Cech

20th September 2015: Assessing our start and Spurs selection

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. As the dust settles on round six of the Premier League season, I guess we can say it hasn’t been a bad start. Especially when you consider that had we not been victims of inexplicably bad officiating, and the aggressor rather than the reactor had been sent off yesterday, we’d very likely be joint second in the table right now and just two points behind leaders Manchester City.

As it stands though, we’re fifth in the rankings, five points off the summit and head to White Hart Lane on Wednesday for a Capital One Cup game which could either provide the perfect platform for us to get back on track, or compound yesterday’s heartache, giving people the proof they’ve been waiting for that our players are sh*t, the manager’s past it and Jurgen Klopp must be parachuted in immediately.

Personally, I’m not sure I’m too concerned about Wednesday’s game. I mean, of course I always want Arsenal to win and especially against Tottenham but I’d far rather a win next Saturday in the league given a choice and if resting players in midweek will help us to beat the Foxes then that’s what I’d do.

Yet our squad, which looked bursting with options in pre-season, is suddenly looking rather bare following a swathe of out-going loans, injuries to Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere, Tomas Rosicky and now Francis Coquelin and suspensions for Gabriel and Santi Cazorla, so Arsene doesn’t actually have much room for manoeuvre when rotating.

With Coquelin worryingly rumoured to be out for a month in the French press, and Cazorla suspended, perhaps the game against Spurs would be an ideal time to reunite Mikel Arteta and Aaron Ramsey in central midfield, after the duo enjoyed such a stellar campaign as a combo a couple of seasons ago.

That would give the pair a chance to rekindle their partnership ahead of more important games and also make room for one of Theo Walcott or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain get a run of games on the right of the attack.

A lot will depend on the recovery of individual players of course, and the fact we had to play the whole second half with at least one less man than our opponents yesterday means the players will have exerted even more energy than usual. In fact, after Croatia, that’s twice in four days we’ve played with a numerical deficit for a large chunk of the game and so I’m guessing there will be at least a couple of players in urgent need of a breather.

Arsene was asked after the game yesterday about ‘putting things right’ against Tottenham and although I’d have said something like “we don’t need to put things right you tw*ts, we were playing just fine thank you, until that bald, attention-seeking joke of a referee ruined the game’, the boss himself, said:

Yes, we try but it’s the League Cup. We play on Wednesday, Saturday, Wednesday and we have to see how we recover and how we go from there.

Meanwhile, Petr Cech picked out what he thought were positives from our defeat at his old club and said that we need to keep going as it’s still very early in the season:

I would say that a positive thing was that we made it difficult for them when we went down to 10, and then down to nine. We had a few half chances, so we didn’t make it easy for them in the last 15 minutes when we started to push a little bit more. The second red card then came and that was what they needed. You have to pick yourselves up and continue. That’s the only thing you can do because you don’t win or lose the league after five games. You need to carry on until the last minute of the campaign. Obviously we need to keep going.

After losing the match in that manner, having a vital player like Coquelin injured and picking up suspensions for two other players, the only way I’ll view that game as having anything positive come from it, is if Mike Dean is relieved of his role for the rest of the season and Diego Costa is retrospectively banned for five years. The c*nts.

See you next week.

6th September 2015: Coquelin and Cech on Euro hopes

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening. Thanks for dropping by. A post as short as an amnesic goldfish’s memory for you today, because A. I can’t really be arsed, and B. there is so little going on Arsenal-wise, that Newsnow may as well suspend it’s dedicated category. Thanks a lot Cloid.

Aaron Ramsey was in action for Wales earlier this afternoon and they could have secured qualification for next summer’s Euros with a win over Israel, but failed to find the net and had to settle for a goalless draw. Hal Robson-Kanu, who led the Welsh attack, was released by Arsenal as a kid apparently. I didn’t know that until today, so thanks Twitter. And if you didn’t before reading this entry – you’re welcome.

