Oh man, it was totally an accident, I was wandering around the supermarket trying to find something that resembled healthy that could be cooked fast… and I accidentally bought something called Better Than Rice and a curry jackfruit pouch which is a vegan chicken substitute. I swear guys, this is NOT who I want to be…

Tasted pretty good though. Have to admit it. Also, I do feel smug because I’m pretty sure I just saved the planet with one meal? What did you eat? You fucking culinary terrorist.

Anyway, outside saving the world, I was thinking about the impact of Stan taking Arsenal private and Josh K telling us to all ‘be excited’ the other week.

Give it to him, he f*cking delivered hard. He even made Emery change his teeth, harsh, but that’s America people.

I wonder how they’re setting the club up financially now? Are they merging all their sports teams like some sort of mega content network? How is this summer working? How is Raul making the numbers continue to work? Or did everyone just get thrown off because Arsenal spent all season leaking they had no money to spend?

Everything the club is doing makes sense. They’ve invested in players before they’re out of our price range. They’ve taken a huge punt on someone that could be worth £150m in 2 seasons time. They’re trying to promote youth as a cost-saving measure. They’ve reorg’d around a serial winner.

From a business perspective, it would be a bad thing if we slinked into mediocrity. There’s no value in being shite in the world of democratised football content. This all makes total sense. But I feel uneasy, because Arsenal are finally doing things that make sense? What’s the catch?

I feel like one of those boys that went to Pleasure Island with Pinnochio. I’m out here, swigging citrus pale ale, smoking cigars, shooting pool with a puppet that has gender issues… but where’s the catch?

This just, you know, doesn’t feel very KSE.

Well, I guess that’s unfair. As we’ve constantly penned, Stan spends money, just not very well. The difference is KSE is now making good ‘soccer’ decisions. Maybe it took Josh to open his old man’s eyes to the utter corruption (legal) that was going on at the club. Everyone getting fat off over-generous pay packages, underserved long deals working in a no-pressure lifestyle. The opposite of an elite performance culture.

Now things have changed. There’s an urgency to the problems at hand. Let’s be more specific, there’s been an urgency in the last two weeks. This summer, if analysed in a debriefing, would still be classed as a bit of a mess.

I think the calmness from the fans has come from the realization that Raul seems to be a mafia-style killer in the world of football. We’ve not had someone ruthless before. Arsenal is on his terms.

The Nokia 3210 vibe of yesteryear is dead, we’re now dialling in on space phones. It looks great, we just need to see it move a little quicker because at the minute, we’re still fucked going into this season.

We’re still desperately under-resourced in defence. Jenkinson is in the squad for next year, Koscielny and Mustafi are still here and Nacho is now a captain and our first choice left-back.

Edu and Raul can pepper in as many exciting attacking players as they like, but reality will always bite in the Premier League if you don’t address the glaring realities. If you have a defence that collapses under pressure, you will be punished over and over again.

We are 7 days away from the Newcastle game. They are a terribly run club and they’ve let an elite manager slip away from them. They shouldn’t be a problem, but again, Emery and away form have not mixed well so far. I’ve read some people reverse engineer rationale for Pepe being so important because the club think our away form issue was a lack of pace going forward… could be… but that reads flimsy.

We’ll have to see what happens there.

This is a huge week for Raul. Does he pivot from Tierney after reading about his hip problems? Very worrying to read Adrian Clarke tweet that he had the same injury when he was young and it took a year to clear.

Who is the centre back? Raul is in Barca and we know they are desperate to move on Umtiti because… you know… he has a chronic knee problem. An outrageous talent and a World Cup winner, but no good to us if he’s taking 2 months off in December.

The Barca game today will give us some indication as to what to expect this season. La Liga for the Blaugrana starts on the 16th, so they’ll be fairly fit. Things we’ll need to be looking out for is who starts in defence and midfield. Is it going to be Xhaka and Mustafi again? If so, will Emery have done anything in preseason to address their glaring issues? Will Willock be a regular, adding more athleticism? How will Ozil be used? Will Ceballos be able to deal with the butchers in the league?

My big worry is preseason has looked pretty much exactly the same as last season. I also expect we’ll realise that most of the kids we’re purring over will not be features this season. Willock, Reiss and Martinelli are the big bets. I do like ESR, but he wasn’t exactly drowning in-game time at Leipzig.

Let’s see what today looks like… a 3pm kickoff for me for the first time in a while! I think London has to wait until November until they get their first one… sad times, fuck Europa.

See you in the comments! x