Well, it was quite the day at Premier League also-rans Arsenal, wasn’t it?
Before we reflect on their Tuesday, let us remind ourselves that GETTING RID OF ARSENE was GOING TO SOLVE EVERYTHING and the WORLD WAS GOING TO BE A BETTER PLACE!
So, how’s that working out then?
As we wake up on Wednesday, Arsenal appear to have a manager with no clear plan of what he is trying to do. Arsenal appear to have no joined-up thinking on their recruitment. And Arsenal need a world-class goalkeeper. My word, is it 2006 again?
Arsenal shot-stopper-but-not-very-good-with-his-feet Petr Cech has told the world he is hanging up his gloves at the end of the season. Cech has won pretty much everything he could have won in his career (at Chelsea) and will be remembered as one of the Premier League great goalkeepers. Clearly, just six months of being asked to play out from the back was enough to make him decide to call it a day.
Off the pitch, well I don’t know. Ex-Borussia Dortmund Chief Scout and diamond in the rough finder Sven Mislintat arrived to a huge fanfare 13 months ago. He was brought in as Head of Recruitment and managed to persuade Yo-Pierre and Micky-T to follow him as he attempted to put the BVB band back together. Yet Sven wanted to be more than a glorified talent spotter. He wanted to be the Technical Director that Arsenal have been banging on about appointing for years.
Sadly, for Sven that is, Arsenal didn’t seem too keen to go down that road meaning Sven finds himself in a bit of a tricky position. So he’s decided to quit. Director of football, Raul Sanllehi, and the managing director, Vinai Venkatesham seem rather keen to bring back former player Edu into this position – after all, he is doing something similar for Brazil right now so, logically, he will be able to help Arsenal become like 11 Neymar’s.
There were injuries all over the shop yesterday.
Harry Kane is out until March, apparently. I told you, his ankles. More worrying for Liverpool is the fact that Trent Alexander-Arnold picked up a knee injury in training and is out for a month leaving Liverpool with the bare bones of about five players all perfectly capable of filling in for him. Yes, Scousers, it is time to panic.
Manchester City have put their fingers in their ears, hands over their eyes and are refusing to talk to UEFA about any of this FFP stuff. City claim that as UEFA got their ‘proof’ from allegedly hacked emails and such that it doesn’t really count so they don’t have to comment on anything.
West Ham United seem to be heading towards losing all the strikers they would like to keep in January as Valencia have made a move for Javier Hernandez and he’d like to go. Along with Marko Arnautovic likely to be off to China, the Hammers could end up having to continue their quest for 7th or 8th with Andy Carroll as their main man. Ha.
As we mentioned yesterday, Ryan Babel has joined Fulham in a case of not solving the issue whatsoever at Craven Cottage.
One of the few La Liga clubs not to have been linked with Chelsea’s Alvaro Morata was Atletico Madrid. Well, they can be ticked off too now as they’ve tabled a bid to take the Spanish forward on loan with a view to a permanent deal if Diego Simeone can rouse something out of the player that resembles talent.
Eden Hazard is casting envious looks across the changing room at Morata in the hope that Real Madrid start to put some cash on the table so he can hop on an EasyJet flight to the Spanish capital. £100m ought to do it.
Yaya Toure was on Monday Night Football on, er, Monday night and talked up the chances of him joining his brother at Celtic. The Premier League is missing a trick there, surely?
Sam Allardyce took to TalkSport to tell the world he doesn’t think he’ll be offered the Huddersfield job. At this point, I’d like to say I don’t think he will be either. It’s the first time in a long while I’ve agreed with anything Big Sham has had to say.
Oh, and Newcastle United managed to annoy Rafa Benitez further last night by beating Blackburn in the FA Cup. Oh, lads. Come on. Play the game.
