Horrible to read yet another high profile person has gone to such tragic lengths to escape their mental demons. Poor health of the mind is such a vicious predator and it doesn’t give a fuck who you are, how much you earn, or what your life looks like to the outside world.
That’s why Danny Rose is such a hero, I only just caught up on his big reveal in the press (big, because it’s football).
Wooooooah, what to make of the latest Arsenal kits?
You know I globally renowned for having exquisite taste in sporting apparel, but I can’t help but think this batch of kits really were a ‘fuck you very much’ parting gift by the designers over at Puma.
We’ve gone for a home kit that for me is quite a weak red. It feels washed out, like a blood-red Topman t-shirt from back in the day that you’ve gone into the sea with then left out to dry on your €25 a night hotel balcony. I really don’t like the washed out red on the sleeves, it’s meek, there’s no strength there. I also don’t immedietley understand the thinking behind the pattern running through the shirt. Is it a hat tip to the lightning strike of the 1995 shirt? Like… what is it?
The teal away kit is kind of fun. But it’s basically a Barca away kit. It doesn’t feel very Arsenal at all.
Then there’s the other kit, that looks like it was inspired by the physio’s clobber. It’s boring, it’s really dark and I’m just not interested in it.
There is no cultural relevance to any of the shirts, and there’s nothing groundbreaking that’ll live on forever.
I mean, let’s be real here folks, if you’re over the age of 15 and you’re buying a replica shirt, someone needs to have a serious word with you. It’s not an adult thing to do. It doesn’t suit your body. The material brings the sweat to the surface, so it’s not a pleasant experience on a sweaty train.
Seriously, if you’re bitching about this kit because you wanted to buy one, grow the fuck up. They’re for the small people.
Back to design…
Look at those cool as fuck kids just hanging around on olive oil barrels just shooting the shit about something low-key like the ‘is a Calippo a type of sorbet?’… in my mind, it is. It’s poor man’s sorbet, but sorbet it is.
Back to the shirt. Nike have ripped off our bruised banana kit, and the whole world is losing their fucking shit over it. You’ve even got Brexit Dave from Kettering wearing one. What a unifying moment of kit design glory.
How long have we been begging for that shirt to return? Football kits these days are an event. The big brands are desperate to make them acceptable fashion attire. To be honest, you can roll into work in a ‘soccer’ shirt here and no one bats an eyelid, do that in the UK and you’ll get the same look as you would wearing an ‘I’m with stoopid’ tee.
Anyway, if you want to make football shirts acceptable in mainstream fashion culture to sell me more, we really need to be doing a better job of design. Revisit the past and steal is my view. Or do something so future, people can’t ignore it.
There’s another great interview in GFFN from the author of a new Unai Emery book coming out (Here).
We’ll get a couple of the worries out the way. In defending the poor rep Emery had with the French press, the author had this to say:
‘He’s really interesting. I’d pay more attention to interviews, rather than press conferences. He speaks really openly. But if you really want to understand what he’s trying to transmit, you have to interview him in Spanish a few times a year, to really understand who he is.’
Language keeps on cropping up.
Here’s something I touched on in yesterday’s post regarding how he’ll implement his ideas, and the perils of getting it wrong.
Unai Emery arrived to Paris after his failure in Spartak Moscow, where he tried to impose his ideas very suddenly, which failed in part due to cultural differences.
When you first arrive to a club, you need to adapt to the club’s philosophy, the place where you live, and the player culture. It’s a different place, a very international club marked by Arsène Wenger.
You have some managers who ignore what was in place before and instil their own ideas. Then you have guys who are more focused on the continuity and who aren’t as brutal. Unai Emery is more in that logic. He used to have a very fiery attitude, and could sometimes go all out.
For example, there was a game he was losing 2-1 with Almeria with one man down, where he decided to put on a striker for a defensive midfielder. He told his team that they were here to win, but in the end they lost 3-1. Today he wouldn’t necessarily do the same thing. He’ll try to understand where he’s arriving. In regards to the culture of the club, how they work etc.
