Well, hello there ladies and gentlemen. I know you aren’t really happy with the sun in London for now but I’m sure an evening in Brighton or at Leigh would be a good thing. Are you bored even with no football around? Well I’m here to spice things up for ya with Zinchenko and Saka’s news.
Rumours suggest we are persuing Zinchenko after missing out on Martinez to Man United. I have no problem with him, he looks a very decent signing and in need of regular game time which we can afford to provide with Europa and Tierney’s injury record. That will also mean we will ship out Nuno Tavares and we might get a buyer for a change for him.
Fab Romano has dropped a tweet confirming Saka’s extension is in progress and that the young lad is happy with the project. It’s the money which is holding him to sign da ting but he is not the one we would let go for few quids. He is one of our own.
The club ran an interview of William Saliba, where the player has nicer things to say –
“When I was on loan I watched every single [Arsenal] game because when I was there some players weren’t. I watched the games to see how they played, so when I was back it would be easier to play with those I hadn’t met before.
Source: Arsenal.com
“It’s important that the fans are behind you, and I like it very much. I can’t wait to give back to them.”
Take what you want of this, but I’m positive (and hopeful) the young player of the season extends his contract. We spend a whooping 28million pounds for a youngster so that we won’t have to pay 70m when the time comes. There is no point letting him go on a no profit, no loss case. Moreover, we need him this season when we are fighting on two blocks and I genuinely believe he could be a starter in our playing XI.
In a sad affair, one of our bright academy prospect in Omari Hutchinson has decided to join the London rivals Chelsea. Again, this could mean a dozen things but I have a feeling it’s monetary. Our hale end is in good hands of Per Mertesacker and we have been able to tie up all our good players from academy recently; no complaints from me on this one.
Another sad affair is, there is no news (or even rumours) for a midfielder. What are we going to do if Partey breaks down again this season? Are we going to stick to Xhaka again when everyone knows we need an upgrade on him? Arteta isn’t really done much in giving game time to Patino/Azeez and Sambi has looked raw till now. Are we going to low ball Leicester for Tielemans and put a bid for Savic when the time comes? So much to ask with no answer yet for the midfield. I’m not sure if we will try to leave it unattended giving an excuse for Arteta and Edu for another season of mediocrity, afterall they can’t fix everything at once (Yep, I am sarcastic here).
Right, that’s all for today. Hang tight, mercury will drop down soon to a bearable state.
Hoopah
No sensible fan had an issue with sending Saliba on loan my issue was failing to send him on loan and then not including him in the EL squad only to send him on loan in the January.
TRVL
That’s precisely it – under first phase Wenger you’d think why’s he signed that guy but you’d give him the benefit of the doubt because his good signings always massively outweighed his poor ones.
With Arteta unless you’re a fanboy you look at what he does and it’s nearly always either piss poor or pure luck.
Excerpt from “7am kick off “ from the inimitable Tim
“ Last season William Saliba had the following outstanding stats (via FBREF)
Led League One in attempted and completed passes (4th in per90 behind guys like Verratti, PSG)
The only outfield player who was more accurate than Saliba in short and medium passes was Marquinhos (PSG)
Completed 86% of his long passes
Was 8th in final third entry passes
Made 166 progressive passes
When I first started watching football, a center back’s job was mainly to head the ball away and yell at his teammates*. Of course they also had to pass the ball pretty well but let’s not pretend that how well a CB passes the ball forward was a data point on anyone’s radar. In fact, it was an underappreciated skill. Something that only the top clubs looked for in a CB. More often we wanted to know how well they headed the ball, how fast they recovered, and how good they were at tackling.
Now, though, every team needs a ball-playing CB – it’s not just something for the few elite teams. Even Southampton and Brighton want CBs who can play long, accurate passes on the carpet up to midfielders and forwards.
All of those passing stats I listed for Saliba are either 90th percentile or well above for center backs in League Un. He is, without question, a cultured passing CB.
