Episode 881 - Swap shop

0:0033 days, 33 episodes, no off switch. From the goals and the glory to the politics and the problems of the World Cup, if you want soccer analysis from a podcast that's been overanalyzing the game for more than 20 years, then this is it. Join me, Max Rushton, and our expert team of soccer journalists every day of the tournament. Can England end 60 years of hurt, or will this be another year of falling just short? Probably. World Cup Daily, listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch full episodes on YouTube.

0:52Tim Stillman: Hello and welcome to a brand new Arseblog Arsecast right here on Arseblog.com. How are you? Hope you're well. Thank you very much indeed, as always, for being here. Hope you're staying cool wherever you are in the world. We've got a bit of a heat wave in Europe at this moment in time. Heat wave is such a benign term for the earth boiling to temperatures it probably shouldn't be boiling to. But I guess that's just, you know, good marketing from Big Sun or whoever it is. Anyway, wherever you are, I hope you're staying cool. It isn't too hot for you and that you're enjoying the summer as much as possible.

1:29Tim Stillman: There isn't a great deal going on from an Arsenal perspective, but obviously there are some Arsenal adjacent discussions around the World Cup. Some of the players involved, a little bit of transfer tittle tattle, but not too much and a few changes behind the scenes. So we will talk about those things in just a moment. Later on, though, I will be giving you the winners of the poorly drawn Arsenal competition. Last week, Jacob was on the podcast and we talked about his new book, After Review, which is a nice illustrated keepsake of last season's Premier League title win. So that's coming up a little bit later on.

2:04Tim Stillman: The random number generator will do its thing and pick a couple of winners. I'll let you know who they are towards the end of the show. Right. Let's just get on with it. We've got to save all the waffle for the actual show itself. And with me this morning to talk about all the bits and bobs that are going on is Tim Stillman. Good morning, Tim. Good morning. Were you up late watching Brazil last night? Yes, I was. I made it until halftime, which actually I've done with the last two Brazil games, because the other one was half one in the morning here. And the fact they were 2-0 up at halftime against two much weaker teams, I was a bit like, I think I know what the second half is going to be like.

2:44It's going to be a bit of a non-event. I was sorry to miss Endrick coming on in both games and then just looking at my timeline because that has been an international me that I've really, really enjoyed. But other than that, yeah, made it to halftime for both of those. I think the knockouts in terms of British summertime kickoff times for Brazil are a lot more gentle for us now. But my wife stayed up to watch all of them, obviously. Well, you know, she's properly committed.

3:17Tim Stillman: You're only half committed because you've got a foot in both camps, you see. So that's the way it is. From what I understand, Gabriel had a good game, but then this part of me goes, like, he pretty much always has a good game. Yeah. Yeah. I think apparently he kind of, you know, broke a record. That's probably overstating it. But the first, apparently, I can't remember who it is. I think it was SofaScore kind of posted something like, they've got stats from every World Cup since 1966 and this is the first time that someone's contested seven duels and won all of them in a World Cup game um which you know I think I think yeah that that sounds like Gabriel to me yeah and uh they posted it with a picture of him standing over Alisson I think and Alisson kind of in a crumpled heap and Gabriel kind of you know uh fists clenched, teeth bared.

4:10And if I had teeth like that, I would bear them a lot as well, to be fair.

4:14Tim Stillman: Yeah, you've got to show them off. You paid that much for them. You've got to show them off. And I looked at it and I thought, yeah, Brazil were probably 3-0 up at that point. And he probably just like saw the ball back to the goalkeeper and he celebrated it. I was going to say like he won the Champions League, but that's maybe a sore point. Too soon. Too soon. I did enjoy his comments actually this week about it. He was asked in a press conference about it and spoke about the fact that Marquinhos, who's his international central defensive partner, you know, after he missed that penalty, it was only something I became aware of later because, you know, I was just turned around in a crumpled heap in the stadium like everybody else, I think.

4:53Tim Stillman: But took the moment to give him a hug before going to celebrate with his PSG teammates. And I think that was something Gabriel really appreciated. Because even at international level, even if you do play with somebody from the same or play against somebody from the same country, that connection isn't always there, is it? And Marquinhos, I think, as well, as somebody who, I'll leave PSG in their own special box of country, but as somebody who's been there in that team for such a long time, has also experienced the dismay, the heartbreak of coming very close in Champions League finals before actually going on to win it.

5:35Yeah, he's a good egg, Marquinhos, I think. He's the captain as well of Brazil. And I think I wasn't too surprised by that moment because generally, you're right, like sometimes international teammates don't get on, they play for rival teams or whatnot. In Brazil, that tends not to be the case. There tends to be a real solidarity between them. And it's one of those national teams where the majority of players go and play in Europe or whatever and actually really enjoy coming back to their national teams and being able to speak their own language and all of that. And most of them are spread out among kind of elite European teams anyway.

6:11It's not like you've got a load of like Arsenal and Tottenham players or whatever. But the Brazilian players that live in London tend to get together quite a lot, have a barbecue and all of that. And like, obviously it's not really the same in terms of like, they don't grow up with that kind of Manchester United hate Liverpool and Arsenal hate Chelsea type thing. It's not as kind of ingrained. So I wasn't hugely surprised to see that moment. But I mean, one of the reasons I wouldn't write off Brazil in terms of winning the World Cup is their centre-backs are Marquinhos and Gabriel. And that has to be the best centre-back partnership at the World Cup, I'd suggest by some distance, like France, Saliba, Upamecano, that's very good as well.

6:55Just very happy that there are two Arsenal players that are very much in that conversation. I don't see anyone else that's got anything near that kind of, that much quality at centre-half. And I think in a World Cup, that can take you quite a long way as well.

7:13Tim Stillman: Yeah. Gabrielle Martinelli came on for Lucas Pacqueta. I assume Carlo Ancelotti wasn't playing 4-D chess and did a bit of a shuffle because Pacqueta was playing in midfield and Martinelli does not play there. Yeah, well, actually what Brazil have started doing, they're a bit more of a 4-4-2. Obviously, it's an Ancelotti team. So the idea is always let's platform our best player. And they've been playing Vinicius, not really off the left. He's been a lot more central and especially because they don't really have a striker. They kind of play Cunha there. So they're kind of playing Cunha and Vinicius as a kind of very like freeform jazz front too.

7:56So Pacitar has actually been playing a bit more like left in a 4-4-2, which I'm not sure that, well, I say I'm not sure it suits Martinelli. Like he's not like a midfielder going out to left wing, But I think you could play Martinelli there in a 4-4-2 with this kind of defensive commitment. And actually, Paqueta, I don't think that much of him, to be honest. Like, if I were Martinelli, I wouldn't be counting myself out of winning a place in this team.

