Morning.
The excitement has died down a bit (just a bit) and we’re slap bang in the middle of an Interlull right now. It doesn’t feel like it but there are internationals tonight and hopefully all of our lot come through unscathed.
We got our first interview with Mesut Özil via the official site. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary in it (other than the fact that we’ve got Mesut Özil). He talked wanting to win trophies (as they all do), about Podolski and Mertesacker, but also his desire to develop as a player:
I want to improve myself further and I’m looking forward to the style of play. Arsenal are well known for the strength of their technical game and their desire to play attacking football. I think I will fit perfectly into that. That’s why I chose to sign for the club.
I don’t know if there is any truth to United’s deadline day interest, I suspect it was probably Sky adding a nefarious villain to the pantomime as they like to do, but I can’t help wondering again if it were true, would he look at David Moyes as the kind of coach who could help him improve as a player.
He’s someone who can get a measure of consistency from decent to average players. Wenger, for all his faults, turned Henry into the best striker in Premier League history, Pires into the most effective attacking midfielder this club has ever seen, Vieira became the most powerful player of his generation and he took a young Catalan kid and helped him fulfill his talent to the point where he’s one of the best players in the world.
Compare that to getting some goals out of James McFadden (and red cards) and playing Phil Neville 300 times. Wenger, and Arsenal’s footballing philosophy, is still a draw and with Özil on board perhaps we’re going to see a touch of regeneration too. In recent seasons our football hasn’t been as fluid as in the past – for reasons we all know and are obvious – but we’ve now added something we’ve been really missing.
As Tim Stillman points out in his column this week, the idea that Arsenal don’t really need a player as creative as Özil is nonsense. We’ve missed somebody like Cesc since his departure. For one season the Dutch Skunk was able to make up for it by scoring goals of ridiculous quality, but last season was a struggle at times even if we found a way to grind out results. Games we should have dominated we failed to because of the lack of someone who had the vision to see a pass or spot a run the way the German can.
Lukas Podolski puts it nicely:
Definitely Mesut and I will rock Arsenal. It is our great goal to have success in London. We already play awesome football. The only think that has been missing was the last punch, that surprise moment. That’s exactly what Mesut can give us. I’m convinced he fits perfectly with our playing philosophy.
And that’s a man that knows him as well as anyone, so fingers crossed. It does seem a little cruel that after spending so much on a player at long last that we have to wait and extra week to see him play, but it’s a small price to have to pay.
There’s really very little else going on this morning so I might as well crack on with the Arsecast, which was recorded last night via a Google Hangout. As such there are a few audio anomalies which won’t make much sense but not too many.
I was joined by East Lower, Goonerholic, Gunnerblog and Arse2Mouse to discuss the North London derby, Özil (who, due to umlaut tedium I’m now going to call Ozil forever and ever), Flamini, strikers, the summer in general and the state of the squad.
You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes). To download this week’s Arsecast directly – click here 30mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
The Arsecast is also available on our SoundCloud channel, where you can leave comments and such, as well as via the Soundcloud app for iPhone and Android.
Right, that’s yer lot, back tomorrow.
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ps – I don’t normally do this, but a long-time Arseblogger has just moved to Dublin on a short-term basis and has been left in the lurch regarding his accommodation. If anyone reading knows of a house/flat share, or someone needing a room mate, can they let me know via the contact form? Thanks.