He’ll insist on videos — both team and individual footage. But he also knows that if the players don’t subscribe to what he’s saying or doing, he won’t persist with it. Similarly to how Benjamin Mendy used to not watch Marcelo Bielsa’s video sessions. Mendy used to fall asleep watching them, to which Bielsa told him, “There’s no need to watch them. The day you’ll be interested, you’ll watch them.” Eventually, that’s what happened. If he forced him to watch it, he would have never developed any interest for it and wouldn’t be invested in it.
So we can expect Emery to be in a form of continuity. He’ll definitely work on high pressing because he loves that. He’ll focus on using the whole length of the pitch, with particular focus on the full-backs. I’d say his trademark is the involvement of full-backs when attacking. His other trademark is set pieces, which he didn’t really succeed with at PSG. But at Sevilla he worked on that extensively. At PSG, he wasn’t able to do the same. Maybe because the players didn’t follow what he had to say on it or didn’t find it useful. But if he has players who love to study the game, along with a few strong characters in the dressing room to help with his message, things will work really well from set pieces.
Emery has such a tough job ahead of him, he has to deal with the legacy of Wenger, which was very much a ‘do as you please’ culture… but he also has to make us competitive. The manager is under a time constraint, he needs to impress the board, the crowd and the players. He can take things slowly to avoid hurt feelings, but if things start poorly, he’ll be in trouble.
I think part of why we’re seeing the club hire in older talent that has familiarity with the board is that the club know they need to bring in players they own. They need to reset the culture with authoritative figures in the dressing room that know what it takes to play at the new highest level. If the club make Ramsey captain, you have him sorted. If they bring in a new centre-back like Sokratis, you gain a leader, but you also start bringing in the attitude of Dortmund which Sven controls. Lichtensteiner might not have it in him to play 50 games next season, but if anyone thinks a 5 time Serie A champions won’t come with a presence, they’re gravely mistaken.
Emery needs to implement his ideas quickly and he needs to build the culture out in his vision. It’s a tough balancing act for sure, but if the club bring in enough new faces to stamp out the familiar feel of comfort that Wenger imprinted on the squad, they should be well on the way to a new Arsenal.
Finally, EDDDDDDIIIIIE Nketiah made an assist and scored a cracker for Scotland.
Arsenal: U18s: 16 games – 15 goals U21s: 27 games – 18 goals First team: 127 minutes – 2 goals
England: U18s: 2 games – 4 goals U19s: 12 games – 11 goals U21s: 3 games – 2 goals
His record reads like PEAK Franny Jeffers. I’m so excited to see where his career goes under a proper coach, because you know under Wenger he’d be benched for the next two years making 6minutes of open play, then he’d go on loan to WBA, then he’d retire to make adult movies with his page 3 girlfriend.
We have HIGH hopes for Eddie, he looks like he’s built for the top of the game.
RIGHT, listen to our timeless podcast because it’s so damn good you’d eat it if sound were edible.
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It’s a mad world we’re living in fam. You have the AKBs talking about how important it is that the club wins trophies RIGHT NOW. Then you have the #WengerOut crowd preaching for calm and time.
Oh how times have changed…
Ok, so lesson learned from yesterday is that no one wanted to shoot the shit with me about famous warlords.
So, today, let’s talk about PLAYER SIGNINGS!
That handsome chap at the top of the screen is our new reserve right back. He’s dropped 250 appearances in Serie A, the most since 2008. He’s the fourth most capped player in the entire history of football played in Switzerland, and he’s one a bucket load of trophies.
We are BACK in the podcast game.
On the show we talk about:
I tell yah, the worst addition to the world of clickbait is commentating on what fans are talking about.
Listen Google news, I didn’t tune in to read about what @Xhakalaka403 thinks about something he read on FootballFancast. Get me the real juice. The premium quality journalism. The elite inside take.
Oh, what’s that?
Aubameyang liked a AFTV post about Dembele!
That’s what I’m talking about…
The rumour won’t go away about the young expensive winger. Word on the street, which is basically word on FootballFancast, is Barca are open to an £87m deal. Now, on the face of it, that seems like crazy money, but is it really? The kid is only 21 years old, he’s in the same league as M’Bappe for talent, he’s massively suited to the Premier League and he’s already had a major injury which is perfect for Arsenal.
