By Bulldog Drummond
Predictions are tough. I mean I wonder what Dan of Fantasy Football League website is thinking now having written last summer, “I think West Ham are on course for another successful season.”
Or Sports Mole’s senior reporter who wrote of them “Finding a way to balance domestic and European commitments could prove to be West Ham’s biggest challenge this season after struggling to do so in 2021-22. However, Moyes has strengthened his squad well so far this summer and he plans to make further additions, which bodes well for the Hammers as they attempt to compete on all fronts.”
And one thinks back to these predictions and multiple others as the Daily Mirror now tells us that, “Real Madrid want Odegaard return.”
That story proclaims that “Arsenal could be at risk of losing captain Martin Odegaard following reports that his early season form has caught the eye of Real Madrid.” They tell us Read Madrid (whom they insist on calling “Los Blancos”) have “first refusal on Odegaard after inserting the clause into his contract when he joined Arsenal.”
The same paper tells us that Brighton have similar problems as “Brighton midfielder and World Cup winner Alexis Mac Allister is ‘set on a move’ to Juventus,” although even they admit that “any move is dependent on whether USA international Weston McKennie leaves before the end of January.”
Testing such predicted moves is of course what we do in our regular transfer window chart which in its last edition had 52 players that we are going to sign in January, according to 259 reports we’ve looked at so far.
But what the Mirror does somewhat more helpfully in a different article is list the players not currently in the Arsenal first team squad who might be promoted in the final two thirds of the season.
These are Ethan Nwaneri (the 15 year old who came on against Brentford), and Lino Sousa, who joined the under-18s at the start of the year and is so highly regarded at full-back that he is now in the under-23s at the age of 17.
Then there is Amario Cozier-Duberry who at 17 has been in the Europa League matchday squad – the Mirror suggest “Cozier-Duberry could step up and deputise if Arsenal are priced out of a move for Mudryk.”
Myles Lewis-Skelly is a midfielder whom again they suggest could step up having been playing in the under 21s at the age of 17. And finally, there is Nathan Butler-Oyedeji who has been highlighted in the Arsenal Youth website, where he is described as “One of the most highly rated prospects in the academy, ” having scored for “Arsenal U18s as a 14-year-old after coming on as a substitute against Reading.”
But to return to the main theme of the day – the Brighton game – it is interesting to note that last season Brighton scored just 42 goals in the 38 league games. Only four teams scored fewer and three of those were relegated. The fourth was Wolverhampton who look very likely to be relegated this season.
But for Brighton this season they have changed this around and are currently the eighth-highest scorers in the Premier League. (The bottom three in terms of goals scored are Everton, Nottingham Forest and of course Wolverhampton Wanderers).
They also have the seventh-best defence in the league, equal with Manchester United and better than the likes of Tottenham Hotspur which again emphasises our earlier prediction that it will a low-scoring game with Arsenal likely to win by one goal.
Up next: the likely team.
- Arsenal: fewer tackles and fouls, but more yellows than Brighton. Why?
- Brighton v Arsenal. Brighton’s hunt for a European place
I like the idea of Young Guns making it up the ladder. But please, all of you, just look back and be realistic. Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Bellerin, Nelson, martinelli, Nketiah they all needed a few seasons to settle in and make an impact.
So I’m not expecting these youngsters to change or save the season for us. I’m happy for them to participate more and more, to be loaned out when/if necessary. This is what Arsenal have been doing for a long time. And sure, along you find some players who in the end make their place in the sun at a different club (Willock, Gnabry).
This means the ‘conveyor belt’ from Academy to First team does work and the fact that in the last years most new recruits were young players keeps that ‘Young Guns’ philosophy active. It is an investment in the long term.
Nonsense reporting. We all know he won’t be leaivng. Please untoldd-Arsenal.com stop publishing rubbish stories…..Someone had too much time on their hands and wrote a fairy tale lieand you’ve published it.
Leo Cris , I believe you’ve missed the point , UA merely provided an example of the misleading stories that we are bombarded with by the hour. Clearly no one on this site who takes the time to read an article is fooled either . That may be as a result of personal research or by checking the veracity of what is read here then making an assessment . Apart from the occasional rogue reader here there is a good solid base of Arsenal supporters who like to be well informed .You wrote ” Someone had too much time on their hands and wrote a fairy tale…” . Now there’s the point ,in general the media produce hundreds of unresearched fairy tales each day and many believe these charlatans and ne’erdowells why on earth don’t you complain about their timewasting at their source ?
A successful season for West Ham could be achieved by their avoiding relegation. They certainly won’t qualify for Europe by virtue of their PL performance (even at 2 ppg for the rest of the season).
RE: Transfer gossip – If you substitute every occurrence of the word “could” with “won’t” in the media-generated fake news outpourings doing the rounds during the windows (and in the periods leading up to them), the stories make infinitely more sense to the well-adjusted observer.
On MOTD2 tonight, Chelsea and Tottenham’s failings were being discussed, and the concensus seemed to be that these clubs should have spent more money in the Summer window. It didn’t seem to occur to the punditry that much of that money is being wasted.
Unless football pundits are on the agents’ payroll, in which case I should give them a little credit for being smarter than I thought. But only a little.