But speaking of the Euros, they take place in France, who will be hosting their first tournament since they won the World Cup on home soil in 1998, and Francis Coquelin has been telling the official site how he would love to force his way into Didier Deschamp’s squad for the tournament. He said:

Every player wants to represent their country and the Euros in France is something massive for any French player to be a part of. To be part of the squad would be amazing but there are loads of things to do first and the most important thing is Arsenal. If I play well here maybe I will get a chance for France, but the most important thing is Arsenal. As any French player would, though, you want to play for France and hopefully it can happen one day. It would be unbelievable. I won the Under-19 Euros and it was something unbelievable as well. To win the Euros with the French national team would be even more crazy. If I perform well here, maybe I will get the chance to play for France but I think the most important thing is to stay focused on Arsenal and then things will come along.

Aside from the fact Francis is proving himself to be a very, very good footballer, his mentality should be highly merited too. Not only are his words above a great reflection of a man who’s grounded and focused, but his on-pitch demeanour since he established himself in this Arsenal team epitomises the kind of traits that detractors of Arsene Wenger’s side so often highlight as supposedly lacking. He’s vocal, an organiser, and showcases genuine leadership qualities. And the 24 year old, despite at the time being about seven by my maths, fondly remembers watching Thierry Henry and co lift the World Cup:

Of course I remember it. All my family were watching the games so I remember it well. It was such a great feeling. To play in front of a home crowd in France would be unbelievable with the support of all the French people. We have to wait and see, and work hard, that’s the most important thing.

Elsewhere, Petr Cech has also been discussing the upcoming international tournament, telling the Arsenal Magazine he hopes the Czech Republic can still secure qualification after dropping points in both of their last two fixtures. He said:

Since I joined the national team, I’ve never missed a European Championship. I’ve always qualified. Ever since I was 16 I’ve played in every single European Championship at every level so I hope that run will continue. I used to play in France and it would be special for me to play the Euros there. We had an absolutely brilliant start to the campaign. We won our first four games, including matches against Holland and in Turkey. Unfortunately we’ve dropped points in the last two games – we drew at home against Latvia, which was a blow because we had a lot of chances. In our last game we played Iceland away and although we went 1-0 up, we lost the match. I think this is the game we look back at and can have regrets because if we had got a point or three, it would have put ourselves much closer to our target. We complicated our situation a little bit but we are still second and have four games to play. I believe that we have the team to qualify and hopefully we will prove it.

I bet Cech wishes his country could call on our effervescent number seven Tomas Rosicky right now, but hopefully they can secure a place in the finals and Rosicky can have something to look forward to after another prolonged period on the sidelines.

See you next week.

31st August 2015: Gabriel Barbosa allegedly linked as Griezmann teases on Twitter

Posted on by TremendArse

So, the eagerly anticipated final stages of this summer’s transfer window haven’t quite created the crescendo of noise many were waiting for, as markets ring the closing bell all around Europe.

After 11pm tonight, most clubs in the major leagues across the continent won’t be able to sign any new players, but crucially, can still sell to English teams with our deadline for registering new recruits not until 6pm tomorrow.

So far, the biggest deals of the day both involve Manchester United, with David de Gea reportedly set to swap places with Real Madrid ‘keeper Keylor Navas, and Antony Martial poised to sign for United from Monaco for a fee as scandalously high as Diego Maradona at USA 94.

Meanwhile, Arsenal stories this rain-soaked Bank Holiday have been limited to a potential outgoing, with Joel Campbell rumoured to be on the way to France with Rennes. I can’t say I’m surprised or disappointed or anything really, because the window hasn’t shut yet. But if we haven’t brought anyone in by this time tomorrow, I’m guessing my overwhelming feeling would be one of confusion.

Anyway, we’ll deal with that if and when it comes to it but for a glimpse into the Twitter-powered torpedo of Arsenal-related transfer rumours out there today, here’s some of the names to have cropped up on my timeline:

