By Tony Attwood
If you want a review of the Next Gen under 19s game against Marseille there is one on the Arsenal.com site – and it is absolutely purring about the quality of the performance.
Here are the players – the two marked * also played in the last under 21 game for Arsenal.
- Stuart Moore (on loan – our keepers are injured or unfit)
- Hector Bellerin
- Martin Angha *
- Sead Hajrovic
- Elton Monteiro
- Nico Yennaris
- Kristoffer Olsson
- Jon Toral
- Kyle Ebecilio
- Serge Gnabry
- Chuba Akpom *
Here’s the rest of the under 21 team.
- Jernade Meade
- Ignasi Miquel
- Daniel Boateng
- Craig Eastmond
- Conor Henderson
- Thomas Eisfeld
- Chuks Aneke
- Sanchez Watt
What strikes me is that we are getting to know the names of the under 21 side – people like Miquel, Eastmond, Henderson, Eisfeld, Aneke, Watt. Now we have coming up close behind them some exciting under 19s as well, including Serge Gnabry who seems to be getting rave reviews. Here’s another interesting snippet, Hector Bellerin and Nico Yennaris both came out of Barcelona. No wonder they made such an effort to get Cesc back, they know we can keep on taking their players away from them.
So, a fine 3-0 start in Next Gen and a fine start in the under 21 league as well.
Meanwhile on a different planet Wembley played Uxbridge in the FA Cup Preliminary round last night. The game was live on ESPN, and I watched a spot of it, but it was so frightening the way the tackles were going in I had to turn it off. Which means I don’t know the final score. Can anyone tell me. And did both teams end up with 11 players on the pitch? Just in the short spell I watched it didn’t seem possible that they could.
It just shows how refs will change the rules to suit the skill of players I suppose. Two feet off the ground flying into the ankles of a guy who had the ball about 10 seconds ago… it was truly horrific.
And so immediately onto the Champs League draw. Despite everyone who says that it is pointless always qualifying for the Champs League the fact is that because we do, we in the top seeds. Here’s the groupings…
| Arsenal | Chelsea | Barcelona |
| Manchester United | Bayern Munich | Real Madrid |
| Porto | AC Milan |
| Valencia | Benfica | Zenit St. Petersburg |
| Shakhtar Donetsk | Schalke | Manchester City |
| Braga | Dynamo Kiev |
| Olympiacos | Ajax | Anderlecht |
| Juventus | Spartak Moscow | Paris St-Germain |
| Lille | Galatasaray |
| Celtic | Borussia Dortmund | BATE Borisov |
| Dinamo Zagreb | CFR Cluj | Malaga |
| Montpellier | Nordsjaelland |
Obviously we can’t play Man City, but any other grouping is possible as long as there is only one from each country. Zenit look to be increasingly powerful, but it is interesting to see how Juventus are only in pot three. And their manager is still suspended for a year, although he is appealing.
Also I would like to avoid Paris St Germain, who despite their wobbly start have such a powerful side that eventually they must come through.
Last snippet on a day of snippets is that the Telegraph is running the story that Liverpool will buy Walcott if they can dump Carrol. Would Theo really take that much of a step down? I suspect not. Anyway Mr Wenger says he is not selling Theo, no matter what. Which means he clearly wants to keep the new big squad he has created, so at last we can go through a season without being destroyed by injuries.
And that’s about it.
Totally agree, Tony!
Love the headline. Pity about the lack of an article! 😮
Wtf?
Must be a site glitch, this is totally unlike Tony.
Valencia, Juventus, Dortmund would be a nightmare group! ha.
And with regards to Under 19’s from Barcelona, we took Bellerin and Toral, don’t think thats where Yennaris came from?
Hey Walter – are you hoping we get drawn against Anderlecht?
Tony,
Sebastian is right, Yennaris is a London born Gooner IIRC no stain of Catalunya on him. IIRC he and Jenkinson had a competition to see who had the most Arsenalised bedroom as a youngster, I think Jenks won but it was close!
I was hoping we’d get Malaga, for the fun of it.
Yup. Yennaris is a gooner-gunner (copyright Walter) 🙂
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27453474@N02/6731466931/
Not Nico Yennaris, but Jon Toral signed from Barca in the same year as Bellerin did.
Nice to find out that there are other tings going on in Arsenal’s world apart from rumours of players coming in (or not) and players leaving (or not).
Ideally we’d be in a situation where if a player is lost (transfers or injuries) someone just drops in from the youth side to do their job. That might require a more rigid style of play, something which Wenger has great distaste for. Bould, if it is his influence we are seeing, has always set the youth teams out with a plan of what to do without the ball.
In previous seasons we’ve tried man-marking, through-marking and now we have a sort of zonal pressing defence, which it has to be said has been very effective! As I recall from Opta’s stats, we’ve created the most chances whilst offering up the least to our opponents. Only our finishing has let us down.
Dortmund in pot 4 is nightmare! I hope we not get them.
Pot 3 also looks strong, no easy game this season.
I hope Arsene will do it again, take us through group stages.
Those kids seem to be a very talented bunch, like the format of that competition as well.
Have been doing a trawl of a few sites this morning…why are the AAA so obsessed with “Groundhog Day”? comes up everywhere!
I hope we get Anderlecht 😉 After missing out the nextgen game because of changing the groups in that competition, this would be a nice chance to see Arsenal play another game
Some potentially tough teams we could face. I would like Braga if we can get them, but with an honest ref this time…which seems hard for us to find these days in the CL
We are in group B, Porto in group A.
Did group B champion will meet group A runner up?
Aha, we get Schalke from pot 2, not bad.
Travel not far, better than get Zenit.
@Ong Bing
We’ve got Schalke, so you needn’t worry.
As you noticed…
City got Madrid. LOL
When we got final last time, did we played in group B?
In answer to your other question, the winners and runner-ups usually enter another draw, where the only guarantees are that you can’t be drawn against a team from your own country, or the other qualifier from the same group you were in.
Aha, we already got Schalke, so we can not get Dortmund!
Sorry Walter – Olypiacos…
Thanks Red-Man, we got Olympiacos from pot 3.
So Walter must travel little far.
Get Olympiacos is better than get Lille, PSG or Ajax.
Wow, Chelski got Shakhtar and Juve.
City got Madrid and Ajax.
Oh no, we got Giroud last club!
On paper, we can through this group.
And… Dortmund goes to Madrid, City and Ajax! Group of death. Everyone can win this group!
Roberto, you has bad karma!
I can already hear roberto about a lack of funds and squad depth, despite spending several hundred million already
We could have got from pot 3: ajax-Anderlecht-Lille. The most far away is around max 2hours with my car. And we get Olympiacos from that pot…. I’m gutted..
after a brief chat with my friends, we are going to Montpellier, bring it on!!!!!!!
Hey Walter, it’s better than we got Spartak. And the worst case if we must go to Moscow in Dec-Jan.
Anyone noticed Akpom played both U21 games, scored in both and is ONLY 16… and not just as a sub either… looks like another one soon for the first team.
I can’t help notice that manu got the easiest group, with Braga, Galatasaray and CFR Cluj. As if they wanted to be sure they do go through lol.
@ Florian, didn’t help them last year….
I can believe Manu getting good treatment domestically, but in Europe?
I thought everyone in Europe hates England teams.
Elkieno,
A United-Barcelona final could draw in over a billion fans worldwide.
Anderlecht versus Malaga wouldn’t.
It’s as simple as that.