Saturday round-up & training video observations

Morning.

Let’s start with a quick Saturday round-up of all the Arsenal news.

There you go.

I did watch the training video from Dubai. There wasn’t a lot to take from it, but I did notice a couple of things. First, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri appear to have been the only ones wearing headphones.

Maybe they’re just shy, or maybe Mikel Arteta has them listening to an inspirational, life-affirming audio book of some kind. Like ‘How to be a leader’, by G.Rifter or ‘Ways to get ahead in football’ by C.Soares.

Then I wondered, who uses wired headphones these days? Perhaps there is a rite of passage at Arsenal that only when you become a first team player are you permitted to use AirPods or Jabras or whatever.

“Today young man, you have officially become part of the first team squad. Here is your place in the dressing room. This hook is your hook. There are many like it, but this one is yours. Your parking space is 17D (don’t get too close to Jorginho beside you, he doesn’t like to have to squeeze in and gets quite grumpy if he can’t fully open the doors of his Hyundai IONIQ 5.

“But most importantly, we now grant you the power of BLUETOOTH! Albert, please do the honours …”

Anyway, let’s hope they’re learning lots on this trip. There’s been a lot of talk about Mikel Arteta and young players, and while there’s obviously a lot to unpack around it, it’s clear there’s a gap right now when it comes to players around the 19/20 mark. Perhaps, and I think it’s a big perhaps, Charlie Patino might, possibly, maybe, have a small chance, but beyond that, I don’t think there’s anyone around that age pushing for promotion to the first team.

It’s the next generation down that might well provide a player or two, and obviously Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri are the two players people focus on most. Both have been named in the first team squad this season, although without any playing time – but that’s part of the progression, and they have to keep working hard and waiting for their chance.

Meanwhile, the man with the tan is making sure he catches as much of that sunshine as he can.

Hey, if I had legs that good, I’d show them off too. Beyond that, there’s not a great deal going on.

In the Premier League last night, Luton scored a late equaliser to deny Burnley all three points, but there’s VAR controversy again after goalkeeper James Trafford was fouled beforehand. It’s one of those where I think the keeper has made an iffy decision but he’s clearly blocked off by the opponent. In general keepers are too well protected in my opinion, we’ve seen examples this season of fouls by keepers and on keepers which have been a bit mind-boggling, so you can understand why Vincent Kompany was furious about this. However, if you wear a baseball cap with a suit, you leave yourself open to this kind of thing and that’s something he’s got to reckon with.

Finally for today, I saw this quote from Eddie Howe about Newcastle’s inability to add new players in January:

I’m not sure there’s many clubs out there that are willing to help us currently. To agree a loan deal, you need the club to agree to that deal, so we’re in that moment where I’m not sure we have many friends in the market.

Boo, and indeed, hoo. I just checked on Amazon and their entire stock of the world’s tiniest violins have been sold due to everyone in the world of football wanting to play one in the direction of St James Park this morning. You have to laugh. Because it’s very funny.

Right, let’s leave it there – have a good Saturday folks.

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