8:26Tim Stillman: Yeah, well, we'll see. And obviously, two goals from Vinicius Jr. makes the race for the golden boot very interesting because he's on four now, Haaland on four now, Mbappe on four, Messi on five. So goals going in all over the place there. England struggled a bit against Ghana, and I watched this. And obviously the Ghana approach was to sit deep and frustrate England in a low block. And if you're an Arsenal fan, you probably looked at that game and had slight PTSD in some ways about what we've experienced over the course of the season. And, you know, there are obviously difficulties in trying to break down that kind of approach anyway.

9:16Tim Stillman: Are England lacking a bit of craft maybe in midfield? Is the sort of Anderson-Rice midfield duo a bit similar? Is there scope for something else? Obviously, we know Nani Matuweke, for example, is starting in the team because Bakayo Saka is dealing with this ongoing Achilles injury. and Nani is, you know, he made a decent enough chance, I think, for Declan Rice. He couldn't quite get over the ball. On the other side, I mean, if I'm a Barcelona fan watching Anthony Gordon in this World Cup, I'm thinking, what the fuck? We don't have that much money. What are we spending it on this guy for? One of football's great mysteries so far.

9:55Tim Stillman: Anyway, we'll see how it plays out. But is it a case that maybe, you know, England are going to have to think a bit differently about how they approach opposition like this? Or is it just a case of like, what the fuck can you do when they sit with all 11 men behind the ball? Well, I kind of think that this is the only game they'll play like this in the World Cup. I mean, to be fair, Panama might do something similar, but I think Ghana's in that real sweet spot where they're kind of not good enough to take England on and go toe-to-toe in the way that Croatia tried. But they're also a level or two above, let's say, someone like Panama, who probably will play a 5-4-1 and sit behind the pool.

10:38So they're kind of in that sweet spot of playing a low block, but actually being quite good as well. And, you know, they've got Semenyo on the break as well as other players. Like, they've got some good players in there. I think this is just quite a unique game in terms of what this World Cup's going to be for England. I think Tuchel probably knows that as well. Like, when it gets to the business end, I mean, it looks like England will play either Mexico or Spain in the next game. They're not going to come up against that. And then, you know, if they get through either of those round of 16, I just don't think they're going to come up against a game like this again, to be honest.

11:16And I think Tuchel's reckoned with that a little bit. And he's going very Premier League-y in terms of going quite arsenally as well, actually, because he's got those two brilliant set-piece takers. although really leaning into Declan Rice on that.

11:33Tim Stillman: Are you a bit surprised at that? Because, listen, I sort of made a joke yesterday about how England have got to get Declan Rice to do basically everything. But it did strike me as a bit strange that Rice's in-swingers for Arsenal have been so effective, but so too have the in-swingers from the other side. And Nani Matueke has a few assists. I don't think he's as good a corner taker as Bakayo Saka, but I do think he delivers a good ball and we've scored some goals. I remember Martinelli scoring a couple. It could have been in a cup game. Portsmouth. No, Portsmouth. And then there was a Zubimendi goal, I think, that one, that cracker from the edge of the box.

12:13Tim Stillman: Forrest, maybe. A couple against Leeds, yeah. Yeah, you know. So Madiweke's got that in his locker and then Saka came on and they didn't get Saka to take corners. It was like, come on, Declan, run all the way over to the other side now and take another corner. So the outswinger, inswinger thing, Maybe it's a bit of variety, but I'm a little bit surprised that if you are looking at the best set-piece team in the Premier League, which I think is evidently Arsenal, I'm not saying copy everything that we do, but to not use one of the main weapons, which is the in-swinger from the other side, seems a little strange.

12:46I do find it strange, yeah, particularly because England, even in the Ghana game, it was the in-swingers from Rice that went all the way to the back post. Those are the ones that seem to cause the most kind of issues. And quite a lot of players just can't do that. They just can't get the ball to the back post with that kind of whip and that kind of drop on it. So I am surprised they didn't use it. Like, I don't think Maduake does that, but he does like quite a good kind of near post corner. So I have been surprised by that. And it'll be interesting because I suspect Declan Rice won't play against Panama because of this kind of calf niggle he's got.

13:24I'd be very surprised if he played in that game. I'd be very surprised if England didn't think they could do something against Panama. And, you know, there are five knockout games now, right? So I think they'd be looking after their own interests by keeping Rice out of this game. So it'd be really interesting to see what they do when Rice doesn't play. Are they going to get another right footer to go for an outswinger? Or are they going to lean a bit more into like a Madueke delivery? I have found that quite strange. Yes, but overall with the Ghana game as well, I do think that there was a little bit of a subconscious context where a draw was okay for England.

14:02And I don't think that's what Tuchel would have said or would have wanted, and his substitutions didn't suggest that. I still think in the back of a player's mind, if you know 0-0 is okay, you probably don't get that extra 1-2 % if this had been a round of 32, round of 16, like we have to score type thing. I think that counts for something as well. And very, very few teams who win tournaments win every single game. They all tend to have a bit of a lag in a group game somewhere. And it's often, sometimes it's when they know they can afford it. And then sometimes you get that situation. Spain had it in 2010.

14:46Argentina had it last time. You lose the first game. And then every game after that basically becomes a knockout game. So sometimes that can serve you as well because you go straight into knockout mode. But I think with this expanded format, it's even less like that. And to be honest, I tried to watch a bit of one of the games last night and I was watching Canada-Switzerland. And particularly the first Matchday 3 games, it's kind of like we just don't know at the moment. Like Scotland have got this weird thing where they're probably out, but they won't know until Saturday night local time. So they've just kind of got to sit there and train for two days, knowing that they're probably not going to play again.

15:31And it's kind of weird. I think it does remove a lot of the jeopardy, and it has made the group stage sportingly a bit of a non-event.

15:41Tim Stillman: Yeah, and I know what you mean. And obviously for fans as well who are out there who don't know if they should go home or fuck it, I'll stay and have a few beers, you know, see what happens. It doesn't help as well when Harry Kane misses a sitter, obviously puts it over the bar from about seven yards. He annoyed me the other night, actually, because there was a cross came in, Saka went for the header, and, I mean, he didn't make good contact with it. It was just a bit too high for him. But Harry Kane was behind him sort of gesturing as if like, oh, you took away a brilliant chance from me. And it was like, you weren't even anywhere near it.

