Been heading out for some sun, sea and plenty of white wine Douro so haven’t been able to blog as much over the last few days, but given that there seems to have been the square root of bigger all happening with The Arsenal I guess I haven’t really missed much.
I saw Iwobi got a decent looking goal for Nigeria yesterday. He’s playing centrally for Nigeria in a number eight role it seems and there’s been a few people who have suggested he could be an option there. Not for me I’m afraid. It was a fine composed finish, granted, but he has that in his locker. He does that at Arsenal occasionally, but that’s his biggest problem: it’s always occasionally. For him to be considered centrally we’d need to see him massively up his game on a more regular basis. Let’s not forget the amount of times we’ve seen him open his body up and daisy cut the ball down the ‘keepers throat for an easy pick up.
If you’re going to tell me that we’ll go from Ramsey as our number eight to Iwobi, well, I’m going to tell you it’s just another element of decline at the club that we’re seeing.
Of course this is all just hearsay and I suspect we won’t be seeing Iwobi centrally in the near future. I’m also not sure we’ll be seeing Zaha either of I’m honest. He’s tweeted a cryptic message or two whilst away with the Ivory Coast team but the reality is that Palace want mega bucks and I just can’t see Arsenal dropping £70million odd on him. I think this will probably drag for a few weeks but the good news is that we only have to wait another four weeks because then the window will close. Thank god. Let’s just focus on the football and how the bloody hell we are going to improve our league position with what is essentially a weaker team than we had last year.
That’s maybe where youth can play a part and yesterday it appears as though there was a decent looking game from the Under-23s at Borehamwood. It’s funny because most seasons it’s the first friendly for the first team but Arsenal have been quite clear in giving this one to the under-23s this season. I didn’t watch the game because I’m out in Portugal, but I did see the result and it looks like some players like John-Jules impressed. This is obviously a bit of a dress rehearsal for players that might make it on the US tour and whilst Martinelli will go in to the squad as the shiny new signing, there will no doubt be five or six spaces for some of the young players to get out there too.
And that’s where we’ll start to see if any can make it in to the managers thinking for the beginning of the Premier League season and at this stage we have to hope that there are a few. We lost Welbeck, Cech, Ramsey, there’s plenty of noises about Koscielny wanting to get himself back to France, so whilst we can be pleased that it appears Holding is back in training earlier than many of us expected, we probably need to start hoping that there is a few gems who will go out to the US and shine over the next week or two.
The Koscielny situation is an interesting one because I would probably let him go if a club in France wants to drop a bit of cash. At 33 he’s probably got a season or two left in him but there’s no way on earth we should be letting him leave for free. I spoke a few weeks ago about Fekir being a potential player we could look at and if Lyon are looking at cashing in on a guy with one year left on his contract for £30million, why shouldn’t we just drop a cheeky £20million plus Koscielny offer to the Lyon President Aulas? I reckon they might have a sniff at that, especially as they’re rumoured to be on the lookout for a centre half. It’s unlikely because those kind of swap deals happen, but sure it’s worth a punt?
As always we’re left in the dark. But what I have found interesting reading is a couple of scoops that Charles Watts has had from Dick Law, including the details over the Luis Suarez failed bid a few seasons ago. Well worth a read if you’ve got a minute.
Anyway, that’s the lot for the day from me, I’m off to catch some rays.
Laters folks.
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