Well, let’s start with the good news from the Ballon d’Or awards… Bukayo picked up a Socrates Award for his exceptional offerings to the world of humanitarian aid, with work in London and around the world, focusing on kids.
Bukayo and his family have worked with multiple charities, including long-term projects with Big Shoe, providing medical care and humanitarian aid for children and families in need in London and around the world.
The work has funded emergency housing and shelters for families displaced by the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Morocco. Work has also helped more than 100 children in Nigeria and all over Africa with transformative surgeries that would have otherwise been out of reach.
Absolutely exceptional. Premier League footballers tend to shy away from talking about the work they do with charities because they get hammered for not doing more or they are accused of using the charity to improve image… which is a sad way to look at this sort of work.
It’s great to see an Arsenal player recognised in this way, to hear him speak in front of the world, and to showcase the good these young men do for those in need. Doing the work, not this celebrity nonsense we so often see where they back causes that make them feel good, without anything actionable off the back of it.
The rest of the awards? I shan’t be bitter… well, maybe I’ll be a little bit bitter. But not before congratulating Harry Kane for winning the big award. His goal tally last year was 61, with 7 assists. His total tally including internationals was 73 goals. Quite impressive, you have to say.
Harry Kane did this at 33 years old, for a German club, dropping 4000 mostly uninterrupted minutes. He was a worthy winner after the debacle of Dembélé last season, and Salah not winning it.
However, we have to get some facts straight here… the awards aren’t really a true reflection of football greatness in my bitter opinion. It’s a reflection of the most overpowered players in the most underpowered leagues. It’s about the showreel. Sadly, it’s also about politics. The international jury has consistently gone out of its way to ignore players from international clubs, and I think that’s a real shame. They also seem to massively overweight the importance of the World Cup… as you could imagine international journalists would do if they don’t write about a strong league.
Maybe this is arrogance on my part, or maybe it’s just a misunderstanding of the Premier League. One would suspect it’s more likely that people don’t like the dominant force of English football. England were a laughing stock for many years, snootily looked down upon as a nation of technically regressive passion merchants, then we grew that passion base, and created the most entertaining spectacle on the planet. The Premier League is dominant in the culture, it’s dominant in the size of its TV deal, and it’s by far the greatest league by quality of the product on the pitch.
Why is that important? Because Harry Kane isn’t getting to 73 goals in a season if he’s still playing here at age 32-33. He’s nursing a hammy. Dembélé spends the whole season broken if he’s playing 3 games a week from September. Kylian Mbappé just isn’t going to function the same way in a man-to-man league that would bully him into lesser output.
People are talking about the Premier League’s lack of stars and totally missing the point… there are more stars in the Premier League, they’re the elite of the elite, plying their trade at the top of their game. They are the fittest, most technically gifted, and they are doing it against the very best. I know of players that move to more equally weighted leagues, at the top of their game, that hate it because they’ve been playing in leagues like Ligue 1 or Bundesliga that are not equally weighted at the top.
Bayern Munich are dominant financially to the tune of 15 Bundesligas in the last 20 years, they won 11 in a row, they hoover up the talent of any team that threatens them. They are so overpowered compared to the second-placed Dortmund; it’s actually embarrassing.
PSG’s commercial revenue is 5x second-placed Marseille. Their wages sit higher than Manchester City’s. Marquinhos placed higher in the award standings than William Saliba and he started just 11 games.
Real Madrid and Barcelona combined revenue is a little over 2 billion euros. Athletic in third, 458m euros. Wages? Barça and Madrid, combined 1 billion euros. Atleti 280m, Bilbao 120m… these smaller clubs simply can’t compete. They have weaker squads, and players. Don’t take my word for it, look at Rodri on the bench against Barcelona mouthing ‘these are weak men.’
What does this monstrous disparity mean?
Anthony Gordon looks ok in the Premier League, now he looks like Pelé for Barca. Is he more of a star now than he was 5 months ago? No. He’s just overpowered.
Is Kvara a sensational talent? Absolutely. But he’s working for a club that can wrap him in cotton wool for one tournament… even when they play him, it’s like Sunday League compared to the Premier League. Ligue 1 teams have the most teenage minutes in Europe. These games are training ground levels of intensity. PSG are so powerful, they are allowed to move fixtures to accomodate playing English clubs.
But these awards don’t reward pound for pound greatness, or even just sheer greatness. William Saliba was the best centre back in the world last season, he finished 29th, behind Sadio Mané. Are you kidding? Cubarsí a better defender, really? He finished 12th place. Arsenal, Premier League winners and Champions League finalists, have one player in the top 15, and that’s Declan Rice. Really?
The worst of them all was Unai Simón winning keeper of the season… he was bang average against Bilbao.
[X avatar for @Dobbo0107
Dobbo@Dobbo0107Unai Simon for Athletic Bilbao last season: 46 games 8 clean sheets 73 goals conceded David Raya for Arsenal last season: 51 games 28 clean sheets 31 goals conceded Guess which one just won “Best Goalkeeper” at the Balon d’Or? 🤣9:41 PM · Oct 26, 2026 · 374K Views141 Replies · 2.17K Reposts · 11.3K Likes](https://x.com/Dobbo0107/status/2114834837915967691?s=20)
But hey, he kept 7 clean sheets in the World Cup of… 7 shots against him. How can you overweight just standing on the pitch over what David Raya did for Arsenal? He literally changed the way keepers play. Raya is the golden standard for keeping. Exceptional in every way. Yet Unai Simón wins the award? I’d be embarrassed.
Anyway, to finish this off… whatever. This is like the Academy turning its nose up at streaming services before Hollywood had to accept their new paymasters. English clubs are punished for political reasons and the reality that they’d rather reward players who play for clubs who dominate their leagues to the point of making the said leagues unwatchable because the season standings are set in stone.
Ok, back to Arsenal, it’s Fleetwood this evening. I’m expecting a wholesale change to the entire starting 11. I want to see Dowman, Marli Salmon and Ceadach O’Neil getting playing time. I want to see Zubimendi get his mojo back and I have to see Viktor Gyokeres put down a tally of monstrous proportions because it’s time.
This is a great chance for players to gain some fitness, to make their case to the boss, and to move us along another round in a comp that can be useful for spreading the love. It’d be great to win the League Cup because it’s been a problem, just not sure it’s of that much value to the fitness of a squad that is struggling with fitness. Still, can’t be going out to Fleetwood.
Right, that’s me done, see you in the comments. We’ll be LIVE after the game with me, Jacob, and Johnny. x