Good morning.
For a point in the season when everything is so crucial, it’s been an incredibly quiet week from an Arsenal point of view. That’s because there’s no drama, no controversy, no repetitive drum to bang all week long because of something that happens on and/or off the pitch.
I don’t know about you though, but it feels very much like the calm before the storm. I understand why it’s quiet, but it’s making me a bit uneasy. What lurks around the football corner? Bad men, that’s who. Bad men who want to win football games of their own, and right now they are enemy number 1 in my world. I wish them nothing but a perpetual itch in a place they can never satisfactorily scratch. Not even with a knitting needle.
Later today, Mikel Arteta will meet the press ahead of our trip to Anfield on Sunday. Hopefully there are no new fitness issues. We haven’t heard much about William Saliba this week other than he’s still a doubt, so perhaps we’ll get an update on him. In as much as we get updates from the manager beyond the ‘Well, he is alive, so let’s see how he is on Sunday’.
Elsewhere, our opposition in the FA Youth Cup final will be West Ham, who hammered Southampton 6-1 last night. Interestingly, their next game in the U18 Premier League is at home to us, one of those quirks of the fixture list that so often pop up. It’ll be an interesting one for Jack Wilshere and his West Ham counterpart in terms of team selections, tactics etc. It’s not as if anything would be a massive surprise, but maybe trying to keep something back for the final would be in their minds.
The date/time for that has yet to be finalised. It is scheduled for 29th April but given the game is set to take place at the Emirates and we play Chelsea that day, it’s likely to be moved.
Speaking of West Ham, they are away to Fulham this weekend, and while I don’t really care what any other teams do, I think I want them to win this one. They have been having a very difficult season, and you have to imagine that David Moyes’ job is on the line at this point. Even with just a few games left, a 5-1 battering at home by Newcastle just a couple of days ago feels like a final-nails-in-the-coffin kind of defeat, and if they lose to Fulham I think they’ll pull the trigger.
Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a consideration at all, but given West Ham’s next game is against us, we’d be dealing once again with the NMB – New Manager Bounce. Big Sam back in to give them a rollicking and what’s that? Oh, all of a sudden Arsenal are down to 8 men because we’ve been kicked off the park and suffered so many injuries and used up all our subs and with Granit Xhaka in goal because both Aaron Ramsdale and Matt Turner have been carried off with gruesome head and testicle injuries respectively, Lukasz Fabianski heads home a 93rd minute winner for the Hammers. From a Declan Rice cross.
I will concede that very occasionally when I write this blog I exaggerate potential scenarios for comedic effect, BUT THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM.
Fulham will be without Aleksandar Mitrovic after he was handed an eight game ban for his FA Cup incident with referee Chris Kavanagh, so that’s to their advantage, but if they could just not be absolute garbage this weekend then revert to type when we play them that would lovely. Thank you.
Speaking of Mitrovic, if the FA decide an eight game is sufficient for what he did, that’s fine. As much as we all like to have a go at refs, you can’t allow players – or anyone else for that matter – to get physical with them in any way. So this ban is both punishment and deterrent. The only thing I will say is Bruno Fernandes got very lucky for escaping with no punishment for pushing an assistant referee a few weeks ago. It wasn’t the same kind of situation, it wasn’t as confrontational or aggressive, but he still did it. If I were Mitrovic, even if I accepted what I did was wrong, I think I’d be bit annoyed that there appear to be double-standards.
Right, let’s leave it there for now. There’s a brand new Arsecast below, in which I chat to former keeper David Seaman about our title chase, and you can win tickets to a Seaman Says live event with Ray Parlour too (more info here). Then we have some pre-Liverpool chat with Neil Atkinson from The Anfield Wrap, and some bonus Mugsmasher too.
All the links you need are below. Happy listening, we’ll have all the news from the presser on Arseblog News later on.
