That pointless tournament in America kicked off last night and did so with the kind of ‘bang’ I think most of us were hoping for:

A boring 0-0 draw.

I didn’t watch it, but Sky Sports thrust it into my eye-line on their website this morning with a match review, whose highlights included “Messi hit the die netting with a free kick”. Honestly, I hope this tournament is as boring as possible and that FIFA are put off from ever doing something like this again.

They won’t. They’ll be back again as long as there’s a Saudi bankrolling them somewhere. Gianni Infantino gets his stage, he gets his money, FIFA line their pockets. Night follows day.

In the Arsenal world, it’s all still about Gyokeres or Sesko and I think even the ITKs are running out of ‘angles’. I’ve seen some suggest (fans, not ITKs) that we should go for both players, but honestly, I couldn’t see that happening in a billion years. Why would we do that? We have Havertz who we’ve all heard everyone at the club loves, he’s beefed himself up whilst injured and was a guy on form before his injury. He’ll be the one kicking off our season regardless of who we sign I think, so the idea that we’d go and buy two centre forwards when we clearly need to strengthen in other positions, feels a bit mental to me. And we leave that to those muppets in West London who play in blue.

I do wonder if this situation with these two players is making things worse for decision making though. I saw a few articles yesterday and this morning suggesting Gyokeres’ first choice is The Arsenal and he’s waiting to see what happens with us before deciding anything else. That sounds lovely and sure, it’s good to know we have a player waiting for us, but eventually Arsenal have to step over the line with one of them. It’s starting to feel a little like we have two lovely chocolate cakes and we can’t pick between the two, so we just keep staring at both of them, resulting in us not having any of the delicious cake.

Just pick one of the delicious cakes, Arsenal. Stop staring at them both. They’re both lovely. You’ll be very happy in the tasting of both cakes.

There was something I saw yesterday about Zubimendi’s medical booked for Wednesday, but at this stage it’s essentially the worst kept secret and I’m kind of a bit ‘meh’ about those stories because we already know it’s happening. I’ll be excited to see him in the shirt unveiling, but stories about medicals ‘booked’ don’t butter my muffins.

I have no idea what is with my food-based metaphors today.

It will be a big signing though. It’s weird, you probably won’t believe me, but I was kinda sad last summer when it looked like he was going to Liverpool. We had Rice and Partey sitting at the base, but Zubimendi was a player I thought “he’d be a good signing for us. I’d like him”. I also think that his signing for Liverpool made me very nervous in terms of how he would bring a level of quality to Liverpool’s midfield that would take them up a notch. Now, with him on the verge of signing for us, I have seen videos doing ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of him, how he might not be as physically ready for the Premier League and I can’t help but think that I never had that thought in my mind when he was signing for Liverpool last summer. It’s funny how when you’re looking over at somebody else’s garden, you automatically think the grass is greener and everything is perfect. It’s the same with the Wirtz signing. Great player, he’s going to be good for them we all know, but because of the fee I find myself thinking they are suddenly going to have all of their issues solved. Ultimately if they have Salah go down injured, or even if he just doesn’t run as hot as last season, then Liverpool won’t get things their own way all the time as they did last season. Even with Wirtz. But as champions, having just come off the back of walking the league, spending pretty big already, everyone is looking at them and automatically projecting more glory. All I’ll say is “we’ll see”.

Anyhoo, to more serious news, which is that it was a year ago today that we lost Kevin Campbell, who died at the age of 54 years old. On this Father’s Day here in England, I am thinking about his family and children who lost a husband and a dad at an age in life that you really shouldn’t be losing your life. He was such a loveable character, I know lots of Arsenal fans who knew him and said he was the loveliest man. I never met him, but I have read and heard plenty of positive stories about him and how he impacted people’s lives so positively. Rest in Peace, big man.

Catch you all tomorrow.