I’d love it if the new regime welcomed in a new era with a mega show of intent. If you make a move like that work with a massive player, you’ll make your money back when Real Madrid or PSG come calling when he’s 25. He could easily be a £200m talent buy then. It’s a risk, no doubt, but one that could very easily pay off if we have the guts to ride it out.
Wenger is easing those retirement slippers on. Here he is talking about whether he’d take on another challenge.
“Do I still have the desire to be a coach? Yes. Do I have the desire to throw myself into another crazy challenge? I don’t know. It’s a job that requires total commitment,”
That reads a little like ‘I’m not going to do the Madrid thing’, namely because no one would ask him to, but seriously, who’d bother taking that sort of challenge on in their late sixties? That’d be a total madness. Good for him.
Wenger should try and get a job at the FA. Some sort of sporting director role. We’d love that. Wenger is basically English anyway. Let him get in there, boot out all the dross, have all the youth teams playing irresponsible Wengerball. I’d be all about that for sure.
Interesting to see that Leroy Sane was NOT included in the Germany squad despite dropping absolute numbers this season. He’s a very special talent, not bringing him along is bizarre to say the least.
Also, there’s a horror story brewing that Arsenal are looking to man-up their midfield by hiring in Fellaini on a free transfer. I mean, I’ll take players who can give us a bit more fight, but that feels very much like a 2013 sort of signing. Still, he’ll give us something on those rainy nights in… errr… Huddersfield?
A lot of Arsenal fans up in arms about the shirt deal we did with Rwanda. Their leader Paul Kagame is one of the most successful war generals on the planet. He took over in 1994, ended a genocide. He was famous for doing a lot with a little, he took down Congo, a regime 27 times the size of Rwanda. Anyway, despite getting his country back on track, there are fears he’s overstaying his welcome, and that he’s oppressing his people. This gives a pretty detailed view of what’s going on.
It’s an odd sponsorship to take on, on the one hand, you want to be high and mighty about nations that don’t adhere to our social norms or our democratic values. On the other hand, Britain can hardly be held up as a shining light of love and kindness around the world. Not just that, Arsenal are part owned by an Oligarch, and the Premier League is littered with owners from kingdoms that have less than exemplary records on human rights. Not that a multitude of wrongs makes a right.
It’d be very interesting to hear your views on the shirt deal below. I understand both sides of the argument. You have an oppressive leader on one side, and someone who has turned Rwanda into a shining light on the other.
Anyway, I’m living in a country where the President has just asserted his right to pardon himself.
Back to England, big Iwobes banged in a goal against us. What a player. The young Nigerian had this to say on his AFC situation.
“[Wenger] has been there for me since I joined the club and has been very inspirational and influential on my career, but I am excited having our new manager next season.
“It has always been my childhood dream [to play for Arsenal]. I have been playing for Arsenal since I was six.
“The fact I am representing them now is like a dream come true. I am always proud to wear the Arsenal colours, and long may it continue.”
Hopefully, he can build on his game, he’s been a bit average over the past year, playing much better for Nigeria. I’d love to see what Emery can do for his game.
It’s interesting watching the press gun for Raheem Sterling with such aggression. Digging out a player for having a gun tattoo on his leg is odd, especially when it’s in memory of a shot father. The lateness issue was attacked with vigor as well. I’d be game for giving him a kicking if the press did the same for Harry Kane. But they didn’t and don’t. Harry gets full-page op-ed’s asking England fans to stop making memes for fear of disrupting his preparation. The FA was pilloried for making a joke about the star man. It’s weird that Kane, who won nothing again this season, would get such an easy run in the press versus a player who just played a key role in one of the greatest Premier League sides of all time.
Cannot put my finger on the difference between the two players…
Watching the old boys network line up their targets before the competition starts is par the course. But, you only have to go to one press conference to see how it works out. They’re like a union, which is why the narrative is so consistent across all the pages. Hopefully, we can get some solid independent thought as the tournament goes on, and less sensationalist scapegoating. It’s a shame we’ll probably have to look to the foreign journo’s for a fair assessment. But we’ll see.
Ok, see ya’ll in the comments… x
When Father Christmas and I had a meet up last December, he said he had nothing for me, but if I kept the faith, good things would come.
‘Father Christmas, I shall follow your ten commandments in the hope of a ripe harvest next summer’