16:14Tim Stillman: What are you doing? But of course, I'm sort of predisposed not to like Harry Kane because of his connections. You mentioned Rice and the calf niggle that he has. How worried are you about that? Because ahead of the game against Ghana, he was talking about neural pain and, you know, his lower back, his hamstring, which, you know, sounds very much like a guy who you see the phrase he's been run into the ground quite a lot when talking about players. And sometimes it's accurate, sometimes it's not. In Declan Rice's case, it feels very accurate that the burden on him over the last little while has been quite significant.

16:56So how worried are you that there is a seemingly a new issue for him to deal with? Quite worried, to be honest, not least because I think there's a good chance they must be linked. You know, the calf and the hamstring type thing or the lower back. And it's one thing to try and nurse one of those things. I think it's probably not possible to nurse both. And I think it's also interesting in light of what he said after the first game where he came off with about 20 minutes to go. And he kind of said, yeah, obviously in the last 20 minutes, it's all a bit more of a strain. And that's when it happens, right?

17:30Like two minutes to go. He's the lone six now because England have thrown on all of their tens. so he's covering back into space right back down next to the corner flag big sprint and so it does look a little bit ominous to me at first I thought he'd been caught I thought like because the way he hobbled it kind of looked like oh maybe he just got a little kind of stud on the Achilles or something when he was playing the ball but I mean if it is his calf that kind of means he pulled up um you know i know the reporting like sammy mockbell was kind of saying it looks like not serious that it probably just needs rest as well but yeah i mean he the thing is he did miss some games with that issue like if i trace it back he said since christmas did he miss i think he missed the aston villa game just after christmas last season so i'm i imagine i'm tracing it back to there really and i do often see him like cradling his back um you know kind of the last 10 minutes or so.

18:33And actually, I feel like this back thing's gone on for a little while for him, that maybe it goes back to even before that. Because I know maybe two seasons ago, there were games he was substituted, kind of complaining about his back. So it does feel quite long-term. And I think it's understandable that we're worried about that because it feels like we've been here before. You know, it feels like with players like Saka and Havertz, it feels like the kind of the sirens been sounding until they do just break. And both of those players have broken in the last kind of 18 months. And it kind of feels like if we're not careful, that could be the case for Declan Rice as well.

19:17Saliba as well is saying that he's been playing with a back issue. Basically, I think Arsenal have done a lot of things in the transfer market as well that were just so focused on getting over the line and getting this title won, which I completely understand. But they maybe did some quite short-term things, maybe with players' fitness, maybe with some transfer decisions they made that were so geared on winning this title that actually now I feel like making that next leap onto the next lily pad, as it were, retaining and all of that. I think we've got quite a bit of work to do. I don't just assume we're going to turn up and win it again next year.

19:58And particularly, you know, if we're missing our best players again, which to be fair, we were last season as well. But if we add to that, if we add to the fact that we keep missing Odegaard, Saka and Havertz and we add Rice to that, like the guy just one player of the season and there's a reason for that. And I feel like, you know, if we keep extending that pool of players who have questionable fitness, like really, really big players for us, then it does feel like next season could be a real struggle for us.

20:29Tim Stillman: It is a situation, I think with Rice in particular, maybe Saka to a lesser extent, maybe this is a conversation you could have had about Saka a year ago before that big hamstring injury, that the demands on him at club level and international level were such that, you know, it feels negligent almost not to take that into account and not to give him a rest, right? So if you're stepping back and looking at this, and maybe Declan Rice plays another three, four, five games in this World Cup, who knows? If you're stepping back objectively and you're looking at it, you're saying this is a man who has played a lot, whose playing style is such that he really is committed in terms of the ground he covers and the energy he commits to every single performance.

21:18Tim Stillman: this is a man who absolutely needs a rest and it would be wrong of Mikel Arteta or Thomas Tuchel or anybody else to sort of say, right, you've had three weeks rest. We go again. At the same time, though, he's Declan Rice. And, you know, it's like there are certain players who are just so good that they're going to play all the time. Like we have it at the back with William Saliba and Gabriel. There was a little bit of management of William Saliba at times last season, but Gabriel had a hamstring injury. You remember in the early part of the season that it, I think it happened at the Emirates, didn't it?

22:01Tim Stillman: When Brazil were playing there and he missed a good few weeks. And you're thinking, okay, but when he comes back, you know, you can do a bit of hincapié, do a bit of mascara, maybe do a bit of califuri and, you know, the best players play. So that is the conundrum that Arteta faces, that Thomas Tuchel faces, that Declan Rice faces, that for all the talk of like, we have to give him a rest. And that makes every bit of common sense. It's not the way football works. No. So what do you do? I don't know. Yeah, I'm looking at some of those guys who either aren't at the World Cup or else are not going to play that much at the World Cup.

22:45So even someone like Zubimendi, right? Spain are probably going to go deep. They might even win it. I don't know how many minutes he's going to play, though. And I'm quite relieved about that. Mikel Moreno, you know, he missed a lot of last season. It wasn't a muscle injury. I think the World Cup will be useful for him in terms of just knocking some of the rough edges off. And then I'm looking at guys like Myles Lewis-Skelly, Hincapia. Did he get injured playing for Ecuador?

23:14Tim Stillman: Well, he went into it, didn't he, with a bit of a hamstring strain because he just about got through the Champions League final. Yeah, yeah. But I don't think Ecuador will go that far. someone like mascara um as well i really think lewis skelly's got a really big chance because he'll play most of pre-season and i'm sure he'll play most of it in midfield and we've seen this before where a player impresses in pre-season in a tournament summer and they stay in the team happened with wilshire kind of happened that way with fabregas as well you know these young players they got a whole pre-season under their belt and you start playing them even like something like Ben White um starting a season at right back which was at the time a temporary solution because Tommy Asu was injured and then it was like ah that works we'll keep doing that like so some of these guys have like a bit of an opportunity in the longer term but someone like Mascara for example you know during pre-season I would be preparing for him to start all of our first four five games maybe in various positions maybe one at right back you know one at right center back one at left center back you know Calafuri who by the way looks like he's having a lovely old time on holiday in Rio yeah he was in Argentina first I think and then and then he's gone to uh to Brazil yeah yeah lots of uh lots of videos of him singing samba and uh his Portuguese decent actually um so yeah like someone like Calafuri as well, like not having a summer tournament, that will be not good for him, but good for us, I think, because he's a player.

24:52I'd have been very concerned if he was going to a summer tournament and maybe like just the summer off is really what he needs to get over his kind of various injuries. So I'm looking at players like this, you know, even someone like Martinelli is not going to play a whole load of minutes at the World Cup. Like I'm looking at these guys And I'm thinking you might have to carry a bit of a burden until there's a real water break in the season this year where there's that three-week international break in September. An ad break, I think. Yeah. Hydration break for three weeks, which FIFA do not, according to Gianni Infantino, profit from, but it is sponsored by Powerade.

