Happy Friday to you all.
Mikel Arteta will hold his press conference this morning, ahead of our trip to Villa Park tomorrow, and hopefully there’s nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to team news and injuries. We got the Takehiro Tomiyasu blow already this week, so fingers crossed there’s nothing else to contend with.
I suppose the main question for him will be about his yellow card for having the temerity to enjoy a goal, thus leaving him suspended from the touchline. With the FA charge from the Newcastle game STILL hanging over him, I suspect he won’t have much to say about the decision to book him, but obviously how it might affect him and his ability to manage the game on Saturday is an interesting point of discussion.
When you look at the behaviour of others in the game – recent and otherwise – it’s hard not to think that Arteta has been singled out a bit. Which isn’t to say he can’t do better, perhaps he can, but the inconsistency with which the rules are applied is a bit frustrating. One manager can run onto the pitch having talked about how he can’t stand most of the referees, he gets a fine. One player puts his hands on a referee after an admittedly contentious decision, he’s not booked or charged afterwards.
Anyway, it’s going to add to the challenge for the manager tomorrow, and I’m curious to hear what he thinks about it. At the very least, he’ll have a slightly better view of the game from the stands as opposed to the sideline, but I’m not sure that will be of much comfort to him. We’ll bring you all the press conference stuff over on Arseblog News a bit later on this morning.
All in all, it’s been a pretty good week of Premier League action. I watched Everton v Newcastle last night, and the home side were so bad I confidently predicted on our Discord that they wouldn’t even come close to scoring a goal. The astute among you will realise that was a classic of the jinx genre, and it seemed to flow through the ether and land directly between the ears of Kieran Trippier.
Mistake one allowed Dwight McNeil to race through and score, while mistake number two led to the second Everton goal. I think he might have been the one to play Beto onside for Everton’s third as well, but either way it was lovely to see. Now we’ll have to endure a load of nonsense about plucky little Newcastle with their injuries like they’re the only team in history to have ever had players out. If only they had a few quid down the back of the sofa or something to help them build a squad.
Trippier, of course, used to play for Spurs and once that DNA gets mixed up with your own actual DNA, you can’t do anything about it. There is no cure. The Spursiness can manifest itself at any time. You’re fine for ages then from nowhere, a big lump of it belches into your veins, courses through your system, and you go full Spurs. And everyone knows you don’t go full Spurs.
Just ask Spurs. Five games without a win now after they went down 2-1 to West Ham last night. But it goes beyond that.
Oh mate. The DNA was at play in this one too. Destiny Udogie channeled his inner-Trippier to allow James Ward-Prowse to score what turned out to be the winner. They huffed and they puffed, but they’re no big bad wolf and could not find a way through with former Gunner Lukasz Fabianski in goal for the Hammers. I’m sure he enjoyed that.
We will be talking more about the week’s Premier League action in an episode of The 30 this morning, and this afternoon we’ll have our Aston Villa preview podcast. Both of those available to our Patreon members, and if you’re not already on board, you could do a lot worse with a fiver (or thereabouts) each month. Sign up now for instant access at patreon.com/arseblog.
I was also going to make a pithy comment about a terrible man making sub-neanderthal comments about women commentators etc, but the reality is – like most idiots of this ilk – the best thing to do is ignore them. It’s pure attention seeking, and no amount of push-back is effective because that’s exactly what he wants. My strong advice with people like this is use the block function, and do something more productive with your day.
Right, let’s leave it there for now. Have a good one folks.
