- How far does financial chaos stretch with the big clubs in London?
- Arsenal v Como and hello again Cesc
By Tony Attwood
The problem is football has become two dimensional – you believe or you don’t. And Trump and Tnfantino have fallen into a melting pot with just these two questions in it. Some countries see the pair as the future of football, some see them as the rotten past. So debate is gone, compromise does not appear on the agenda, everything is one or the other. And arguments like that usually end up in the two groups going their own separate ways.
But there is an interesting question still residing here: how did this crisis get so out of Fifa’s control so quickly? Organisations face criticisms all the time, and some are debated, so swept aside. But this one has neither been debated nor simply swept aside. It just sits there, overshadowing world football.
True of course Arsenal continue in their preparations for the new season. And of course we note this today because we now have Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and Mikel Merino back for pre-season training – and they are all there ready to start all over again – and of course meeting up with the new members of the squad for the first time.
We have four new players coming into the club: Bruno Guimaraes (central midfield) from Newcastle United, Piero Hincapie from Bayer Leverkusen (on loan from them last season), Illan Meslier (goalkeeper) from Leeds United, and Christos Tzolis (goal scoring forward) from Club Brugge.
Leaving Arsenal are Karl Hein going to Werder Bremen, Jakub Kiwior to Porto, Christian Norgaard to Everton and Leandro Trossard to Besiktas.
But then we must also mention Marli Salmon who has provided another talking point. I thought we had done enough coverage of 16 year olds with Max Dowman, but Marli Salmon caught the eye playing in defence – mostly at centre back. He remained on the pitch so long I thought he was waiting for the eclipse. But no eventually he went off, and the media reported (I wasn’t counting) that he completed 42 of his 43 passes,which is pretty extraordinary.
It was also good to hear Cesc pay tribute to the academy that got him into the show in the first place, as he talked about the current range of young players including of course Max Downman. Arteta also noted what an extraordinary array of talent the youth system is finding and evolving at Arsenal. (The media might call it luck, I think I might call it careful organisation and searching).
That of course is the end of the friendlies – we now have the Community Shield in Cardiff where we will be facing a Manchester City side that appears to have hit the ground running this summer. They had a 1-1 draw at home to Inter Milan, then an away game against the K-League all stars which they won 1-3 and finally a 3-1 home win over Ateltico Madrid.
Yet meanwhile it seems there are two worlds of football running in parallel. There is the normal pre-season affair noted above, and the Uefa v Fifa issue of Infantino.
Infantino is coming across now as a man who simply can’t believe that a) anyone could think there was anything wrong with his plans for the future, but b) will of course withdraw them as some people don’t like them. And the way he puts that across it almost sounds reasonable.
Except for the fact it is a bit like the PRemier League saying that they are going to play the next season from March to October, and then looked shocked to find that anyone even wants to debate the matter.
But of course the key factor in football is that most people in high positions cannot conceive that anyone would ever want to get rid of football’s top two, as they are doing such a wonderful job which no one else could do any better. Thus for people like Infantino the situation becomes not one in which he is pushing to stay in his job, but rather that he is dutifully staying in place, because without him everything would fall apart. In fact a rather similar view to that of Trump.
In fact, I think he is also genuinely bemused by the rumpus going on by the fact that he knows he has enough backers in any Fifa vote to win.
At the moment the Fifa affair looks like it will rumble on and on until one or more countries refuse to turn up for a game which is in the Fifal calendar (of which the next big event is the Africa Cup at the start of next year). If everything goes ahead as usual then it looks like it could just be Uefa that is standing against Fifa on its own.
Must be careful when playing these 16 year olds as they have no real professional contract with Arsenals and are prone to having their head turned and tapped up by the likes of Man city Chelsea or ManU with big money incentives. Remember ManU tapping up Obi.
I don’t normally mention transfer names in a list format, but we are all now thinking about It after our pre season display that we are hopeful will improve.
It is that time now where Arteta has to be deciding on who he brings in or lets go having had some assessments of pre season and injuries.
Off the 100 media players linked to Arsenal, I have to narrow these down to a more realistic selection. Some are more value for money than others, but they are all quality that are likely to improve our team.
It looks like Arsenal are “prioritising a Saliba cover replacement” that can perhaps also cover rightback.
Arsenal recently showing interest in certain Contenders so far, namely Aston Villas: Ezri Konsa CB,
PSGs Barcola LW and
Athletics Alveraz FW.
My Contenders would be for right CB:
Ezri Konsa CB (reliable and consistent and experienced)
Ousmane Diomande CB (great passing range, quick and quality defending)
Wilfred Singo CB (RB) (reliable, consistent,versatile and quick)
Pierre Kalulu CB (reliable, consistent and quick)
My Contenders for Left wing Attack:
Desire Doue LW (versitle and clinical)
Bradley Barcola LW (fast and clinical)
Mika Godtz LW (great stats and dribbling ability)
Aleksey Batrakov LW (Versitle and technically supreme)
M. Gibbs-White LW (consistent and clinical and experienced)
My Contenders for Strikers:
Julian Alvarez FW (versitle and quality Finnishing and experienced)
Igor Tiago FW (consistent goal scorer and experienced)
O.Watkins FW (Arsenal Fan and busy goal scorer and experienced)
Kroupi FW (signs of a young Henry about him, will improve, great vision)
The names above listed are the closest to a possibility of signing and more importantly improving our team, the other 100 players mentioned in the media are no better than what we have, with most of them worst than what we already have. Its just my opinion as others will no doubt have there own opinions too.