Good morning my friends. I just undertook the longest road trip of the year… dropping 7 hours across Ohio and Indiana. Wow, quite boring. Heading into some serious Jesus country, reading the signs to repent, with intermittent spatterings of a chocolate fudge factory that ran with the strapline ‘Explore Uranus’, with a farmer riding a brown-tipped missile. I could not believe it. The number 2 attraction in Indiana. I did NOT get my fudge from this place as it did not align to my strict NO PUNS approach to advertising.
PSG whopped Barca last night, 4-2. I’m not sure why so many people were surprised by that? I don’t really see Barca as one of the best team in Europe. The most fun, sure. But the best? No way. They can’t lock a defence down. They’d be beaten by the Premier League contingent in my opinion. Their only hope, mostly, is a couple of early goals.
The real headline of the evening was that Kvara busted his ACL. The most exciting winger in Europe to my mind, is, in fact, a mere mortal. Not that I want to use an injury to score points here, but it is incredible that PSG can offer a house to the most talented glass-legged players in Europe and hide them from the stresses and strains most teams deal with week in week out. Would Kvara make it in the Premier League has always been the question… you do wonder now. How good would Vitinha look if he was getting beasted by Brentford and Bournemouth over 5 days before rolling out against Barca? We saw at the World Cup. Not so good.
The greatest gift that money has bought the PSG ownership group is a team in a league that they have completely pocketed. Their commercial revenue being 387m euros in 2025, compared to second-place in Ligue 1 to Marseille’s 72m euros, won’t ever draw questions. But the disparity gives them the ability to take a deeply injury-prone player like Dembele, wrap him in cotton wool, and keep him fresh for key UCL games.
The biggest fraud committed on Europe is their ability to position themselves as lovable underdogs… despite their outrageous outlays that makes Man City spending look gun shy.
But, here we are, Kvara is injured, now we’ll see how good Mika Godts is… probably quite good to be fair.
What is the lesson here? There’s no lesson. Just the brutality of sport and chance. Coming here for lessons, what’s wrong with you?
Arsenal have gotten away with anything awful so far this season but you know it’s coming.
Wasn’t that font trick fun? Don’t even know how I did it. Lovely bit of visual theatre for you.
Back to it… we will face our own injury issues at some point. My hot take is that a lot of the problems we’ve been having against teams like Leeds and Forest are born of fatigue that was gathered from last season. I am no fitness expert, but it does feel like those teams have more energy than Arsenal, and they’re getting at us with that some of that man to man nonsense that can fluster even the fittest of teams.
That’s why getting through the first chunk of the season is so imperative… once you hit December, smaller teams, with smaller squads, start to struggle with fitness themselves. It’s a damn near miracle that we’re where we are from a win rate. Honestly, I do not think Arteta thought we’d start as strong from the rumblings I’d heard.
Tonight, against Bayern, away from home again, we have another stern test. It’s very hard to rotate in games the boys will want to start in. How good can we be at one of the best stadiums on the European map? Can we skewer a team that Arteta knows used to batter us like sausages a chip shop. We carry those scars, deep within. If you get therapy, I know you’re bringing this up on the regular, so I’m sorry to trigger you. Flashes of Bayern whopping slash at me in the night, especially around Halloween.
26 Nov 2025: Arsenal 3-1 Bayern. Arsenal: Timber, Madueke, Martinelli. Bayern: Karl
17 Apr 2024: Bayern 1-0 Arsenal. Bayern: Kimmich
9 Apr 2024: Arsenal 2-2 Bayern. Arsenal: Saka, Trossard. Bayern: Gnabry, Kane (pen)
7 Mar 2017: Arsenal 1-5 Bayern. Arsenal: Walcott. Bayern: Lewandowski (pen), Robben, Douglas Costa, Vidal 2
15 Feb 2017: Bayern 5-1 Arsenal. Bayern: Robben, Lewandowski, Thiago 2, Müller. Arsenal: Sánchez
4 Nov 2015: Bayern 5-1 Arsenal. Bayern: Lewandowski, Müller 2, Alaba, Robben. Arsenal: Giroud
20 Oct 2015: Arsenal 2-0 Bayern. Arsenal: Giroud, Özil
11 Mar 2014: Bayern 1-1 Arsenal. Bayern: Schweinsteiger. Arsenal: Podolski
19 Feb 2014: Arsenal 0-2 Bayern. Bayern: Kroos, Müller
13 Mar 2013: Bayern 0-2 Arsenal. Arsenal: Giroud, Koscielny
We have improved of late, we are the better team, but they’re still really, really good. I like Vincent Kompany as a manager. Their squad is loaded with stars. Harry Kane’s record in Germany is quite stunning, you have to say.
On the subject of preferable leagues, I don’t think you fully grasp how mad the Premier League is… I hear, even in America, that some of the stars come over and aren’t used to leagues where there is closer parity from top to bottom. Germany is one of those leagues where you’re not really stressed as a player at a top club because the small clubs are so off the pace. Harry Kane has been gifted an extra 5 years because he’s still a beast in his 30s. I don’t think he’d stay as fit or be as deadly in the Premier League.
Arsenal injury news has shifted slightly, with Zubimendi in contention for a start. This is one to watch, if he continues not to get games, you have to imagine Arsenal are preparing to offload him at some point. I know he was monstered last season, but so were a lot of players. Zubi getting 197 minutes in the league is quite strange… 89 in the Premier League, 8 in the Champions League. Why has he been iced out? What is going on. I demand answers. It feels like the haters have won here. A cheap win in my opinion, but a win is a win.
The other major question is do you continue to test Gyokeres? He’ll get more space in the Champions League, but he barely registered a shot on target in open play once we got into the knock-out phase of the competition last season. It continue to baffle me that people argue the system lets him down. Like there’s some unlock another Premier League team could offer him. The only unlock, to my mind, is putting him in a weaker league where balls over the top against average defenders can be his bread and butter. But, one thing is for sure, you’re more likely to catch Euro teams in transition than Everton this weekend. Will Kai get dropped after his nothing performance? He deserves to be… just not sure if you’re teaching him a lesson while punishing the team at the same time.
So what do we want this evening? A win. What else? No injuries. Everton at home will be testing at the weekend. We need a zero bad news kind of week.
Ok, that’s me done. You’ll be getting an On The Whistle with Jacob, Johnny and Matt. Have fun! x