ARSENAL IN TROUBLE NEXT SEASON
Come on, what a day, 95% of the world PRAYING England don’t defeat Argentina. The whole FIFA marketing team literally BEGGING for Messi to make it to the final. Are England the Arsenal of the world stage? I think so. The global audience does NOT intrinsically understand our underlying greatness data the way we always have.
Today, is our chance at a glorious final.
Beat Argentina, our arch international nemesis… the Aston Villa of international football, then take down an extremely impressive Spain like it was 1763 again. Come on, we can do a little 1700s war banter now and then, right? I won’t mention the other one, I promise.
F…F…F…finally, England is at the big boy table of international football. A semifinal on the biggest stage of all. Saka, Madueke, Eze, and Rice will all likely play a role. Could be the most magical day of their lives, could be f*cking horrific. I’m not sure if England fans are quite what they were when Beckham took an extremely petulant red card in 1998. As I remember it, West Ham fans burned an effigy of Beckham and the whole country was shamefully disgusting about him. Yes. Not our finest moment, but Beckham had the last laugh, he’s in Home Depot adverts sipping garden G&Ts, and those West Ham fans are in the Championship. Ouch.
What do I want as an Arsenal fan? I want the Arsenal boys to have an incredible day… and most importantly, I need them to survive the game.
The first major setback for an Arsenal player this World Cup, other than a missed penalty, happened to Willy Saliba. His back finally succumbed to reality, and he hobbled out of the France semi-final early in the first half. We know it was his back because Julien Laurens said he mouthed.
‘My back is gone.’
Devastating for the player, we’ve known he’s struggled with this chronic injury for a while, and we heard rumblings the issue was so bad, it was probably going to need a procedure of sorts. Does that make it better? I’m not sure. I used a little bit of that ol’ medical expert called AI, and this is what it suggested based on the details around Saliba that we know.
Playing through a chronic back condition (likely disc-related, given the described pain pattern) for months means repeated loading on a structure that’s already compromised. Instead of one clean surgical fix at a time of the team’s choosing, the injury can progress — more disc degeneration, more nerve involvement, or a shift from something manageable with rehab to something requiring more extensive surgery.
Probably slightly irresponsible of me to guess at these sorts of things but is it really guessing if a robot overlord says it? Irregardless, which shouldn’t be a word, but to my horror is: I’m not sure we’re seeing Saliba before October. This is one of the challenges of big athletic players. They put a lot of load on their bodies, and the wear and tear can really add up, especially in a league as demanding as the Premier League.
Wishing him a speedy recovery…
How Arsenal deal with this is going to be interesting. We’re really in a bit of a spot. Ben White is a natural right-sided centre back with a lot of experience; tucking inside could work for him as he enters his late twenties, but he’s coming back from a serious injury. Mosquera is the anointed next man up. He has the height, the speed, and the technique. He’s a little young, but I think it’s fair to say he was one of the more impressive Arsenal signings of last season. Timber can also play there… but I don’t think he’ll be back any time soon. I’ve not heard whether he had surgery, but it can’t have been far off, given all the failed returns he had while chasing the Champions League final and the World Cup that he eventually had to pass on.
More broadly, I can’t say this loud enough… we are in for a very, very tough season next year. Brace for impact. The injury issues we are starting to see have partly been exacerbated by having a crop of psycho players who put their bodies on the line to win the Premier League. Now they have that, there are invoices the body needs payment on.
Declan Rice is a broken man and we’ll be lucky to get him back in one piece.
Bukayo isn’t starting World Cup games because he’s probably not at his peak of fitness. All these guys say they’re ok because they’re tough as nails and they want to play.
Saliba, done for at least 3 months.
Timber, not going to start the season.
How many mega teams can survive injury issues like that? No amount of transfer spend is going to counter those losses if they’re over the long term. I’m also watching for how often those players are out. Will they continue to play through the pain? I watched the Merino video on Arsenal.com; he said, ‘Sometimes you wake up, and you say, no, I don’t want to suffer today.’
Arsenal players suffered all season, but there comes a point when you have to say no, because you don’t want early retirement or a poor final contract because you can’t hack the pace and your body gives up.
There’s no news on the transfer front that we haven’t covered over and over again. Trossard has gone to Beşiktaş officially. We still don’t have any movement on any of the fancy names we’ve been linked to. The only real noise out yesterday was that Man City might be in for Bouadbi for €100m. The report suggested some elite clubs favor keeping him at Lille for another year. Quite mad to see the excesses of Man City across the board this summer, or, should I be clearer… calling an excessive club excessive because they’re spending in excess of their excessiveness is what I’m getting at.
The irritating part about some of their moves is that they are resetting benchmarks in the league for the price of talent, which doesn’t matter to them, they have unlimited money. But it does matter to clubs like Liverpool and Arsenal who now have to accept that a top prospect is now £40m more than 5 years ago. To get a very good midfielder is now £100m. When prices are like that, it means there’s less you can do in the market. That’s a shame.
But that is also the nature of the beast, and it’s not like we don’t have an ownership group that can flex or revenues that are restricting our abilities to move in the market. Arsenal has a plan; let’s see how well they execute this summer. I have total faith we’ll get what we need, just no idea when that’ll happen.
Just quickly on that Lamine penalty he earned against Digne. What the hell was that? You can now run into the foot of a player making a clearance… and win a penalty? Digne didn’t even know he was coming. Absolutely absurd. Quite a shame that ref decisions seem to be getting worse as the competition draws on. Cannot imagine what is in store for England this afternoon. Also, why are English fans getting the good 8pm kick-offs? I have to slink out of work, and you’re all out at a peak time enjoying the game? Disgrazia!
I hope everyone has a great time, England fans more so. A big, fat, memorable event… that is absolutely disgusting to watch, but with a joyous ending for the memories. Let’s see what Declan and the boys have up their sleeves! COME ON ENGUUUURLAND! x