Arsenal’s Form Isn’t Good, But Is It Good Enough?

31:27I think we're going to win the league because we give very little away, generally speaking, and against most teams, that will get you a result. And we're no longer, I think, in the 90-plus point era. so like I think basically Arsenal are going to be able to win the league in the context that the league exists this season and that that's what pretty much everyone does right how did Liverpool win it last season Arsenal and Man City were wrecked by injuries that was the context within which they were operating it happens all the time you get a season where stuff happens to your rivals stuff happens to the style of the game and and things like that or your rivals go through a bit of transition or whatnot but but we're going through transition as well we've had bad injuries in attack and we've had like very little kind of sense of settled play so uh tap the mug wrote about this today um the the most frequently used attacker in the premier league this season kaiosaka 71 of the minutes available yokura is 68 trossard who most of us would consider like Like, well, he starts and gets subbed, that's why.

32:36But 60%, Eza 51%, Erdogan 38%, Marino 36%, and obviously that's going to keep dropping. Maduweki 32%, Martinelli 32%, Havertz and Jesus 11%. So what does that tell you? We've got different attackers all the time. And then the second one of them looks like they're coming into some form, they get injured, which is exactly what's happened to Eza. So I think some of this is independent of, I think a lot of it is independent of Arteta's philosophy or his dogma or whatnot. He's working with what he has. And I would say the injury situation has justified Arsenal's kind of modus operandi last summer, which is we can't get one elite attacker.

33:20Let's go and get three pretty good ones and go from there. And I think that is, we will throw enough dirt at the wall for enough to stick to win us the league. I don't think that is Arteta's philosophy. I think that is what's available to him, what he has to work with. I think Arsenal will be deserved champions on that basis as well. And to your point, all of this will go away, essentially. but as I know we'll discuss in a bit, that doesn't mean that there isn't, you know, room for tinkering around the edges and I think we'll see it in the series. Yeah, I mean, Liverpool didn't end last season as the best team in the Premier League.

34:02They were the best team in the Premier League over the course of the season and rightfully won the title. The problem is because we all now seem to have the attention span of minnows, which is fair because just to the pace with which everything moves and social media and this and that and the other thing, people seem to think that somehow if you don't end the season great, that the fact that you were the best over the course of the season is somehow diminished because they only remember the last thing they saw, right? And that's why somehow you can have debates like some people wanted to have last summer that Tottenham had a better season than Arsenal last season.

34:32Was anyone feeling that way right now? No, obviously not. But I get it because the last thing that happened to Tottenham Hotspur is that they won a second tier trophy. You know, and that's just how the narrative gets built. I think Arsenal have been the best team in the league this season. And I think that's reflected in the table. I think we are at a point right now where we're sort of getting by. And I think that we're probably going to continue to. Again, to be clear, I think we're still very good. I just don't think we are as good as what the heights that we were hitting at certain points earlier this season over the last few seasons.

35:08And that means that it's going to be tricky. And we know the Premier League is tricky anyway. There's points dropped by everybody unexpectedly in every match week. Now, the good news is, after the international break, we have Southampton, and then we have Sporting, and then we have Bournemouth. So we still have time to sort of reintegrate players who've been injured, get them a little bit fresh, figure out some solutions, and we'll have plenty of time to talk about this. I want to save some stuff to discuss over the next couple of podcasts, the international break, about how we could address some of the shortcomings that we saw.

35:38But to me, Tim, there was a real gap in the technical level between City and Arsenal in the second half of the cup final. And I think this comes down to a few things. Victor Jokras has scored some very important goals for us and scored quite a few goals for us and has been very valuable in a lot of things he's done. But the one thing we know is he's not going to help you keep the ball or build the play. You can play to him early and try to get him in behind. You can try to have him go chase some duels. But like, he's going to play six or seven passes in a game. Okay? Again, that's just who he is.

36:09It's not a critique of whether you think he's good or bad. It's his identity. when you take Ezza out of the team and you put Kai in midfield you know Kai can get on the ball but he's not at the technical level in small spaces in midfield of another midfielder so we were short players who could help us keep the ball build play and progress the ball up the pitch that problem isn't necessarily going away anytime soon and since we don't know the level that Odegaard is going to be at right away and we don't know exactly how long Ezza is going to be out for Do you think that Mikel, in the meantime, will stick with Rai Subamendi and Kai in midfield?

