KIA TRYING TO DRIVE NEW STRIKER NARRATIVE

TALL BOY SUMMER REVS UP AGAIN

Arsenal are chasing down Joshua Zirkzee if the mainstream media in Italy is to be believed. We’ve talked about the Dutchman here in the past. He is a tall guy, with magical feet, and he’s lit up Serie A at times this season. 12 goals and 7 assists isn’t bad in a team that finished 9th.

The transfer fee lives in the £40m range, which would land at the lower end of prices pushed around for other strikers of similar age and profile.

The player is exciting because of the way he moves. He’s a Tall Boy who turns like Gabriel Jesus or Santi Cazorla. My worry? The ball striking on his goals looks less than ideal, and I’m finding it really hard to judge whether he’s really fast… or the Italian League is making him look like Usain Bolt.

An interesting player, no doubt, but I’m pretty convinced the only reason we’re being linked to him is because his agent was running Arsenal during the covid era (Kia J). I’m sure the London-based agent would much prefer to have his client local rather than travel on the train to Newcastle (like he had to for Bruno G). This is one of those links that works better for Kia than it does for Arsenal.

Isak is also being heavily linked again with a move out of Newcastle. I’m a fan of the player, but I’m not sure he’s physically what we’re looking for, and though it’d be nice to have a player as good as Isak in transition… I’m not sure we’d spend £100m on him. I also have big questions about his general fitness. Arsenal has made robustness non-negotiable, particularly for big-ticket talent. Are we really going to roll the dice on someone who can’t play every minute of the season if needed? I have the same concerns with Rashford - even if you can look beyond the discipline issues, the lack of off the ball movement, the outrageous salary… can you look beyond the pony injury record? I can’t.

I’ve been saying here for a few weeks now that Thomas Partey likes London, and now Charles Watts is reporting that he prefers to stay at Arsenal. One would assume his new fiance is local. Why would he move to Saudi if he could squeeze another year in the greatest capital on the planet? At the start of last season, I wouldn’t have cared. But watching Partey lose his physical talents down the final straight was a bit painful. He’s lost that yard of pace and he can’t do the things he could a few years ago. That said, he’s still a great option to have if you can manage his fitness and minutes.

If we keep Thomas Partey this summer, I suspect Arteta will plan the season around utilizing him. There won’t be a Mo Elneny role for a £250k a week player. How that affects the decision of whether to go for a 6 or an 8 is anybody’s guess… but I’d imagine the priority would shift to more of a Frenkie style 8 because we’ll have Jorgi, Rice, and Partey as cover at 6.

Finally, before exiting. Let’s all laugh at Spurs having to re-loan Timo Werner for another season and their fans losing the plot about it. Yep, the fans that supported City over their own self-interest, are now angry that dumb ideas have incredible financial consequences… and those consequences include having to sign banter players because you’re playing Qarabag, not Barcelona.

Beautiful stuff.

As beautiful as Chelsea sacking Pochettino only to hire Enzo Maresca… because they’ve studied Arsenal! Pfft… what sort of University are they attending? Maresca is nothing like Arteta unless a year in the background for City counts for something.

I bulleted a few reasons why I find this move NOTHING like the one we made for Mikel.

1) Wenger, Peak Poch, and Guardiola all fought for him to do his coaching badges with them

2) His ex-teammates queued up to tell media he was born to be a coach

3) Arteta wasn't just a coach with Pep, he sat next to him on the bench. He was a sounding board and an ideas guy to the greatest coach there ever has been

4) Arteta was captain of Arsenal. He knew the problems intimately - and had capital in the bank with the fans. He also had an ownership group prepared to give him the time he needed to mature (that is not Clearlake)

5) Arteta was credited with world class coaching accomplishments by players like Sterling, Sane, and Zinchenko. He was an underground coaching star before the rest of us knew

6) He has that one-in-million focus, desire, and drive only the very best have. He mesmerised Arsenal staff with his knowledge and conviction about the game. In short, he was a star.

Chelsea 'studying Arteta' and coming up with Enzo Maresca is posing for the cameras... because his signing looks nothing like Arteta's. It's another poorly thought out vanity project, and let's be real, they've binned a better coach for another high-fash purchase.

Right, a few housekeeping bits.

If you go to the podcast section of the website, there’s a whole load of new podcasts there. Johnny’s end-of-season ratings. Matt and Pedro fighting over Marcus Rashford. A brand new Kai Havertz in review post.

I’ve just added a blog part to the website. That now means if you don’t want emails about new podcasts, you can just get the editorial.

Comments will be open on all free editorial pieces. They will almost never be open on podcasts.

I am working on whether I can get you a private RSS feed for podcasts direct from here.

Thank you for bearing with me on this - it’ll all work itself out in time!

BIG LOVE x

P.S. Thank you to the reader who e-mailed me about bad behavior in the comments yesterday. Taken care of. Please be good to each other. It’s just chat about Arsenal. No need to lose your damn minds. x