Morning all, a quick Saturday round-up for you.
Let’s start with the Premier League fixtures which were released yesterday, and our season will start on Friday evening, August 21st, with a home game against newly promoted Coventry City. That seems fine to me, even if all these years later there’s still a scar left by Micky Quinn’s opening day hat-trick in 1993. Hopefully Coventry don’t have another portly lad with a Brookside moustache on their books.
There’s a tricky away trip to Aston Villa next, then Chelsea at home, before two more away trips to Sunderland and Brighton take us to the first Interlull. There’s also a period in December where we don’t leave London, which could be useful around that tricky time of the year, and the run-in – once we get that far – looks pretty decent. May starts with a home North London derby (Eze’s got this, don’t worry), we have a home game with Nottingham Forest sandwiched between trips to Leeds and Everton, and we have Brighton at home on the final day.
Clearly, at this moment in time, we’re looking at those opening weeks with some uncertainty as we don’t know who will be properly available. Arsenal have players at the World Cup in teams well capable of going very far into the tournament and, as we discussed on the latest Arsecast, some of them already look like they could do with a rest. Does that influence our recruitment and some of our summer targets?
The difficulty is that most of the best players from the most highly ranked football nations are at this tournament too, so you face that challenge of fatigue as well as their involvement delaying any potential deals. Is it then incumbent on Andrea Berta and those tasked with augmenting the squad this summer to consider players who are not at the World Cup and who can fill the shoes of those who are? It’s just not something Arsenal have to face either, but I hope that the fact we’re not in a rebuilding phase, instead looking to add to an already established squad, helps make it a bit easier for us than some of our rivals.
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Right, to the World Cup and the US beat Australia 2-0 thanks to an early own goal and a header from Villarreal defender Alex Freeman. Maybe the most entertaining part of it was the referee needing treatment for cramp though. He obviously didn’t use the hydration break as well as he should have, he was probably watching ads or something.
Scotland got beaten 1-0 by Morocco with the only goal of the game coming 2 minutes in, cracking finish too. I hope the reported beer shortages were sorted out in time for our Celtic cousins to drown their sorrows sufficiently afterwards, especially as they seemed to be denied a clear penalty when Scott McTominay was fouled. Have FIFA introduced a higher bar to award penalties in this tournament? The one not given for the obvious foul on Kylian Mbappe, now this?
As expected, Brazil beat Haiti 3-0, with goals from Matheus Cunha (2) and Vinicius Jr. Gabriel played the full game, while Gabriel Martinelli came on in the second half and he hit the bar with a curling effort. Meanwhile, Turkey are eliminated from the World Cup after a 1-0 defeat to 10 man Paraguay who had Miguel Almiron sent off for covering his mouth when speaking to an opposition player. I have no idea what was said, but this was something that was flagged before the tournament as a new rule. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it though – and the referee was certainly strident when announcing the decision after he’d reviewed the footage on the sideline!
It meant Paraguay, a goal up from early on, had to play the second half with 10 men. Turkey had to get something, and 20 of their 32 attempts on goal in this game came after the break. They just couldn’t make the breakthrough though, and now have a game against the US which means nothing for their tournament. Over the course of their two games, they’ve had 62 attempts with 0 goals (having lost 2-0 to Australia with the shot count 30 to 9 in their favour). Clearly they need to find the next Hakan Sukur somewhere. Paraguay and Australia face off in the final game of that group.
Today’s action has some Arsenal interest with Viktor Gyokeres and Sweden taking on the Netherlands, which could be a tasty one. Germany face Ivory Coast with Kai Havertz likely to continue up front for them, before overnight Ecuador and Piero Hincapie play Curacao and Japan take on Tunisia.
Right, there you go – more tomorrow, enjoy your Saturday folks.