Arsenal_AM_Episode_13_No updates from the mens side

Its been a quiet day in terms of news, I look at the option of Martinelli, Jesus and Saka upfront, look at the MLS midfield move and look at the Atletico Madrid game. 

As mentioned in the pod you can find details and donate to the ArsenalVision Pod here https://www.justgiving.com/page/avp2026

I also posted a picture of a signed jersey from the 98/99 season which had the signature of Alex Manninger on it. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DXkXZsVDBgP/?igsh=OXN6Zzk0bWNlNThw

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Good morning from the top of the table. Beautiful place to be, and we're under no threat for at least another eight days. It's nice. It'll be nicer at the end of May, maybe about May 24th at about 6 pm. And we can all have a big party from Sellhurst Park all the way back to uh Highbury. But that's uh a while away yet. So what we'll discuss in the meantime. Well, we have no further updates from based on the injuries from the matches yesterday, and uh quite enough newsday from from Arsenal and football in general, just uh having a look to see if there was anything that I did miss. Obviously Chelsea made made their way to the FA Cup final and our ladies beat Leon, so again, great great position to be in. And um you know may maybe uh repeating the Champions League win or winning it in tandem with with the men, that'd be a great season, wouldn't it? We'd have we'd certainly have a great parade for that. In relation to I suppose j general conversation, in r in reply to my episode from Saturday morning, uh I was given the question uh for would I consider with the injuries and the concerns that we have going back to a front line of Saka, Jesus and Martinelli and I would go back to that in a heartbeat if Jesus was able to hold up the ball and be and physically take on the defenders. And I think that's where he hasn't been hasn't returned to his best. You know, he's got quick feet, he's he can move, he's obviously a bit slower now, having had the the two big injuries and the time out, and I think that hampers him in terms of confidence that he has as well. What he was excellent at when he came in in 22-23 was you you could give him the ball with you know a big defender on his back, he'd hold it up, he'd twist it, he'd lay it off, he'd do something that would open up space for somebody else. Martin Martin Elliott especially worked very well with that. Unfortunately, Big Vic should be able to do that based on his physical size, but he doesn't have the touch and general all-around awareness, and I think that's where everyone gets frustrated. I don't think anyone thinks the guy isn't trying or anything any of these things, just the limitations of his game are not there. Now I was listening to Clive Parmer from Clive P AFC, and he was mentioning that we're not playing to the right strengths, and maybe putting Ezra and Yakerez is the way to go. And I don't necessarily see it. I can normally see an awful lot of what Clive says and get it, but I just don't think Yaakrez is gonna be the guy. I hope I'm wrong, and if he could like the like the touch paper in the coming days and just go on a a seven-game goal scoring streak, wouldn't that be something special? But I can hope for it. I don't expect it. We have our game on Wednesday this week, so that's gives us a bit of time to get people fit and to get some news. Obviously, we'll probably travel out on Tuesday morning. We'll we'll obviously have the training session Tuesday night in the press conference, so we'll see what the boss says then. But it's kind of hard to know how niggly those muscular injuries are. Um and if there's any doubt, I think we have to err on the side of caution. We need as many people as we can to give us them as many options as possible over the coming days. Now the news coming out of the Miles Lewis Skelly substitution was interesting with Zuba Mendy having been unwell. The boss went with Miles Lewis Skelly on the bench and again no Norguard. So with no Norguard, he must have known that if Super Mendy wasn't gonna make it, he had to have those substitutions. Maybe his hand was forced a little bit by Ezra and Kai coming off because he's probably normal normal substitution. Normal, he's done it once before, uh, to put Odegaard back into midfield with Rice and then put somebody else at the ten. You know, maybe that is the the consideration there, but I find it interesting that with the expectation that Norgaard wasn't gonna make it, there wasn't that additional. So yeah, I think it was interesting that probably it had to be in Arteta's mind that it was an option a possibility that Myself Skelly was gonna get onto into that position or onto the pitch in that position. And he is um he is someone I would trust in midfield because I I think you can give him the ball under pressure, and I think we struggle with that. You know, we we saw it we saw teams kind of identify as well as the weakness that he was kind of rolling and turning in, and I think PSG caught him a couple of times last year. So you know we'll have to keep an eye on that one, but again, I I do