What’s left?

Good morning.

I’m back in Dublin and I’ve had a decent night’s sleep, so I think I should be ok with regards jet-lag. I didn’t get a lot of sleep on the trip from Singapore, but just enough to make me think I could push through the day, having arrived at 7am yesterday. I did an Arsecast Extra with James, went into town for some food with Mrs Blogs, and then hit the sack around 9pm.

I will admit by that time I was feeling a bit wobbly. Which would explain why I ended up watching a YouTube video about poached egg technique just before I went to bed and I had to keep rewinding a bit because it didn’t make any sense to me. The technique was to crack the egg into a fine strainer before putting it into the water, but I couldn’t understand what a fine strainer was. It made no sense, even though it’s pretty obvious.

Rest assured, this morning I understand what a fine strainer is. I even have one in the kitchen drawer downstairs, but I will not be poaching eggs for breakfast today. I haven’t made any decision on the most important meal of the day yet, but I need something potentially more bacon-y. Let’s see what the morning brings.

Right, onto Arsenal news, and there’s some chatter this morning about Leandro Trossard with The Times reporting the Belgian is ‘increasingly likely’ to leave the club this summer. There’s reported interest from Borussia Dortmund, while one of those Twitter transfer churn factory dudes suggests that Trossard also has ‘concrete’ … *big sigh* … offers from two Premier League clubs. That guy is so often wrong about stuff though, I would take anything he says with a very large pinch of salt. Then a spoon of salt, followed by a shovel of salt.

As we head into the final month of the transfer window, I feel like the focus on our left hand side will grow and grow. You can see why Trossard might be a candidate for a departure. He’s 30, and according to Transfermarkt his contract ends in 12 months time, although there’s some suggestion Arsenal have an option for another year. He’s at age where, if the right offer comes in, you probably have to give it serious consideration.

I do think the situation is a bit more nuanced though. On paper, Gabriel Martinelli seems the obvious player to keep if it’s a choice between retaining one of the two. He’s younger, has longer on his contract, and gives us some real pace which is in relatively short supply in this squad. However, it’s hard not to worry he has plateaued a bit, and small things about his game that should have improved quite a bit by now just haven’t. Key moments where he plays with his head down rather than his head up are a worry.

Then, if one goes, who is the replacement? If you read regularly or listen to the podcast, you’ll know how much I rate Eberechi Eze, but is he best out on the left-hand side? He’d add quality and a kind of maverick energy, but are the central areas in which he operates most effectively a bit crowded with players like Martin Odegaard, Declan Rice, Mikel Merino, Ethan Nwaneri and even Kai Havertz? Don’t get me wrong, if that’s a puzzle Mikel Arteta wants to try and solve over the course of the coming campaign, I’d be fine with it but it’s not without its challenges.

After what I think has been a good summer in terms of recruitment, the final place I think we really could envisage an upgrade is the left wing. I don’t quite know what we might do there, and it does feel as if an addition would most likely require one of the two incumbents to depart. It seems as this situation might be one where we see how the market develops over the next few weeks. In the final stages, certain options become available that weren’t previously – a domino effect as other deals take place etc, so I guess we just wait and see how it all plays out.

Later on we’ll hear from Mikel Arteta ahead of the game in Hong Kong tomorrow. I can’t imagine there’ll be anything particularly exciting from the press conference, but you never know. We’ll bring you any interesting bits over on Arseblog News, and for this morning I’ll leave you with the Arsecast Extra recorded yesterday. Have a good one!

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