MANCHESTER CITY SMASHING UP TEAMS IN THE CUP: MORE PLEASE

Gooooood morning my darlings; how are you doing today?

So the story that is lighting up the internet is Ethan Nwaneri is attracting interest from other clubs in the Premier League and he’s going to exit Arsenal. There’s a whole load of bluster online about it, the rumour is his dad might be the one driving the exit, some are saying it’s the player. At the end of the day, I’m not sure it really matters, he hasn’t signed a deal and it would not shock anyone to hear that rich clubs are waving cash money his way.

So what to think?

Firstly, this is part of the process I’m afraid. Young kids are going to look at our young starting 11 and see that the path to a glorious future in our first team is going to be very hard to achieve. The golden generation we’re tying down is there for at least 5 years. There is no fast way into our starting 11. At best, we’ll see three more kids come through. So what does this mean? Expect those kids you all love to leave for places where they’ll get minutes.

My issue with this Ethan story is that the two clubs interested in his services are two clubs that aren’t exactly the best when it comes to giving young players their chance. What is the point of moving to Chelsea? They’ve shown no vision when it comes to transfers, the kids in their actual academy are horrified at the new owners, and they’ve spent huge money on very young players. It’s Arsenal, but shit. Manchester City? Who wakes up in the morning and says, yeah, leaving for a better life in City’s starting 11 is what I’ll do!

If your dad is driving you to take the big pennies now, he is either being very short-sighted, or he doesn’t believe in your talent so he’s cashing in early… because no one who wants to develop their kids sends them to those two clubs over Arsenal.

If you’re going to leave Arsenal, head to Dortmund, RB Leipzig, Monaco, Lens or Reims. Go for teenage minutes over dollars every day of the week.

Still, what can you do? He’s 15 years old. There have been plenty of them over the years we’ve purred over only to see them amount to nothing (Luke Freeman, Fran Merida, Arturo Lupoli, Jack Jebb). It’s very odd that he’s trying to exit Arsenal now, but that’s life, and we’ll have to deal with it. Good luck to the boy, I hope he makes a good decision.

Manchester City absolutely pummelled Leipzig for the second time in two years. They beat them 7-0. It was a bad look for Bundesliga. Arsenal fans are worried, don’t be, this is what we wanted. They’ll get a massive boost heading into the FA Cup game against Burnley this weekend and they’ll probably do the same again to Vincent Kompany’s boys. This is what we need from City. Cup success, leading to fatigue, which moves the management team toward prioritization issues.

You think it was coincidence that they could only score one goal against an awful Palace… then miraculously found the energy for 7 goals in the Champions League? I do not. If we can do the job against Vieira’s boys this weekend, it’ll start to feel hard for Manchester City, and that will affect how they spend their energy credits.

I also think that spanking two weak teams before the international break might give them a false sense of security as to where they are as a team heading into that Liverpool game they have right after the break.

Mikel Arteta has been innovating around the away day experience this season. He has been bringing trinkets to away days to make oppo dressing rooms feel more like The Emirates. Zinchenko shared a picture of the famous Clockend clock in the dressing room against Fulham. Was this the key ingredient for the win? You’ll never know. But if you do enough small things right, they can add up to big things. I love that Mikel is always trying out new ideas. That’s a man that is keyed into the project and his team. It would seem that his players love it as well.

The Sporting game this Thursday is an interesting one. I don’t think there’s any way around it, Arteta wants to win the Europa, and he’ll go all out for it. We’re a better side, we’ll have big players back, they have some key suspensions,  and The Emirates is a fucking fortress.

Our best bet, as fans, is to hope that Arteta uses it to get some minutes into the legs of players like ESR and Gabriel Jesus.  I’d also really love to see him rest Bukayo Saka, especially as we have an international break coming up, and he’ll likely get games in that.

We also have to be real about overplaying these guys… this is good for them. They’ll have to do the same next season in CL, then every season after that, because we’re trying to get to the very top of world football and big clubs have big players that always stay fit. Though it is worth noting we’ll have more players for next seasons run. Declan or Caicedo would make me feel a lot better about Thursday if we had them.

Ok, that was nice to get out the system. I’m hopefully going to be in a better blog groove these next few weeks now work is starting to settle down. Just don’t ask where I was this weekend because I’d have to tell you I was in Austin for SXSW to watch the eMLS player I signed win the eMLS Cup at his first attempt. eSports is awesome and my respect for what they do every day has gone through the roof. My guy trains for 10 hours a day. It really is impressive stuff. Just don’t tell my dad that this kid won 20k, because he definitely told my brother and me growing up that we’d never make money out of computer games.

Ok, get on the damn podcast you beautiful people! x