{"id":10041,"date":"2024-09-14T08:14:26","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T07:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10041"},"modified":"2024-09-15T20:51:45","modified_gmt":"2024-09-15T19:51:45","slug":"that-second-glass-of-champagne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10041","title":{"rendered":"That second glass of champagne"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Even before the dust has fully settled down from this summer\u2019s transfer window fun and frolics, Arsenal fans were treated this week with exquisitely positive news. I don\u2019t know about everyone else, but I myself found Mikel Arteta extending his contract as the Arsenal manager for three more years as heartening a treat as that second glass of champagne just when the dinner party has started to drift into a state of ennui-inducing commonplace. And I must confess that even though I like champagne, I love<\/em> watching Arsenal play.  And I am in love with how we now play under the leadership of our steely-eyed komandante<\/em>. And not only how we play, I love how the entire club seems to move forward with lucid determination and uncompromising vision, and I love how we nowadays stand up to bullies \u2013 on and off the field \u2013 many of whom find in Arsenal a nobility so far beyond their own insecure selves that they cannot help but try to drag us down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life has taught me, just as it teaches everyone else, sooner or later, not to take things one loves for granted. With love comes loss, and with love comes the fear of loss. Close friends can pass away without warning, people and places you hold dear to your heart one day can suddenly become the target of vicious attacks of its imperial neighbor, and most viscerally of it all, you end up agreeing with Leonard Cohen when he sings \u201cI ache in the places where I used to play.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without ever meeting or communicating with Mikel personally, my guess is that his first and foremost loyalty is to the vision of what he thinks he would like to achieve as a human being. And I suspect the professional dimensions of that aspiration involves becoming one of the best football managers in history. I don\u2019t think without that range of ambition and hunger it is possible to bring the kind of intensity, rigor and dedication he brings to his work. So, notwithstanding his genuine connection to the club, I think it was never given and it is never given that he will continue his professional journey at Arsenal, unless of course Arsenal can ensure that his ambitions have a pathway to success here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, to me, Mikel extending his contract was a great bit of news. And his subsequent interview \u2013 one of his best since he returned back to Arsenal \u2013 reaffirmed the very human qualities he brings in as well. The integrity, the clarity, and the sense of purpose resonate with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I really needed this second glass of champagne, so to speak, as the rest of the news over the international break was not really appetizing. (I am abstaining myself from using words like bleak, which I nowadays keep in reserve for the world at large.) While participating in an absolutely pointless international tournament, the heartbeat of the current Arsenal team, our captain,  \u00d8degaard, was significantly injured and he returned back to London on crutches. One of our new defensive signings, the perfectly Italian combination of vigor and finesse, Calafiori also has suffered an injury in that same pointless tournament. Another summer signing, Merino the midfield monster (have you seen his duel stats?) had already broken his bones in the training ground. Forgive me for feeling a sense of \u2026 I would have liked to say d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, but I would be wrong because we really have seen this scenario unfold before where our best players are spun out, broken and injured by the machinery of international football. Hopefully the trio will recover soon enough. I thought Calafiori and Merino were both superbly astute signings, and will help to move this team forward to the next stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, where do we stand? Three matches in the PL season, good enough beginning \u2013 would have been the perfect start, if not for a typically strange bit of officiating; were you surprised? \u2013 but coming to a stretch of relatively difficult matches, with some of the key players unavailable due to injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is not ideal, it is not unrecoverable by any measure. I think this team now has a kind of anti-fragility in their collective psyche that the more they put under external pressure, the more they seem to unify and strengthen their fortitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what better occasion to express that unity and strength than a North London Derby! Also the craft, the guile, the composure, a kind of footballing savoir faire, if I may. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There seems to be the hint of a possibility that Martin will be available for this game. I will actually be very very surprised if that turns out to be the case, and for all the obvious reasons I think that is unlikely. In his absence I think Kai is best suited to this role, with his pressing, his defensive workrate, his ability to combine with other players around him. Martin\u2019s passing and vision would of course be missed, but we will have to find ways to compensate for that.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that regard, I think Zinchenko will be a good option for the left sided #8 role. Though he has never played in that position for Arsenal, at international level he has always seemed quite effective playing as a left sided midfielder. Some of Martin\u2019s ability to recycle the ball and offer positional unpredictability he can definitely provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriel Jesus seems to have recovered fully. And given Kai will need to play in Martin\u2019s position, I think Jesus should start. And if Jesus is starting, I find Martinelli on the left offers the best combination with Jesus. While Gabi senior with his dribbling, close control and movements is superb at destabilizing defensive shapes and tactics, Gabi junior is best when given a bit of space to run into with or without the ball, the kind of space that inevitably opens up when Jesus is in and around the penalty box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, my starting line-up would be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White \u2013 Saliba \u2013 Gabriel \u2013 Timber<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partey<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Havertz \u2013 Zinchenko<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka \u2013 Jesus \u2013 Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sterling and Trossard to appear later in the match if we need goals.  The North London Derby is known for its chaotic nature where form may matter for little if you don\u2019t keep your composure, but as mentioned earlier I trust this team to keep their cool and stick to their game plan. Any win would be welcome, as always, and especially away at this ground, but I think a 2-0 can be a very good result for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the match everyone. Come on Arsenal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(P.S. How can I forget? It seems we will need to play in our away kit because our red-and-white home kit apparently has too much white in it. I would like to say that I am speechless. But you know what? This type of heightening the importance of insignificant things is exactly what you would expect when the significant ones are blindly ignored.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even before the dust has fully settled down from this summer\u2019s transfer window fun and frolics, Arsenal fans were treated this week with exquisitely positive news. I don\u2019t know about everyone else, but I myself found Mikel Arteta extending his contract as the Arsenal manager for three more years as heartening a treat as that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10041"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10041"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10050,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10041\/revisions\/10050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}