25:38Funny that. Yeah. So, yeah, that feels like a real watermark in the season. And I don't know, it will depend on where particular national teams are, but I'd like to think that maybe we could wriggle one or two of our players out of that, maybe, and just kind of say, look, or I don't know how many games there are going to be across that three-week period, But like, you know, Thomas maybe only played Saka and Rice for one or two of them, whichever the slightly more difficult ones are.

26:14Tim Stillman: And is it Nations League or is it European Championship qualifiers? Or I don't know either. I don't know. I'm not interested enough to know. Well, I mean, that's it. It just feels like there's so much football and so much international football. It's hard to see the wood for the trees to an extent. I did see, you know, Andrew Allen did a story on Arseblog News about, obviously, a new doctor is about to arrive or has probably arrived in a settling in now. And there's a guy joining from Rail Betis, who is a rehab specialist. So clearly, some changes are being made there behind the scenes, you know, in the medical department, physio department, player welfare department.

27:02I don't know if you can call it player welfare, but clearly it's something the club are looking at and looking at every angle for.

27:11Tim Stillman: And they're obviously aware of the demands of this summer and this summer's tournament on their players and some of their best players, obviously. But maybe doing things behind the scenes could be a bit of a help as well. Yeah, definitely. I think the speed with which the club doctor left, and I know you and James made this point a lot on the Ask Cast Extra, but just to emphasize as well, I don't think any of us should be under the illusion. Oh, the doctor, he was at fault for it all. Like we had some kind of crazy Dr. Nick type character, like just like chopping legs off and stuff like that. We're signing Mr.

27:46McGregor with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg. Or like we had some kind of like scene from Misery going on back there or anything like that. I'm not under the illusion. Oh, we've changed the club doctor. Everything's solved. But the speed with which that happened at the end of the season, you know, suggests that that was a live conversation during the season and that they didn't waste any time with that. Like, it doesn't look like, oh, we'll have a big internal review for a couple of weeks. And it feels like they were talking about that during the season. And, you know, they let the doc get his medal.

28:22Perhaps he was at the parade. I don't know. And then the day after that, there's your P45, son. Thanks for your service. So it's clearly like a very, very kind of live issue. And listen, I think we've had Mikel Arteta as our manager long enough to understand that he's quite a ruthless person like that and he will leave no stone unturned. But yeah, like clearly something had to change there, whether it's the doctor, whether it's the way they train. We had players pull out in the warm up last year, whether it's the way they warm up. None of us can know that. and i think a lot of it's a relatively inexact science anyway and the likelihood is it's quite multifactorial anyway like yeah that's just life most problems do not just have one cause um but but clearly like what what i i never doubted for a second that there would be a big kind of internal kind of bit of navel gazing about it and what can we do but i think whether you know changing the club doctor changes anything or i i don't know but i think like the swiftness with which that decision was taken tells me they're taking it very very seriously that doesn't mean they'll solve it but even if they could just alleviate it a bit like i think with the modern game and the way it is i think what arsenal have done and where they might be a bit ahead of the curve is they're just like you gotta have 25 good players like you can't you can't have like even Guardiola was very

29:56Tim Stillman: He wanted a smaller squad, didn't he? Yeah, yeah, but obviously everyone's amazing, so it's like you know, Man City would generally have 19 players that were all first 11 quality, but like, maybe you've got to knock that up to 25, and maybe you've got to you know, accept that you're going to have like, we might go into the season with Ezra, Rodgers and Odegaard you know, for that kind of number 10 position And that sounds like a lot until you think, well, probably at least one of them is going to be injured at all times. So there's probably never going to be a scenario where all three of them are fit.

30:35Tim Stillman: So, yeah, I think that is something Arteta spoke about, actually, you know, when he was asked about the demands of the modern game. And, you know, his point was there's never going to be less football. There will not be fewer games because there's too much money in the game now. So the only answer to that, and I think what he said was, we need to have bigger squads. Now, I don't know if he wants a 30-man squad, but I think your point about getting a 25-man squad where the levels are, you know, you lift the ceiling as much as you can, but you also lift the floor as much as you can, for want of a better expression.

31:13Tim Stillman: Maybe that's how you deal with it. There's an interesting, another little snippet before I have a question here for you. we've added a guy to the technical team his name is Javier Alonso not Xavi Alonso but Javier Alonso who comes from Granada he was their sporting director so clearly Andrea Berta is is doing bits behind the scenes as well and we'll see what that looks like in terms of recruitment but I did have a question that's sort of related to injuries we got a few questions from our discord and gunasaurus flex says uh with the news about our players playing through significant pain in the last few months of the season should we be concerned that the level of desire to push through and go again will be gone because we've won the league is is that a concern for you or or do you sort of think players once they get out there and once the business starts they're all so driven and ambitious and they care so much that that you know you can't just sort of say i won it last year who gives a fuck now i i think it's a justifiable concern we haven't retained a league title for like 93 years so i think it's justifiable um and and lots of players do talk about that like the the one of the most difficult like it's difficult to do it the first time but it's very very difficult to kind of get yourself up for it and go for it again and with some of the the physical issues that we might have um the on the kind of i guess positive side of that first of all i think if there's one manager who will do everything in his power to not let that happen it will be michel arteta and i've never like whatever um qualms i've had about performances about attributes maybe we're missing i've never quite i can't remember the last time i saw an Arsenal game and didn't think that every player was giving a hundred percent every single time.

33:09I really can't remember that happening. And, and so like I have, and also I don't see, and this is largely because a lot of our, the bigger clubs around us have changed managers, you know, Man City have changed manager, Chelsea have changed manager, Liverpool are changing manager so they're all a little bit unknown i would be surprised if a 90 point team emerges next season so i do think we should be looking at this and going we're going in as favorites and we have our flaws and we have things to address i think there were things i saw at the end of last season that do need to be fixed like the technical level that needs fixing we need to find a way to score more goals we're kind of we're a bit of an outlier as a league champion in terms of past completion in terms of goals scored like those things where we are in those metrics league champions tend to trend much higher and so i kind of question whether we could do last season again maybe we could because maybe that's just the way the premier league is now but i don't think we can bank on that so i think there's there's enough improvement i do also think that maybe losing the champions league final potentially ameliorates a bit of that because it gives us a sense of unfinished business i think if we'd won both trophies and don't get me wrong i'm not saying it's a good thing we didn't like sure sign me up for both of them but that's how our season ended Our season ended on a painful final defeat.