  1. Alexandre Pato – because somebody noticed the former AC Milan forward follows Arsenal on Twitter.
  2. Antoine Griezmann – he cryptically tweeted that he’ll find his ‘match’ tomorrow and advised followers to ‘stay tuned’, which did make me wonder if he was referring to a new club, or a new wag. Both are equally possible at this stage.
  3. Gabriel Barbosa – apparently reports from Turkey, a country he allegedly declined to move to recently, suggest Arsenal are in for the latest teenage Santos striker to be dubbed ‘the new Neymar’.
  4. Edinson Cavani – Arsene Wenger’s been snapped on a flight to Paris which must mean he’s negotiating for a PSG player. Plus Match of the Day and the BBC seem to think it’s a possibility. I don’t see it.
  5. Adrien Rabiot – see above.
  6. Nacho Monreal – he started following Athletic Bilbao on Twitter today and has been repeatedly linked to the Basque club in recent times. It’d be a strange one, although Napoli’s left back Faouzi Ghoulam was strongly linked with a move to Arsenal earlier this summer. Could 2 plus 2 make 4 for once? Probably not now, as Spain’s deadline passes in about half an hour as I type.

And I’ll stop there because it’s rather pointless and also a little depressing. On the one hand I’m always confident in our players, particularly our current collection and also implicitly trust Arsene’s ability to improve them on the training pitch. Yet on the other I can’t get my head around the possibility of Petr Cech being our only addition this summer, particularly when we’re so awash with disposable income for player investment.

Moving away from transfer talk and the boss has been talking to the official site about David Ospina’s reaction to being demoted to reserve keeper and how he expects the Columbian to challenge Cech for a starting place. He said:

He’s responded very well. David Ospina is a very strong man and a fantastic goalkeeper. He’s ready for the fight and will give Petr Cech a hard time. There will be enough room for him to play games as well, maybe sometimes to come in during the season. Why shouldn’t he be able to win his No 1 shirt back? That’s the target for him and I’m convinced he will fight for that.

I think it’s safe to suspect that barring any injury or suspension for Cech, Ospina’s best-case scenario would see him start all our domestic cup games this season but personally I’m glad we have genuine quality in reserve should he be needed in the two main competitions. Now if we could just add the same depth to the defensive midfield and central striker positions …

Back tomorrow when, with a little luck, I’ll have a new signing or two to talk about.

See you next month.

9th August 2015: Cech aura Petrs out in loss to West Ham

Posted on by TremendArse

So after all the pre-match talk highlighting the importance of a strong start to the season for our title dreams, we’ve managed to lose our opening game of the Premier League campaign two nil at home to West Ham, with Petr Cech at fault for at least one of the goals.

Arsene Wenger made two changes to the team that started last Sunday’s Community Shield win, with ‘a slight muscular injury’ ruling out Hector Bellerin, who was replaced at right-back by Mathieu Debuchy, and Olivier Giroud coming in up front at the expense of a benched Theo Walcott.

And right from the off I thought we looked slow in our thinking, rushed in our passing and over-elaborate in a lot of our play, even by our standards. Too many players were ignoring the simple pass in favour of trying to steal the show.

I hate to single out individuals but Aaron Ramsey seemed to me, to be occupying too many of the spaces and too much of the possession Mesut Ozil should have had. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was probably the pick of our performers in the first half with some typically buccaneering bursts but as a team, very little came off for us going forward.

West Ham by contrast, clearly had a contain and counter game-plan instilled in them by new manager Slaven Bilic and were executing it pretty well in the first half. New-boy Dimitri Payet in particular, looked lively and threatening on the break for the Hammers and Cheikhou Kouyaté was full of running.

Even the fact they were fielding a 16 year old, albeit the tallest 16 year old anyone’s ever seen, in midfield, didn’t diminish their display as I was certain it would when the teams were announced. I mean, when was the last time a team played against us with a toddler in their engine room, let alone go on to win comfortably?

But then just before the interval, they won a freekick, it was drifted in, Petr Cech came out to punch it away very unconvincingly, Kouyaté beat him to the ball and glanced home to put them one up. Undoubtedly bad ‘keeping from the Czech but I’m putting it down to first-game jitters and a lack of understanding with the new defence he finds himself behind.

However I’d love to know if there was a shout from either Cech or our defenders as the ball was floated in. Because if the ‘keeper did yell something like “mine!” or “keeper’s!”, then it was an even worse piece of play by the former Chelsea man as it means he misjudged the situation horribly. If not, then communication is something that needs working on back there urgently.

At half-time, I still expected Arsenal to come back out and do the necessary to turn the game around quite easily if I’m honest. I wasn’t being complacent or arrogant in my thinking, I just felt we would improve our game and the goals would arrive. I wasn’t particularly concerned by West Ham’s attacking capabilities despite their goal.

