I can’t believe that, despite all of the noise that emerged yesterday about Steve Holland and basically what a prick her is, that we’re still getting an ignorant section of English fans booing Ben White. Ahead of this game, White has done an interview or two, has maintained that he won’t speak out because it is a private matter, but you don’t have to dig far to find out the story about how Steve Holland was a bit of a dick to him. Then, when the noises emerge that he’s just been booted from Man United for similar levels of dickishness, it’s surely hard not to connect the dots?

We’re Arsenal fans; we obviously went hunting for the story as opposed to your average England fan, but on a day in which that Man United news emerged, I’d hope that – as Tuchel said after the match last night – we were past that. Ben White has shown dignity, Steve Holland has been a wanker, and yet White is the one who is taking the flak. Let’s also hope some of the journos who lambasted his withdrawal in 2022 can now write some thinkpieces about how they were wrong. I won’t hold my breath, though.

I will do that, however, for the players on international duty. We seem to lose at least one after every round of these perpetual bore-fests. So today’s task of checking out whether they all seem to have made it through unscathed is one that I’m hopeful about. So, what do we have then?

Well, first up, Riccy Cala appears to have got through a full 90 unscathed, which is fabulous stuff. He seems to have done pretty well as well, getting a 7.4 rating on FOTMOB as Italy beat the French 3-1 at home. Potential Arsenal target Junior Kroupi came on at the end and didn’t really seem to do much, but I’ll be interested to see how he gets on over the next month as he returns to form, because it would be good to see if he can rekindle some of the form he showed in the latter part of last season. Apparently Bournemouth are steadfast in their desire to keep him in January and at least until the summer, which I totally get, but they offloaded Semenyo last January, so it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

Meanwhile, in Czechia, Zubi also played the full 90, and I must say, having seen a video of all of his touches and passes, I thought he looked good. I’m a big fan of Zubi, which you’ll know if you’ve followed this blog for any period of time. I love his passing range; I love that he also performs well in areas you wouldn’t expect – like aerially, or in the tackle too. He is a brilliant midfielder, and as I mentioned yesterday (shows that I write this without AI, given that I even have a typo in the header lol), I have a sneaky suspicion and hope that he’s going to get a run of games for The Arsenal soon. Let’s see on that one, but his international performance last night won’t have done him any harm at all. Super sub Mikel Merino also got on the pitch for just over 25 minutes, picked up a yellow, but no goal, which is quite a surprise. I thought it was ‘his thing’ that everything he touched turned into a goal, but there you go, clearly he is human after all.

England played; I obviously didn’t watch it, but it looks like Harry Kane bagged his 258th penalty to help pad out his stats all the more for England. Of course I know he’s a fabulous footballer; he’s just won the Ballon d’Or, and we saw him have a great game against us in Munich, but you can’t deny that he seems to have scored an inordinate number of penalties during his career. Especially against us, annoyingly.

Rice played 78 of the 90, seems to have done ok, but Ebs didn’t get on, and MLS didn’t make the matchday squad, so it’s just Declan that we need to keep an eye on for the Spain game next week. Let’s hope Tuchel continues to remain sensible with him, although, to his credit, he will have been party to the decision to leave him out of the squad for the previous rounds of games, so we know he can be more trusted than the likes of Southgate.

Tonight it is Timber we need to worry about for the Netherlands, and Tzolis for Greece, as the two face off in Amsterdam. Just stay away from each other, boys, and stay out of any heavy challenges please. Other than that we have to wait until Saturday for the bulk of the other players on duty, with Ecuador, Brazil, Norway and Sweden all in action. As usual, it won’t be until Tuesday next week that we really know the extent of the damage caused by yet another international break (I thought the whole point of the extended one last time was that we get less of these???).

SO for now, from me, it’s cheery-bye. I have to work out how I’m going to do work without any access to Microsoft tools right now!