34:49And in terms of hunger, that could, I say, be useful. I wouldn't go that far, but it could stop that sense of like, okay, we've kind of done it now because there's still a competition where we've literally never done it to go for. And I do think this group of players should be looking at themselves and saying, we're all somewhere between 25 and 27 years old. guardiola's gone klopp's gone this is our window like we could really win the next two or three or win like four of the next five or whatever until we really have to refresh this group which is going to be a massive challenge yeah yeah um and one i suspect another manager might take on actually no i i agree with that as well yeah because i think we're looking three four years in the future, right?

35:38I think Arteta will probably sign another contract, hope he does, and it will probably be a three or four-year deal or something. And then at that point, a lot of our big, big players who are going to be so difficult to replace, that might get left to someone else. And I wouldn't blame Arteta for doing that. And he'll have been at the club a long time by then.

35:57Tim Stillman: You just need to find the next Declan Rice, the next Bakayi Misaka, the next William Saliba, the next Gabriel, the next David Raya, the blah, blah, blah. Good luck to that man. because that's where Liverpool are now right it's like where's the next Mohamed Salah where's the next Van Dijk where's the next Mane thankfully we don't have to think about that for a few years what we should be thinking about is the next three or four years they could and should be ours certainly domestically I think so I hope that kind of keeps the players hungry a little bit but again I wouldn't be surprised again like almost talking like the England-Khana game again just subconsciously it might and we all remember what per mertesak said after winning the world cup in 2014 he was very honest and said like first couple of months of the next season were difficult because like i'd achieved the biggest thing i was ever going to achieve in my career and he possibly never came back from that to the level that he was before that apart from the 2017 FA Cup final.

36:59Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so I think that's a justifiable concern, but at the same time, I think, you know, there are potentially things in place to, to, yeah, to amend for that a little bit. There's a question here

37:14Tim Stillman: from Andrew who says, and this is seeing as we're talking about Mikel Arteta, he says, every season so far, Mikel Arteta has learned something about the team and addressed it through transfers. My question is about Mikel himself. What do you think he learned last season about his coaching or management of the team and how he will address it next season? I actually think that is possibly Arteta's biggest strength is identifying, if not an area of weakness, an area for improvement. And that could be of the team and it can also be of himself. You know, there were questions early on, like, is he any good at substitutes?

37:53Tim Stillman: and then I think last season we had more goals from substitutes than any other team. So it is something he overfixes. Sometimes he does overfix. Yeah, I agree with that. But do you think there's something in a season where he achieved something that was obviously fantastic and amazing and we all loved so much, is there still room for self-recrimination, if that's the right way to put it, or a brutal assessment of your own performance that you think, well, how do I, let's say, deal with the EFL Cup in a way that might not be in the grand scheme of things, something that affects us later in the season, if that makes sense.

38:47Tim Stillman: Like there's certainly that little blippy time where we lost to Manchester City. I saw conversations of people go, well, you see, if we didn't take the EFL Cup seriously, we'd have more energy for games like this. And that's our fault for trying to win every game. But at the same time, you want to have this culture of, well, every game matters and every performance matters. And when you pull on the shirt, you can't be half-arsed. You know, we've seen that happen before. Nobody likes it, whether it's the EFL Cup or anything else. When you see players and you go like, nah, they don't really give a fuck about this game.

39:19Tim Stillman: You know, even if you understand it, you don't like it as a fan. So I think it is an interesting question about Mikel himself. Yeah, I have this conversation with Elliot a lot because he's very like, you know, like the EFL Cup on fire and throw it in the bin, which I completely understand. I just, I don't think that's how it is. I don't think it's that we prioritize it and focus on it. It all comes down to the draw. And actually what's happened in the EFL Cup the last couple of seasons, we've had a pretty smooth run to the semifinal. you know we've had some quite kind draws like you know we had portvale away in the third round last year like we'd have to do something pretty catastrophic to lose that game um i think and there have been seasons when the draw is harder we go out earlier um you know we had a couple of years in a row in the fa cup we went out the fa cup in the third round the year before last against man united we were out in the third round the year before that against liverpool we went out in the fourth round a year before that against Man City.

40:23So I don't think the evidence stacks up that Arteta really prioritises the Cups. I think it just depends on the draw. And the truth is, and like the FA Cup last year, the draw just opened up for us. We got Portsmouth, Mansfield. We had a pretty gentle run to the quarterfinal. Even the quarterfinal, we got a championship team and eventually we went out there and we played our second team really. so I guess what it comes down to with the EFL Cup is once you get into the semi-final what kind of team do you play and I guess really the only I think the only space there is just throw the semi-finals as well and you know we've got a big enough squad to do that and maybe not take that

41:09Tim Stillman: seriously maybe but how do you not take a semi-final seriously when you're playing Chelsea as well. Who would have been happy about losing to Chelsea? And we still did make some decisions in those games. It wasn't quite full throttle. So I think it just depends on the draw. If we get Man City away in the third round of the Carabao Cup next year or whatever the hell it's called now, we'd probably go out. We might well go out. I just think the EFL Cup has opened up for us in the last couple of years. And I don't think that will necessarily hold again in terms of what else Arteta could analyze. I mean, I think there's a lot, what's fascinating for me about next season.

41:53I think we lost some points this season because of anxiety. Like I look at that Bournemouth game, maybe the Man United home game, Wolves away. I think we lost some points because we were just a bit scared. And that shouldn't happen next season. Now the monkey's off the back.

42:12Tim Stillman: Does that also connect to the point that you made earlier on about goal scoring and about scoring more goals, that anxiety is obvious when you've got a one-goal lead or you're drawing a game, you know, and you're thinking, okay, well, you know, we've got to score again to get three points or we don't want to lose or don't want to concede again because we're going to drop two points because the margins are small. Is that, do you think, part of the way that he might approach that aspect of the little weakness that we had? Because we did have, if you go back over last season, we conceded quite a lot of late goals.

42:52Tim Stillman: And I think one or two, that's fine. That can happen over the course of a season. if it's seven or eight which i think it was i'd have to go back and look properly but i remember going through them in one of the blogs a couple of months ago when it's that number that's an issue that's a sort of a crack in the in the facade a little bit definitely it the success rate of trying to hold one nil was variable last season when we did it we all kind of came away saying well we're really good at that because we've got really good and i kind of think we are generally i I think our success rate at doing that would probably be higher than anyone else in the league.

43:33But it was still probably about 50%. We did get pegged back in quite a few games. So I definitely think there's that part to it. I wonder, in terms of self-reflection, I wonder if he'll look at how he managed that Bournemouth game. And this might be post-hoc kind of stuff, but they're kind of really trying to G the crowd up and all of that. This could be just totally outcome-based, and that might not have had an impact at all. But maybe you'll look at that and say, yeah, actually, maybe I cranked the pressure up at a time when I maybe could have taken it down a little bit. And actually, I think he did kind of change.

