach takes care of fixtures. Would LOVE to know how the process is audited. Who calls the shots. Who stress tests the games. How much is automated. How much is manually changed. Whether a braintrust assesses fairness. How you get that business as an IT company that builds HR systems and shills industrial metaverse products in 2025. Whether the job is put up for pitch every year. So many questions for a very consequential part of the game for a league that doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to lines of questioning.

Just before I leave this topic, look at City’s finish, when they’re usually in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

Beautiful it won't matter. But still...

Let's talk about transfers:

The club will stay calm. They won't sign 7 out of 10s. They won't pay massively over the odds. They will move if a delicious opportunity to strengthen pops up.

The internet is buzzing around the potential of Cunha. He's a great player, he's aggressive, powerful, scores bang-bang goals at a club in disarray, can play all across the frontline... but he's playing for a team that doesn't want to go down. The only way you get that move now is if you pay dramatically over the odds. Even then, I'm not sure relegation-challenged clubs accept their fate by shipping players with end product.

'DO WHATEVER' sounds good in the moment, but if you overspend now, you take away from what you can do in the summer.

It's a bit like the Spurs problem - because they threw the City game, they didn't make Champions League, now they can't afford big-dog players and they're fucked.

That point had no relevance to our situation, I just wanted to write it.

I'm still not of the mindset that we need to be overly dramatic with our moves. We need three big players to move us forward and a little bit of leveling up with the squad... mostly replacing players who can't sustain fitness and availability.

There are going to be some interesting opportunities coming up. You have Ola Aina at Nottingham Forest who will be a free transfer in the summer. A great option as a back-up right back. You could do a total madness and snatch Amad Diallo from Manchester United as your back-up right wing option this summer. Bryan Mbuemo will have one year left on his deal this summer, he's created more big chances than Martin this season... but if you wanted to totally show some big-dog energy, you'd hope the club are closely monitoring the situation of Musiala who still hasn't signed a new deal with Bayern and his deal runs to 2026. Don't sleep on Sesko for £50m this summer - he fits our profile, he's raw, young, will have two decent seasons under his belt, and he'll be back on the agenda.

People crying out for Thomas to get a new deal have lost their damn minds. He'll be off to a Barca-like club where he can rest those bones and play at a slower pace. We need a 6 to replace him and I cannot look beyond Zubimendi. Hopefully City don't go mad this January to get him. If they pass, I'd imagine it'll be between Arsenal and Liverpool. But would you really join them after they lost all their good players? I wouldn't.

There are loads of really great options we can bring in; I'm just not sure too many of them are going to be activated in a January window that is always fraught with meh options that tend to be massively over-valued.

Ok... Liverpool.

Jamie Carragher clearly landed a call from someone at exec level at Liverpool and went on the offensive against Trent... according to him, his team was pushing the Real Madrid bid to shape the narrative. Regardless of whether this was happening, the truth of the matter is Liverpool have had many years to address this contract and they've failed. If Trent wants to go and do Beckham bits at Madrid, good for him.

What made this mini 'you're letting your club down' type of thing absolutely hilarious was the curveball Mo Salah interview that dropped on Sky yesterday. The Ballon d'Or 2025 winner was sat at Liverpool's training center, wearing a Liverpool shirt... and BOOM.

"It's my last year in the club"

Now, if this was him sitting on a couch with Piers Morgan, I might wonder if he was using the platform to push Liverpool into giving him a mega deal. If it was at Liverpool's training ground, every question would have been prepped, every answer would have been choreographed, all in the name of making sure both parties came out looking ok.

But what seems to be quite certain here is that there is no going back on this one. So, questions:

What triggered this? Which club is he going to leave for? Can the romance of his incredible season last for the next 5 months? The most important one: Will Jamie Carragher go after him for letting the team down before an important Sunday game against the worst team in history?

I've been wrong about Liverpool up until this point, but I did say at the start of the season 'whoever manages distractions the best will win the league.'

City have not managed their distractions. Liverpool, up until this week, haven't had a single distraction all season. Now it's all but confirmed that two of the trifecta of glory-glory Liverpool will be exiting.

People, we haven't even spoken about Virgil, a player who reeks of high-class Madrid-smelling perfume. He could play on the continent for another 3 years and win 2 Champions League titles. You think he wants to continue to slog it out through a Liverpool rebuild? You think Virgil thinks Michael Edwards, collecting no transfer fees from £180m worth of players, is going to be able to fluke his way to another two generational players with £80m? Or do you think he'll know the writing is on the wall?

Liverpool could continue to be incredible - the romance is strong - the history books are calling ——— but we said this last season and things went to shit around mid-February and Liverpool didn't look a threat.

Football is a cruel beast. It tempts you into the bedroom with hope, then pours chip fat down the back of your pants when you're taking off your socks.

That said... it could be a cruel beast to Arsenal as well. We're not guaranteed to go on an amazing run and the away day at Brighton isn't going to be fun.

Our best right back is suspended. Thomas Partey is the only real option to cover and we do NOT like that. Brighton have had two extra days' rest and they also don't have many injuries. This game is going to be a real slog after a tough away game against Brentford.

But we have to win. There's no margin for error in this season. Winning this one carries a smidge of extra importance because this Sunday, in Merseyside, the weather is looking proper shite.

The Met Office has issued an amber weather warning for Merseyside amid the threat of "snow and freezing rain [that] will likely lead to disruption to transport and some other services."

Again, none of this matters if the winning machine keeps on winning... but this would be the second game in two weeks that they've had moved. United, as it stands, are getting shellacked 9-0. Amorim must be PRAYING it gets moved so he can regroup and maybe try and map tactics against the talent he has at the club, versus showing everyone a prime example of what happens when bad players are asked to do modern things at a club in freefall.

Ok, that's me done out here for the day. Enjoy the Arsenal game. We'll be On The Whistle right after. Subscribe and get the January offer now and you can see all the content in realtime... all the time.

See y'all later. x

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