I sat in and listened to the podcast that Matt and Johnny recorded last night as a fan because I had builders over. I was trying to pinpoint what was so depressing about the Crystal Palace draw when listening to them. I think it’s that Arsenal almost never create joy in bad moments.
The Arteta model has always felt like it’s there to do the bare minimum to get the job done.
Not too much.
Not too little.
We are the Goldilocks of football teams.
Well, here we are, the chance to go into 9th position in the league with a win against Crystal Palace.
This is the sort of high pressure / low expectations game we’ve usually not done well in under Arteta. This was the sort of game we lost last season at this stage. That needs to change tonight.
We’ll have a home crowd.
We are in decent form.
There will have been plenty of work delivered over the break.
Sorry for being offline! Did you miss me? Of course you did. I spent the weekend in New York hanging with Matt from the podcast. A good time was had. But now, it’s time for focus. More daily content. More podcasts.
So how does that land lay?
It was a fairly decent weekend for Arsenal. United lost to Leicester. The game was exciting, the goals were outrageous, United look an absolute shambles. I cannot for the life of me understand why they went so hard for Ronaldo. An emotional decision that broke their hiring philosophy. Never re-sign your heroes. OGS’s side looks unbalanced and it’s quite staggering to see how £75m Jadon is totally bombing in the Premier League. He’ll come good, but again, shows how impressive Tomiyasu has been to just roll into a weaker squad and boss it against players like Son.
The Arsenal Presser went live.
‘Isn’t it funny that in football, you can have a bad month and everything is bad, then you have a good month and everything is good’
To the world of journalists, no, this is not funny. It is not an oddity. It is football and it’s a wasted question.
What Arsenal needs from the next 4 games is 10 points from 12.
Bit of a drab England game against Hungary. Jack Grealish getting dropped for Bukayo The Great was amusing. Would have been nicer if he’d been able to rescue the game.
What I think we’re all loving is the decline of Harry Kane. The highest level in football requires the physical and mental working in tandem. The Spurs striker isn’t at the races in his head. His failed move this summer has totally rattled him. It is quite something to see how something like that can take from the best on the planet in your position, to a total bum in a matter of 3 months.
What was Daniel Levy thinking turning down that money? One of the shrewdest businessmen in football has been going through a midlife crisis. He sacked Poch for superstar Jose Mourinho. Now he’s turning down mega cash for a player in decline? Imagine the damage Spurs could have done with £120m this past summer. It’s stunning that he chose to keep a loyal player against his will… and pair him with Nuno.
Thank you to all the folk that dropped nice comments and messages after the mental health post yesterday. I implemented the Bad Day rule for my team today, I hope you did too!
Onto Arsenal news…
We’re being linked with: Chambo.
It’s World Mental Health Day.
A moment to talk about one of the most important self-care items going: What goes on in your head.
A moment to talk to an audience that is the most likely to be affected by it and not say anything (you, my friend).
Men are pretty shit at this. Mostly, it’s men that read this blog. So let’s have a chat about it.
It’s ok not to be ok sounds cliche, but it’s true. Mental health, no matter how many ‘wellness days’ brutal office cultures offer up, is not respected to the level it should be… still. That’s why I think it’s so powerful superstars of elite level sport are crafting a way forward for normal people. Simone Biles tapping out of some of the Olympics? If she’s ok to say ‘no thanks,’ after all the shit she’s been through, then guess what… Pedro who makes tweets for a living can tap out if things are going badly.