ADDRESSING BIG-TEAM PROBLEMS

ARTETA HAS THE CHANCE TO CORRECT THE RECORD AGAINST A CL FAVOURITE

A lot of dramz post-Leicester game, mainly focused on some unhelpful Calafiori rumours being spread online, most of which were inaccurate. I just don’t get the urge to put certain things online – but here we are, a day later, and guess who was back on the training ground?

The thing you’ve got to understand about someone who’s had a really f*cking terrible, career-threatening injury is that they’re going to be very, very paranoid about it happening again. When people come back from near career ending issues, one of the hardest parts of recovery is learning to trust your body again. That anxiety doesn’t go away. You start listening to pain in a different way. Thank God he’s OK, because I couldn’t have handled another major injury to a new player. But let’s be honest, if he’d blown an ACL, he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to sign autographs.

Another exciting development is the ‘surprise’ that Mikel Merino has been back in training. His recovery has been fantastic, and if he isn’t in the team tomorrow (dropping him against PSG might be a bit mad), I expect he’ll take Thomas Partey’s place as soon as humanly possible... which would more likely be against Southampton. I guess it’s a case of how bad does Arteta think Partey has been?

Arteta is buzzing about his new player. He’s big, aggressive, hungry, great at winning duels, and the boss keeps talking about how much intelligence he’s going to bring to the team, both on and off the ball. I’m going to be honest here… I’ve no idea what to expect. You won’t get a Billy Carpy-style essay from me… but when Arteta’s excited, so am I. Plus, I’m thrilled to see something fresh in our midfield, instead of Thomas Partey. Give me those fresh, youthful(-ish) legs, and let’s get this midfield back to beast mode.

I don’t want to rant too much about PGMOL, but they ruined the United vs Spurs game with another ‘LOOK AT ME MUM’ performance from a referee eager to be the star of the show. He gave Bruno a red card for slipping and clipping a Spurs player. No one wanted the red, apart from the ref. The most depressing part was listening to PGMOL’s surrogates pivot from the stance they had when Declan was sent off. Do refs have common sense, or not? Dermot Gallagher isn’t very bright and can’t follow his own narrative. I don’t know why Sky is so proud of creating worthless entertainment by having a shill on their show. Two weeks ago, he was a ‘letter of the law’ merchant about Declan’s red card. Now, he’s agreeing with ignoring similar incidents to Declan’s because ‘you don’t want loads of players getting sent off.’ The fact that they can’t get the PR right tells a very revealing story about why PGMOL is such a mess. They have no core principles, which is why they’re so inconsistent.

The core value should be: ‘It’s a bad day if you’re noticed.’

Anyway, funny to see United play the way the northern pundits said Arsenal should, only to get absolutely spanked.

Arsenal vs PSG is going to be a fun afternoon – a proper Champions League game against a team with fitness issues to contend with... and Dembele, their best player this season, has fallen out with Enrique, so he’s not in the squad.

PSG are loaded with talent, but they’ve always lacked the ability to achieve big things because the players have run the show there. Well, Enrique’s era is about ending that and bringing back a manager-run club, with players who put in a shift. They’ve got a lot of exciting young talent, and they’ll be an interesting test this early in the campaign. This is a game for the neutrals – two managers who grew up loving the same club, sharing the same attack-minded values, ready to face off in a titanic clash.

White and Calafiori are in contention. I suspect we’ll see a bit of rotation in the starting XI. But who knows... everyone will want to be playing, according to Mikel.

“Everybody is looking forward to it,”

“The group stage is a bit different this season and the opposition we are going to face tomorrow is probably at the highest level that you can face in European football. But it’s a good opportunity for us to see how we deal with these nights, how prepared we are, and how we can impose ourselves in this kind of context.

“PSG are exceptional, and they dominate every phase of play. They have a very clear intention of how they want to control the game through possession, and when they don’t have the ball, they want it back immediately. They are really aggressive in how they approach that, and they confront you.

Getting a win here would be massive for our chances of progressing. This is our hardest game by quite some margin. The reason I’m excited about this game is I want to see where we stand against a giant of Europe. I’d love to put to bed some of the concerns I had after Bayern – namely, that we’ll need a few more years before we’re ready to compete with the biggest clubs. It’s also worth noting that despite the massive spend on transfers, PSG haven’t yet won the biggest honour under their current ownership.

OK, that’s all from me today. There’s a really interesting podcast in the members’ section if you want early-bird access. I spoke with a former active-duty military leader, who now works as a consultant on decision-making. We had a long chat about culture through the lens of Arsenal. I had a great time, so if you enjoy more business-focused content, this one’s for you. On The Whistle details will drop a little later. It’s me, Matt, and Johnny. x

THE ART OF CULTURE