HOPES

LITTLE BIT OF HOPIUM IN YOUR CUP OF TEA

Listen, I want to apologize straight-up for talking about full body deodorant yesterday and suggesting that folk who swap out Frappuccino’s for boiled eggs and call that being an athlete and wrong… but I also want to reveal, the person who changed out the frappuccino for a boiled egg as a lifestyle shift… was me. I did that. Then called myself an athlete on a men’s health forum.

Some well-meaning people said I was being patronizing for insinuating that people couldn’t put themselves in the world of athletes — and to those people who can, good on you. You are the empaths this world needs. But for the 95% of folks who don’t really care to hear about how athletes feel, that post was for them.

A chunk of the comments under the post were “NO EXCUSES” merchants and I gotta tell you… in sport, after all the platitudes about no excuses, there are always excuses. And reasons things don’t go your way.

Arsenal have plenty they’ll take comfort from this summer. PGMOL treated us hideously. We had outrageous injuries. Liverpool had none. We’ve conceded so many goals from stupidly low xG. There are legitimate excuses for why it didn’t happen… but we have to learn from the things we can learn from.

Liverpool had no major injuries. Sure, that’s partly luck. But they also hired a coach who’s good at load management. So if that’s part of your strategy, and it pays off, you simply have to salute it. And Arsenal simply have to acknowledge they’ve had a shitty approach to player fitness this season. Too many games on certain players, too small a squad, too much training — and signing players with poor injury records is usually not the finest of recipes for a fit squad.

Arteta did in fact acknowledge what Liverpool have done fitness-wise has been amazing, before immediately rolling out a full first team to find rhythm 4 days before the biggest game of the past 20 years.

We gotta learn from Liverpool here — not pretend that doing the same thing again will lead to fewer problems just because a broken clock is right twice a day.

I don’t know what the plan is on PGMOL. But I can’t help but think if we just let all their bullshit pass without a plan, we’re always going to get fucked in the margins. Liverpool got 9 penalties this season. We got 2. Arsenal got 5 red cards. Liverpool got 2 — which is incredible when you consider Liverpool got one more yellow card than Arsenal, with the teams 16th and 17th in the table. Chelsea has 95 yellow cards this season and just one red. How can they be 42% dirtier than Arsenal and Liverpool and not have more reds? Mad.

Point is — we’re reffed differently. We get the maddest decisions every year. It’s the same cast of characters doing it. We’ve now seen that refs do in fact show bias at cocaine afterparties… but it’s all silent on PGMOL ruining the title race?

What’s the plan, Arsenal? You don’t have to tell us. But my DMs are in fact open if you’d like to tell me secretly, so I can hint at having ITK powers on the internet.

Our Premier League season might go down as a miserable one, and you don’t want to hear it… but given how shit it’s been, it’s quite something to still be in second. The players will have learned a lot about themselves, and the manager will have learned a lot about their general resilience. I say this because if you can get second in the league and reach a UCL semi-final on life support… what the hell are we going to be able to do with all of our best players back in the mixer?

We’re going to do great.

The good news: the club has money organized this year. No late budgeting. We can move fast. Andrea Berta has been hired with the intent to get things done this summer.

There will be a striker. We’re not getting Alexander Isak. So it’ll be a straight shootout between Sesko and Gyökeres. I like Sesko. He’s the right age profile, has a higher ceiling, is a better athlete, and we’ll get money back on him if it doesn’t work out — because he’s young with high potential. Gyökeres is at a club with ties to Jorge Mendes, and it’s well known he wants to place players there this summer, and it’s well known that Sporting has no cash, and we all know whose career was a direct result of Mendes influence… this Gyökeres deal that’s being touted has all the hallmarks of a Nico Pepe situation. The player looks decent, no doubt, but he scores a lot of penalties, loads of goals in transition and racks up mega numbers in a league that is about as trustworthy as Wayne Rooney in week two of a job away from home. Regardless of taste preferences, both deals can be done fast.

I just don’t get why we’d entertain that sort of deal when Sesko-type players have been our bread and butter. I hope wiser heads prevail and we don’t suddenly decide that ‘finished article’ signings are the way forward. But who knows.

Arsenal need to find a replacement for Raheem Sterling, who has had all the impact of a sack of turkey giblets on the first team this season. Our forward line hasn’t been effective enough. We need raw power, good finishing, and better decisions in the final third. Jamie Bynoe-Gittens has been linked — he’s fast, but he’ll cost a fortune and his breakout season has been decent, not great. I just want someone who has numbers that are better than what we have. I don’t want to have to call a tactical journalist from Belgium to understand why someone with 2 goals in 59 games merits a £60m investment.

We’ll bring Zubimendi to the carpet, and I suspect we’ll give Thomas a new deal. Why not? The man deserves it. He’s stayed fit, influenced our team, and can operate as a 6 or at right back. I like keeping experience around, especially if it can stay fit. Keep him on that one-year deal so his body is tricked into staying healthy.

Sounds like we might add a Dean Huijsen-type body to the mixer. I just hope we exit some players who need new clubs. Kiwior will have more takers if we want him gone. Zinchenko has to exit. Can Calafiori stay fit, or should we entertain Real Madrid?

The biggest position of interest is a rotation option for Ødegaard. Word is Dowman is doing mad things in training that are blowing people’s minds. He’ll be playing next year. He’s an understudy to Ødegaard. Do we need a Cunha if we have a Dowman? Probably. Though I did read Cunha walks a lot. So maybe someone else. But I like that mold of bang-bang 10s who are really aggressive.

I know I said I don’t like the NO EXCUSES crowd at the top of the post — but honestly, I will print NO EXCUSES on cheap Alibaba plastic and set myself on fire wrapped in it if we exit the summer with two new left backs and that Espanyol keeper we’re forever linked with. We’re at Phase 17 of this project. Get the players we need. Don’t gamble on anyone. Let’s go into next season burning hotter than Edu’s BBQ.

Then, you know what’s great? We’ll have a proper preseason. Arteta will have no distractions. Everyone gets a rest. Everyone comes back at the same time. We’ll have all our players doing fitness together, getting tactically juiced, and camaraderie’d up the wazoooooo. We should go into next season as favorites for the league and a top 3 contender for Champions League.

Glory will surely follow.

But… glory can land this season. I’ll talk more about that tomorrow. Hope you enjoy your boiled egg today, you handsome athletes. xxx

P.S. We’ll be dropping a PSG Power 30 a little later. x