36:47Or do you think that he will start to get creative and do things like move Bakayosaka there more regularly to ensure that we have the technical level in midfield we need to control play? I think it will be Odegaard straight back in and he will play as much as he can manage. I think that's the way it's most likely to go. now obviously around the edges of that you make substitutions in games yeah i think we'll see plenty of maduake on we actually don't want to take sacker off so we'll move him inside one and maybe look after erdegaard in the process i mean all of the recent trends around erdegaard tell you he's either going to get injured again or he won't be at his you know at his pre-ankle injury best because those things haven't happened for a while I'm not saying the other thing can't happen in fact I think it's fairly likely if he got a run of games he'd be great I guess I worry slightly that we've got to learn to play with such a different player again at the exact point that we really like we'd learn to play with with Eza however I look back over some of those games you mention where we struggled to hold on to the ball like Wolves, Brighton, Chelsea, Leverkusen away I mean even to be able to bring Odegaard on in those games and of course the final would have been huge I'm not saying he'd have solved all of it but I wouldn't mind betting that I wouldn't mind betting that like the Wolves equaliser doesn't happen for example like Odegaard comes on and I think that's also happened in concert with Hincapié having a really good period and he's deserved to stay in the team but maybe in terms of the overall team that brought you know not that his technical level is low is that Califure is really high so I'm not saying like Hincapié is fine technically it's just Califure is kind of exception yeah it's a big difference in that respect so you know we we perhaps lost a little bit in there as well and then like there's a knock-on effect where I think the decision to select Hincappie at Wembley was probably sealed by Timber being absent I think Arteta probably didn't want White and Calafuri he wanted one of his like tough defender guys in there which I get and so there there are there are things we can solve I think and I think as much as it's a pain to lose Eza at the same time perhaps bringing you you know, we're suffering technically and we're probably going to bring our most technical player back into the team.

39:22Kind of boo-hoo, you know? Like, if anything, we might be sitting here in three weeks' time and saying, actually, whisper it quietly. What's the Ezra injury of blessing in disguise because it set off this chain of events? Like, this is all stuff that we're talking about now. I'd love to hear the conversations Arteta and his staff are having about I'm betting money exactly the same things right now. Yeah, and you can't have it both ways, right? If you think all, you know, our attacking talent level is not exactly where it needs to be and due to injuries, our midfield technical level isn't where it needs to be.

39:56You can't also then say, well, Mikel's not doing a good coaching job because if he's got us top of the league with the gap that we have and into the semifinal one thing and the semifinal another thing and final another thing with those issues you've identified, then I would regard that as an excellent coaching job under challenging situations. One thing we should remember, and this is important, I can look at Arsenal and I can say we're not as good right now as I think we can be and need to be to go achieve everything and still not mean that I don't think Arsenal are good and will win the title and deservedly win it okay the other thing is it's worth looking at all these other huge clubs who have spent massively and ask yourself if they're doing better if their coaches are better if they're performing better Chelsea no Liverpool Manchester United they're going to play 40 games this season.

40:46Big advantage. It's still, you know, just about hitting the low level of the expectations, which is far below ours. Manchester City? Yeah, Manchester City are better. They won a trophy. Sure. They're not going to win the league because we are. They're already out of the Champions League. And they finished third last season. People forget that. They finished third last season. That's a great point. That's a great point. And, oh, by the way, no shortage of spending. Went for Semenyo in January. Went for Gahin in January. Did it get him further in the Champions League? No. Is it going to get him the title?

41:14I don't think so. So it's fair to, look, this is an Arsenal podcast. So for me, I say, how can we analyze Arsenal? Where can we be better? Are we hitting our best outcomes? Are we playing our best? And I think the cup final showed we're not in a great moment in some areas, especially technically in possession. But you still have to put it in the context of what's happening around us and what we expect will happen moving forward. And while I don't want to jinx it, my expectation is looking at the fixtures, we have enough to get over the line in the league. Do I wish City had those Bayern Munich matches between Chelsea and Arsenal?

41:47I do, but I still think we're going to get there now. I think if your expectation is we're going to look like our flowing, in-possession, dominant, technically excellent best during the run-in, you may wind up feeling a little disappointed, but don't let that stop you from celebrating us being the best in this league over the course of the season. So let's do this. Let's shift gears to how we take what will be a celebratory treble winning season and turn it into a dynasty. Because I think there are issues that we want to address in the market this summer. I want to ask you a little bit about that.

