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I’m not a fan of international weeks, especially once you get to the third one inside three months. It’s boring, really boring. No more than two should be permitted — one at the start of the season and one in February. It’s such a massive drag on the season, and I just can’t imagine the TV views are making it worth it.
The big drama at the moment is that MLS has been exited from the squad until he ramps up minutes, and we know that because Tuchel came out and said it.
“Myles was a very good teammate and played for us in the last camp… but I said last time there is a component to it, and that is about competition and performance, and the door is always open for guys who perform on a high level regularly. Myles… got outperformed by O’Reilly, Alex Scott, and Jude Bellingham in their positions. Myles simply needs more starts, more minutes. Now came a time when O’Reilly had so many starts… so he is slightly ahead for this camp.”
Some are saying it’s unfair to make these comments in public. I’d be more in the camp of “this is character building,” and Thomas Tuchel is a high-EQ manager who’d only drop those sorts of comments if he thought Myles could handle it. Let’s be honest, if you’re breaking into the England team at his age, you’re going to be able to handle it.
England is a top-tier nation when it comes to football. Tuchel can afford to have match-ready players in every position — and he will. Myles isn’t in the Arsenal team because he made errors in preseason, and Calafiori, by some miracle, has managed to retain fitness. But his time will come, his game will mature, and I’d be very shocked if he wasn’t in the squad for next summer.
Top-level sports are ruthless. Top-level athletes are mentality monsters. Top-level athletes need the fuel of upset to drive them forward. I have no concerns regarding the development of Myles. No one deserves a starting place, and he’ll be better for this.
I’ve literally just googled Arsenal news and Calafiori has been sent home because of an injury scare. When are national teams going to be fine with accepting that a player is really good but better if they are fit — so maybe don’t call them up all the time? It’s so infuriating.
Andrea Berta continues to imprint his name on the Arsenal technical team. The hot rumour coming from Ornstein and Mokbel is that Maurizio Micheli, the Napoli Chief Scout, is going to head up recruitment at Arsenal. His hit list includes Kvaratskhelia, Marek Hamsik, and Kim Min-jae.
Roma Director Stefano Caira said this of him: “I bow to the analysis of Maurizio Micheli, who, for me, is a guru in selecting and knowing players.
There isn’t a single player Maurizio signs whose parents, boyfriends, and so on he doesn’t know. He’s a human algorithm, capable of implementing this strategy for years now.”
I have to say, I’m normally quite underwhelmed by things like “he does his homework on players” because it’s table stakes. The thing that caught my attention is that he is known for being quite data-driven and very pro–video analysis.
My deeper concern is the type of deals that have gone on at Napoli over the years. They had deep ties with Lille. We were part of some of those Lille deals. I also have worries about being Premier League battle-hardened. Bringing McTominay to a league that he can bully is very different from finding the sort of monsters we’ll need to be working on.
But on the plus side, you have someone who has won trophies, helped break the dominance of Juventus, and established a team that has been able to create big moments in a league that was top of the FIFA coefficients last season before the Premier League wrestled them back.
I’ll have more thoughts on this at a later date!
Ok, that’s me done. See you in the comments. x