44:11When we lost that Man City game and it became like, you know, the five-game playoff, I think he did tone it down a little bit. And he wasn't defeatist about it. He was still like, you know, using phrases like, this is a beautiful opportunity and all of that. But I think he did less of the kind of riling up type of stuff. Yeah, yeah. And it was a little bit more even-keeled. Maybe he'll look at something like that. But when it comes to our attack, honestly, I think the best thing that can happen is that Saka, Havertz, and Odegaard are fitter. I think it's very unlikely we're going to be able to buy any players better than that in the transfer window.

44:54I think if they are fitter, we will look better in attack. I kind of think it's that simple.

45:00Tim Stillman: I don't disagree with that. I do think that adding something to the forward line is quite important, whether it's different qualities, different skill sets, a bit of youthful exuberance, whatever it might be. We had a couple of questions then because obviously our leading scorer last season was Victor Jokeres, a player around whom there was always a lot of debate, a lot of discussion. So we had a couple of questions on this. Medfly says, with the recent revelation from Hand of Arsenal that Victor Jokeres would possibly be part of a deal for Julian Alvarez, how damaging would it be for his morale if it didn't happen?

45:39Tim Stillman: I wouldn't feel great if I was a striker. It came out they were looking to move me on after one season. And John Larkin says, Jokeres isn't everyone's cup of tea, but the man moved heaven and heart to come play for us last summer. Am I the only one feeling a bit uncomfortable with the report that we're considering getting rid of him in a deal for a player, Julian Alvarez, who we aren't even the preferred club to join? Like, I think, you know, if you offered any Arsenal fan, or maybe most Arsenal fans anyway, the chance to sign Julian Alvarez this summer, they'd probably say yes, because he is a really, really good player and an impressive player and who does have experience in England.

46:19Tim Stillman: I feel personally like that situation is kind of messy. I'm not sure what Andrea Berta's relationship is like with Atletico Madrid because he did seem to get pushed out a little bit before he ended up joining Arsenal. There were reports of falling out with Diego Simeone, which I wouldn't imagine is too difficult to do for anybody, not least someone who's working in close quarters with him for like 10 years. I'd say there comes a point where it's like, I need to get away from you. But the Alvarez situation feels a little bit messy. And like you hear these reports or you read these reports about high profile swap deals.

47:06Tim Stillman: They fucking never happen. They just never happen. And it's sort of like, well, they're prepared to use X player as a make way in this deal. But the reality is that you just never see or very, very rarely see a big name player being used as a swap for another big name player. Yeah. So, I mean, on one hand, if this was to happen, it's a bit Ramsdale, isn't it? It's a bit Ramsdale for Raya potentially. So, you know, we have done that. we have kind of gone there my concern about it is less over that um because i kind of think a player would get over it it actually um it happened in the women's team like when arsenal first tried to sign alessia russo they kind of um they potentially like moot floated um a swap deal with stina blackstenius and i think that was a bit awkward but it's like three and a half years later and she's still here and she's just signed a new contract like time's passed everyone's got over it type thing i think my concern with it i don't actually know how good julian alvarez is if i'm completely honest now i don't watch um very much spanish football but he he doesn't strike he strikes me as a really good player i'd be very happy to add him but he doesn't like he didn't strike me as that oh my god like we must like this player will completely transform us type thing maybe i'm wrong about that but also like i think as much as i've been critical of jokeres and as much as i still have my doubts he does something really useful for us in terms of the type of player he is i kind of want that option in the squad particularly when our other striker is Havertz.

49:02I think he very much diverges in profile from that. And I think that's useful. What I would really like to happen is for Havertz to stay fit and Jokeres to kind of become almost what we always wanted Giroud to be, which was really, really good option to have, really good guy to bring on, really good guy to play in certain games. But actually, I just don't want in playing every single game all the time. And what's kind of really curious about Jokeres is he has scaled up exactly what he did in Portugal, which is he scores against all the teams in the bottom half of the table. And that's actually really useful for a team like Arsenal who do not have that kind of Erling Haaland, Mo Salah type, this guy will definitely score home and away against like Crystal Palace and West Ham and all of that.

49:52And I do think Jokeres is a really useful player to have in that respect. And I just wonder if Alvarez and Havertz is a little bit more of the same and robs us a little bit of that diversity. And is Alvarez, how many goals did Jokeres score last season? 21. 21.

50:10Tim Stillman: And Alvarez scored 20. Yeah, yeah. Okay. He got eight goals in La Liga in 29 appearances. He got 10 goals in the Champions League in 15 appearances. That's quite interesting. But I also kind of think the Premier League, like we want someone who's going to score in the Premier League against teams that are quite good and quite good at doing low blocks. So if we substituted Alvarez for Jokeres, I wonder if we'd be giving up some goals. And I'm not sure we're a team that can afford to give up some goals. I do think that in lieu of a real safe bet as a goal scorer, having a guy who beats up on the bottom half of the table is actually really useful to us.

50:58So I'm a little bit, I'm just not sure about giving that up and what we get in return. Whereas I think a player we get in return might just have a lot of the qualities we kind of already have, which is fine if he's like just notably better than everyone we have which he might be i did like i said i don't watch enough spanish football but i'm just a little bit dubious about where that spectrum meets in the middle is he good enough that we give up a player with those qualities does he replace those goals does he raise our ceiling enough the answer to all of those might be yes but i'm just a little bit if you were telling me for the sake of being a bit crude uh real madrid are going to take jokeres and we'll get vinicius jr in return yes i'm taking i'm taking that all day long like if you want 50 million plus jokeres for vinny jr i'm doing that because he is going to like just raise the level of what we're capable of in attack and i'm just not convinced that Alvarez is definitely that player.

52:06Tim Stillman: Yeah, I think if it was an uncomplicated situation, it might be one that you could pursue more vigorously. But I think obviously the fact that he clearly wants to go to Barcelona and Barcelona clearly want him and Atletico Madrid are having none of Barcelona's bullshit, which is fucking great to see, by the way. Listen, I would take him, but I also think we need three strikers. I think we need, you know, Havertz, there's a good interview with Kai Havertz in the Guardian with Nick Ames. It's just sort of a throwaway line where he's talking about the injuries. And he sort of says the last 18 months have been bad and challenging because obviously he had the hamstring surgery.

52:50Tim Stillman: Then he had that knee injury at the start of last season, which kept him out for half the season. When he came back, I think we saw what the plan was. You know, ultimately at the end of the season, we saw what the plan was when everyone was fit. Mikel Arteta started Kai Havertz. He started Kai Havertz in a Champions League final. Champions League final and Man City away. Yeah, exactly. Started him there, which isn't to diminish Jokeres in any way, because I think the role, you know, when they sat down and thought about, right, who are we going to bring in? What way are they going to complement each other?