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45:03Liverpool, most famously, Wurtz, Eketike, Izak. I rate Eketike, although I'm not sure, you know, he's value for money, but I rate him. Izak, obviously the injury issue makes it difficult to evaluate the decision to get them, but getting them both seems like a weird decision anyway. And Wurtz hasn't lived up to expectation. They went for attack-minded fullbacks. That hasn't worked. Manchester City, you know, they seem to go from one decision to the next. Marmouche was in, he's out, is he in, is he out? And, you know, they went for Semenyo, We'll see if he winds up being the solution. Savino, there would talk he could be out after having just been brought in.

45:37So there are a lot of teams that tried to address the attack. And I think it would be fair to say none of them seem to have completely solved it. I mean, Tottenham Hotspur obviously went for Xavi Simmonds. Not super great. They made Matisse Tell permanent. Like, this is the kind of stuff we're working with in the Premier League right now. But we did make a couple of big moves as a nonny your crash I think as it was just starting to really show that he's going to be valued for money and he's so good at the run in that we really need to get him back because this is the time of season that he can really contribute it is my contention that attack is still a priority for this summer window and that we need to solve quote unquote left wing once and for all so to speak by really adding elite talent there but I would also say that I think we probably want to look at the striker market again.

46:30So for me, this summer feels a little like last summer redux that we hit some, what would be good in darts, like some double twenties, but I don't think we hit enough bullseyes and we need to go back out and try again. So what's your assessment of that viewpoint? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Like upgrades really. I think that's what we're talking about, you know, and I think what's going to be key is we have to make some sales really to kind of facilitate that. And there are players there who we could potentially get some money for. Whether we can get money for Gabriel Jesus, I kind of doubt it.

47:11Although there are some Brazilian clubs who do have greater means than they used to. Leo Trossard, is there a market for him? Gabriel Martinelli, is there a market for him? I think that last one might be the most key, actually, in terms of replenishing, because it's unlikely, I think, that we're going to get rid of anyone we just bought. And what I find really interesting is that arguably the most successful of the three attackers we bought might be Madueke so far, just because he's kind of doing the role we bought him for, which was kind of as a high-level backup, really. Whereas like Jokeres and Eza, a bit different.

47:56Obviously, Eza's been getting there and he has some really big moments. Jokeres, yeah. Can I stop you? Because I want to observe something that's really kind of funny, right? All three of those players, you could argue, had Odegaard stayed fully fit and been in form, had Kai stayed fully fit and been in form, and Saka stayed fully fit and been in form, all three of those players might have seen themselves as minimally important squad additions who came in in bits and pieces. And all three have had to be, and in particular, Jokeres and Eze even more than Nani, but all three have had to be more major contributors because the players that they were kind of analogized to or in contention with wound up being absent.

48:36So it's hard to evaluate, would they have been elite squad cover and options? Because they wound up, all of them almost, having to be more than that, you know? yeah i guess the phrase i'd use is we bought them for a rainy day and it rained a lot it's a great way to put it yep and and ultimately you were like why did we do that it was geared on last season where we got a couple of attacking injuries and we really went down to the bare bones very very quickly so that's what i mean you could argue it was a really successful summer in that respect that yeah we maybe didn't get like that one guy but that one guy probably wasn't out there and so what we did instead is we kind of we reinforced with numbers and we made the injuries we got less of a big deal than they otherwise would have been because if we think we're going through pain at the moment with like attacking and ball progression and stuff like that you don't have to go back too far to see Raheem Sterling and Kieran Tierney on the wings and Mikel Marina up front we started a Champions League knockout tie with that as a front three so like um to be fair i've been a bit like we started the tie where we were seven one up from the second leg but i think we only rested like one player to do that yeah yeah um so like it's it's you know we had butler or yet on the bench for most of our games to finish last season you know no offense to butler or yet it's just that's not the level we need yeah like the the exercise to do that i always point to is look at our bench for the psg second leg last season um most of them are gone actually um it's quite an interesting exercise in terms of where our squad is at the moment but yeah so you you could absolutely argue we had a problem the problem came up again and we solved it basically so but you're right in the long term that there is just a little bit more star quality needed i'm i'm positive about that for a couple of reasons one like i said i think we've got some we got some stuff we can put at the front of the table and on the garage sale you know we can we can attract people over to our table a little bit in the summer and at the same time the other thing that gives me real confidence is what does history show you with Mikel Arteta and Arsenal is that when they get a problem in a season that becomes apparent Mikel Arteta like doesn't just correct it like he he gets the cuban heels out and has a good dance yeah he devotes his entire energy to correcting it to the point where it could never ever ever be an issue again like when we got physically outmatched by city a couple seasons ago uh we are now the monstars right we don't we don't get physically outmatched yeah exactly it's like he watched space jam and was like that's the team i want um but yeah exactly so So I've got real confidence and we talk, well, we speculate, we don't know this, but we talk about those kind of flagship games where it's like, ah, this game I think has really influenced him.

