MONDAY ROUND-UP

WELCOME TO THE WEEK

England put the entire world to sleep until they didn’t… Jude Bellingham, a player who sees himself in a movie called I AM HERO, scoring a 95th-minute overhead kick to save his country every minute of the game, scored an overhead kick in the 95th minute to save his country. The reason you wanted to see him subbed is the reason he saved us. Quite incredible.

It’s wild to see so much critique of the players across the board in this tournament. World-class players look like chumps in bad systems cobbled together in a matter of weeks. No one is free of critique, everyone has a bad opinion, and it really must be rough from a player’s perspective.

Still, it’ll be fun to see England play against Granit’s Switzerland. They were absolutely outstanding against Italy, orchestrated by one of the best players at the tournament. Hopefully, we don’t let him dictate play like he did over the weekend.

Transfer news has started to get a little bit spicier. Spurs signed Leeds United midfielder Archie Gray. He looks like a player, great under pressure, moves well with the ball, a star for the future no doubt… but he’s not at the level needed to join Arsenal and make a difference now. Spurs is his level because they’re a Europa team and can give him the minutes he needs to grow.

Chelsea are still well out of the zone for PSR. They’ll have to sell more hotels, women’s teams, or crypto rights of the future. What a total mess - but they did manage to find £30m to sign Dewsbury-Hall from Leicester (another deal with a club in PSR mess). I don’t see how he adds anything to their squad - it makes little sense outside giving Maresca a 25-year-old ally in the dressing room.

There is nothing better than watching your rivals make bang-average moves.

Also worth noting that we’re not making any moves that we can see right now - but I fully expect us to have some movement by July 16th when the players start to return to training.

We’ll look at a striker, a wide player, an 8/6, and a left-sided defender. If we can add real quality and shift out some players, we’ll be in good shape.

We’ve seen a couple of surprise exits. Cozier-Dubery and Reull Walters have rejected their deals so they head to pastures new. Walters has been a proper Emirates Cup player. There’s always one. They start some games in preseason, we get hyped, we demand to see them when there’s an injury pile-up, then they exit out the back door and go and play for Rochdale.

The standards to get into our squad are so high these days, we have to expect more of this moving forward.

This Nygaard keeper looks a bit tasty.

Some of that distribution looks very much like David Raya. I’m happy to see us creating replica keepers throughout the whole system. No idea if he’ll make it, but ball-playing keepers are hot commodities these days, so getting the factory going is a smart move. It’s a shame no one wants our hot commodity, Aaron Ramsdale. It’s looking ever more likely he’s going to have to build himself up on loan to get a big money move elsewhere. I want to see him go to Spain and learn the language. It would be great to see him go international. Imagine him in Milan, picking up some Italian mannerisms. I’d love to see it.

There’s a little bit of talk that Emile is going to tell Arsenal he wants to exit - Villa being a prime candidate. Personally, I think he should move. He’s not a trusted player at Arsenal. That said, I wouldn’t be shocked if he was the homegrown player to stay another year. I guess it depends on what he wants to do with his life. He’s already faded from view - another year on our bench won’t do him any favors for next year. No one wants to be part of the homegrown furniture. Fulham, Villa, or Palace, if they exit more of their stars, would be smart.

Finally, Declan Rice called the Slovakia manager a ‘bald c*nt.’

That’s how I’m ending it today. Recording a podcast with Kandela later. Let me know if you have any questions! x