Morning all, welcome to a brand new week, one that will be filled with World Cup knock-out games.
With all due respect to South Africa, I was glad Canada scored their late winner last night. To be fair, I’d have been just as happy if the goal had gone in the other end too, as it saved us from extra-time in what was a pretty dismal game of football.
Canada won’t give a moose’s ringpiece though, as they’ve qualified for the Round of 16, the first side to do so. The few minutes before the goal – after injury time was announced – saw ultra-cautious football being played. Which is understandable, because you don’t want to risk losing when there’s potentially another 30 minutes, but that’s what happened. Stephen Eustaquio’s finish was nice, but it was low quality fare overall.
Later today, there’s Arsenal interest as Brazil face Japan in what looks like a very tasty encounter in Houston. Gabriel will likely start this one and there’s a chance Gabriel Martinelli will be involved at some point too, while former Gunner Takehiro Tomiyasu started Japan’s last game and could be in the frame to do so again. After that, Germany face Paraguay, and I imagine Kai Havertz will continue to start up front for them, before the overnight game (in this part of the world) sees Netherlands take on Morocco.
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Arsenal news, as I’m sure you’re aware, is pretty thin on the ground, but there was a report on the BBC over the weekend about the departure of ‘lead performance coach’, Sam Wilson. He’ll be a familiar face to anyone who watches the behind the scenes stuff the club put out on their various channels. He’s often seen working with the players who are making their way back from serious injury, and apparently he’s going to join another club in Europe. Best of luck to him!
So far not much has happened in terms of team/squad changes, but behind the scenes there’s been a bit going on. We know that Head of Sports Medicine, Zafar Iqbal, has departed, to be replaced by former Portuguese Olympian Arnaldo Abrantes, and it has also been reported that Eneko Angulo, a rehab specialist, will be coming in from Real Betis. These new additions to the medical team will likely have their work cut out for them after a gruelling season last time out and a host of players involved at the World Cup too.
Managing players like Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, and William Saliba – who are the ones we know are carrying injuries in this tournament (which doesn’t mean they’re the only ones) – will be something of a challenge. They need some rest after their international commitments are finished, then they need to have some kind of pre-season, however truncated that might be, before being reincorporated for what is a relatively tricky start to the new campaign.
There’s also the new elongated Interlull to reckon with coming just a month into the season. Using England as an example, after Arsenal play their opening five Premier League games between August 21st and September 19th, our English contingent will then have Nations League games against Spain on September 26th, Czechia on September 29th, Croatia on October 3rd, and Czechia again on October 6th. Which, when it’s laid out like that, seems absolutely insane to me.
I know we talk about the schedule all the time, but it often feels like discussions about the demands on the top players are borderline abstract. Everyone knows it’s too much, but nobody really does anything about it because, in part, these players typically play for the biggest/richest/most successful clubs, and sympathy is in short supply because of that. Which I understand to an extent, but surely something’s got to give.
Mikel Arteta has been asked about this more than once, and to paraphrase, his view is that there won’t ever be any less football. There is no chance of fewer games being played, therefore bigger squads are required. I don’t think there’s any chance of the 25 man squad being extended, so perhaps the new reality for a club like Arsenal is that you have to raise the floor, so you don’t get that drop-off that can exist between, for example, someone like Declan Rice and Christian Norgaard. Which isn’t to be dismissive of the latter, but if we want to be able to manage Rice through an ongoing injury, we need a credible alternative that the manager feels he can use.
There will always be levels and variance in quality, you can’t have 25 players of the calibre of Rice, but in the absence of anything else changing by those whose influence on the game is to maximise revenue by making more and more games for broadcast, advertising, sponsors etc, that’s surely got to be the only realistic way to deal with a schedule like this. Which will make this summer’s transfer dealings very interesting, and perhaps goes a way to explain why someone like Bruno Guimaraes is on our radar.
Right, I’ll leave it there for now. We will have an Arsecast Extra for you a bit later on, James is still on Chicago time so we’ll be recording in the morning for him, which means the pod will be out late afternoon in this part of the world. We’ll put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com in little while, so when that happens fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server.
For now, have a good one.