51:37I mean, the Carabao Cup final is going to be that, isn't it? I bet that that might break the record for Mikel Arteta re-watches, to be honest. And so I can really see us at least trying very, very earnestly to correct these things. And generally, our record in the market has been good. There's players you can debate, but the amount of confirmed absolute duds, I mean, there's not many. There's really not many. So there's work to do, but I think they're going to have the right plan, put it that way. There's only two ways you can look at this, right? I mean, well, not only two ways, there's a million ways.

52:18But what I'm trying to say, but said wrong, is there's a world where we have fewer injuries in certain positions, right? So Mikel Marino stays fit. Kai Havertz is more fit over the course of the season. And Odegaard is more fit over the course of the season and in reasonable form. And how we think about the roles of Jokeresh, Eze, and Nani are slightly different. We see them as really interesting investments in additional strength and depth to get us over the 60-65 games we're going to play this season. It is the case that Marino lost half of his season and Kai has lost arguably more than that.

53:00And as a result, you know, and Odegaard's lost almost more than that. And as a result, the players we added not only had to contribute, but they had to contribute being starters to a team that had an ambition to win the Champions League and the Premier League. That's a very different equation. But you could see it as a massive validation and vindication of the tactics we took last summer. Because you could say, had we gotten last summer wrong, those injuries would have meant we couldn't achieve our goals. I have always said, and I want to be clear because I never want to be a hypocrite if I can avoid it.

53:35that teams that have major injuries don't win things they just don't that the team that's healthiest over the course of a season is what wins things but maybe Mikel is just a little more visionary than I am which would shock me and said there's going to be no such thing as a healthiest team in modern football there's too many games to be a healthy team right Liverpool just about got there last season they stayed pretty darn healthy their best players Van Dijk Salah had a great season and they just about got there but towards the end they were falling off pretty bad but they had already gotten there.

54:04So Mikel went after squad depth. And you cannot argue that by doing that, whether you're totally impressed with what we added, those players have been good enough to have us top of the Premier League and huge favorites to win it. It is a pure validation of the approach. But I think where it leaves us now is saying, what is the ceiling on this group going forward? Let's say we win the Premier League this season. Let's say we don't get the other trophies, even though we know we're going to. That's going to be the most joyous thing that's happened in my life since the birth of my daughters, okay?

54:35Like, it's going to be incredible. But if we allow ourselves just a moment to think ahead and say we don't want to be Liverpool, who do it once and next season get it completely wrong and fall off, then I think, Tim, the issues that have been, in my view, maybe over-scrutinized about chance creation and the attack probably demand a re-evaluation because fundamentally right now when I look around Europe and I look at Bayern, Madrid, Barca, PSG, even City at some level, and I look at Leo, Nelly, Jokeres, Kai, Saka, Nani, I just think we have to upgrade the ceiling level of talent that's there. And there's no guarantees, but I think we have to do it.

55:20So do you think that it is fair to observe that the mere fact of Arsenal being in a position to win the Premier League and being a huge favorite to do it is validation for the tactic we took, but that it's still reasonable to say that going forward, that tactic may not be enough and we want to try to be the best team in the world. That's what we're shooting for. No, no, no, not at all. And when I kind of look at the summer, I don't think, I think you're right in what you say, but I don't think loads needs doing, maybe like sell an attacker or two, if, you know, Gabby, much as I love him. I don't want to ruin the director of football stuff.

