From Thomas Tuchel’s summer selection calls to Bruno Guimaraes, Myles Lewis-Skelly and a farewell to Leandro Trossard, there is plenty for Arsenal fans to digest before the new season.
Are you over the World Cup yet?
If you’re not English, have you stopped laughing now?
In my last article for this website, thinking about our champions’ parade, I wondered what the country might look like if England could, you know, win the World Cup.
Of course, we never got to find out, as Thomas Tuchel and his players undertook a collective soiling of the sheets in their semi-final against Argentina, the nature of which must have made even Gareth Southgate shudder.
Bukayo Saka’s hat-trick in the third-place play-off was a stark reminder of the qualities Tuchel inexplicably decided he did not need as England set about giving the game away to a very average Argentina side.
I mean, how do you not find a way, any way, to get Saka on the pitch?
Having watched Saka and Deccers, especially Deccers, play the whole third-place game, I was fuming.
Argentina’s complete refusal to even try to engage in a football match the following evening left me wanting to smash my television. Which might have been a better outcome than sitting through more than two hours of that nonsense.
Anyway, I suppose one thing Tuchel might have done is light a fire in the belly of our number seven as we embark on the defence of our Premier League title.
In pre-season, Arsenal have drew against Cesc Fabregas and his Como side, having lost successive friendlies against Hector Bellerin’s Real Betis and, in our first match at the Emirates this summer, Borussia Dortmund.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t taken too much notice of the pre-season games, which I gather has saved me some aggro with the Arsenal website.
That said, having become aware the Borussia game was free to watch on YouTube, I did have a little look. Of course, by the time I got to it we were already 2-0 down and it seemed to me the German side were quite happy to defend their box, reasonably well and in numbers.
I thought we looked quite bright going forward. In particular, new boy Christos Tzolis looks like someone we’re going to enjoy watching.
His directness and ability off either foot were already in evidence as he set up Ethan Nwaneri to score before winning a penalty for Viktor Gyokeres to smash into the corner.
There are obviously defensive concerns, with William Saliba making it as far as the World Cup semi-final before his back gave out.
In his absence, shipping six goals in two games is far from ideal.
This situation has also given Andrea Berta and Mikel Arteta something to think about.
With Jurrien Timber’s groin still not mended, I can relate, Jurrien, and Saliba not expected back for months, we are facing the start of the season with Ben White and Christian Mosquera as our only two senior options on the right side of the defence.
It is fair to say we are a little short there.
One area where we are clearly not short of players is central midfield. Christian Norgaard has departed and, after a slightly protracted media saga, Bruno Guimaraes has arrived with an easier-to-pronounce surname and as a rather massive upgrade.
Now, I do not think any Arsenal fan, least of all me, should feel they have to take back anything derogatory they might have said about Bruno in the past. Those things we all thought and said were true at the time.
However, what is also true now is that Guimaraes will inject a huge amount of technical quality into our midfield and, if there was one thing to take away from the Champions League final, it is that we needed more of that.
I am very happy he is here.
He will add goals, hopefully keep us from being drawn into the horseshoe of death too often and, crucially, he has got a bit of dog in him.
Ordering the away shirt online a couple of days ago, I went for Click & Collect, it seems the fanbase are not too worried about what they, or we, might have said about Guimaraes in the past.
Apparently, “Bruno G.” shirts are flying out of the door.
Your writer hopes someone who will not be flying out of the door is Myles Lewis-Skelly.
This week brought a bit of a commotion when news emerged that the youngster had been offered by an intermediary to both Manchester United and Chelsea.
That was quickly followed by a piece in The Athletic reporting that Lewis-Skelly remains focused on Arsenal and that it would take quite a few notes to prise the 19-year-old away from the club.
Unsurprisingly, that was greeted with a collective sigh of relief.
For me, Myles was perhaps the only player outside our defence who showed any real personality in the Champions League final and I would keep him for that reason alone.
I will also admit that I was watching developments with even greater interest because, for a few reasons, I had ordered this season’s away shirt with his name and number on the back.
Unfortunately, despite marking my delivery as complete, Evri failed to, you know, actually complete the delivery, providing proof of delivery that Arsenal have now agreed did not contain my package.
Long story short, I am getting a refund, which I discovered just as the Lewis-Skelly news was breaking. I am delighted to hear Myles is apparently staying, but I might wait a few days before ordering the shirt again.
And when I do, I will definitely be using Click & Collect.
Finally, this is the first thing I have written since Leandro Trossard departed for Besiktas, and I just wanted to say thank you for so many things, well, goals really, over the past three and a half years, but most obviously that goal against West Ham United, which changed all our lives.
A wonderfully skilful player, with just the right amount of attitude to go with it. It seems funny now to think there were concerns about his attitude when he signed because, if anything, it was precisely that attitude that won us all over.
At £20 million, Leo was a rare example of genuine value in the transfer market and I am so pleased he leaves with a Premier League winner’s medal around his neck.
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