Well good morning to you, it’s weird when international breaks, life kind of goes back to being about family and work and stuff?
Boring.
I also have to try and entertain you with more jokes rather than hard hitting whining.
I’m sorry about the jokes.
Onto football:
We’re being quite heavily linked to Darwin Nunez of Benfica. Word on the street is Edu flew his BBQ into Benfica and invited him to chat. A ‘Charm offensive’ as it was put. This is certainly the most ‘I’ve worked with Guardiola’ move of Arteta’s career, we’re raiding a club Manchester City has had rich pickings from.
Darwin Nunez fits the new Arsenal profile and would be VERY on strategy.
For starters, he has a £60m name. He sounds like a pop star. I would buy the album.
He’s also 6ft2, fast, good in the air, and a bit of an all-action hero. I saw him compared to Edison Cavani, which I quite like. Most importantly, Darwin scores goals, racking up 26 goals this season, 4 in 8 in the Champions League. He’s the sort of pedigree striker the club will most certainly have on their list. He’s Uraguguan, he’s in Europe, he’s delivering: not sure there’s ever much doubt about the sort of person it takes to make it out of that country as a professional footballer. He will have character by the bundle, aggression is part of their DNA. Soft is not part of the dictionary in that neck of the woods. He’s 22 years old with 120 games of first-team experience across 3 clubs. He has the sort of hyper-specificity we need, namely: speed, two-footed, tall, aggressive, great one-touch ability, headers, good box play… goals.
Buying from Portugal can be a little bit hit and miss, but I would say more hit than miss. The biggest miss of all time was Mario Jardel who was great on Champ Manager but terrible when he moved out of Portugal to BOLTON… Mangala was pretty average at City… Jackson Martinez was shocking at Atleti… Remember Anderson at United, he was so bland!… and Boswinga was a big miss during the early years of Chelski.
Can’t knock the hits thought: Cancelo, Carvalho, Ronaldo, Falcao, Moutinho, Jota, WOLVES, Jorge Mendes, probably Dias, CEDRIC SOARES!
I like that Arsenal aren’t going for a mega elite / obvious name. Haaland, however you feel about him, is still a mad signing for anyone considering the cost (£350m all-in). How many more goals can you guarantee he’ll get than Nunez who will be about 2/3 the price? How many more shirts does Haaland sell? The only guarantee in this world right now is Mbappe… who was offered £50m to stay at PSG. We won’t be in for him… wish we’d just give his crew the £7m they wanted way back when. But, you know, ethical standards and class…
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William Saliba sent his devoted group of Ultras into a meltdown again.
“I never hid that I felt good here, but I don’t know my future,”
“I think there will be discussions afterwards, at the end of May-beginning of June, with Arsenal and Marseille, we will decide at that time. But it is sure that continuing here would not be a bad idea, on the contrary, I know the city, my teammates, my coach.
“But it doesn’t just depend on me. We’ll see how it will go, but it also depends on Arsenal who must give the agreement, we’ll see.”
If it’s going to work for him at Arsenal, he’ll need to sign a new deal, then accept that he is part of a 4 person center-back crew and the junior member of that.
I suspect that he’ll be looking at what’s going on at Arsenal and want to be a part of a squad going places. He’s an Arsenal fan, he’s big into his career, he knows there’s no better place for him to be.
The only question is over Arteta’s preference. Does he fancy him? It’d be a very hard sell for him to tell the fans a 21 year old that’s in the French national squad doesn’t have the minerals to make it into the Arsenal squad next season. Managers do have their odd quirks though… so who knows.
What you can now say quite confidently is:
We have to respect the decision, which I imagine is to keep him, because anything else will result in protest by a hoard of 14-year-olds at The Ems.
I think Holding, Saliba, White, and Gabriel is quite the setup next season. That’s a Champions League defence for the next 5 years with the average age 23.75. How many clubs in the Premier League could boast such quality at such a young age. I’ll give you a clue: ABSOLUTELY NONE
Ok, that’s enough glorious content for you for today. I am working on getting a podcast for the weekend. Might invite some new people because I am sick of Johnny Cochrane flaunting himself for TV. Check out his latest video, funny, sure, but ultimately a big betrayal of The Arsenal Opinion. HR is on it.
Did a little report on the latest England squad for @DiyPundit on @btsport
As usual it’s completely free of bias!#ArsenalOpinion #Arsenal pic.twitter.com/3b3FYvPxxs
— Johnny Cochrane (@iJohnnyCochrane) March 23, 2022
Listen to him in his REAL home below.