However, the modern CB now also needs to be able to carry the ball and carry the ball forward (oh yeah, and defend too). And for William Saliba, it was his progressive carries and dribbles stats which were actually ridiculous. Again, these stats are from fbref.com
Led the League in progressive distance carried (per90 and of course also overall)
Led in carries and distance carried (overall yards) but since he played 36 matches, was only 2nd in per90 to Verratti
Averaged 6.75 progressive carries per90, more than twice as many as Ben White and Virgil van Dijk
Two negative things stand out, however, when looking at the stats.
The first is that Saliba makes a lot of passes into opposition interceptions or blocks (passing straight to the other team or the opponents step in and block the ball away). This happens on average twice a game. Now, that’s comparable to Ben White but in Saliba’s defense, he’s making almost making twice as many progressive passes as White and more final third and penalty area passes. But, it’s definitely something to watch out for in terms of your expectations: Saliba tries riskier passes and while he’s incredibly accurate at them, they don’t always come off.
The same applies to Saliba’s carries. The equivalent negative stat to passing into interceptions is “dispossessed” and there’s also “loss of possession (due to bad touch).” Saliba was dispossessed or miscontrolled almost 1 time per90 last season. That’s often frustrating to watch as a supporter because our expectations for CBs is that they NEVER get caught dribbling or carrying the ball: for many of us who are older or have watched the game for 20+ years we have been conditioned to believe that carrying the ball is “not their job”. But Saliba was making 70 carries per90 for Marseille last season. That’s 27 more carries per90 than Ben White, more than twice as many progressive carries per90, with a progressive distance of almost 100 yards more per90.
So, in my mind, it’s a trade off with Saliba. You’re buying a ton of attacking yards in terms of carries and passes and the price is that the CB will occasionally make a bad forward pass or get caught in possession.
These data points all pass the “eye test”. I watched Saliba play for Marseille last season and frankly his passing range and ability to carry the ball forward was almost absurd to watch. He’s no Messi or anything but he’s a very smooth and confident dribbler and his passes are almost always inch perfect.
That said, he did occasionally (twice a game or so) make a really bad pass or lose possession and it stands out when he does. Because whenever a center back makes a mistake, that mistake is exacerbated by the fact that he’s one of two or three defenders left to cover for his mistake. “
Hoopah
makes one wonder why MA paid over the number for the 3rd best defender on Brighton when he had Saliba waiting in the wings and much more pressing concerns…hopefully there’s some truth to the rumours surrounding his re-upping and that this was done to retain his services and not to simply prop-up his market value
I can only hope that MA will flip his tactical script and start to deploy 3 at the back much more often…that said, if this is in the offing, it would have been wise to have both kept Mavro, instead of offloading him for peanuts, and to not send Nuno out on loan, as he could be a handful for opponents with considerably less defensive responsibilities
“makes one wonder why MA paid over the number for the 3rd best defender on Brighton when he had Saliba waiting in the wings and much more pressing concerns”
Arteta still hasn’t dealt with the gapping hole in CM this summer (something that could get a lot worse if the rumours are true) so what any right minded fan sees as a pressing concern clearly doesn’t register with fuckwit.
here’s something I’ve never encountered before, I’ve actually been blocked from going on the LG website, even though I was sin-binned well over a month ago…methinks that either little “Positive Pete” has been site hopping and saw some honesty commentary about himself that he couldn’t quite handle, or he finally read the email I sent to him following my excommunication…regardless, what a spineless twat maneuver, but definitely right on brand
TRVL
You can rest assured that paranoid pravda petey positive Pedro reads it all and worries incessantly about his image. He’s nowhere near as clever as he likes to imagine himself and has zero sense of humour.
He sees it all as credit in the bank for when the equally awful Mark Gonnella leaves the club and they need a new plastic platitude mouthpiece and Arteta fluffer.
I can no longer read his nor most of the other shit on his site. Plastic fans v angry accountants v alter egos.
Kroenke
I used to like Pedro but he’s really turned into a major dick (I’m being polite) the type of shit and language he uses now reminds me of Gus Hedges from Drop the Dead Donkey – honest to God if some trendy business guru said gargling donkey sperm was the way to be better in business he’d be blowing a Shetland pony in no time.
Sorry if anyone’s just about to start their Sunday lunch!