53:22Tim Stillman: If Jokeres is, for want of a better expression, a little bit of a flat track bully and he's going to score against all the teams in the bottom half of the league, that's fucking brilliant. That is a very, very good thing to have. And we can use him there and then we can keep Kai a bit on the, you know, it didn't work out like that. But I do think we need a third striker. I think Jesus will go. Myself and James talked about it the other day. So I don't really want to get into that again. But maybe just somebody with a slightly different profile to both of those players is something we're going to look at in the transfer market.

53:51Tim Stillman: And I think Alvarez is that. But I also think it's really complicated. Also a really, really expensive deal to do with Atletico Madrid. There's a question here from Kenyon Fjordkarst, who says, how much stock should we put into the rumours of Odegaard leaving, or at least the club being willing to let him go? And that was something that was sort of doing the rounds. I'm like an Odegaard advocate. I think his issues are fitness, and that's a discussion I think you can have. And I think that's a very reasonable discussion to have about Martin Odegaard after the last 18 months or so. Like Havertz, he had a big injury and hasn't quite looked the same since.

54:31Tim Stillman: But in terms of the quality of the player, I find it really strange that people are dismissing the quality of Odegaard. I know we're not seeing it as much, but surely the last three or four years before he had those injuries is enough evidence of what he can actually do with a football. yeah it's what's interesting to me here is has he got two years left on his deal at the moment and we're not hearing about contract talks which suggests there's a little bit of doubt um yeah 2028 2028 yeah yeah and unless that's just happening very very secretly and we don't know about it it suggests that there's a you know at least a question mark there i I wouldn't give him up in a million years at the moment.

55:18And the reason for that is, again, I actually picked this up in my column a little bit this week. We don't have another player like that. That's the thing. I think if we sell Odegaard, we sell one of our only attacking midfielders who really looks after the ball at an elite level. And there are a lot of games where that clearly means a lot to us. Odegaard starts a lot of games, even if he's perhaps at the moment not quite what he was a couple of years ago where it's like, come hell or high water, he's playing every minute of every game. But there are games where we prioritise control of the ball.

55:57And he has to play those games because Ezzer can't really do that. If we sign Morgan Rodgers, he can't really do that. At a minimum, we have to have that option. So I think if we sell Erdegaard, we just have to go out and buy another player like Erdegaard, which I kind of regard as a bit pointless. I know we're going to have to probably make some sales that might be a bit questionable. Generally, if you're going to make money from a sale, it has to be a bit questionable. If you're selling someone you don't want, you're not going to bring in a lot of money for them.

56:29Tim Stillman: The Ethan Wannery edict, perhaps you might call it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I wouldn't give this player up because I think we'd just have to go out and buy another one. And for me, the one I'd potentially look at as the debate and the question mark, if we're bringing Morgan Rodgers in, I think you start to ask if Ezzer, like what's Ezzer's role? I think that's more where I would, I'm not particularly inclined to get rid of him either. I'd rather maybe just sell one of the left wingers. But I think that would be a bigger question if we bring Morgan Rodgers in because Rodgers and Ezzer are quite similar players.

57:07So, again, it kind of comes down to profiles. I know I'm probably coming off on this as don't sell anyone, like hold on to all of them for dear life. But I kind of think like there's a profile question there around Jokoraz and Erdegaard for completely different reasons. I just kind of think we need a player like that at a very high level in our squad.

57:30Tim Stillman: No, I completely agree. We need creativity, we need craft, and he is a guy who can do that in ways that are different from anybody else that we have in the squad. And yeah, it's either keep him and get him back to full fitness, or if you are going to make the decision or sell him, then you have to find another player with that kind of ability in the final third. I know we haven't seen as much of it as we would like, but I really do think he's a player we should... Well, he's a player you really, really have to consider very carefully. You can't just sell him and not replace him, or you can't just sell him and replace him with Morgan Rodgers.

58:04Tim Stillman: I just don't think for a team like Arsenal, and we've talked about goal scoring, you need somebody to make those chances and somebody who's got that vision. Just finally, this is quite an interesting one, or a funny one anyway, Sanket, who's on the Discord, says, Ramsey or Wilshire now as managers? I do think that's quite interesting, isn't it, Ramsey? And Jack Wilshire, obviously manager of Luton Town, and Aaron Ramsey this week appointed head coach of Oxford United, another one of Arsene's pupils now becoming the teacher. Yeah, yeah, really interesting. And they both seem really, really invested in the idea as well.

58:42I know Ramsey did a lot of work before the end of his career. I think what's also interesting is both of them had injury issues, right? And they probably had a lot of time to think about this. Unfortunately, as young men, they got big injuries and they probably both had an idea that they weren't going to be playing until they were in their late 30s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's quite interesting that they've both really thrown their lot in and it's not the first real managerial role for either of them either. Ramsey had that little caretaker spell at Cardiff, which must have been very difficult for him because they went down and that's his boyhood club.

59:22That's a traumatic thing to go through. You look at Alan Shearer had that with Newcastle, never went back to management.

59:29Tim Stillman: That's true, yeah, yeah. whereas Ramsey's obviously not been put off by that experience. Wilshere, we know because he was at Arsenal, we know he interviewed for other positions that he's very ambitious about, you know, his managerial career and the idea of being a manager. So it is really interesting that both of them have gone into it. Like I say, I suspect they both just had to reckon with a very, sadly, a very early point in their career that they had to think about post-career. And they've both decided, at least for now, they've both decided that management's really for them. They've both shown a willingness to start relatively low down, which, again, top class British footballers don't always do.

1:00:15Some of them don't think they have to do that and end up on fucking Piers Morgan's podcast, whinging about it, which is not where anyone wants to be, really.

1:00:28Tim Stillman: they've both well some people want to be but you know they're people of a dubious character i think we should say you know they've they've both got yeah luton i i you know yep i'll take that oxford i'll take that like they're both um you know very prepared to do that which i think is is very very admirable because both of them are big name players and they could easily sit around whinging about how they should have this job and that job i think there are some big former arsenal players we all love, who probably in that bracket as well, shall we say, who are maybe looking at Mikel Arteta and saying, oh, that should have been me, really.

