Monthly Archives: January 2023

Arsenal Linked with Jorginho?! – No, Please!

Jorginho: Arsenal seriously considering move for Chelsea midfielder but are  ready to do deal for Brighton's Moises Caicedo | Football News | Sky Sports

Yes, I understand that the injury scare to Thomas Partey, compounded with Mohamed Elneny’s injury and Albert Sambi Lokonga’s shitty form has made Arsenal desperately light in central midfield, but Arsenal can do better than Chelsea’s Jorginho. 

Unfortunately, Arsenal has had two bids for Brighton’s Moises Caicedo turned down, despite the Ecuadorian midfielder pulling a Trossard on his parent team. Brighton’s response to Caicedo’s antics was to give him some ‘time off’ from the team to clear his head, while they continued their business on the pitch, by recently eliminating the current FA Cup holders, Liverpool, from the competition. To a certain degree, you can understand how the upper hierarchy at Brighton feel, especially with the way they lost Trossard, who was one of their most important players, but allowing Caicedo go would set a precedence that they may not recover from. Who would be the next to go to social media to declare an exit? Kaoru Mitoma? Nah, the Japs are too honorable for that.

It is believed that Arsenal is coming back today with a monster third bid for Caicedo, but we have to see how things pan out before the transfer window closes tonight. Has the media linked us with other targets? yes! There have been the Declan Rice whispers and in as much as I love me some Rice and ofada stew, he’s West Ham’s captain, and he will, at the very least, want to steer them away from relegation waters before jumping ship. We were linked with Juventus’ Weston McKennie, but he has already moved to Leeds United on loan, which leaves me with the android Sergi Busquets, Martin ‘Azubuike‘ Zubimendi

For the life of me, I didn’t see Jorginho coming. Not for a long mile, not even over the damn horizon. 

With Chelsea closing in on a Premier League record bid for Benfica’s Enzo Fernandez, Goal.com has reported that Arsenal is considering making a move for the Blue’s midfielder, Jorginho. In recent seasons, Edu and his technical team have done so well with their transfers, and even the genuine targets that were missed like Raphinha and Mykhailo Mudryk, were downright exciting. Which is why I’m genuinely confused with the Gunners linked with Jorginho. 

First things first, the transfer dealings between Chelsea and Arsenal have been nothing to write home about in recent seasons, and one can’t look any further than Willian, that showed up on the shores of North London, and played like a true pensioner, before sodding off to the sunshine at Corinthians. There was also the David Luiz deal that leaves us with mixed emotions, but signing such a washed-up player after losing such an important figurehead like Laurent Koscielny was a bitter pill to swallow. 

Jorginho even rates lower than the Willian deal in my books because he’s expected to come into the team to deputize for Partey. Are you kidding me? I’d rather manage my underwhelming Sambi Lokonga or even draft new boy, Jakub Kiwior, to the holding midfield role before considering that footballer whose only attribute tends to be hoping to the penalty spot before converting the spot kick. Thanks, but no thanks.

To make it worse, Chelsea, in their absolute madness, want us to pay around £15 – £20m for the washed-up midfielder that has only six months left in his contract. A player that they are certain on letting go on a Bosman this summer. 

As an Arsenal supporter, I have an obligation to back the team no matter what, but decisions like this can come back to haunt us. I’m more hopeful for that monster bid for Caicedo, or for Edu to go all Fabio Vieira and Kiwior on us, getting us an unknown holding midfielder from another solar system. 

Hopefully, these links with Jorginho are just a joke, and while I hope it is, its certainly not funny. 

Sayonara.

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Partey’s Injury Scare and Thoughts on Moises Caicedo

I had started the draft for this post on Saturday night, then decided to watch WWE’s Royal Rumble in the early hours of Sunday morning. From 2.00am to 6.30am to be exact. Then I went to church and when I returned home, there was no difference between me and a polar bear that was set to go into hibernation.

So I slept, and slept, and yeah, slept. And woke up in the late hours of Sunday evening, and yeah slept some more.

When Arsenal visited the Etihad Stadium to take on the Juggernaut called Man City, it was inevitable that it was going to be an intense game and even if Mikel Arteta’s men fell short after 90 minutes, it was evident that the gulf in quality between both sides have become very close and Arsenal have massively improved under the tutelage of their Spanish head coach. When Thomas Partey was substituted at half time for Albert Sambi Lokonga, I was somewhat concerned about it and shortly after the game, there were all sorts of rumors circulating that the Ghanaian maestro had picked up and injury that would keep out for six weeks, that sent the Goonersphere into meltdown.

The manager confirmed after the game that Partey was going for a MRI scan to verify the extent of the damage to his ribs. The latest reports emanating is that Partey will be fit to play Everton but it just goes to show that Arsenal is walking on a tight rope with Partey, especially with the fact that Mohamed Elneny is out for a long time and Sambi Lokonga continues to put up underwhelming performances.