TRVL
To get on to sites that give me a hassle, I do several things. First clear cookies to the that site and restart PC/Browser. I do disable Java (using an extension) to get rid of some pop overs, next use a proxy server like kproxy2 to disguise my IP address and finally if that doesn’t help I have a VPN ($90 for 3 years) and use a browser extension to select my origin IP address from other countries.
I frequent the LG site less and less, stopped reading the blog only checked it when in the comment section a debate erupted over some erroneous blog statement. Scroll past lengthy waffle and clap trap and just peruse selected comments.
My activity may change once the season starts as it will become more apparent where the club is going. Player additions seem to be good, Saliba looks like the real deal and if he stays there will be a definite improvement. In addition it looks like the 1st choice attacking front seems to enjoy and play well together so high hopes there.
The ingredients for a team with trophy possibilities is there but we all know that the maestro using these pieces is still the unknown. For the sake of the club and fans I hope this idiom will come into play regarding our MIT “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while”.
Cheers to all the above responses to my previous post
Kroenkephobe—agree with your take, as he’s definitely angling for something that caters to his two greatest passions, brown-nosing and sucking his own dick
Marc—whenever one can logically incorporate the words donkey and sperm in the same post, never apologize, regardless the time of day(lol)
Killroy—I have gone the VPN route before, but never to engage with a sports-related blog…the problem is I can’t be my usual menacing self without drawing too much attention…on one particular site I created a new persona that was actually the site owners name and series of numbers, which on an old rotary phone code would read “is a cunt”, but it was a short-lived and rather unsatisfying experience, minus the whole secret “cunt” gig
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jul/25/premier-league-2022-23-preview-no-1-arsenal
This from today’s Guardian if anyone’s interested. I still get a lump of sick rising in my gorge about those 13 league defeats last year. 13!
The pic of Arteta in the cockpit got me thinking of a (crass) metaphor for his managerial career at Arsenal.
Started by flying a DC9 with lots of disfunctioning bastardised German parts (ozilshkodrandurchtecnik). Tried bolting on some useless old bits from an aeroflot funded Brazilian airline (Willian) before choosing a rag tag bunch of expensive misfits. Flew without a nose cone last year meaning there was nothing up front(!) and spent January locked in a draughty hangar refusing to enter into the market. Now busy with a rusty spanner sticking more bits on. Destination and altitude unknown. Will crash and burn if Pedro can’t help him with his joystick. Chocks away!
PS
I liked the crowd photo at the top of the article from the Everton game. The number 14 Naismith Toffee’s fan clearly can’t bear to watch… (the annoying, clichéd spectacle of G Jesus dialling his Nokia that is).
It’s funny how Arsenal beating Chelsea means Arteta’s amazing and Tuchel is shit but Ten Haag is shit ever after beating Liverpool 4 nil.
Under comments by Keith Butcher
“ One thing you have to give Arteta is that he’s a great talker.
To finish 8th, convince your board to give you 150 million to spend on transfers, then completely bottle a fourth place finish behind an awful Spurs team, then convince your board to give you another 150 million pounds, convince several champions league regulars to join you and convince a set of supporters who turned on their best ever manager because he kept finishing fourth that they should trust your process, is remarkable.
There’s a successful career in politics waiting for Mikel once he finally gets found out as a soccer manager. “
He has even guessed Mikel next career 😂
Ajax have milked the shit out of ManU for that signing – for once Edu and Arteta had their heads screwed on and got out of the race early on.
Not in great health recently,have taken a break from everything but I just read that Terry Neill has passed. His will always be a bittersweet reign for me,many big days,lots of disappointment but 2 things should immortalise him. He brought the 3 irish amigos ( Brady,O’Leary and Stapleton) into the team. And the ’79 final. God rest you Terry and thanks for the memories.
Hi Almunia
Very sorry to hear about your health setbacks.
I hadn’t heard about TN. He’s not that old no? Filling the team with Irish players in 70s was a masterstroke. They bought talent, fighting spirit and a huge amount of pride and togetherness to the club. Just like in the late 80s, that team took shit from no one. I wasn’t living in London at that point (I was a difficult teenager living in the Midlands in the late 70s who only went to games on special occasions – usually away ones) but it must have been cool as fuck being in North London at that time (despite a lot of the bullshit and prejudice that existed).