Yet we found ourselves two down on 57 minutes, when about half our team converged on a loose ball in our area before Oxlade-Chamberlain eventually took charge of the situation momentarily, before gifting the ball straight to Mauro Zarate, who fired home at the near post with Cech this time wrong-footed. Perhaps Zarate gave him the eyes because otherwise it was poor ‘keeping again.

After that, we chased the game, Arsene threw on Walcott and a clearly unfit Alexis Sanchez for Coquelin and Debuchy which meant Cazorla ended the game as our deepest central midfielder and our best attacker on the day – the Ox – as auxiliary right-back. I don’t think we came close to scoring if I’m honest and if anything West Ham probably came closer to a third near the end when Mark Noble crossed from the right.

Overall a shocking result to start the new league season and although the players must take a lot of the blame for their performances, I think Arsene will know he got a few things wrong today too.

For instance, the Cazorla-Coquelin combo was crucial to our success in the second half of last season as it enabled efficient ball circulation from the centre, as well as providing a defensive shield, yet was abandoned today. That said, we played with the same set-up as today against Chelsea last weekend and won, which may have swayed the manager.

One way of reverting to it with the same personnel would be Ramsey swapping roles with the Spaniard, or playing from the right, with the Ox switching to the left, even if the Welshman’s made it clear he prefers the central role. If not, then Ramsey needs to improve both his play and his understanding with Coquelin next to him based on today.

It is of course silly to draw any definitive conclusions from the game but even at this very early stage of the season, today’s result feels like a massive opportunity spurned to both make a statement and after yesterday’s results, gain some points on the current champions.

Back tomorrow with post-match reaction. Til then.

5th August 2015: Ozil’s in awe, Cech’s hungry and some guy on Twitter says something

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all.

I’m steaming straight into today’s post like Ramires does challenges on opponents – with reckless abandon and the minimum of fuss.

First up it’s our peerless, midfield visionary Mesut Ozil, who says he sees a lot of things – which is obviously no surprise given he could spot a throughball to a team-mate from the dressing room – to admire about compatriot and Arsenal team-mate Per Mertesacker. Speaking to Arsenal Player, he said:

I always see Per as a role model. He always gives everything for the team, you can see that he’s determined and wants to be successful. You can sense that on the pitch. He’s very focused, very professional. He does his job 100 per cent – he’s not the sort of person who does things by half measures. He’s rather the sort of person who, if he has something in his head, wants to see it through. He looks after himself and his diet, and before matches he does his exercises to make sure that he stays fit and doesn’t pick up any injuries. You can see on the pitch that he’s fresh and is always there for everyone. We’re just really pleased to have him and you can sense on the pitch that he gives everything for the team.

And I’m really pleased to have him in our side too. Along with Francis Coquelin and Olivier Giroud, I think he anchors this Arsenal team, allowing Ozil et al to play their liquid football around them.

Per Mertesacker

So what if he can’t run very fast, because he reads the game like the best of them, his passing’s always clean and crisp, aerially, in open-play at least, he’s dominant, and he also isn’t afraid to dish out the odd rollicking or two to team-mates, which is always healthy for any team. And Ozil can certainly vouch for that last one, with memories of the end of the league game away to Man City the season before last, still relatively fresh.

Someone else who’s determined, professional and wants to be successful is our new signing Petr Cech, who when speaking at a Q&A on Members’ Day earlier this week, revealed his appetite for silverware is as insatiable as ever, despite his trophy-laden spell at Chelsea. He said:

A lot of times, people say that if you win a major trophy you get satisfied and stop working. I think it’s the other way around. Once you win a big trophy, it’s such an amazing feeling of achievement and accomplishment that you want to live it again. This group now knows how to win trophies and they enjoy it very much. You can see the celebration every time we win trophies, and everybody speaks about it. I’m sure that everybody wants to at least repeat that this year.

Well the do say that success breeds success and that was certainly true of our season last time around, as we secured a second, successive FA Cup with consummate ease against Aston Villa in May, having stuttered over the line 12 months earlier against Hull City.

