{"id":3756,"date":"2021-08-02T01:43:45","date_gmt":"2021-08-02T00:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=3756"},"modified":"2021-08-09T14:48:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T13:48:06","slug":"pre-season-2021-22-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=3756","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Season 2021\/22, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1331613879\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:74.07407% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1331613879?et=WCx9gxWnTV98Lfjfomaqwg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=qpxxu9hc4_85Mi5yma1xPt3sJGTVLjTByMDoeVU8jH0=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\" width=\"594\" height=\"440\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sunday 25th July, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I volunteered for this piece, I had just written the preview for the Crystal Palace game at the end of last season. In truth, I\u2019d had enough of football at the end of a season that had promised so much but delivered so little &#8211; well, nothing at all really. And so I volunteered for a slot tucked comfortably away at the beginning of August. There would be loads happening &#8211; pre-season friendlies, a host of new players brought in with the owners\u2019 much reported new willingness to refashion the squad. That should rekindle the embers almost extinguished by a long, unenjoyable season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fresh from victories in the FA Cup and Community Shield, we stood poised last August with our new manager on the springboard to new success, ready to perform, with a flamboyant flourish, our triple backward somersault with half twist and pike, right back into the luxurious waters of the Champions League, only to stumble off the end of the board and belly flop spectacularly out of top four contention, out of the FA Cup, out of the League Cup, and out of Europe altogether for the first time in a quarter of a century!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> (And right there, for those of you already missing the literary style of our very own Doctor Faustus, is a 94 word sentence to keep you going in the meantime!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was one season ago &#8211; if anyone can remember what a season is anymore. A season affected, then halted and finally resumed and elongated by the dreaded COVID-19 virus. A season of hope in some bright young players, inconsistency, injury, frustration, empty stadia devoid of atmosphere, occasional promise and ultimate failure, which left me looking forward to a break at the end of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this piece is supposed to be a season preview &#8211; part 2 &#8211; and not a review, so what\u2019s been happening ? Well, I\u2019ve started writing this on Sunday 25th July as I have a busy week ahead and can\u2019t afford to run out of time writing about the upcoming matches on our tour of the USA &#8211; which has just been \u2026.. CANCELLED!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>COVID-19 has struck again and with cases rising dramatically everywhere it seems, it is quite right that the tour should be scrapped. Sympathies are with those fans in the US who have eagerly anticipated these games and spent money making travel and accommodation arrangements to see them &#8211; and to an even greater extent with those whose loved ones continue to be affected by, or lost to, this horrible disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tuesday 27th July, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like TTG in the previous post, I don\u2019t want to tread on the toes of Clock End Rider, who is tasked to cover our summer transfer activity, so what to do, given that the aforementioned, considerate TTG has, in reality, already gone and covered management strategy, the performance of the Technical Director, and the short and long term aims of the owners!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I have to do something, so without stealing CER\u2019s thunder by discussing the players, here\u2019s a few thoughts on the type of players we appear to be building around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Transfer Policy So Far<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will say nothing about the following players\u2019 various abilities as CER will deal with that. This is just an impression of who we have signed and what the plan appears to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could it be that we are finally carrying out the root and branch restructuring of the squad that has been needed for so long ? The signs are good. No more short termism &#8211; apologies to the lexicographically offended, as my spillchucker doesn\u2019t think termism is a proper word but, tough &#8211; giving highly lucrative deals to ageing players past their best, or simply at an age where there is no resale value if they don\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We already had a very decent young nucleus of our squad in place. Mikel Arteta has done an excellent job in persuading Emile Smith Rowe, Bakayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Folarin Bolagun to sign long extensions to their contracts. They are all 19 and 20 years of age. Old man Kieran Tierney is already there to guide them at 24 years of age &#8211; surely a future captain.<br><br>Last week we added two more 21 year olds to the group in Nuno Tavares and Albert Sambi Lokonga, and 23 year old Ben White from Brighton was confirmed by the club yesterday (Friday 30th July).