Ganpati old boy, tell me the truth now. Did you stay up to watch the match?
Rambo's half-season of brilliance came when he had Ozil ahead of him and a passer, Arteta, behind him. He never produced it when he had a non-passing Coq behind him, and this Xhaka chap's meant to be a bit of a passer.
Santi's a joy to watch in CM, but he doesn't score from there as he did when he was the no.10 or as Rambo did that great half-season.
In his first season, when Santi had to play out wide, his goals to game ratio there was similar to playing no.10
We need more goals. Could switching those two around help achieve this?
Obv I know it's not as simple as that. Rambo missed chances in the box last season that he was finishing when he was on that great run.
But Alexis and Santi on the flanks would be what AW likes, with one winger and one MF. cf Overmars and Parlour, or Bobby and Freddie.
Obv I would like a proper goal-scoring RW who works hard like Alexis does on the other side. But if we don't get one, or have an injury, could it work switching those two around?
btw, it was good work on the left for Akpom's winner last night. The commentary and reports don't mention who held it up and then passed to Nacho. Was it Willock? Whoever it was, the lad done well, there.
Ganpati old boy, tell me the truth now. Did you stay up to watch the match?
I'm sure I'll regain interest once the season kicks off, but I've never been less engaged with a pre-season. I think it's because Leicester won the league, which has basically rendered football a ****ing stupid sport
Anyway, i hear we're going to have about four first teamers available for the first game of the season?
I genuinely have no interest in pre-season games as they are simply fitness exercises. Even when they get to ‘competitive’ stages such as the Emirates Cup I am afraid it does little for me.
For some I can understand they are perhaps starved of their Arsenal fix, not I. Nor am I starved of a generic football fix given the recent Euros which I enjoyed watching, though I acknowledge many did not.
Pre-season in general is a rather tedious affair for us I think, driven by media lies and buffoonery as we stumble from unsuccessful bid to unsuccessful bid, most of which I believe to be untrue. Then our CEO talks to the media and simultaneously all over the world millions of chap’s hands find themselves nestling into the palm of their hand.
We all know how next season will pan out so maybe we should simply fast forward to next summer.
Well quite, that is a possibility and could in fact add an element of excitement to the season.
I expect Chelsea and perhaps City to be very strong, United I am unsure about. Liverpool and Spurs will be annoying.
By the way are you attending The Orb this evening in Brixton?
Extremely so however as you point out it is a superb album with some of my favourite individual pieces of music (Spanish Castle, Outlands) and it being played in full would surely make for a tremendous evening of fun.
I tried to rally a bunch of likeminded chaps from here to travel over but to be honest some of the responses I got were rude in the extreme, too rude for such a forum.
I have had to make do with pre-ordering the live recording of same. I “pledged”, as such.