Friday Chapter – Midfield, Torreira, Bellerin and Loans

Yes, I deserved the boos for being absent for couple of weeks but in my defence I was on a much needed, short break to refresh myself for the upcoming season. I hope there’s some relief to the maddening heat waves London suffered, though we, humans, continue to bury our head in sand like an ostrich and keep rejecting the idea of global warming and climate change.

There hasn’t been much change to my last weekly round up. Zinchenko deal was completed, we beat Everton 4-0 in a friendly and lost 2-1 to Brentford with a second string of players. Gabriel Jesus looks to be a world class striker and EN#14 has scored in every single pre-season game. We got to see some of Marquinhos and Nelson, Maitland Niles failed to impress again in the midfield but we have improved our team from last season.

We have a competition to Tierney, our CF position is sorted, Saliba is back in the fold and we have enough coverage upfront to survive both Premier League and Europa.

As a supporter, I worry about that midfield. Partey was injury-plagued, that too when we were only playing once a week. He had been immense whenever he was fit and played, but we can’t rely on ‘hope’ that he remains fit. A combination of Xhaka and Elneny hasn’t looked promising ever, Sambi Lokonga is still an understudy and Arteta didn’t use the last season to test Patino, Azeez!

We need a cover for Partey and an upgrade on Xhaka. There’s a reason we haven’t made to top 4 since Xhaka has played. Still got over a month for transfers but it would have been great if we wrapped it up sooner, and integrated our signings like we did with Jesus and Zinchenko. It would be bonkers if Edu and Arteta decides to go another season without any upgrade/cover.

Back to the players we have whom are trying to sell. Lucas Torreira looked like a promising player when he arrived and is very much capable to provide a cover as a DM. He is one of those players whom you don’t like to play against. However, he found it difficult to adapt to weather / place (really?) and whose fault is that? As a professional player, you can’t run away from a contract you signed because it rains a bit more or you don’t like food. And if you do, you remain classy about it. Posting pictures on Instagram about your time on loan with other clubs when you are on a pre-season tour with your parent club is a poor behaviour. It’s a difficult situation for Edu to handle and we will see what happens, but this one is on the player.

Same with Bellerin, who is trying to move to Real Betis, who don’t want to pay any freaking money, by rejecting all other offers. These Ozil-esque situations are cropping up and we need to send a message to the players. I think we are addressing that by getting players who looks excited to play for Arsenal but then Bellerin was superstar for us, loved by every man on the street. I would even go ahead and say don’t tear up the contract. Bring him in office, tell him he is not going anywhere and would train with U23 for the next 12 months. Take the L, we had wasted a lot of money in recent years but this would be for a good cause.

Onto the positive news, Nuno Tavares is going on loan to Olympique Marseille, there is no option to buy which the club was asking for. I see a player in Nuno and he needed regular game time to improve on his defensive attributes. Arthur Okonkwo is set to join Crewe for a season-long loan, he is promising goal keeper and I’m sure this loan will be useful for his growth.

There would other loan moves / sell out in coming days.

Right, that’s all for today. I am as excited as you for the new season, I have ordered my black kit, the classiest till date and expecting it to arrive before next Friday.

Onwards and upwards. #COYG