Today there is a bit of calm before the storm, as we can relax before another round of midweek matches. Everyone else plays on Wednesday, our game against Liverpool is on Thursday, so it gives Man City a chance to get some points back.
They have been hurt by the news that Josko Gvardiol needs surgery for a broken tibia. While I’m not going to sit here this morning and wish an injury on an opposition player, if you’ve been through what we’ve been through this season and the absences we’ve had to deal with, I can’t muster any sympathy for them as a club. Just one injury to a key player? Luxury, back in the day, etc. etc. Looks like they’re just going to buy Marc Guehi anyway, spend more money, no problem.
Meanwhile, this morning I had to go and see if Rio Ferdinand’s comments about how Mikel Arteta would view the Man Utd job after Ruben Amorim’s sacking were true. It seems that is the case, and in many ways that goes some way to explaining the mess that United are today. This belief that Old Trafford is an irresistible football temple may stem from the ‘glory days’ under Alex Ferguson, but that is long gone.
Old Trafford is now the residential building of stadiums, riddled with black mold, a leaky roof, and the whole thing in need of reconnecting and rewiring. United are essentially the Tottenham of the north, the place where even good coaches (metaphorically) die. The manager’s job there is a poisoned chalice where hapless ownership that has turned the employee cafeteria into a literal soup kitchen and unrealistic expectations make it virtually impossible for anyone to succeed. And Ferdinand’s arrogance to think that Mikel Arteta would, even for a second, consider leaving Arsenal for that rubbish club tells you everything.
“This is Man Utd,” he might say. No. Point to a photo of a Roy Keane-led team and say: ‘That was Man Utd’, because they were a force at the time. At the time they were a club that was difficult to say no to. These days, however, you can’t take a manager away from the Premier League leaders, especially a man who has spent years painstakingly building this team into the powerhouse it is thanks to their past. An increasingly distant past too, I would say.
Ferdinand is blinded by the beer goggles of history. What he thinks Man Utd’s status is at the moment and what it actually is are two very different things, and until there is greater acceptance of that from people like him, they will continue to flounder and stagnate. Which, by the way, I should make clear, would be very funny indeed.
Remember when Ralf Rangnick said a few years ago that the whole thing should be torn down and rebuilt, and everyone laughed at him because the results weren’t so good when he was in charge on an interim basis? If he’s one to have the last laugh, he’s breaking his ass now, I bet. As for Ferdinand’s inability to see the reality of United’s current situation and objectively assess the job Arteta has done at Arsenal, perhaps he has simply forgotten.
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Elsewhere, Declan Rice has backed Viktor Gyokeres and emphasizes that his presence up front, even if he doesn’t score as much as we would like, is positive for the team. Referring to the second goal against Bournemouth he said:
Without him making that run from Gabi’s tap and holding it, sending it to Martin, that goal wouldn’t happen. That was a crucial moment in the game for us to turn the game on its head. Believe me, he does an incredible amount for us, without him we wouldn’t be where we are today.
As I’ve said before, I think it’s natural that the spotlight is firmly on Gyokeres. The whole conversation around Arsenal’s need for a striker meant that whoever we bought would be under the same supervision, as Mikel Arteta himself. said last week the Swedish international had to deal with the noise. What is also quite clear to me is that there is room for improvement, and perhaps the first half of this season has been tougher than expected due to integration, adaptation and the lack of a real pre-season.
Nevertheless, if we have reached the halfway point of the season (more or less) with a six-point lead, I hope that the second half of his season will be better and more productive, and if that is the case, we will have a better chance of closing the distance. I suspect there’s no one more unhappy with his numbers than Gyokeres himself, and what we definitely know about him is that he’s an incredibly driven individual, so fingers crossed that produces a better end product.
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Okay, I’ll leave it at that for now. If you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, below is the Arsecast Extra, with a review of the Bournemouth game and a good chat about Ethan Nwaneri and Eberechi Eze’s situation at the moment. There’s also a nice episode of it The 30 on Patreonand a little later this morning we also have an Arsenal Women Arsecast for you.
Enjoy it, folks.
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