1:01:09So good luck to both of them. I really, really hope both of them do really well. I'm really struck by Wilshere as well, how much he seems to have, at least from a distance, matured. Because as a player, I mean, obviously he came into the team very young, but you know as a player perhaps he and I don't say this pejoratively I think it's completely natural for a guy comes into a team like Arsenal at the age of 19 perhaps he lacked that maturity sometimes I do think perhaps he put his body through too much didn't listen to his body I think sometimes he tried to be a bit too should we say British like I'm going to crash into all the challenges as well and like no you're not that kind of player Jack but actually as a manager like both when he was at Arsenal and the youth teams.

1:01:56And I've, I've listened to a few of his interviews at Luton, like, you know, he's like, cause he's still only like, is he 34? Yeah. He's young. Like he's. Yeah. 34. Incredibly young, you know, to be a manager. And, you know, he, he, he, he sounds like he's, he's really, really matured. I think, I don't think that's ever been an issue for Aaron Ramsey, particularly. So like really fair play to both of them. I really hope both of them go on to have really good careers, not least because particularly in Jack's case, I don't think their careers delivered what they should have delivered due to injuries.

1:02:34So I really hope they can make up for some of that as managers.

1:02:37Tim Stillman: Yeah, I think with Wilshire, you know, people think about the FA Cup celebrations and getting on the mic and he's had a few beers and maybe he's, you know, Jack the Lad kind of a guy. But I, listen, I don't seek out talk sport at all, ever. But I have seen him on the radio quite a few times. And he's a smart guy. You know, he thinks about football in an interesting way. And, you know, obviously Aaron Ramsey, a little less of a character, perhaps a little more vanilla, even though vanilla is great, by the way. So, you know, let's see how they go. And let's never forget that Aaron Ramsey refused to shake Piers Morgan's hand.

1:03:23Yes, which is a great sign of character. I also say as well, if you're Ramsey, like it's not a massive jump to the Wales job. I don't think. Craig Bellamy's had it. Gary Speed, obviously very tragic what happened there. But Gary Speed had it with not much managerial experience. Chris Coleman had it. Like, I kind of think if he does well at Oxford, he could get the Wales job. And I'm sure he's got that in his mind as well. A final question.

1:03:54Tim Stillman: Just quickly, because I know this is something you've talked about a bit on the Arsenal Women Arscast, but it's obviously been quite a busy summer for Arsenal Women in terms of departures as a lot of names have gone. That obviously suggests that there's going to be some business coming in. Are you expecting things to start moving quickly? Yes. So what happens in the women's transfer window is that there's a lot more free transfers, transfer fees, not a big thing yet. Contracts run down. There are at least four players, big players who are coming in on Bosman deals. Arsenal are very straight laced and do not announce those until the contracts have expired.

1:04:39So probably next week, week after, you'll start seeing announcements for players like Georgia Stanway, who I'm sure even if you have no interest in women's football, I'm sure you know that name, England International. Ona Barche, one of the best fullbacks in the world as well. We broke the story about Geraldine Reuteler, a Swiss midfielder who's going to come in as well. There are a couple of others linked. But the summer in the women's football calendar before July, it's all about the free transfers. That's all you hear about. That's what's getting done at the moment. And then when we tick into July and all those are done, then you start getting the paid transfers.

1:05:16And that's the section of the summer Arsenal are coming into. I am expecting them to be busy. And for a few more players to be coming in, I would expect at least one quite big money signing, albeit the players that are coming in on free transfers, they're 27-year-old internationals who've won everything. They're going to be on big money. But I'd expect Arsenal to go big somewhere, maybe in the attack and secure like a relatively expensive signing, should we say. And yeah, I think stuff like that will start coming out in the next few weeks, hopefully via us. We'll see. There's more competition for breaking these stories nowadays.

1:05:58Tim Stillman: Well, that's it. It's going to be busy. The people should keep an eye, obviously, on Arseblog News and the dedicated Arsenal women's section, which you take care of and break many stories on. Right. We better leave it there. Stay cool as much as you can in the heat of London. It's not quite as warm here in Dublin, and I'm already kind of feeling a little bit sticky and it's going to get warmer here today. So stay cool and we'll talk to you soon, Tim. Thanks a million. My pleasure as always.

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1:07:08McDonald's at the FIFA World Cup 2026. Hello, I'm Max Rushton. The World Cup is back and Football Weekly is going daily. If you want award-winning soccer coverage from a podcast that's been overanalyzing the game for more than 20 years and still hasn't run out of opinions or just repeats the same ones over and over again, this is where you'll find it. We'll be producing 33 daily episodes across the tournament, breaking down all the action, the results, and of course, the drama. Can the US make it out of the group stage and into the spotlight on the biggest stage? World Cup Daily, listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch full episodes on YouTube.

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1:08:21Tim Stillman: Thank you very much indeed to Tim. You can find him on Blue Sky. He is at tim-stillman.bsky.social at tim-stillman.bsky.social and remember, for all the breaking news with Arsenal Women and transfers and stories, you can check out all the stuff Tim and the crew put together over at arseblog.news. Right, we had a competition last week, a chance to win a copy of After Review from poorly drawn Arsenal. The question was very, very simple. I asked you who was on the front cover. The answer was Mikel Arteta. He was the man on the cover or is the man on the cover of the book. The random number generator has done its thing.

1:08:59Tim Stillman: And the winners are Kate Lennon and David Dargill. Well done to you. I'll be in touch. Bear in mind that the book is not yet out. It's not going to be released for another little while. Jacob is doing all the pre-orders and stuff. So it's going to be a little later, but we will organize those prizes to be sent out to you as soon as the book is ready. And if you want to order, I think June 30th is the end of pre-orders. So once again, you will find a link to the book in the show notes and you can make a pre-order there and support the great work that Jacob does. Right. I'm going to leave it there for now.

1:09:33Tim Stillman: We've managed to squeeze quite a bit out of nothing much. So I hope you enjoyed the show as always. If you like it, please do give us a review on the podcasting platform of your choice. It always helps. As ever, we appreciate you being here for listening, downloading, subscribing and everything else. So for now, take it easy, folks. You can join myself and James on Monday for an Arsecast Extra. Until then, though, take it easy. Cheers. Bye-bye.

1:10:35Since you are rooting for me'

1:10:48meaning only eternity clay tonight

1:11:15Welcome back to Sky Sports. News and we have some breaking news direct from the World Cup FIFA president Gianni Infantino has announced that he has hired legendary film director Christopher Nolan in an effort to get fans back on side with the hydration breaks. Nolan according to Infantino will make a hydration break within a hydration break but also make time go backwards so you can have another hydration break within the hydration break that was already within the other hydration break. Apologies, sounds like we had a bit of feedback on the microphone there. What the fuck is Leonardo DiCaprio doing here?

1:12:01I think we need to take a commercial break. When we return, Sam Allardyce is here to explain to us why George Clooney was a better Batman than Christian Bale.

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