Suburban Gooners – Arsenal Blog
Weighing up “it’s a friendly” against some concerns Arsenal fans have
It’s a curious thing, is pre season, because you can have your concerns about performances, but not about results. It’s a real juxtaposition to the real thing, in which ultimately the opposite is true. Due to work commitments I managed to catch from minute 28 of the game against Villareal last night and found myself [...]
Villareal part of Arteta’s careful friendly selection process
It's another friendly match day today for The Arsenal and I'm intrigued to see how we line up tonight against Villareal. Will we see a pretty much first team rock up against the Spanish side? Or will it be a blended side from the start like in the Asian tour? equally, will we have a [...]
Sell…Sell!…Sell?
Morning folks and let me bestow unto thee a most happy of Tuesday's. The sun is out in London, The Arsenal are back in the country and a new kit dropped to keep those merch-starved fans sated for at least another week until the next training kit is launched at some stage in August no [...]
How much stock to take in other teams’ friendlies?
Morning folks and welcome to Monday. I had family over and coupled that with a bit of a two-day hangover, so didn't blog this weekend, but thankfully not a lot really happened in the Arsenal world, as the players headed back to the UK and today they kick off the proper pre season prep ahead [...]
The ‘Meh’ NLD hasn’t really taught us anything we didn’t already know
Having not watched any of our pre season friendlies - and I think I should probably underline the word friendly for today's blog of context - I wasn't going to start yesterday lunchtime by watching us play The Scum. But I followed what was going on and have also read a few match reports and seen [...]
A weird NLD, but a chance to see Big Vik?
It's a weird match day of sorts, because technically it's a North London Derby day but in reality, this has none of the usual jeopardy that comes with that most wretched of fixtures. So I don't really know how I feel about it. It's because of that lack of jeopardy that I am trying to [...]
The ol’ “shirt sales have paid for his transfer” schtick – bringing back some nostalgia
Do you know what I love? A good ol' fashioned story about how shirt sales have paid for a transfer. Nothing beats it. It reminds me of the early 2ks when you hear stories like how Beckham's fee that Real Madrid paid to United was paid for overnight. It does make me chuckle. So when [...]
Saliba’s positivity on a new deal needs to be capitalised on
First things first, I have to say, I'm not 100% happy about the fact that Granit Xhaka is returning to the Premier League for Sunderland. The first thing that popped into my head was 'why?' when I heard the rumour. He won the league with Leverkusen, he was a regular in their team last season, [...]
Arsenal Women win the Euro’s as Dowman wows Asia
I'll get into the Arsenal men's teams' second win of pre season after a somewhat feisty encounter in Singapore against Newcastle yesterday lunchtime UK time, but before all of that, let's have a word or two to say about the fabulous England Lionesses, who retained the Euro trophy on penalties by defeating Spain in the [...]
Job done with Vik – now it’s prep for the Prem
Well, that happened quickly, with old Viktor Gyokeres, didn’t it? Were used to signings being dragged out. We normally expect there to be an element of wait and delay as Arsenal pick the right moment, usually do all the pictures and videos, then it takes a day or two, then BAM! We’re hit with the [...]