By Tony Attwood
Jordi Osei-Tutu, our 20 year old defender, who first grabbed attention in the pre-season games this past summer but who then got an injury, is back playing, and has been training with the first team.
Other youngsters who have been signed up include Charlie Gilmour who has been playing with the under 23s and Zech Medley the centre back who was on the bench for the Leicester game.
The fourth player spotted on the training pitch was left-back Dominic Thompson. Nacho Monreal like Lichsteiner has not appeared in training however, which in the case of Nacho is ominous.
But on the positive side Alexandre Lacazette, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Laurent Koscielny all took a full part in training.
There are of course multiple rumours about who is going to be brought into the squad to replace Danny, but these seem not to be noticing the home grown rule, which appears to suggest that if we are going for a one-for-one replacement the new player has to be an HG, as Danny obviously is.
So we have the suggestion that we are signing Pepe from Lille. He is 23 and plays for the Ivory Coast, and like other Foreign Grown players, if he comes in, one of the existing FGs will have to drop out of the squad. That is possible of course, as not every team has a full complement of 25 players, so no reason why we shouldn’t go down a notch.
Meanwhile there are some snippets doing the rounds about another Arsenal restructure this time with Huss Fahmy becoming Head of Football Ops instead of Raul Sanhelli, along with a promotion for Sven Mislintat who is said to be moving over to technical director.
Elsewhere away from Arsenal rebel Championship clubs have discussed taking action in the form of a legal challenge and a vote of no confidence in their chief executive Shaun Harvey. This is once more over the £595m TV deal.
What the clubs don’t like is the fact that a five year deal has been signed with Sky, and some of the bigger clubs think this is far too long and not enough dosh on the table. Some clubs are complaining that were misled over the terms of the TV arrangements when they were called upon to vote.
Indeed the matter has escalated of late and now it seems 19 of the full complement of clubs in the league are reportedly miffed.
A statement read that, “The clubs discovered that in the space of 15 months, without our knowledge, material changes had been made to this draft agreement. When the EFL Board presented the new version of the deal – it gave more games and rights for less money and damaged the ability of clubs to control the decision to stream games and its pricing.
“Our issues are not with Sky, who we respect and value, but with the way in which the proposed agreement has been negotiated and explained to clubs. We remain convinced that any solution to the broadcasting of EFL competitions can only be on the basis of protecting attendances and securing the financial position of all our 72 clubs.
“There is a calm determination within Championship clubs to ensure the matter is not left here.”
Back with Arsenal it is of course time to have a new hate figure who has to be got rid of and who should never have been signed in the first place. Next week there will be another and the week after that another, until by the time the transfer window is here we will have everyone on the list of useless hopeless players.
Today it is the turn of Elneney with Football Transfer Tavern putting the boot in. It’s quite ludicrous – the guy was doing a good job when he got a chance on the pitch before his injury and he seems to be willing to wait his turn and play the games he’s picked in. But that’s not good enough for some who somehow believe we are going to be able to recruit brilliant ready to roll players who will be happy to sit on the beach.
Unfortunately we can’t and they won’t.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/nov/21/qatar-2022-40-a-week-to-build-the-world-cup-stadiums?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX1RoZUZpdmVyLTE4MTEyMQ%3D%3D&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=TheFiver&CMP=fiver_email