International football has taken center stage at this point of the season, and while we look the adrenaline rush from the intense drama the Premier League offers, as well as what’s brewing up in the Champions League, it’s always nice to take a step back and bask on what has been a grueling campaign for everyone associated with Arsenal.
With 28 games played in England’s elite division thus far, Arsenal is currently in pole position, having scored the most goals (70), conceded the least (24) and are level on points with Liverpool, while Manchester City is just one point off the mark. This has been one of the most pulsating title races in recent memory, and it’s going to take another twist and turn when Manchester City hosts Arsenal immediately after the break.
Arsenal has a plethora of players that have been on international duty and it’s good to see Oleksandr Zinchenko and Jakub Kiwior pick up European Championship play-off final berths following their vital wins in the past days. Yesterday was more focused on friendly matches, with England (Aaron Ramsdale and Declan Rice), Belgium (Leandro Trossard), France (William Saliba) and Germany (Kai Havertz) available for selection.
Ramsdale, like at Arsenal, spent the entire 90 minutes on the bench, as Gareth Southgate favored Jordan Pickford between the sticks when England locked horns with Brazil. Rice, as the minutes monster we expected him to be, played 90 minutes, making 73 passes (91 percent), two chances created, 91 touches, 21 passes to the final third, won 100 percent of his tackles, had seven recoveries, won 75 percent of his ground duels and won 100 percent of his aerial duels. You know, a typical monster Declan Rice performance. At Arsenal, we just say its Declan Rice on Saturday.
However, Endrick scored the only goal of the night as England lost the tie. Southgate is sitting on a gold mine with the level of talent at his disposal and of course, a friendly match against Brazil will not be used to grade him, but anything less than a semifinal berth this summer should be labelled as a massive underachievement, as this England team is the best there is right now.
Elsewhere, Trossard played only 45 minutes in Belgium’s stalemate with the Republic of Ireland, starting from the left wing, before he got replaced by Jeremy Doku. Trossard had an underwhelming performance by his fair standards, creating only one chance, and not registering any shot. The only noteworthy highlight of the match was Evan Ferguson firing a rather tame penalty that was saved by Mats Sels.
Saliba didn’t feature in France’s surprise defeat to Germany, but Havertz continued his fine form, scoring a well-taken goal after receiving a pass from Jamal Musiala. That was Havertz’s fifth goal in seven games, and he will be looking to continue this form when he returns to Arsenal. I just remembered that Havertz was deployed as a left back when he featured for Germany in the last international window.
Moving to more Premier League-centric news, two of Arsenal’s Premier League matches in April have new dates due to TV broadcasting, while the postponed clash with Chelsea has also been rescheduled. The visit to Molineux to play Wolverhampton Wanderers have been moved to 7.30pm on April 20th to allow it to be shown on Sky Sports, while the home clash with Chelsea has been moved to 8.00pm on April 24th. The initial clash with Chelsea had to be deferred to their FA Cup commitments.
Well, that’s your lot for this evening.
See y’all tomorrow.
Sayonara.
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