Good morning, a quick Sunday recap for you.
Mikel Arteta met the press yesterday ahead of our FA Cup tie against Oxford United on Monday night. As you can imagine, there were questions about his behavior on the touchline, but I wrote about it yesterday and I have nothing more to say about it.
Transfers were also an issue. With reports that we are increasing interest in Joao Felix as the Mykhaylo Mudryk situation progresses, he was asked if an inflated market is an obstacle to Arsenal getting value for the players they want. As we know, Shakhtar Donetsk thinks Mudryk is better than Antony, and Man United paid £80m for him, so that’s the basis of their own player’s valuation. It’s a crude measure, obviously, and one that doesn’t really stand up to much scrutiny, but it doesn’t seem like it’s budging.
Anyway, Arteta said:
You have to make assessments between the selling club and the buying club, and it’s difficult, but you can see that there are many clubs with a lot of economic power to spend large sums, and we have to compete with them.
To be smart, we have to see good opportunities and be attractive to players. At the end of the day, the players decide where they want to play, and if they want to play for our club, great.
That’s an interesting line about players deciding where they want to play. We know very well that Mudryk wants to play for Arsenal, and I suppose the club is confident that this is the decisive factor when it comes to pushing. If that turns out to be the case, we’ll have to wait. At this point, the up-front money Shakhtar want for a relatively inexperienced player seems like too much. If they have that much faith in their talent, the bonuses and incentives should be a bigger part of the deal, but let’s see.
Arteta was also asked about the return of Emile Smith Rowe, and it was immediately apparent that one player could provide depth at various positions, at least when you read what the manager thinks he’s capable of. He says:
Emile can play as an attacking midfielder, as a winger and even as a nine; I think he has played there before. First of all, we need him fit and in his prime, and when we have that, we have an incredible player who we’ve missed so much in recent months. Tomorrow he trains well, hopefully he will be available to give us something in the game.
Having him tomorrow, even from the bench, would be very positive. If you can start and get 60 competitive minutes in your legs, even better. It’s certainly a measure of how well we’ve done this season that the first game we really missed him in was the 0-0 draw with Newcastle on January 3. Our lack of attacking depth was evident, so if we can bring back last season’s second-highest scorer, and someone to give us something a little different in the final third as well, then it bodes well for the second half of the season.
Well, that’s it, but I have to mention the fact that Arsenal Women have signed a couple of players in the last two days. If you want to know more about Victoria Pelova, who joined from Ajax, and Danish international Kathrine Kuhl, we’ve got you covered. Tim has a podcast in every player, which you’ll now find on your favorite podcast app, or if you want to listen to it on the site, check it out here: Victoria Pelova ????: Kathrine Kuhl ????.
Ok, that’s all, have a nice Sunday.
