MAIN CHARACTERS DELIVER, AGAIN
Well good evening my friends, you are either reading this late at night in America or you are up far too late in London after making some regrettable decisions. I hope you finished the night like a pro, Chicken Cottage, AOP on the podcast app, a larger-than-life bourbon pour when you arrived home that you definitely will not regret tomorrow. It is the way.
Maybe send that meme to work friends on Teams?
JUST A JOKE PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT
I would say, for a writer, this particular week in the season is a true mile 20 of wordsmithing. The toes are blistering, the battery has died on your iPod Shuffle, and you have found yourself thumbing through bootleg YouTube shorts for Arsenal players and their international performances. It can be joyous if you find a goal or a MOTM performance. It can be like clicking into a snuff video from your builder pals if it is a slight hip injury. Either way, it is second-hand joy and first-hand pain if any comes. Like finding out an ex you are pals with is pregnant.
There was most certainly some joy for Arsenal fans who wrap themselves in the red and white of St. George’s on weeks like these. Bukayo Saka rattled in a side-foot volley from 10 yards for the first. Outrageous tekkers as they say. It started from a Declan set piece that was punched out and returned into the box with a strike from O’Reilly. Pre-assist-ish in my opinion. Eze capped the game late on when England broke. Foden led the charge through the middle, stroking a pass into Eze who swept into the top corner. It was a beautiful goal, the sort Pires would score in his prime. There were some upset Arsenal fans insinuating foul play because Lee Dixon was glazing on the Foden assist a little too heavily. Come on people, give it a rest, it is possible to appreciate the pass and the extraordinary goal without turning it into a dramatic moment.
The more important thing here, Eze needs to be doing that for Arsenal a little more often and so does Bukayo. Two slow starters might just be getting in the mood for a very busy December. We need them, especially for the first three games when we return, because you know, without doubt, we will be short of starting forwards and creators. There is a lot of pressure on Eze and Saka, but there should be. They are our big dawgs, main characters, ballers, difference makers, franchise players. You understand, right?
Ricky Cala did not play against Moldova. They did not need him. Clearly, they heeded the warning of the blog. Took care of their main man. That is progress. I hope they treat him well next week and this whole ‘hip’ thing is just a misunderstanding. Arsenal have too many players to pin a season on just one, but you have to admit, life would be sad if we did not have Ricky doing whatever the hell he wanted in our starting 11. Arteta is often accused of being too controlling and structured, but how can we say these mean things when he puts players like Timber and Cala in his starting 11 who are an anathema to the normal rules of a dictatorial coach who loves clean sheets more than goals?
Jurrien Timber did play a full 90 for Holland against Poland. The game finished 1-1. They were kind of lucky to escape with that scoreline, Poland unleashed 14 shots and hit the target 7 times. Timber played next to VVD at centre back with Van de Ven starting as a left back. Kiwior was left back down the other end and Matty Cash playing right back. It is so amusing to see Matty Cash rocking it for Poland. He had not been there at all before pledging allegiance to them. The story of how he got there, as told by The Guardian, is kind of amazing.
Ryszard Tomaszewski, Cash’s maternal grandfather, was born three years before the outbreak of the second world war in the city of Stanislawow, which was then part of the Second Polish Republic but is now in Ukraine (and named Ivano-Frankivsk). Ryszard’s father, Wladyslaw, was killed in a war that brought atrocities and ruin to the city, whose people suffered at the hands of the Nazis and then the Red Army.
In 1940, after the Soviet Union took control of the city as part of the dismemberment of Poland, Ryszard was deported to a work camp in Siberia with his mother and two sisters. They languished there for nearly two years.
They set about trying to build a new life. First they went to Iran, then to India and then to Tanganyika, whose British colonial rulers agreed to set up camps to accommodate 6,000 Poles formerly held in Soviet captivity.
In 1948, after six years in Africa, the Tomaszewski family boarded a ship back to Europe, arriving in Liverpool in the hope of settling at last. Ryszard was 12. He did well at school and qualified as an engineer before, in 1964, meeting a Polish woman who was over visiting her sister in Ealing.
Ryszard and Janina fell in love and got married. Their daughter, Barbara, is Matty Cash’s mother. His father is Stuart Cash, a former left back who played for a number of clubs including Chesterfield, Brentford and Rotherham.
I have been to Poland before. I went to Krakow with an ex-girlfriend. Her dad came along with us. He was one of those guys who would put ‘I am a totally zany goofball’ on his Freinds Reunited profile. He showed up at the airport with a giant Krusty the Clown backpack with the sole purpose of sparking conversations with the biggest collection of losers you could imagine. You can picture how that trip went for me. He was a committed ‘that’s what she said’ jokester. If a gag landed, he’d try and recreate the magic at least 5 times before the next glass of wine landed. Anyway, Krakow is a wonderful city, the salt mines were excellent, as was the food.
Where was I?
NO INJURIES SO FAR.
Declan Rice, nominated for a Puskas award for his Madrid free kick. We love it.
Oh, I did some cursory investigation into the squad that Napoli have right now, which I have to caveat is not necessarily the scouting department’s fault, the buck stops with the Sporting Director. But, for reference, when you are falling in love with the idea that someone who is a Chief Scout knows a lot of players, that squad has an average age of 28 years old (Atletico 27.6). They signed KDB who is injured. One of the few young players in the squad is Ras Hojland. Their most valuable player, as it stands, is McTominay. When Sully Muntari is in the top five players you have scouted, I am going to need a bit more convincing that the guy they call ‘ChatGPTransfers’ is the real deal.
Trust the process they say, trust the process.
Finally, we come to the end of this podcast. Just a quick note on the big show we have on December 21st. We have some stand-up from Jacob Hawley and Johnny Cochrane, we have music, we are close on an awesome artist for some cool stuff, and we have a very fun special guest who is secured. This is a Christmas party with a podcast attached, we are going to have a lot of fun. Thanks for selling the place out, you are kings and queens of the most prestigious order, can’t wait to meet you all.
Now get your teeth stuck into some AOP magic. x
Podcast## BOSSING ENGLAND, SAKA DEAL, NEW SCOUT | MEMBERS
Pedro
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Nov 14
BOSSING ENGLAND, SAKA DEAL, NEW SCOUT | MEMBERS
Pedro and Johnny jump on the mic’s to download you on the spiciest of topics.
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