Happy Friday bestowed unto thee. I hope yours is joyful and flavoursome ahead of the weekend. Mine will mostly be spent at home trying to make sense of the incremental weather conditions and watching our Emirates Cup games on Quest, that most random of “if there’s nothing else on normal telly” channels that exist. 

Hey, I’m not going to complain, because at least it gives us a couple of meaningless games to overanalyse and either a) predict the glory of the season, or b) bemoan the relegation threatened nature of 2017/18.

Two people who won’t be trotting out on the pitch are Messieurs Alexis and Mustafi, who Arsène confirmed will train at London Colney on Sunday. Quite why a confirmation was needed I’m not too sure. I mean you probably don’t need to spend a lot of time telling Alexis to play football and we’ve spent all summer telling each other that he’s not the type of player to go on strike, so I’m a little surprised that the press have taken this story, then run with it as if it’s some kind of big deal. The club have spent all summer saying they’ll run down his contract if needed and he hasn’t looked like a person who will totally burn bridges, so whilst the impasse still exists, we might as well get the player ready for the new season. 

He’ll be gone next summer but I suppose everyone can have some kind of accepting ceasefire when the football starts and I’d imagine the fans will also get behind him as soon as the first football is kicked in anger. Let’s face it, we even had the uncomfortable truce with Nasri before he was sold to City a few years back and I was in the corner of the ground during the Liverpool game when Nasri played and was cheered quite vociferously by the home support, so Alexis can expect more of that when he dons the red jersey at The Emirates and represents the club.

I suspect there’s probably a load of players who will also return to training on Sunday, like Holding, Chambers et al, some of whom have already played in a friendly, but whilst some youngsters will be promoted to the squad for the Emirates Cup, the others will probably train with the first teamers and have a bit of a kick about. 

I wonder how lonely it feels in Colney without most of the staff there though? I’d probably go wild at the buffet myself, particularly if whoever is doing the training has given me a bit of a beasting in the fitness session that day. But then again that probably explains why I’m not an elite athlete. 

That and the lack of obvious talent, of course.  

Anyway, I suspect there’ll be some kind of press conference or chat of some kind by the manager ahead of the weekend’s activities, so we’ll likely get more titbits of juicy information such as:

  • No update on Alexis
  • No major injury concerns
  • No new signings incoming – we have a big squad
  • Nobody near leaving – we have an expensive squad

How exciting.

Right, I’m off to work, like some kind of non-lotto winning mug. 

Peace out.