Morning from a drizzly, damp Dublin. It’s Friday and that means that tomorrow is Saturday. And it’s a bank holiday weekend. As if banks need any more holidays. Frankly after the mess they made of everything they should be made work 24 hours a day and more than that if possible (like when they add an extra second to a year because the earth is rotating a bit slowly and they have make the clocks right. They should work that extra second too).
Overnight Arsenal played MLS All-Stars in San Jose and ran out 2-1 winners. The first goal was a penalty from Joel Campbell after he’d been brought down in the box:
None of that ‘I got fouled so I’m not taking the penalty’ nonsense from him. I also liked his ‘This is going to take bloody ages’ run-up. Then Didier Drogba scored, outmuscling Philippe Senderos, but late on Chuba Akpom got a winner. I haven’t seen any of it because it happened so late at night and I was asleep.
There’s a report here on Arseblog News as the intrepid Andrew Allen stayed up and ate chocolates, and I believe they’ll have video highlights on the official site later on if you fancy a bit of that. Hopefully it was good fun for all the Arsenal fans, some of whom will be getting to see the team for the first time.
Granit Xhaka got his first run-out as an Arsenal player, and Rob Holding was the only player to stay on for 90 minutes. Arsene Wenger said afterwards:
In the first half we had a good balance between keeping possession and going very quickly on the transitions behind the defence in the final third. That was positive. It was also an opportunity to see many young players. Also in the first-half Chamberlain was always very dangerous and exceptionally strong. The players who just joined us – Holding and Xhaka – did well too.
And on the new boys, Xhaka:
He did adjust very well. His passing was clean and technically he did well. Overall I believe his first game was encouraging.
And Holding:
He has adapted surprisingly in a very good way. He reads the game well and understands what’s going on. He anticipates well and that’s a quality, at such a young age, that you don’t find a lot.
Of course there’s not a huge amount to be read into pre-season games, but it’s always nice when a first impression is positive. We now move onto Los Angeles where we’ll play Chivas Guadalajara on Sunday. The manager also referenced the fact we’re a bit light up front at the moment, saying:
At the moment, I do not have too many attacking options. Let’s not forget that there are still a few players at home, and that a few players didn’t play today, like Cazorla. Then of course you have Ozil and Ramsey at home, even Giroud is not here. We have options, but we still look outside to find one more.
Who it is remains to be seen? Maybe we’ll go back with a bigger bid for Lacazette. Maybe we’ll shake off our cautiousness and go all in for Riyad Mahrez who wants to leave Leicester. It might even be someone from left-field who none of us are expecting. It would be fair to say though that a season-starting forward line-up of Walcott, Akpom, Campbell, Iwobi and Oxlade-Chamberlain isn’t quite as strong as we would like to be.
Also, thanks to everyone who Tweeted me that the commentator on ESPN referred to Jeff as ‘The Jeff’. This pleases me enormously. For there are many Jeffs but only one The Jeff, and that is The Jeff that we have. #thejeff
@arseblog @gunnerblog The Jeff ? pic.twitter.com/01qEbRO8CD
— Alexandra (@a_phillips) July 29, 2016
The club yesterday confirmed his promotion to the first team squad with a picture on Instagram – this is how the world works these days – so do we assume that he’s going to be part of things rather than be loaned out? Clearly there’s a lot of love for The Jeff but how much is he going to play? I suspect he’ll stick around until our Capital One Carling Rumbelows Milk Cup campaign is done, and then we might let him go somewhere and play regularly.
As our search for a centre-half continues I see that Sky in England are saying that Sky Germany are saying that we’ve opened talks with Valencia over Shkodran Mustafi. I suppose the one piece of comfort we can take from that is that Sky Italia are not saying it because the minute Sky Italia say anything you know it’s a big pile of poo.
We’re also apparently interested in Man City’s young Belgian defender Jason Denayer but given the need to replace Per Mertesacker with experience, he doesn’t really tick too many of the boxes. I also think that given City’s very real interest in Hector Bellerin, we shouldn’t give them anything that might be construed as leverage in that regard.
Finally for this morning, Tim Stillman’s 5 step plan to improve Arsenal next season. I especially like number 5.
Right, have yourselves a good one. All the news in the usual place throughout the day, more tomorrow.