Changing tack, did you hear about Jens Lehmann and his neighbourhood chainsaw massacre? Some boy! If it’d been, the real Almunia or Flappyhandski, they’d dropped the fucking thing on their own foot!
Take it easy mate. I had covid a few weeks ago and I’m still feeling the effects occasionally.
Leave the fence painting and all the other Ms Almunia-inspired DIY tasks you get lumped with in summer, and get some serious arse-on-sofa time with a cup of tea.
Cardiff kick off this weekend at home to the Canaries. It’s more exciting than usual not least because they have about 10 or eleven new players.
Good to hear from you. I hope you’re fully off the injury list soon.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11056813/Arsenal-icon-Jens-Lehmann-damages-neighbours-garage-CHAINSAW-frenzy-rage.html
God love him! This geezer can do no wrong in my book.
Alumina
Mate get well.
Kroenkephobe,
Good to hear from you also,hope you’re well. Yes, I’ve had to take it handy over the last month but I’m hoping to be fully mobile again soon. I have fallen in love with cricket again. Was wondering if you were at the t20 game tonight in Cardiff? Really enjoyable stuff though I’m still more partial to the test format. Ireland will be in the World Cup this year( albeit a qualifier group). Fingers crossed.
I think I read TN was 80. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that our heroes from the 70’s and 80’s are going to start leaving us,but it doesn’t half make you feel nostalgic.
That’s a tough start for the bluebirds, I believe the bookies have Norwich as favs for the title. Will be watching Charlton v Accrington myself thanks to the wonders of the ‘dodgy stick’. There is still something magical in the lower leagues that older fans can relate to. Football when the result mattered more than money or image. Told you I was getting nostalgic.
I hope you recover your health fully so as to resume your family taxi service. Mine is temporarily suspended, so there’s always an upside,even to sickness!
Marc,
Thank you. I enjoy reading your thoughts here and it has often struck me how difficult it can be to respond to someone whose thoughts echo your own so emphatically. So for what it’s worth I’ll say it now rather than constantly repeat it, your views on Arteta,in particular your doubts about his character and the manufactured PR campaign around him,both by the club and his supporters, are absolutely appropriate as far as I’m concerned. And while it’s comforting that there are still those who vehemently put the club before the manager,it is worrying how the voice of those supporting Arteta is so much louder. Real Orwellian stuff going on here. Anyway,keep up the good fight.
Thanks Almunia
OK so the season kicks off in 7 days and we still haven’t signed a CM. A position that needed sorting just as urgently as the striker position.
The only links to CM are Tielemans and Melo with the Melo links being a loan move. If Leicester are asking for an unreasonable fee for a player who will be available on a free in a year I can understand waiting a year however bringing in a loan player tells me that Xhaka is going once again to be the first CM name on the team sheet.
Are we seriously expecting Partey to go through a season without missing a chunk of it again? Let alone a season that has a World Cup slapped bang in the middle of it – assuming the Melo loan deal goes through our CM choices for large spells of the season are going to be Xhaka, Elneny (not a bad squad player) and Melo who will need to adjust to the 100mph PL after coming from Italy.
And the fan boys have us not only getting top 4 but challenging for 3rd!
Hi Almunia
Glad you’re rekindling your interest in cricket. I reckon we could put a good XI together on here and absolutely thrash those muppets over on Le Grove. My interest in the three different forms fluctuates wildly but it’s test cricket for me at the moment. England’s three game series against NZ is one of the best I can remember, and the make-up game against India was pretty special too. By comparison I’m finding ODIs a little dull and T20s are like an insane lottery. Makes for good viewing though. Did you watch the rugby a few weeks ago. Ireland are in a great position leading up to the WC.
I can’t get to Cardiff at the moment because our kids have their mates over from Spain. Madly enough, they’re loving the (significantly) cooler and wetter weather.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/07/28/lucas-paqueta-snubs-arsenal-move-but-is-keen-on-move-to-premier-league-rivals-17081825/
Paqueta wants EPL, preferring Man City. In spite of Edu links and charm guess playing under an unpredictable generational manager trumps everything. Poor Edu has his hands tied …and also eye on agents