Although we also had a certain Alexis Sanchez to produce a goal from nowhere and better players of course always help, the experience of that first taste of success undeniably played a big part in our overall confidence as a club in successfully defending the competition.

The next step is obviously the Premier League title or a first Champions League win in the club’s history, so we’ll only really know if the domestic cups were indeed a stepping stone if and when we reach those promised lands. Make it happen lads!

Elsewhere, an Italian journalist who has written for several well-known publications caused turmoil on Twitter this afternoon after tweeting that not only would Karim Benzema be joining Arsenal in the near future, but that he would on a four year deal for £120,000 a week.

I suppose if I wanted to make up a story, I’d include fictitious, finer details because it might stop people from instantly dismissing the claim as bullshit – ‘why would he know the salary if he was lying’ etc – but then this guy has previous with his reports of new Arsenal signings being wide of the mark, as was quickly pointed out by irate fans on Twitter today.

That said, something just feels wrong about the denials from both sides saying it won’t happen. I mean, and this is obviously pure conjecture, but if we look at the story so far, we’ve had a series of conflicting reports rumbling on for far too long now for there not to be something more to it than an off chance of a deal providing Real Madrid can find a suitable replacement.

On the one hand, we’ve had one of our own directors reveal a striker was on our shopping list and that the player wanted to come, reports of telephone conversations between Arsene Wenger and the player himself, Benzema left out of recent Real Madrid friendlies through alleged injury, Gareth Bale talking up his preference for a central role at Madrid and more stuff to suggest a deal could be on.

Then to counter-balance, we’ve had Real deny it, Arsene deny it, his agent say his client would stay one benzillion percent and Sky’s Spanish expert Guillem Balague rule it out completely, yet some of the language has been ambiguous here, like Rafa Benitez saying ‘he thinks’ the player wants to stay in Spain.

Maybe I’m reading far too much into all this and just need to close my Newsnow tab for a while, but I’m not completely buying that the deal is impossible as some have suggested. Which I suppose puts me in the same boat as a lot of other people.

It’s late and I fear I’m making as much sense as David James talking about football. I better turn in.

Back tomorrow.

1st August 2015: Workaholic Wenger

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all and welcome to a brand new month on TremendArse.

I’ll keep this very brief today as it’s Saturday night and hardly anyone will be reading, seeing as though Newsnow want at least six months of posts out of me before they consider linking to my site. And trying to drive traffic to a fledgling Arsenal blog without them, is a bit I guess, like attempting to stand out as a tw*t in the Chelsea dressing room – I mean there’s just so many.

Anyway, first up (and maybe last) is Arsene Wenger and his admission that whilst most of the footballing world lounged around, topping up their tans and spending precious time with their families, he spent the vast majority of his summer break at our London Colney training ground.

Joking that he couldn’t go to the beach during his holidays out of fear of ending up splashed across the back pages – as he found himself following his sea-side showing in Brazil last summer – he said:

I had no break at all. I recovered at the training ground. I had a few days off, but I spent most of my summer at the training ground. Not the whole holiday, but most of it. When I go on the beach I am in the press the next day. Where do you want me to go? So I go to the training ground.

Now I would say I feel for the boss, and that the intrusion into his privacy during his well-deserved downtime is a tad unnecessary, but he clearly loves what he does so much that he probably sees taking a break as more of a chore, than a chance to recharge his batteries. If Alexis Sanchez needs tying down to prevent him from over training, then the same can surely be said for Arsene and his managerial duties.

Arsene during a game against Chelsea in 2012

Anyway, workaholic Wenger has also been discussing his belief that although his current team may have the best blend of youth and experience in a decade, they must prove their title credentials through performance, particularly as restrengthened opposition lies in wait.

He said:

Before, we always lost big players and then everyone would quickly question us. This is the first time for a long time we have all had confidence in our environment. Certainly the most experienced (Arsenal team since the Invincibles). We have always had talented teams but most of the time, after 2006 when we moved into the stadium, they were very young. We have the better balance between talent and experience now. And when you go into April you need that experience. Have we enough talent? I believe so, yes. And the expectations are very high. You cannot win the Cup and finish third in the league and then say: ‘Look, next year we want to do nothing.’ So the ingredients are there but I am long enough in the job to know we have to prove that with points. Chelsea were dominant last season. Manchester United are very active on the transfer market, Liverpool as well and Manchester City have bought [Raheem] Sterling and will certainly buy more.

