So Arsenal are in Norway right now, preparing for a friendly tonight against Viking FK. Much like Athletic Bilbao – whose official policy is signing professional players native to or trained in football in the greater Basque Country – Viking only sign players whose ancestors were actual Vikings.
Players are tested on their berserking skills and on steering a longship to Ireland where they’re allowed to pillage and take local women for their wives before they’re given a first team start. So, it should be an intense physical workout for the chaps tonight.
Viking currently sit 6th in the Norwegian Tippeligaen and my paltry research suggests they’ve got an actual league game on Sunday against Sogndal (8th), so chances are they’ll actually be taking this one pretty easy. Or using a lot of young players in the second half or something. Still, it should be good fun for all the Norwegian Gooners going to this one, have fun folks.
The squad was announced yesterday, seeing Aaron Ramsey and Alexis Sanchez included for their first taste of pre-season action. Both of them returned to training on Monday, and should play some part over the weekend as they look to build up some match fitness again. Not that it’s like the old days when players came back off their holidays looking like John Goodman and had to lose all the weight, they’re much fitter generally, but you would still hope that we’ll ease them back into action somewhat.
That said, given the paucity of transfer market activity, particularly in the forward positions, it would not be at all surprising to me if both were in the squad, or even the team, on the opening day against Liverpool. One notable absentee was Jack Wilshere whose knee problem keeps him out of the final two warm-up games. The manager was hopeful he’d make it but clearly the problem is a little more serious than first expected.
As ever with Jack, you just don’t know where he might fit on the injury scale named after him:
Hopefully it’s nothing serious, but missing out on two pre-season fixtures when he could have built a little more match fitness – something he’s obviously lacking having played so little in the last 12 months – is not ideal. At the moment it’s quite difficult to see exactly where he fits into this team, and unless he can stay fit and fight for a place then that uncertainty will remain an issue.
There’s nothing to report from the transfer market. Word from France is that Alexandre Lacazette is going nowhere and Lyon’s message on this appears to be very consistent so you do wonder if perhaps talk of our interest in him is a smokescreen to deflect people away from something else. Meanwhile, Valencia say they have had no offer from Arsenal for central defender Shkodran Mustafi.
The German international trained away from the first team this week, and didn’t take part in their pre-season friendly with Bournemouth, adding to speculation that a move was very much on the cards. However, it seems that as yet there’s been no official contact between the clubs – despite a suggestion last week that a low bid from Arsenal was knocked back.
At this point you don’t need me to tell you how close the new season is. But I will anyway, 9 days! It’s 9 days away, we play Liverpool on August 14th, and we haven’t yet found solutions for the two significant issues this squad faces. There has been no forward arrival, nor have we done anything to bolster our defensive ranks after the injury suffered by Per Mertesacker two weeks ago.
It’s difficult not to think of 2013 when the lack of transfer activity sparked unhappy scenes when we lost the opening game against Aston Villa. I suppose in the clamour for new faces, we forget or overlook the £30m+ spent on Granit Xhaka and the fact that we’ve got a plethora of excellent midfield options, but if we struggle for goals against Liverpool or defensive inexperience costs us, there’s unlikely to much in the way of forgiveness.
There has been a departure though. As expected Wojciech Szczesny has joined Roma to spend another season on loan out there. It provides us with some clarity regarding our goalkeeping situation as it’s now impossible to let David Ospina go anywhere. The Colombian will remain to play number 2 to Petr Cech. You would have understood if he’d wanted to go somewhere and play regularly – maybe he still does – but having let Szczesny go, the likes of Emi Martinez or Matt Macey are not really sufficient cover for a 34 year old first choice.
Some brief things to finish: there were Arsenal goals at the Rio Olympics last night. First up Serge Gnabry with an equaliser for Germany, then new boy Takuma Asano scoring as Japan went down 5-4 to Nigeria. Nice finishes both.
We’ve also been doing some tinkering under the hood over on Arseblog News, so if you notice anything a bit weird or off, please leave a comment on this post (which also shows you the kind of stuff advertisers offer us that we turn down because we don’t like their kind of ads).
Finally for today, Tim Stillman takes a look at three players who’ve got a big season ahead of them. Righto, that’s that. I think the game tonight is streaming via the official site and also on ITV4, so you can check that out if you’re not out somewhere drinking well deserved beers. Which is where I’ll be.
Till tomorrow.
