Good morning, how’s it going?
Are you accelerating towards your goal today? That is one of the new transfer buzz words, and it has become part of the lexicon in a big way of late. For example: “Arsenal are accelerating a move for Mikel Merino”, or “Talks between Arsenal and Marseille accelerated over Eddie Nketiah.”
Everyone’s accelerating all the goddam time. Pedal to the metal. How long before the transfer guys start their Tweets (which give you no new information about a potential deal other than it’s accelerating) with a VROOM! … which they’ll then trademark, and a load of blue tick wankers on Twitter who hang on their every word will buy the merchandise? Not long, if you ask me.
Anyway, based on what we’ve seen so far this summer, most of these deals have accelerated far beyond their destination and now to have to do a U-Turn and come back the other way. That must be the only explanation for why lots of them haven’t been done, despite all the high-speed movement in the right direction. Perhaps the transfer highways need better road-signs.
The latest on Merino is that he returned to San Sebastian yesterday to report for pre-season training with Real Sociedad. Much like his potential counterparts in North London, he had extra time off having gone all the way to the final of Euro 2024, so that’s fairly normal. Whether anything goes down this week, we’ll have to wait and see, but I feel pretty relaxed at the moment. I also have a sneaky feeling – based on no inside info or anything like that, just to be clear – that Arsenal might do something unexpected before the end of the window.
I could be wrong, but I just think the idea of bringing in a signing who is a bit of a bolt from the blue could be the thing to really invigorate the squad going into the new season. That kind of player would likely be a forward of some kind, which I think most people are expecting anyway if the likes of Eddie and Reiss Nelson go elsewhere, but perhaps it might be higher profile than current reporting suggests.
Unless, of course, we accelerate to 88mph just as the lightning strikes the courthouse and we end up back in 1955.
Meanwhile, Fabio Vieira was a topic of discussion on yesterday’s Arsecast Extra, and I think this is a make or break season for him at Arsenal. In pre-season he played mostly on the right-hand side, and did score a nice goal against Bournemouth in Los Angeles. However, if we’re going into a game without Bukayo Saka, I’d play Gabriel Jesus on the right every time over Vieira, and it raises questions about where exactly his best position is, and where Mikel Arteta sees him.
I don’t think he’s a wide-left player, and if Mikel Merino is signed, it looks like he’d be deployed in the fabled ‘left 8’ position, so where does that leave Vieira? For me, the obvious answer is as cover/back-up for Martin Odegaard, but while there are some similarities (left-footed, creative), I don’t know that Vieira can do what the captain does in terms of dropping deep, and being part of build-up in our half of the pitch. I don’t think I’d trust his physicality in those situations.
Right now, he is the very essence of a squad player, but without the clarity of others in the same situation. For example, I think Leandro Trossard is a squad player rather than a nailed-on starter like some others, but we know exactly where he can play and what he can do. I don’t think we know that about Vieira yet, which is quite the thing to say as he enters his third season at the club.
Perhaps that clarity will emerge over the course of this campaign, and it would be a positive, and valuable, thing for us if that happened – because we need depth this season. If Vieira gets game time in a specific position and performs well/provides some end-product, that can only be a good thing over the course of a long, gruelling season, so it will be interesting to see what Arteta’s plans are for him. If not though, he’ll likely go the way of others who fall outside of the manager’s purview, and become surplus to requirements. Let’s see how it goes.
As I mentioned, the Arsecast Extra is below if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet. More here tomorrow, news throughout the day on Arseblog News.
Have a good one!