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Morning all.<\/p>\n
A very quick Friday round-up as I had a terrible night\u2019s sleep, and this morning it\u2019s like I exist in some kind of netherworld where everything looks more or less like it should, but feels marginally and disconcertingly different. Hopefully coffee will help.<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta will hold a pre-Brighton press conference this morning, and after his team made it seven wins from seven on Tuesday night, it ought to be pretty drama free. To be fair, they almost always are anyway, even during difficult moments, and with one game left before the extended Interlull, he\u2019ll have his sights firmly set on Saturday\u2019s game. What a joy to not be playing at 8pm too. I\u2019m sorry to all our friends across the globe for whom this is actually a decent kick-off time, but when six of our seven games have taken place in the evening, I\u2019m all for an afternoon kick off for once.<\/p>\n
There will probably be questions about defensive injuries, with Ben White sidelined since the Sunderland game, Jurrien Timber left out in midweek (hopefully just as a means to ease him back into action), Cristhian Mosquera missing, and the notable absence of Piero Hincapie against Ipswich. As ever, I don\u2019t expect much in the way of detail from the manager about them but perhaps this is a timely international break, and the fact it\u2019s longer than normal \u2013 our next game after tomorrow is on October 10th! \u2013 will give these guys time to get themselves fit.<\/p>\n
By the way, a doff of the cap to Jurgen Klopp in his role as the new manager of Germany. He\u2019s named a 44 man squad, which will be split into two for their four Nations League games. The first 22 will play the first two games, and you don\u2019t need me to explain the rest. It will benefit Kai Havertz who will play in the first group, and who can then return to London\/take some time off after a busy start to the season.<\/p>\n
Wouldn\u2019t it be interesting if his fellow German Thomas Tuchel followed suit and did something similar? That would be extremely beneficial to Arsenal given our large England contingent, and would allay fears that Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka will be asked to play the full 90 minutes in all the games they play during this break. It\u2019s not as if there aren\u2019t enough English players out there to do it.<\/p>\n
You could bring in the likes of Cole Palmer, Adam Wharton, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Phil Foden who didn\u2019t make the World Cup squad, and would be perfectly cromulent options for their games against Spain, Czechia (twice) and Croatia.\u00a0And if you need to flesh things out a bit there\u2019s always Steve and his mate \u2018The Gitch\u2019 who used to play for Aldershot reserves and liked a pint too much to make it but whose prowess on the ball would put many to shame. So many options for Tuchel.<\/p>\n
England team to face Spain<\/strong>: Pickford, Rice, Saka, Rice, Saka, Rice, Saka, Rice, Saka, Rice, Saka<\/em>.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s see what happens. I thought this piece from Jonathan Liew<\/a> in the Guardian about Raheem Sterling was interesting reading, particularly in the context of this week when Arsenal\u2019s 16 year old Max Dowman caught the eye so spectacularly on the pitch. I referenced Mikel Arteta\u2019s post-game comments in Wednesday\u2019s post-game blog<\/a>, but I really do think they\u2019re worth paying more attention to.<\/p>\n It\u2019s too easy to gloss over them in the excitement of what we think Dowman can bring to this team on the pitch in the years ahead. He is just 16, we have to be careful and mindful, and that responsibility starts with Arteta as the man ultimately responsible for picking the team. It goes beyond that, obviously, and he has shown us how highly he rates this young man. Not just with his continued inclusion, but even going to back to last season when we needed a goal at Anfield and Arteta\u2019s decision was to throw on a 15 year while leaving Leandro Trossard and Ethan Nwaneri on the bench.<\/p>\n I think the manager is right when he talks about how he has to take into account the context of the Premier League versus other European leagues. It\u2019s more intense, it\u2019s more physical, it\u2019s harder (both in terms of difficulty and what you are subjected to in the tackle etc), but I also think the elephant in the room is how the media landscape in England operates.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not as if there isn\u2019t spotlight elsewhere. The Spanish press is always intense, the four daily football newspapers make that inevitable, but you also have the insanity of TV shows like El Chiringuito<\/em> with their lip reading and dramatic reconstructions of on and off pitch events. However, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything quite like sections of the English press when it comes to building people up and then knocking them back down with relentless impunity.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve found the non-stop speculation this week over that 15 year Man Utd kid pretty grotty. He is a literal child, and while I recognise this isn\u2019t simply a construct of the media and that there are elements of this that can be attributed elsewhere (people who should probably know better and have greater duty of care too), it\u2019s an unpleasant demonstration of how a story can spiral and become somewhat all consuming. The story then matters more than anything else, and people lose sight of the human element, the boy who is at the centre of it at an age when that kind of spotlight from all sides must be almost impossible to get your head around. It\u2019s not at all healthy.<\/p>\n It\u2019s why, in the latest Arsecast which you can find below, we discuss Max Dowman through the lens of the responsibility held by Arsenal and those closest to him. Anyway, happy listening if you haven\u2019t had a chance already, and you can join us later on Patreon as we look ahead to our game against Brighton in our preview pod. Have a great Friday folks.<\/p>\n