56:00No, no, no. But do we need to be less precious about who we sell? There's always a thing where you're like, we need to sell players. Then you list a player and you're like, well, not him. He's just like, we need to sell players. Should we sell Miles? Like, well, no, not Miles. Should we sell Odegaard? Well, no, not Odegaard. Maybe we should. And also, again, to repeat what I said on the Patreon yesterday, this stuff's driven by the market as well. Like, it just is. Like, I'm pretty sure that Arsenal went into last summer of thinking we'll sell one of Martinelli or Trossard and it didn't happen like we just didn't get the offers for them um so that that was kind of the end of that we didn't extend that we gave Trossard a pay rise near the beginning of the season and extend either of their contracts but I think that tells you that they'd have been open to an offer but they didn't get one and sometimes it comes to a point where you maybe you get an offer for a player that maybe you would like like again I'm think this will happen but let's say someone says ah I didn't realize Madueke was like that maybe we offer 70 million for him and maybe we go all right we'd rather keep him but you know what that's a good offer he's not gonna like he's not probably not a first 11 player fine okay all right and we'll go again from there and we'll try and replace his attributes and so much of it is market driven but I kind of look at it and I think a forward and a midfielder I don't think we really need to do very much in defense um obviously as well we've got like you know noanary to come back we've got like obviously max down we'll retain the treble next year because max down will win it for us single-handedly almost certainly yeah not not to put any additional pressure on him or anything so we've got we've got some you know we've got some young players who who can help with some of these problems we're talking about um and actually there's a world in which if Odegaard, Havertz and Calafuri had been fit and playing all season.

57:50Maybe we're not even really talking about the technical level of the team quite as much. But I look at it and think, yeah, we could probably do with another midfielder so that Rice and Zubimendi don't have to play every minute of every game. So I don't think loads needs doing. But when I look at who is that left winger going to be, I wouldn't mind betting that there's going to be a more technical kind of side to them. And yeah, I mean, I look at it, I'm just throwing a name in the air because I don't know very much about European football and I know it costs the world and et cetera, et cetera.

58:28But like Alvarez to me,

58:32if there's a way of getting that done, I think Arsenal will find it. I'm not saying they will. I'm not sure there is a way of getting it done. Well, we obviously have the relationship through Berda with Atleti. Yeah, true. But then we also annoyed them quite a lot with the last player we bought from there, Partey, with the clause. But yeah, I think… That was the old guy who did that, Tim. The new guy is great to deal with. And as we know from Chelsea, when the staff changes, the club just completely recalibrates and doesn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Suddenly becomes a paragon of that virtue. Just like a completely different entity.

59:10but I wouldn't mind betting that what Arteta would probably really like is another like Leo-like player but perhaps just with a bit more you know what I mean like that kind of technical well couldn't Eze be that player? am I going crazy? yes could that have been the plan and we just never saw it because Odegaard's played so little? maybe maybe but I also think that potentially Eze is quite low touch I wouldn't call him profligate but you know he tries the risky thing and all of that Rather have him doing that out on the wing than in the interior. Yeah, yeah. But I just wouldn't mind betting that if we get a wide player, it will be like a...

59:51Yeah, like Trossard Plus. I kind of think that... You putting any stake in the Farritz-Gellier links? I mean, they're pretty specious at the moment, and the wages would be astronomical. They would. And actually, if you look at his numbers in Ligue 1 this season, they're pretty rubbish. he didn't start against Chelsea in the first leg for a reason. It's because he's not producing very much. I think, yeah, we see these goals in the Champions League and it's like, oh, wow, he did that. But then you look at the week to week and it's like, oh, actually, he's quite streaky too. Which, by the way, tells you you can pull the wool over people's eyes.

1:00:28You may have a player like, how are we going to sell him? He's been dreadful. And someone saw him score three times in the Champions League and it's like, oh, that guy's great. If perhaps you're French and you don't watch the Premier League and you saw Eze's goal against Bayer Leverkusen and you know that Arsenal are top of the league, you probably think, wow, Eze's probably been amazing all season. He hasn't. Or Martinelli in the Champions League. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You probably think, oh, yeah, exactly. That's a great, yeah. It's like, oh, he's doing really well. Every time I put the Champions League highlights on, he's scored.