do think there is scope for him in that position. Um again, I hadn't expected it at all this season, but let's have a a look what happens over the coming weeks and days. I think he could be his mentality is something special, you know, from being the guy who was told by Holland who are you stay humble to scoring a goal and doing Holland celebration and having Gary Neville to go, oh I think that's a disrespectful. Um in with absolutely no respect to you, Mr. Neville. But um yeah, I just I I like the attitude of I'm here, you you gotta you gotta deal with me. So you know we'll have to see how that goes. I was doing some house cleaning over the weekend and I encountered an old Arsenal jersey that I had signed in '98, '99 season. And um, you know, the the top uh name that was on it was Alex Manninger. I just thought it was kind of sad and nice to find it. Sadly, a lot of the signatures have faded over the years, but I have it up on the Instagram if you want to have a look at it. If you want to get in touch with the show, you can get me on Instagram at Arsenal underscore am underscore pod, and you can get me on BSky at freddylj.bsky.social. So what I'm doing is when I get to 500 subscribers of the pod, I'm gonna give one listener the choice of an Arsenal jersey. Uh hope it'll probably be next season's jersey. So again, if you can let people know, like, subscribe, do all the usual stuff, more than happy to uh do do a draw so people could get a free jersey. So no harm in that. Now going forward, probably be towards the latter end of this week, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do one day a week where I'm gonna do an Arsenal quiz, probably ten questions, and the following day I'll give out the answers, but just to you know, share share a bit of knowledge, find a bit of obscure knowledge about the club that we can go in there and have a bit of fun with it, and hopefully have you know, we'll we'll see see what it leads to. So, again, so something to look forward to. So, last week I mentioned the Arsene Vision um podcast and Arson Blog fundraiser for the Arsenal Foundation. They've done amazing work, they've actually reached 208% of their target, so they've raised over 416,000 pounds for the the cause. They're looking to generate another 30k or so, and with that there will be a another donation made that will re resell pictures, pitches that will last for ten years, that will fund a program for kids that definitely need it and deserve it and give them some hope. So, again, I will put a link in the show notes, but if you're able to donate, please do. So, looking ahead to the Arsenal Atletico Madrid game, just seeing that we've only played them five times so far, and we have a decent record, as as much as one can. We've won two, they won one, and they we've drawn two games. Obviously, we pay played them in October, bet them 4-0, a beautiful night, but I think that means nothing, and it will mean absolutely nothing, as we saw with PSG last year when we bet them, and then unfortunately they knocked us out. But I did see just from looking around that you know there's some interesting headlines about Barrios being injured, and we will definitely miss the two games against um the the two two legs uh against Arsenal. So that's a a big uh boost to us, but again, we have our own injury, so we'll have to see where that where that all plays out. In terms of Atletico's positioning, they're they're third in in La Liga and under no real real pressure for third place, so they will be in a position to rest players f uh in between our games when we will definitely have to pe keep our best team on the pitch for Fulham next week. And I think that's a wider issue for the Premier League, and it has been for a while, that as it becomes more and more intense, the ability of the teams to go further in the Champions League is definitely hampered. Again, we're we're the last one standing for two years in a row, and we are have been the best team from the Premiership, you know, two years in a row, we just haven't won the league. I think that's gonna be the miles that are put on the clock, the physical demands of the game. Again, I I looked at our stats from Newcastle, we had over 116 kilometres run, and for the equivalent in La Liga is 103.7 kilometres. So for every game we are running 10-15 kilometers further, and when you extrapolate that out across the 38 game season, that's an extra 570 kilometers that are going into the legs, an equivalent of let me see an extra five and a half games per season that that were just running during the same game. So physically they should be fresher, but physically it's harder on us and on other Premier League teams to do it. It's just how fresh can our players be by the time we get to this position. Again, Men City look like they've got a head of steam, but the reality is they've still got knocked out of Europe, and that probably gives them extra legs that we we don't have at the moment. But we're s we're there, we've got a chance, and there is a chance that we do a league and champions league double. That would be a beautiful way to end this season. Until tomorrow, have a good one.