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stories about us chasing Sheffield United goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, also 23, won\u2019t go away, as won\u2019t those relating to three more of the same age in James Maddison, Manuel Locatelli and Ruben Neves. There is word that Ben White was told by \u201c the club\u201d that he will not be the last significant signing of this window, and there has been talk for a good while that the owners are prepared to spend big this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do they finally want to see The Arsenal winning major trophies again, or do they want to get us just competitive enough to ensure we are invited into their abhorrent super league, should they manage to resurrect the whole sorry idea ? To be honest, at this stage I am not going to worry about that. I can do nothing about it, and it may never happen. As long as it means a genuine improvement on the total mismanagement of recent years, I\u2019m going to try to enjoy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other unanswered question so far, is what are the prospects for our other young players, Reiss Nelson, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and notably Joe Willock, who did so well during his loan to Newcastle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wednesday 28th July, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some actual football! Even though Watford had played a friendly against Stevenage the evening before, a match was played against the Hornets at the training ground on the Wednesday afternoon. Arsenal had sent me an email saying that the match would be broadcast live &#8211; and free! &#8211; on dotcom, kick off at 2-00pm. Unfortunately the email was sent at 2.45pm and I discovered it at around 7.30pm, by which time the final whistle had long ago been blown. In case anyone doesn\u2019t know, we won 4-1 with goals from Eddie Nketiah, Alex Lacazette, Kieran Tierney and Miguel Azeez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sunday 1st August, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More actual football today as the mighty Arsenal take on the mighty financially doped Bus Stop in Fulham. This game is part of the triangular Mind series of matches in aid of the mental health charity. The other two matches are Chelsea vs Tottenham at the Bus Stop on Wednesday 4th August, and Tottenham vs The Arsenal at the new Toilet Bowl on Sunday 8th August. The Arsenal games will be available live on dot com at a cost of \u00a37.99 each, which some may feel is cheeky for a pre-season friendly &#8211; but \u00a34.00 from each pass will go to the Mind charity.<br><br>Update: Arsenal 1 &#8211; 2 Chelsea. I did not see the game live, and neither apparently did a lot of supporters who tried to log on to the streaming service on the club website. It seems they were either not able to log in at all, or having logged in were unable to get a working stream and see any football. They were, however, treated to a wine advertisement, so presumably someone somewhere was happy and a bit more advertising revenue was earned. This really is nowhere near good enough for a club of Arsenal\u2019s stature. It\u2019s disappointing, amateurish and indicative of the attitude that seems to leave supporters at the bottom of the list of priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for the match, Chelsea went ahead through Havaertz on 27 minutes. Smith-Rowe was unlucky to hit the post before Thomas Partey was clobbered and left with a worrying injury that will be scanned tomorrow (Monday 2nd August). Our defence repeatedly found themselves chasing unmarked Chelsea forwards in dangerous positions and acres of space. Granit Xhaka equalised on 69 minutes but Hector Bellerin laid on a perfect square pass assist for Tammy Abraham to wrap the game up on 72 minutes. In fact, that should not have been enough as substitute Joe Willock was denied an equaliser by the officials, that went clearly in and over the line off the crossbar. If only we had some sort of video assistance for referees that would eradicate all this controversy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost finally, a shout out to Bodrum Gooneress and hopes that she is safe and well in Bodrum, Southern Turkey, where many people have been forced to flee their homes this week in the face of huge fires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, \u201cwe\u201d found something to write about after all this week. I won\u2019t lie &#8211; it has felt like a struggle this time around, and I apologise if \u201cthings\u201d are not up to the usual standard, but it\u2019s not easy when everything you\u2019re supposed to write about gets cancelled!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clock End Rider will hopefully have more flesh to put on the bones of our transfer activity in the coming days, when a plethora of top stars will be committing their futures to the club. Oh, yes they will!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Sunday 25th July, 2021 When I volunteered for this piece, I had just written the preview for the Crystal Palace game at the end of last season. In truth, I\u2019d had enough of football at the end of a season that had promised so much but delivered so little &#8211; well, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,5,6,11,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3756"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3787,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756\/revisions\/3787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}