1:00:54And then you look at his domestic numbers and they're not quite there. So I don't, I think Arteta would love to bring Alvarez. I think that would you know that would almost be his dream addition I don't know whether we could make that happen but I think a player of that type who's just technically very safe but can do things basically yeah and at some point this is the problem right you list a Kvart Skelly and you say well it'd be an astronomical fee in wages or Alvarez would be 90 million or 100 million in huge wages this is the problem If your aspiration is to be the best team in the world and you want to have the most elite attackers in particular, that's going to be an immense allocation of resources.

1:01:41And, you know, I thought about this. Maybe there is an evil genius approach to what we're doing, which is maybe we're gaming the transfer market a bit. I mean, we did go over$100 million for Declan Rice, so we know we're willing to do it. but maybe there's a bit of instead of 120 million for izak and then he breaks his ankle and your season's over we do some for yokores and some for eza and some for nani and some for zubamendi and some for incappier right now by the way these some are still a huge amount of money i get it but it's the point that you build a team that in aggregate well yeah and in aggregate is very very very good and yes at the most elite level of kicking the ball in the net you may not have the best of those players but you've got such a strong team across all positions and levels of depth that you believe that that plus your system can get you somewhere and maybe this is a way to reframe for example our quality at corners which is instead of splashing grotesque money on a striker like liverpool did who they haven't even used we've built a more consistent team across all departments and yes we've used coaching and preparation and creativity to generate goals that we can't generate from individual brilliance as often because i'll tell you this too if pakaio saka was sitting on 16 league goals and 10 assists which i think we all believe is his range of outcomes and his talent we might have a very very different feeling also about where our weaknesses are and what our strategy is at some level one of the ways you get to those big gaudy goal numbers is someone up front does some special stuff like Salah did for Liverpool last season, like Holland and De Bruyne have done for so long for City.

1:03:29And the fact that we've gotten here with what I would say are pretty middling outcomes from most of our attacking players is a testament to having immense depth of quality across all departments and really good coaching. That's how I see it. And so the next step going for elite attacking talent that can break a game open on its own that can transform an outcome through its sheer brilliance. That's probably the next step for this team. Realistically, I would say it wouldn't surprise me if Mikel looked at that cup final game, to your point, Tim, in his, he likes to always overreact to a bad, a bad experience.

1:04:09Maybe he says, I need some more dribbly boys, some more technical boys in my team. I need, I need someone who can do what a doku does or I need someone who can help out in those tight spaces when we're having trouble keeping the ball so we can get to five passes to seven pass to 10 passes and start to get our foot back on the ball and get back into games and it wouldn't surprise me if the summer is punctuated by an elite attacking player who's strong on the ball and maybe good dribbles and maybe another player in midfield whose technical level is through the roof. And it unfortunately may mean that a player we feel very connected to goes, but they go, we hope, with a winner's medal around their chest for winning the Premier League and they become a hero of this project.

1:04:55And so we'll just have to see. I don't think there's a lot of meat left on the bone other than to ask you this very quickly. As you look ahead, it's Southampton and Sporting Lisbon before Bournemouth. And I think the upside to that, I mean, look, I want the Champions League bad, so I'm not going to pretend that's not a major, major game. But do you think it's a chance to emotionally get right from the cup final, to tactically get right, to fit pieces like Odegaard back into the team, to just get fine-tuned before the Bournemouth and then City games come? Because also the Lisbon game, no matter how big you think it is, Sporting Lisbon has to come to Arsenal after that, so we have a chance to right any wrongs that happen there.

1:05:39how lucky do you think we are in a way that we got this break after the cup final and then two games that feel a little lighter on on consequences so to speak or or intensity so that we can just get the dials adjusted back before the really really crunch fixtures come around yeah definitely it's a lily pad isn't it and um it's a good way to think about it yep there there There are good international breaks and there are bad international breaks, and this is a good one. And I think one of the things we underestimate as well, from the kind of the player's side, they've been together constantly for four months.

1:06:19Like this is the first international break since November. So for four months, they've just been going game to game every three days. I think it would do them well to get away from each other, get away from the environment. You know, in terms of, I think Clive said this on the Askast earlier as well, for some of them speaking their own language, eating their own food, maybe seeing... And I know a lot of national teams have big games and it's not holiday camp or anything like that. But from an Arsenal perspective, I think that's quite good. I think you're absolutely right. The fact that the next two games are not league games, undoubtedly there has been a greater lightness to Arsenal in the cup competitions and in the Champions League.