Arsenal has been heavily linked with several defensive midfielders this window, and the latest target was Brighton’s Moises Caicedo, the 21-year-old Ecuadorian that has taken the Premier League by storm with his fledgling performances for the outfit. Just like Leandro Trossard before he joined the Gunners, Caicedo took to social media to issue a ‘come and get me plea’ to Arsenal, as well as a ‘let me go’ statement to his parent club. It was clearly ill-informed on his part, but then again, Trossard’s antics in the earlier part of the fueled the fire that was used to burn the bridges he had at Brighton, but with the emergence of the electric Kaoru Mitoma and Trossard having just a year left, Brighton were somewhat comfortable letting the Belgian maverick go to North London.

Caicedo, on the other hand, is a different ball game. He’s 21, has three years left on his contract and Brighton don’t have a ready made replacement in the squad (remember he was the in-house replacement for Yves Bissouma that joined Spurs last summer, so you can understand why the club is in no hurry to let go of his services, even though they didn’t need him in their FA Cup victory over Liverpool.

It has been reported that Arsenal made two bids for Caicedo – the first worth £60m and the improved offer worth £70m, and both have been rejected by Brighton, for a player they signed for £4m.

Arsenal will need to act fast and find a backup defensive midfielder with the handful of days left in the January transfer window, with their failed pursuit of Caicedo.

Sayonara.

Man City 1-0 Arsenal: Cityzens Edge Past Gunners

Watch Nathan Ake goal for Manchester City vs Arsenal in FA Cup - Futbol on  FanNation

Match Report – Match Highlights – Post-Match Press Conference (via Arsenal.com)

Final Result: Man City 1-0 Arsenal (Ake 64′)

Arsenal XI (4-2-3-1): Turner; Tomiyasu, Holding (Saliba 46′), Gabriel, Tierney (Zinchenko 66′); Partey (Sambi Lokonga 46′), Xhaka; Saka (Odegaard 74′), F. Vieira, Trossard (Martinelli 66′); Nketiah

The biggest talking points about the heavyweight clash between Man City and Arsenal was going to be the team selection, and Pep Guardiola left no stone unturned as he fielded a fully-fledged first team lineup with Erling Haaland leading the line. Mikel Arteta on the other hand made wholesale changes from the nerve-racking win over Manchester United, giving starts to Matt Turner in goal, Kieran Tierney, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Rob Holding in defense, Fabio Vieira as the creative hub of the team, and Leandro Trossard earning his full first team debut.

Despite Man City having more possession in the final third, Arsenal had the better chances in the proceedings and almost got the lead from an unlikely source when Tomiyasu was clean on goal at the edge of the box and put his laced through the ball, but Stefan Ortega was on hand to make a strong save. Trossard was close to opening his goalscoring account with a left footed goal bound drive but Ortega was on hand yet again to make a superb save.

There were couple of times when Matt Turner was called into action, but the theme of the first half was the battle between Haaland and Holding. The Viking forward got the better of the Saxon defender times without number, to the point, Holding earned himself a booking, then I started getting some White Hart Lane vibes from last season when the defender was sent off for two bookable offenses.

At the start of the second half, Arteta made two changes that had a direct influence on the game, with William Saliba replacing Holding and Albert Sambi Lokonga replacing Partey.
Lokonga has been getting some stick from the Arsenal faithful following his inconsistent performances, and he was on show yesterday, putting up another questionable display that would do nothing to help his cause.

The deadlock was finally broken from an I unlikely source after some good work from Jack Grealish on the byline, he fed Nathan Ake that used his weaker foot to cushion the ball past Turner in the Arsenal goal. Ake was having a stormer in left back, quelling the threat of the usually dangerous Bukayo Saka.

Arteta summoned the calvary with Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard entering the fray, but Man City held to see the game through.

In the end, the stats showed how it was a very tight contest with Man City have eight shots with three on target, while Arsenal had five shots with two on target. The xG data was very close with Man City edging Arsenal with 0.51 to 0.35.

This is certainly a precursor to the all important clash in mid-february, but it’s fair to say that Round One of this boxing clash has gone to Man City. Mikel Arteta spoke about how proud he was of his players, and from the game it was very evident that they gave a very good account of themselves against the best team in the land. 

Arsenal has two fixtures against Everton, who are close to appointing the agent of Satanball, Sean Dyche, as well as hosting the impressive Brentford that beat Man City in their home turf, before hosting the Cityzens.

With the FA Cup out of the picture, Arsenal has only the League and Europa League to compete, and Arteta will want his charges to go all the way in both competitions.

Sayonara.

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