It was a shame to see Egypt go out yesterday. Certainly, having Mo Salah sad is no skin off my nose, but Messi aside, Argentina are quite an unlikeable side. Martinez in goal, Martinez and Romerro as their centre backs, Enzo Fernandez being a little ratty prick. Yeah, they’re not the sort of team I could back, which is why when Egypt went two-up, I was pleased to see there’d be some sad pricks in sky blue and white stripey shirts.

The Egyptians went nuclear afterwards, with their boss hinting at corruption by saying that the game was stacked for Argentina to win, and with a couple of those decisions, I do think they have a bit of a point. But I doubt it’s a conspiracy. The problem is, after the stuff with Balogun, Trump and the USMNT, you’re going to get that with this competition now. There’s an easy direction in which you can point your fingers because of FIFA’s actions, so this game and the situations that unfolded were always going to draw some attention.

For Zico’s disallowed goal, I think you probably do have to give it as a foul. There’s a shirt pull, and if the Argentinian player doesn’t have that, he probably wins the ball back. It’s slightly soft, but it is foul. But this is where it gets murky, because there was at least that level of foul that happened by Mac Allister just before Argentina scored the winner. What should probably have happened is that the goal was disallowed and a penalty was given to Egypt in stoppage time. What a dramatic end of a dramatic game that would have been!

Sadly not, however, and we find ourselves with our quarter finals now decided. It’ll be France against Morocco, England versus Norway, Spain against Belgium, and Argentina against Switzerland, after they zeroed each other out in what I’m assuming was a bit of a snooze-fest.

If I’m picking a route from here, I’d probably say the bookies’ choice for a pathway would be France, England, Spain, and Argentina in the semi-final, then I’d probably go with France and Argentina getting to the final to duke it out. France still feel like outright winners to me.

Champions, if you will. Which reminds me to remind you that the Premier League Champions – The Arsenal – are about six week’s away from kicking off the defence of their title at home to Coventry. And what shiny new players do we have to ready ourselves for that defence?

None. Nada. Zip. Zilch, Zero.

We can argue the toss over HIncapie if we want, but he was with us last season, so it isn’t a new face. And it seems like the only new face on the horizon right now is Illian Meslier, who is joining us on a free, which will apparently enable Tommy Setford to go out on loan. This is a weird one, because Meslier has tasted first-team football, and Premier League first-team football at that, so why would he want to come in as a potential number three? It’s so far removed from actual playing time, that it really only makes sense to give a guy the third-choice ‘keeper role the gig because he wants to train with the first team and be given a Champions League seat on the bench, owing to that weird rule where you have to have two back-up ‘keepers in each matchday squad.

He never made it on to the pitch for last season, and for a lot of it he wasn’t even in the match-day squad, so Leeds didn’t think him good enough to be a number two, so why should The Arsenal?

I suspect we don’t. I suspect he’s the ‘in case of emergency’ offer if a club comes in on deadline day and activates Kepa’s £5million release clause. I’d expect that to be fair; Kepa did make a high-profile error in the League Cup final last season, but in the season before that, he did well for Bournemouth, so I’d expect him to be able to find a club interested in his services this summer. And at just £5million for a guy with his experience, for the right club, it’s going to be a no-brainer.

So I guess my question is whether Arsenal has a backup contingency in place, in case of the Kepa situation, seeing his clause triggered. I would hope that part of the agreement would have some kind of failsafe; imagine a club like Wolves, or Ipswich, deciding on deadline day that they wanted to trigger the clause, leaving Arsenal without a recognised and experienced number two? We can’t have that happen. We simply shouldn’t. So I hope those failsafes are in place. I personally would be fine seeing Kepa as the backup next season. He’s going to get early rounds of the FA Cup if it’s against lesser opposition, a few League Cup games, maybe a Champions League dead rubber. I get it – if Raya gets injured, we have a challenge – but given how he’s generally been plenty fit for us so far, I don’t see that not continuing for next season.

All of this ‘keeper talk, and yet we still have less news about outfield players. There will be more and more heading home now that we’re in the quarter finals of the World Cup, and whilst some will take a little holiday now, my gut feeling is that we’ll start to get more and more movement now. We kind of need it. We’re playing Girona in three weeks, as the pre-season friendlies kick off. Let’s hope we have a shiny new outfield toy for then.

Catch you all tomorrow.