BALOGUN TO SPURS?

Well good morning to YOU my pretties – what have we for you today?

There are two spicy games I’m excited about.

Spurs vs United

Are Spurs good or bad? Is Harry Kane leaving a weight off the shoulders – or will it sink them to the depths of averageness? Their new manager lacks experience at the highest level and we know how brutal the Premier League can be to people that don’t quite fit the mold. He plays nice football, has a good reputation, but being elite in Scotland rarely translates into this league where the competition of ideas is so much stronger.

Manchester United have a manager who looks like the manager you’d cast in a film about a football club with a really good manager. But if the Wolves game is anything to go by, he still hasn’t cracked it and looks to me like he sits outside the elite of the elite in the Premier League. He’s spent horrendous amounts of money and I’m still not sure I’m seeing it. Can a midfield that lacks legs like United really usurp Manchester City? Let’s also not underestimate how toxic a bad decision around Mason Greenwood could be. The Athletic scooped their CEO to the reintegration of the player and now the club is drowning in a scandal that has the Women’s team up in arms, staff are threatening to quit, and prominent fans saying they will refuse to follow the club. One of the lines in The Athletic article was from a staffer and it said something like ‘How can I justify this decision to my family.’ Elite sport has no conscience, but that doesn’t mean that making decisions through a purely footballing lens can’t have catastrophic consequences for the playing staff. This case has already been tried in the court of public opinion – there’s no grey cloud to hide behind – the evidence is available online. Keep an eye on that and how it impacts the focus of the squad.

City vs Newcastle

We know City are going to be good. Pep G is still the best manager in the league, City still have the best ingredients to mount a challenge, but do Newcastle? They ripped apart Unai Emery last weekend – but can we truly judge that? Unai Emery teams are always a gift away from home. The man doesn’t know how to setup a defence unless he can hear the sweet sweet notes of Europa League in the background.

This is a huge season for Eddie Howe. If Ten Haag gets extra points for looking the part of an elite manager, Eddie Howe seems to lose them because his appearance doesn’t lend itself to the vision of leadership we have in the Premier League. I find it all a bit weird, because no manager, including Arteta, has done a job as good as Eddie in the league. Newcastle has a very specific brand of brutish football that is different to everyone in the top 6. They have flair, combined with a thuggishness that seems to work really well. Can they handle CL this season? Who knows. But I suspect they’ll be a threat to big teams regardless of how the league campaign goes. Also – I’m intrigued to see how Alex Isak does this season, he’s looked mustard since he joined, a player who’d look good in an Arsenal shirt with a profile we kind of lack right now.

I won’t breeze past City, they do have issues they are dealing with. The season after a treble is always hard, they have exited a lot of talent, including their captain. They haven’t been as coherent in the transfer market as they usually are. Pep is out in two years, but will it be one? He’s lost two important assistant coaches. KDB is out for quite a while and he’s still the man that makes them tick. They are still too well run to worry about these problems, but we can hope, pray, sacrifice something important to us to the gods of football.

Chelsea vs West Ham could also be interesting. Todd B, according to the financial wizards, is purposefully flouting FFP because the sums he’s done would indicate the risk is worth the reward. He did the same when he took over the Dodgers. His team has speedrun the most monstrous upscaling of a team in the history of football. He’s bought £500m of players for nearly £1b, he’s put them all on mega-long contracts, he thinks it’ll work.

Will it? Is football that easy? We’ll see… at this point, I think we’re all a little worried about what is cooking at Chelsea after laughing relentlessly at the poor management of last season.

Arsenal take on Crystal Palace. I don’t like these away days under the lights, especially after a not-so-sexy win against Forest, but I think there are a few things we should remember:

• We beat Luton 3-0 in a closed-door game. That gave minutes to those who lacked them. It also gave Arteta a chance to tinker. Confidence will have improved after that game.
• Crystal Palace will come to play football. Forest wasn’t interested. That made the game easy and hard at the same time. We’ll get more openings against them because they have a group of flair players who will try and open us up.
• There’s usually a reaction to meek performances. Arteta will have them fired up and ready to go. He’ll be looking for that statement WE HAVE ARRIVED win nice and early. I hope this could be it.