Finally, the manager had a few words of praise for new signing Petr Cech and, not for the first time, revealed that Arsenal were on his case before Chelsea signed him in 2004, thanks to a recommendation from one of his assistants’ sons. He said:

One of my assistants Boro Primorac has a son who was playing in Rennes and he had told us they had a very good goalkeeper. So we knew about him. Before he went to Chelsea we were interested and the guy who brought him to Chelsea, one of the agents, was a good friend of mine. He told me there was an exceptional keeper at Rennes. But I think Chelsea were a bit quicker than us. He is very serious, he trains well. He has a good combination between quality, agility and size and he always looked like he was built for English football. I think he is a very bright goalkeeper as well and he has an intimidating presence, that is for sure. He makes the goals look small. That’s the kind of charisma he has.

Here’s hoping that Cech makes our goal look minuscule at Wembley tomorrow afternoon, whilst Thibaut Courtois makes their’s look as big as Frank Lampard’s gargantuan belly.

Back tomorrow and also, COME ON ARSENAL!

21st July 2015: Cech likes Arsenal, Szczesny follows Roma

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. If you hadn’t noticed by now, Petr Cech quite likes it at his new club. I mean, who wouldn’t – it’s by far the best team the world has ever seen. Although in fairness, he has just spent over a decade at Chelsea, so falling scrum-cap over studs in love with Arsenal must feel a bit like marrying into royalty after escaping a long-term relationship with a lottery lout.

Anyway, the 33 year old has been gushing in his praise for his new colleagues, highlighting high morale, great work-ethic, shared visions for success and a healthy blend of youth and experience in the squad, as reasons to believe Arsenal can conquer all in sight in the upcoming campaign.

He said (I’m not sure who to, probably an assortment of reporters following the Everton game in Singapore on Saturday – I lifted the quotes from the official site):

What I’ve found is a group of players who work very hard and who are focused on what they are doing on the pitch to get ready. I found that the team spirit is extraordinary in the way that everybody pulls in the same direction. This is why I believe that we can have a successful season. We need to have that connection between players to reach the same targets. I’ve only been here a few days but I can feel that the team is together. We have a good balance in the team. We have players with a lot of experience and we have young players who want to prove their value by being a part of the first-team squad and playing as much as possible. There are hungry players, there are experienced players and in terms of the age category we have a good balance. We hope to use that to our advantage.

All of which is excellent to hear of course. No squad with fractious cliques or littered with over-inflated egos is ever likely to be a good recipe for success, particularly when things start to go against you at some point in a season, as they almost always do, and everybody needs to pull together.

And I think a lot of the praise for cultivating squad cohesion on a social level, must go to the manager Arsene Wenger, especially as he’s said to be meticulous in gathering as much information about a player’s personality and interaction with colleagues as he possibly can, when weighing up any new signing.

Moving on and Wojciech Szczesny is reportedly on the verge of signing a season-long loan deal with AS Roma, which would see him reunite with former Gunner Gervinho, as well as provide him with a new smoking buddy in the shape of the Giallorossi’s eighth choice left back Ashley Cole.

However, claims of his imminent departure are apparently mainly based on the Pole following the Italian club, and a few of it’s players, on social media site Instagram, so may in fact just be a load of balls.

Is Szczesny off to Roma?

What I would say, is that as far as Szczesny’s concerned, there’s no smoke without fire (I’m not even sorry) and given David Ospina recently joined the Pole in declaring his desire to remain at the club, and the Columbian ended last season as our first choice Premier League ‘keeper, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this deal was in the pipeline after all.

The other semi interesting thing about this story is the fact that a Roma delegation of officials were said to be in London last week to negotiate a transfer for their 20 year old central defender Alessio Romagnoli, with Arsenal reportedly one of the interested teams. Could it be that a deal was struck for both players? We’ll find out soon enough I guess.

See you tomorrow.