1:06:58Because as well, the other thing that makes Bournemouth games so massive, of course all the league games are going to be massive now, but one of the many things that makes it massive is we go before City and we before they go I think away to Chelsea so we've got a chance again to you know really raise that points level and like put it down to them which is very easy to forget now because it was eons ago one whole game ago we did the last time we did that they didn't deal with it and so we've we've got a chance to do that again so I think you're right I think it's a break that's well timed not least as well because it's the international break where most players can conveniently pull out.

1:07:38And quite a few of ours have. And largely they have, not necessarily, I think, because people underestimate the way this works, right? International teams have the say. You do not pull out of international games unless they say you can. Clubs do not pull players out. It does not work like that. So you have to have the international teams say. They sign off on it. And, but I think probably what's happened this time is a lot of them, because we're good, a lot of our players, they start for their countries. They know they're going to start. Like, Gabriel's a lock for Brazil. Saliba's a lock for France.

1:08:16Rice and Saka are a lock. Like, they're all going to start. Everyone knows that. and while I think the international teams would probably, in an ideal world, welcome playing those players together and getting some chemistry after four months away, I think most of them know, actually, that would be nice, but what would be nicer is if I didn't injure those players now because a three-month-an-hour and they're out of the World Cup, basically. So they're looking after themselves by doing that. They're not looking after us. They're not looking after Arsenal. They're looking after themselves as they have every right to do.

1:08:52So Brazil letting Gabriel drop out, that is a good decision for Brazil, etc, etc. So, you know, we're going to have quite a few of our guys who are going to get two weeks off. Even Saka and Rice not involved in the first England game. So there is going to be a bit of R &R for them there, which will be really, really good. But I think you're right. I think the fact that the next two games are cup games really helps as well. I think that helps us ease into, because after, like that, that is the, I described it as a lily pad. That's the last one. After that, it's, it's downhill all the way. It's, it's rollercoaster time.

1:09:30So, um, you know, I guess being able to ease our way into what could be an enormous six weeks for the club is, it's the best we could ask for. yeah and i mean it it is the case that a lot of people look at the cup final and say city we're so much better than us here's the good news city can stay better than us it's too late now right we don't have to be better than city we just have to be good enough to not lose a six point and i mean it's more than six points obviously it's nine but a six point let's say they win their game in hand a six point gap or a nine point gap and i think we are good enough to do that and so yes what i like for us to trounce city at the etihad win every game the rest of the way in win both the fa cup and the champions league and win a treble and be able to say we were the best team in the world to end the season of course i'd like to say that do we need that to happen for us to have a sensational end of the season and joy at the end of the season we don't but here's the good news it is going to happen we will win the treble and we will um celebrate it quite lustily is my expectation uh even if we have ruined football friday night clive tomorrow will be a power rankings where we laugh at our rivals and let's not get it twisted an important part of football is laughing at your rival's misery it is important and so if you are struggling to connect to the arsenal joy right now and you need a break please try to connect to the Liverpool misery, to the Chelsea misery.

1:11:04Liverpool are losing Mohamed Salah on a free and may not have Champions League football next season. They have massively fucked it. Try to enjoy that. It's funny. Tottenham are going down. It's funny. Enjoy it. Before we go, and it's a little late in the pod to do this, so maybe I'll do it at the top of the next pod as well, but Louis McKay got in touch to let us know that his dad passed. Colin McKay was a fan of the pod, a huge Arsenal supporter, someone that we got to meet at Union Chapel, share a little cuddle and a picture, just a lovely human being that we got to share a little bit of time with.

1:11:38And obviously, just want to send love to Lewis and his family and say, you know, obviously rest in peace to Colin McKay who will be missed, but whose memory will carry on and hopefully who will have a chance to have his family celebrating some big success for Arsenal at the end of this season. So love to the McKay family. and obviously heartfelt sorrow on the passing of Lewis's dad. So that's, it's a bit of a downer note to end on, but I think it's important, you know, as a community to celebrate the life of other people who make it up. So we can definitely leave it there. And Tim, thanks again.

1:12:16And we'll look forward to talking to you on the next one. Yeah, my pleasure as always. Okay. Thanks everybody. We love you. And we will talk to you at Arsenal Tents. I'll thank you so much.

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