Oh no…
… Arsenal are acting like a big club (add Kai and Zubi to that list).
Media caught between a rock (Arsenal players are bottle-jobs and would be the worst Champions of all time) and a hard place (these bottle-jobs are very much needed by their national teams).
Sir Alex Ferguson was the king of stopping players going away on international duty, Jurgen Klopp was also a beast when it came to these sort of things.
So why would international federations play along with this sort of thing?
I guess there are multiple layers to answering that question.
If you don’t know by now…
There aren’t many Arsenal players who are on the cusp of being part of the international setup. Our players are all stars. At this stage of World Cup preparation, managers are mainly focused on the players who are on the edge of making the squad. Ben White was new to the setup, Tuchel wants to see him up close, so he’ll be there for the duration. Viktor will be with Sweden the whole time because there is jeopardy in their games.
If you need to know whether Kai Havertz is good at this point, you’re not doing you job properly.
Knocks and tweaks…
The most important thing for the big international managers is having a full squad to choose from come the summer. The big players from the big clubs have a lot of games between now and the summer. De-risking breaking players at this stage is in the interest of everyone. But, as I wrote the other day, just because a player is starting for Arsenal, doesn’t mean they are free of issues that could be exacerbated by thug players for South American teams that need to play dangerously to be on a level. Hincapie looked in pain for Ecudador, Zubi has his knee strapped and has been gassed for a while. Kai needs to be treated with kid gloves. Declan has been carrying knocks, so has Bukayo.
Middle ground better than withdrawal…
Arsenal could play really dirty and just withdraw players from the whole two weeks, like plenty of managers have done in the past. It’s far better for international coaches to have good relations with clubs and to be fair to them. It’s better to get 7 days of a player than none at all. I’m sure a lot of the recalls were pre-agreed. It’s good for players to win trophies, and it's respectful to let them be fully prepared for those opportunities.
Ultimately, why do we need to care what people think about this? It’s happened. No going back. We’re bringing our best players back. Some will have knocks. Some will just be fatigued. The hope is we rest heavily for the Southampton game and we’re absolutely on fire heading into the week with Sporting Lisbon away then Bournemouth at home.
Feeling guilty that Arsenal put their players' well-being first, with the collaboration of all the international bodies, is not on my agenda. This is a big team move. We’ve already suffered with a Brazil friendly that took Big Gabby from us for 4 weeks and cost us big points. Not happening this time.
LITTLE BIT OF A LOOK AT SPURS, YOU SAY?
Come on, why not. They’ve just fired Igor Tudor after a dismal turnaround job that was entirely predictable.
44 days in the job.
Spurs have lost 46 games since the start of last season, we’ve lost 13 in that time.
They are in a mess so deep right now, I cannot see how any coach could get them out of it… I’m also struggling to see who would take the job at this point, unless the money is disgusting.
Should I care about this mess as much as I do? Yes. I should. You should too. Why? Because their fans broke a football norm so basic, I’d never thought of it as a norm… they cheered their side losing. They did it in the stadium. It was so humiliating, Big Ange addressed it in the ground while the game was going on. He was horrified ‘Spursy’ was more than just a bit of banter, it was a contagion… no actually, it was more like a rot. Like, a bad one. Not light wood rot, which is annoying, but you can recover and fix it. No, I’m talking gangrene. Dead flesh. Lost arms. That’s where I’m going here.
This wasn’t a game that lacked consequence; they could still have made the Champions League. But their fans did it anyway… and they deserve everything that is happening to them.
There are some fun transfer rumors doing the rounds at the moment. Nicolo Tresoldi is the latest of them, the club being linked with the 21-year-old Italian-German striker who is playing at Club Brugge at the moment. He has 17 goals so far this season.
I have watched a few of his videos and scouted him using a number of extremely detailed analytics tools I’ve compiled into a centralised aggregator system built with self-coded Python. Did I use Claude? No way. Artisanal code all the way.
My conclusion? Who the f*ck knows.
The reason I find him quite interesting as a striker is he has a lot of similar traits to Benjamin Sesko, though 3 inches shorter, and not as fast. The main skill he seems to possess is his ability to be a box ferret. He works well in tight spaces and he’s an absolute monster from crosses in open play and from setpieces. He just seems to be one of those strikers who loves the rough and tumble. Also notable that he’s scored against Barca, Atleti, and Monaco in Champions League.
Clearly, he’d be the sort of player we’d pick up at a low price. He’d be brought in to take up the third 9 role that Gabi Jesus is holding right now. This would be a ‘high ceiling/loads of work to do’ kind of move. But one I’d welcome. Igor Thiago came from Belgium and he’s monstered the league for Brentford this season. So there are examples of good exports from there… but we’ve also been burned. Sambi Lokonga came with a great rep, championed by Vincent Kompany, and he was very underwhelming for Arsenal.
Still, I’ll be very happy if we’re looking for competition for a striker who regularly exits games without having a shot, to the applause of ‘look at the running.’ We need to do better.
We’ve also been linked to Luiz Henrique.
This one feels a bit of a stretch to me. Another winger who looks fun in comps, but has pretty average numbers. Brahim Diaz I can forgive, he’s at Madrid, playing at a really high level. But if you’re 25 years old, playing in Russia, I need to be seeing dirty numbers on the board. 3 goals and 3 assists? Get out of here, I don’t care if you’re in the Brazil squad. I want stat sheet botherers if we’re going to be bringing in a new winger. I’m not sure this guy is the one… he also looks like a cumbersome 9 put out on the wing as a punishment.
He’s a pass for me.
Ok, have we had enough fun? No?
You could post ‘MICK HUCKNALL IN LINE FOR SPURS JOB,’ and I’d retweet it because anything at this point is believable.
Ok, that’s me done. See you in the comments. But also,check out the latest members pod. x