Good morning, we’re into an Interlull and today I have to take a train to Cork. I love trains though. I don’t mean messy, busy, cramped tubes or undergrounds, but regular stare out the window as shit goes by kinda trains.
I used to get the train from Barcelona to Valencia quite often when I lived there, and for about €3 extra you could go first class (this supplement was one that most people eschewed for some reason). This meant the journey was like a plane in the 80s. The person would bring you a meal and your choice of newspaper, and when you were finished a choice of tiny bottle of whiskey or whatever you wanted to help knock it back. Sure, I’ll have a miniature Chivas Regal 12 at 10am – it feels rude not to, and it’s a terribly civilised way to travel
I’m pretty sure Irish Rail do not do this and I will probably have to pay €4.50 for a tiny packet of peanuts, but I will thwart them by having breakfast beforehand. Take that person with an enormously heavy-looking cart of stuff, weak tea and stale sandwiches.
So, many of our players are going away to play international games. Laurent Koscielny and Olivier Giroud are in the France squad for friendlies against England and Germany, as ‘friendly’ as those games can ever be. Alexis goes to Chile as they have World Cup qualifiers against Colombia and Uruguay. It means a player who is already knackered is going to have two really intense games before he returns to us – begging the question ‘When is he ever going to have a rest?’
If you look at our fixture list though, there’s a chance. After the Interlull we play West Brom away, Dinamo Zagreb at home, Norwich away and Sunderland at home before we go to Olympiacos for what, hopefully, will be a vital Champions League clash. Now, with all due respect to those teams, and assuming we can get a couple of players back fit again after the break, that strikes me as a good time to give him some rest.
I say some because I still think he’s got a part to play in those games – just not 90+ minutes in each one. I’m not casting any aspersions on him, his quality, or his importance, simply that this is a period when it feels like it would be easiest to use him from the bench, or not at all depending on how the game is going. When you get into December and January, with that hectic festive schedule, and you see fixtures against Liverpool, Southampton, Chelsea and Man City, you know there’s no way we can do without him then, so this feels like the only time we can do it.
Of course that’s if we do it at all. He might come back and feel like the best way for him to find form is to play his way into it, but ideally you’d be looking at the couple of weeks after this Interlull as an opportunity to ease the burden on him. His desire to play is well known, but sometimes you need to manage a player for his own good.
There are no such worries about Mesut Ozil however. He’s been given the Interlull off by Germany manager Joachim Low who knows fine well what he’s capable of and doesn’t need to see him do it in meaningless friendlies. If I ever became President of FIFA (I’m corrupt enough, honest!), I’d insist that for these kind of international breaks managers could only choose players who weren’t involved in the qualifying campaigns – caps for everyone.
Anyway, Ozil is off the hook and his importance to the team was highlighted by Arsene Wenger who said of his performance against Sp*rs:
He was outstanding again. He has grown into a very great player as he has added commitment, leadership qualities and responsibility and I’m very pleased with his development.
Development seems like an odd word to use for a player who is 27 and who cost £42.5m, but I know what he means. As I said yesterday he’s now someone who can impose himself on a game even when the team isn’t playing as well as it can, and for me that really augurs well for the future and the rest of this season. He strikes me as somebody whose personality until this point in his career isn’t necessarily that of a leader, but as he’s matured he realises he can be that for Arsenal.
His performances and contribution this season speak to that, and while questions abound about Alexis, his compatibility with Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott’s fitness and all the other absences, Ozil is a man who can make us tick via unlikely conduits like Kieran Gibbs. His relative sharpness after the Interlull is bound to be important.
Meanwhile, we should say congratulations to Hector Bellerin for being awarded the Young Catalan Player of the Year award he received last night, see the picture below:
The overall award was won by Barcelona’s Gerard Pique who attended the ceremony with his wife Robbie Savage. It’s a nice bit of recognition for Hector though, and fingers crossed he’ll be back after the Interlull to take his place in the side. The fact that Mathieu Debuchy still talks about having to look elsewhere for regular first team football says a lot about how an experienced player like him recognises the talent and potential of Bellerin.
Other than that, not a lot to be going on with. If you haven’t yet listened to this week’s Arsecast Extra you can do so right here. There’s a look back at the derby, questions about Ramsey, pressing, ants and lots more, so get it into ya.
More from me tomorrow, probably on a train back from Cork.
