Happy Friday everyone. Some very encouraging, if a little expected, news to begin with tonight because following months of speculation linking Granit Xhaka with a move to Arsenal, the BBC this evening report a deal is very close to completion.

The Swiss midfielder is 23, left-footed, and one of the Bundesliga’s finest defensive/box-box midfielders according to those who watch him regularly. The fact Borussia Monchengladbach made him captain at the start of the season just ended, suggests he’s quite the personality in the dressing room too, which if I’m honest, pleases me just as much as his quality passing, tackling and ball control did on my recent YouTube scouting mission.

That said, having two combustible characters in Xhaka and Jack Wilshere both playing in the same midfield won’t do much for our fair play rankings so it’s just as well I doubt they’ll be paired together in front of our defence too often. But speaking of Jack, that’s who I think Xhaka most resembles in our current squad as a player.

The latter’s definitely the more defensively-minded of the two, but the way they both drop their shoulder and drag the ball past opponents, pass accurately and can play the short-ball game brilliantly, makes them seem, at first glance anyway, very comparable midfielders to me.

Anyway, with Mesut Ozil a shoe-in again or the most advanced role of our midfield three next season, Xhaka’s capture would mean we could, in theory, play with three left-footers in the middle of the park at some stage – which would be the first time I can ever remember a team doing that. Just saying.

Moving on now and onto some words from Arsene Wenger, who in an interview with Arsenal Magazine published in May’s edition, discussed what he was like as a young man and manager. He said:

Look, I believe when I was young if I had one quality, it was that I could listen to people. I always tried to listen when people who were much older talked to me. All the people liked to be with me at the time, maybe because I had a certain respect. I always tried to think to myself ‘is this guy intelligent? He looks very intelligent. He’s 30 years older than I am, that means he has gone through things I will go through, so what can I learn from him?’ I had that kind of attitude 30 years ago. Usually when you are very young you are tempted to see older people as has-beens, but then afterwards you realise what he told you is true. So I tried to learn all the time. If I look back at the young coach I was, I would say to myself ‘are you sure that you want to go through all this again? Are you ready to suffer so much again, because it is the sacrifice of your life.’ I started when I was 33 years old, now I’m 66 so that’s 33 years of uninterrupted competitive football. That’s the only thing I would ask to this little boy, full of ambition and desire.

It really is an interesting read as the manager touches on the influence of the late Dutch great Johan Cruyff, French athletics, and the possibility of him one day sharing his managerial secrets in a book, so go take a look here if you haven’t already.

Right, that’ll do for tonight.

Until tomorrow.