David Raya has landed at Arsenal, Arteta has spent the week trying to convince everyone it’s totally normal to have two keepers of the standard we now boast. He also seems to be getting a bit agitated about being questioned – he shouldn’t be, this is weird for Arsenal fans and media. The things we’re all looking for is who will start against Palace? Who urgent does Arteta see the keeping problem? Raya started and played 60 minutes against Luton Town. So we’ll see what we have on Monday. My prediction? Aaron will be about by the end of September. There’s an interesting training ground video of Raya vs Ramsdale – it was noticeable that Raya caught most of his shots and Ramsdale parried them. This is a goalkeeper deathmatch and I don’t care if you think that is dramatic framing.

There are some rumblings around exits. Arsenal are looking to recoup £100m or so to give our summer a low net spend number. Nuno Tavares is being touted at £30m and people are shocked. They shouldn’t be. He has a very unique profile in European football that is desirable. His power and speed are unmatched. He can score goals. He is absolute chaos. Clubs like Atalanta, Marseille, and Leicester have all looked at him – because they know if they could polish the roughness, they could have a £50m player on their hands. Arteta doesn’t have time for coaching because our fans don’t have time for mistakes these days.

Balogun interest seems to be reverting back to the Premier League as well. Chelsea are still interested and there are rumors Spurs might want in on the deal after the Harry Kane exit. Both those clubs pay proper money for players and you’d feel we could get closer to £50m with them. I’m not fussed where he goes. If Arsenal don’t think he’s better than Eddie, at this point, you have to trust their judgment. I suspect they want to sell while he’s hot and hope he doesn’t rapidly develop elsewhere. It’s a risk, but hey, that’s life as a club going for the Premier League. You have to kick some of your chicks out the nest and unfortunately, some will learn how to fly.

Rob Holding, Mo Elneny, and Kieran Tierney should all be exiting – but the talk is not very loud. Seems crazy to me that Newcastle are tracking down a left-back with 9 senior games under him and passing on the far more experienced Tierney. It’s also odd that these clubs that have come up the Premier League aren’t looking at the experience of Rob Holding and seeing that as a potential big boost to staying up.

With 11 or so days left of the window, there’s still plenty of action that could happen. Arsenal need to sell, clubs will get injuries, or suffer bad results and have to buy – patience is key. Patience and sitting at your computer refreshing Twitter every two seconds is also important.

Arsenal launched their third green kit. It’s nice.

Do I understand the concept? Not really. ‘Europe’ is a bit loose. Do I think it appeals to the middle-aged man demographic? 100%. My timeline was blowing up with Dad Twitter saying TAKE MY MONEY. It’s a beautiful kit that is weird on every level.  It lacks stickiness to me right now because the idea has no history, even though technically it does. The video was fun, Kai Havertz absolutely proving he’d be a catwalk model if he wasn’t very good at football. Willy Saliba was wearing a pair of trousers I bought for a fancy dress party. This one will grow on me – and if I’m going in on an away kit, it’ll be this one.

Right, that’s my searing critique of the shirt DONE. Make sure you join our Patreon right now. It’s just £3.50 a month. You get all the videos that don’t go on Youtube. We’ll do monthly Q&As. Before the Whistle Podcasts go there exclusively. We also have a private discord that you can join so we can shoot the shit together in a messenger service. Why wouldn’t you join the party? Seriously. Go now before I tell someone you are NOT part of it. xxx

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Palace – Before the Whistle

Chelsea: Going hard for ok?
Balogun to Spurs: why not?
CacelNO – but why?
Arteta – fitness hypocrite?

Featuring @mattkandela, Pedro, and @iJohnnyCochrane https://t.co/6e6mkOMKzF

— LE GROVE (@LeGrove) August 19, 2023