"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Actually not really, or not any more. Merkel's dislike of Trump has had her questioning whether Europe can rely on the US and the US are more interested in the Far East than Europe at the moment.
Plus our Turkish allies are now buying Russian hardware.
All which goes to show there is a divergence between EU and NATO interests.
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Not true. The European chattering classes loved Obama.
Fair point. Also I think that Germans might reasonably take exception to being forced to buy expensive US LNG because of the sanctions imposed for the (evidence-free) claims of Russian 'hacking' in the US election. Oh the irony of that accusation, from the most interferey country in the world.
Errr, you realise that this stuff was said by the President of the EU Commission, right? In his State of the Union address? This is not conjecture or alarmism, this is the direction of travel desired at the highest level of the EU. Will all of it happen? Probably not. Will some of it happen? Yes, absolutely. Could we ever rejoin the EU if any of it happened? No, absolutely not.
Yes. The Europeans are now suspicious that many of these US-led sanctions are actually geared at giving US companies an advantage. There is a school of thinking in US politics that has always seen trade as an extension of warfare rather than a substitute.