Happy Tuesday party people. How y’all doing? holding up ok?

It’s amazing how many England flags have been cast asunder in Uxbridge, or other such paraphernalia like football shirts, which I’ve seen just discarded like an old apple core. Some people, eh? All over that bandwagon whilst the going is good, but as soon as the pain sets in, they shift football to one side like some kind of old school book that is no longer needed.

Oh boy am I glad some of those ‘tournament casuals’ will be crawling back in to whatever hole they came from, so the real football can be left to us real football fans, eh?

Not just that though, let’s also discard the idiots that want to abuse footballers like some of the morons we’ve seen on social media over the last 48 hours. Abusing Bukayo Saka, a 19-year-old boy, because he missed a penalty, is just deplorable. For it to happen at all is a disgrace, but that there were a few people online sending racist slurs directed at him is unacceptable. Find these people, prosecute these people, let’s have some real action, shall we?

On to on-field matters, and the pre season is well underway now as the players have headed north to Scotland for a friendly game with Hibernian tonight. It’s annoying for me that I didn’t plan my holiday better, because this time a week ago I was in a rainy Edinburgh and if I’d have known that Arsenal would be up there playing when I arranged it, I’d have probably told The Management that we’re deferring our trip up north by about 10 days. But such is life. At least I’ll get to watch it via Arsenal Player, as the club have given me access via my season ticket for next season. It’ll be interesting to see who starts, because most of the players haven’t actually been away with their country, so we might see a stronger team than usual.

One person who won’t be there is William Saliba, who Ornstein confirmed yesterday was on his way to Marseille. Loan, no option to buy, one year deal and no contract extension on the table. I’ve said quite a lot on Saliba so far this summer, so I won’t go on and on, but suffice to say I’m slightly disappointed, but I’m also now worried about the long term future of the player at Arsenal. Say, for example, he kills it in France. Does he come back to Arsenal in the summer next year and get a shot? Hopefully. And if he does get a shot at Arsenal the season after this, what happens if he is a success? We have a successful player who has one year left on his deal, no loyalty to Arsenal after sending him out on loan for a few years, plus a number of big clubs sniffing around for a cut price.

Even if he isn’t successful after a season at Arsenal, he would still have clubs sniffing around him, but guess what? With one year left on his deal by then he’d also end up going for a cut price.

Whichever way I look at this situation, it is a mess, and not one that we seem minded to turn in to a positive. I know I am massively projecting on this kids career because he could tank at Marseille, not make it at Arsenal and end up at a mid-table French team for most of his career, but even if that’s the case it just shows how terribly this situation has been handled because if that is his fate then we spent close to £30million on a busted flush.

There is literally no way in this scenario that Arsenal Football Club comes out looking good here. And that’s why I’m frustrated.

I said I wasn’t going to go on about the Saliba situation but here I am, going on about the situation, so sorry about that folks.

So what else is going on? Well, how about the most Arsenal fan tenuous link in putting two and two together to make five in the latest training pictures? I am of course talking about the fact that Emile Smith Rowe’s number was spotted on youth team ‘keeper James HIllson, who has been training with the first team, which of course means that Smith Rowe is getting a new number, of course it’ll be a new number, then of course he MUST be signing a new deal, because why on earth would he choose a new number if he was leaving????

I do love the ability of our fanbase to read between the lines and come up with more elaborate ways of finding answers to questions like contract deals and or transfers. It’s a little like how players are pictured in the next season’s kit, before they then leave the club in a deal to head elsewhere. They aren’t exactly going to go ‘skins’ in every picture until a deal is done, are they?? Cracks me up.

The reality is probably that he just needed a shirt and number and the club gave him what they had with a quick print job. I’ve no doubt that Smith Rowe might get himself a new number this coming season, but that also doesn’t mean that he is signing a new deal. The noises are positive and I’m certainly hopeful that those noises from journos on the Arsenal beat that are comfortable this is getting done are right, but I don’t think I’ll read much more in to a new shirt number, other than the player wanted a new shirt number.

The only other slightly Arsenal-related news was that Mat Ryan signed for Real Sociedad yesterday. Would have been nice to get him in on a permanent deal, but he will most likely have been offered more playing time and I think that’s ultimately what he’s got to look at ahead of any ‘heart over head’ move like being Arsenal’s number two. Good luck to him in Spain.

And that’s yer lot from me today. Have at it for your day and hopefully we get to see some decent action later on this evening.