Welcome to the inaugural pre-season posting. I have dragged myself off the beach, away from the cricket and away my journey of self-discovery searching for my inner, true, more sensitive and caring self. I failed miserably, which had been my hope. Not one being interested in embracing change, I’ve instead focused on trying to increase my vocabulary, grammar and spelling. I’ve even been practicing joined up writing.
We have a lot of ground to cover. But let me kick-off this kick-off by recapping the last game of the season – the 5-0 drubbing of Wolves. Enough said.
Now, moving on, as most of you are aware, this blog is brought to you free of adverts, commercials and subscriptions. It is here for the entire world to consume, to bring joy to Arsenal fans everywhere without limitations. However, times are changing. Since the end of the season we here at BB&Beyond have been in discussions with the Saudi Professional League to be their website of choice. Bradybergmapandbeyond brought to you by the Saudi Premier League. Commercial terms, while still under discussion, would be for £500,000,000 per week. However, it feels like the Saudi’s refuse to meet all our terms. The deal breaker for them is our insistence that, in order to close the deal, one of their co-owned 4 SPL teams sign from us Cedric.
The cold war is breaking out in football. It’s the West against the Middle East. Which region can acquire as many POMD – Players of Mass Destruction. There also seems a fair amount of ageism going on. Players have to wait until they are over 30 before being offered ginormous salaries to play in the sand dunes. Or retire to Florida with your favourite tatooed ex-players. Liverpool seemed to have been quite careless with their midfield. Most are now missing. City are also losing the odd player. Weirdest of all was Neves deciding to end his career prematurely for bags of gold. Whereas Barcelona, after the tragedy of seeing Messi move to PSG, has now seen yet more iconic players move to Florida. The ineptness of Barcelona stands right up there with the distorted financial maneuverings of Real Madrid.
So, the economic insanity of football continues. Fortunately, we have owners who are above all of that. Having earned their money the hard way – marrying into it. We have continued to make structural changes to our team. Last year we more than exceeded expectations even if we disassembled at the end of the season. As we seem to make a habit of. But that can’t take away from the resurgence since Arteta and Edu have taken over. Just look at the players they inherited compared to our team today. Dare I remind us of the days of David Luiz, Mustafa, Kolinsac, Sokratis. And the continued reinvestment has continued this summer.
Rice has been on the radar for at least six months. That is a world-class addition. He’ll need some time to bed in but what a brilliant player. And, this time, LA Chelsea did not manage to intervene. City joined in merely to try and make us pay more. But we got this done early.
In addition, we added Timber and Have-That. Timber looks like a classic Arteta addition. I’m not so sure about Have-That; I fear he could be a Vieira (current not past) type player. Either way, there is a clear statement here. What we lacked was squad depth. We’ve addressed that. Hopefully we hold onto Tierney. Our backline now looks like it could, if necessary, survive without Big Willie. It even looks strong enough to survive the departure of Cedric; the last remaining remnant of the sad reign of Sanllehi.
Our transition continued with the departure of Xhaka. Though this was pretty well telegraphed he will be missed. He also started in Arleta’s first game. Most importantly we’ll miss his leadership. And I fear Have-That is not an upgrade here. But at least we’ll have ESR returning to help. With the clarity of hindsight, we wasted a number of years of Xhaka. When we acquired him, we deployed him in a defense midfield role that just highlighted his lack of recovery speed and put in him a position to accumulate yellow cards and red cards.
BTW, a small digression, so much has happened since the season ended, but did you see that the unassuming and introverted referee of many masterful performance – Michael Dean – has finally fully retired? From VAR as well. Peace be upon us. Also, as part of our commitment here to further educate, see that FIFA has tweaked the offside rule. This would make a player onside if any part of the attacker is in line with the defender. In other words, offside if there’s any daylight between the defender and attacker. It won’t be trialed in the EPL but it will cause some chaos in Italy, Sweden and Holland.
It looks like Partey will remain with us for another season. He fell apart at the end of last season. Signing Rice provides us with more capacity and will lighten our load on him. Along with Jorginho and, even, Elneny. But, we still need Partey but with Rice to share the load. There is also another Africa Cup of Nations. If we sold him to the SPL we’d only have to go off and find a replacement. Too much change in one season for me. Last year was about bringing in Zinny and Jesus. This year it’s already three new additions. So, let’s SOP – Save our Partey. We need to party more not less.
There should be more movement in the opposite direction now. Otherwise, we’ll have a LA Chelsea like squad. Pepe. Sambi, Tavares and, of course, Cedric will hopefully move on. And we’ve already lost Maitland-Niles. I hope he at least lands somewhere substantial; I always liked him he just made a few poor decisions. The only major decision left is between Eddie and Balogun. The tea-leaves seem to be in Eddie’s favour. I’ve not seen a lot of Balogun – just highlights – so it’s hard to compare the two. But we’ll only retain one. Hopefully we at least get a sell-on clause for Balogun. Any maybe we’ll take that money and find a suitable backup for Saka. Because, with the Champions League, we can’t afford to overplay him like we did last season. We have to have a viable alternative – and it’s certainly not Vieira.
Maybe we should try and bring over Kane; a renowned Arsenal fan. His time with those wankers is surely over. It’s hard to see why he’d waste the end of his career with that lot. If they had any sense (I know, I know) they’d have sold him already and invested that money in early pre-season. It would be quite something to see him leave on a free at the end of next season.
Which leads us to United. How classless was it for them to dispose of De Gea in that manner. Sure, he was a liability. But for 10+ years he’d been their best player. He had saved them on numerous occasions and been the constant thread from Ferguson through their rotating managers. Sure, the game had moved on and he was incapable of playing the ball with his feet – like Leno and Lloris – but offering him a contract and then pulling it. Oh my. But at least their ownership had yet to be sorted out. That’s a healthy distraction. Sure to tie their entitled supporters in knots.
Which leads us too yesterday. I refuse to review any pre-season game. Though I did watch the MLS game and the United one. For me, I just wanted to see us try different ideas and tactics. And burn in the new players. As the great Wenger used to say, you can’t change an entire team in one window (sorry, Chelsea) and we’re changing some key areas. Rice is with us – hopefully – for 10 years not 10 minutes. This team will need time to settle down and re-discover its rhythm.
This season will be under more pressure. Expectation will certainly be higher. Last year raised the bar. Personally, I suspect we’ll have a similar outcome in the league. Until Pep leaves, and given their money, it’s hard to see anyone else wining the league. But we should definitely expect to compete and also make meaningful progress in the Champions League. My belief has always been that we’d need 3 to 4 transfer windows and then some time to settle in. Which could be the following season. But in the interim a number of other teams will be improved – LA Chelsea, Saudi Newcastle and those wankers down the road. So, the league will be even more competitive.
Thankfully though we continue to make investments and spend money. No-one can complain about the owners now. They have spent oodles of money. After the Aubameyang, Cigarette, Ozil era we are finally bring in the right profile of players – White, Ramsdale, Willy, Tomi, Zinny etc. Sure, there are still misses – Sambi, Tavares and, of course, Vieira. But we are so far ahead of where I thought we’d be that I’m happy to sit back and relax for the balance of the summer. As the world boils to melting point, grain prices start to rise again, and the polar ice caps melt we can rest assured our team is in capable hands and that we will be competitive next season. As long as the planet is still here for us. And as long as Cedric isn’t.
More drivel to come before August 12th.
-LB7