19th July 2015: Asia Trophy reaction and Aubameyang

Posted on by TremendArse

Sunday greetings. With little else in terms of Arsenal chat today, I’m going to dive straight into yesterday’s post-match reaction like Ashley Young at the peak of his hornswoggling, penalty-area powers.

Steam in like Ryan Shawcross at his ‘committed’, ‘not a malicious bone in his body’, ‘not that type of player’, ‘I’m the real victim here’, Franco Baresi-esque best. Cut to the chase like Louis van Gaal telling Robin van Persie his new role at Man United. Get to the point like Raheem Sterling’s agent in contract negotiations with Liverpool…

And I’ll start with manager Arsene Wenger who speaking to Arsenal Player after the game, permeated his pleasure in seeing his players tune into the pass-and-move wavelength that defines his footballing philosophy, and putting that into practice, both individually and collectively, in beating Everton to lift the Premier League Asia Trophy. The boss again also took time to praise the tournament’s host nation and revealed his relief at rounding off the tour without picking up any injuries.

He said:

What you want to do in preparation is to find the quality of your team play back as quickly as possible, and I think that tonight for long periods we played with real quality. It’s very satisfying and it looks like everybody shares the way we see the game. We created many chances and the individual performances over the last two games were all good. [The Singapore trip has been] perfect for us because we came here with 27 players and we go home without any injuries. We won our games in a convincing way and I must say that the facilities, the welcome from people, the huge support we have here was all perfect.

Next up is Jack Wilshere, who enthused over the players’ conditioning in what he felt was a tough game against Premier League opposition, explained the team’s desire to dominate possession and talked tailored training plans. He told Arsenal Player:

I thought we looked really fit today, as we did against the Singapore Select XI. It was a different test – Everton started well. They liked to keep the ball, so we didn’t really want to give the ball away and, if we did, we wanted to win it back straight away. We did that brilliantly. They started to tire in the second half and our fitness levels really showed through. I’m feeling good. I’ve been back in training for two weeks now. I’ve played two games and there are another two games coming up next weekend after another tough week of training, so I’m feeling good. I think you feel better day by day. The fitness staff here are really good. They make the sessions individualised, so they know what you need in your position. Each session gets harder and harder. I’m feeling better and better and hopefully that can continue.

Meanwhile Petr Cech reflected on a memorable first outing in Arsenal colours, expressed his delight at a ‘trophy-winning’ start to his career at the club, pointed out that the main goal of the tour was to improve fitness and tellingly, provided an insight into the winning mindset he brings to our squad by highlighting the need for victories even when not at 100 percent physically.

He told Arsenal Player:

It’s great to win a game. The main importance was to get fit and to play well, to get ready for the Premier League and the early competitions. It was the first game for me and the first game for some other lads, but I really enjoyed the team effort we put in and in the end we had a very good game. I’m very pleased because the first game is very important and I obviously wanted to have a successful debut. I’m happy – my first game and my first trophy. If it can continue like this I will be delighted. It’s been a great week because we’ve been working hard. We had two very positive games, and we can go back home to London happy and glad with what we achieved here. The main target was to get fit and it’s important that even when you are tired you win games. Everything has been great but [the most memorable moment was] probably my debut. When you play your first game, everybody has a big expectation and you win a game, [so] it is something to always remember.

And finally for today, Borussia Dortmund’s CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke (no relation to Julian) has gone on record to say striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who was their top-scorer last season with 25 goals in all competitions, including 16 in 33 Bundesliga games, is not for sale. He told German publication Bild:

Aubameyang stays with us this season. He’s not for sale.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is all about the pace

Which sounds pretty adamant, although this comes after RevierSport reported that the player himself wouldn’t be against a move to either Arsenal or Paris St. Germain just a few days ago. My take is that if there is any genuine interest on our part in the player, it’s only as a contingency in the event we can’t agree a new contract for Theo Walcott because the Gabon international is a similar player – very quick and efficient in front of goal.

Even then though, I’d be skeptical, a bit like I am with the Alexandre Lacazette rumours, as I’m not convinced they’re better players than we already have. Gonzalo Higuain, Karim Benzema, Edinson Cavani or a re-positioned Julian Draxler on the other hand…

Back tomorrow.