The one simple trick Arsenal need to make their attack better

Morning all.

As I am not a total masochist, I did not spend any time watching football last night. I know there was other football, but in particular the Man City game. They won 1-0, they’re now top, level on points with us, with the exact same goal difference but ahead on goals scored.

I will say, I fully expected them to win, so that’s not a surprise, but I also expected them to win by a much, much bigger margin. So, if there’s any comfort to be had this morning, it’s that they didn’t smash a load of goals in to make our already complicated situation even more so. I just had a quick look at the stats, they had 28 shots on goal and racked up xG of 3.4, so I guess it could easily have been more comprehensive.

Anyway, they don’t play again in the Premier League until May 4th, by which point we’ll have played twice – the home games against Newcastle and Fulham. If we win both, we’ll be top, 6 points ahead, and the pressure will be on them to respond. Of course, we have to do our job and hope for the best, but there’s clarity, at least, in which we need to do.

In the other game, which I also didn’t watch, I see Bournemouth’s two goals came via Eli Junior Kroupi and their exciting January signing Rayan. Obviously I can’t comment on the game itself, but as we ponder our attack and what we might do this summer, I feel quite strongly that we should just send some cat burglars to go and steal their scouting list.

What Andrea Berta should not do: have any influence over who we sign.

What Andrea Berta should do: just get the deals done after we see which exciting young attacking talent Bournemouth have on their list.

This is the kind of thing we have to do get it over the line. If our own scouting and recommendations from the Sporting Director don’t turn out to be good enough, then the only recourse left to us is corporate espionage. Hey, people say we lack the mentality and ruthlessness to win the big prizes, and I’m telling you exactly how we change that. If it comes down to a white collar boxing match between Michael B Jordan and Josh Kroenke, so be it.

Elsewhere, in an even less surprising development than Man City beating Burnley, Chelsea have sacked Liam Rosenior, the man they appointed with a six and a half year contract in January. Ker-ching goes the piggybank in his house. Chelsea are on a run of seven defeats in their last eight games, and apparently when they lost the other night – making it five losses in a row without eve scoring a goal – it became their worst run since 1912. Insert your own Titanic joke here.

Personally, I thought he was doing a tremendous job and ought to have been given more time, a bit like Thomas Frank over the road, but the Chelsea hierarchy decided to give him the chop. Shame. He talked about how being a manager is job where you ‘age men’ (man-ager), which was such a red flag it’s hilarious how it was ignored. Hopefully though he has aged lots of men who support Chelsea, and they are now withered husks that barely look human – like feral ghouls from Fallout.

I’ve seen talk of how some of them said, “We want our Chelsea back”, but this is your Chelsea. The actual Chelsea. Not the one made a success by the blood money and evil of Roman Abramovich – whose ‘respectability’ came at such a cost to society at large, and the game of football itself. He opened the Pandora’s box that led to clubs being owned by other oligarchs, billionaires and nation states, and while that might have been an inevitability given the world we live in, he was first and thus deserving of plenty of blame and contempt. The Chelsea they deserve to get back is the one with clapped out Ford Cortinas parked around the pitch and electric fences.

In the wake of our defeat to Man City on Sunday, I pondered whether or not to reference their ownership, the 115 charges, the litany of legal cases that already exist against them from UEFA, and decided against it. In part it’s because if you mention it, people will accuse you of making excuses or trying to shift the blame from our own failings on the pitch. Which I get. So I didn’t, but isn’t that also part of the problem?

If we’re conditioned to ignore stuff like this, it goes a long way to enabling it. Everyone is so inured to the idea of their financial irregularities and the fact it’s taken so long for anything to happen (so far, nothing has happened), it becomes a thing we all know but don’t really pay enough attention to. But ultimately, if ‘proved’, it’s a level of cheating that goes beyond anything we’ll have ever seen in football before. But, it’s sour grapes if you say anything about it.

City’s 115+ charges didn’t make us play like twats against Bournemouth, for example, and that’s fine, but they are where they are because they have the best manager in the world and the most expensive squad in the history of the game when it comes to wages – which is a huge factor in how competitive you are. It’s far more important than actual transfer fees, as City’s success demonstrates.

People have often asked about a scenario where a decision comes in and they’re deducted points and whether or not that would leave a potential Arsenal title win this season with an asterisk. Leaving aside the fact we could be still talking about this next year or the year after as City make this as legally complicated as possible for the Premier League, I wouldn’t give a single shit if it happened now. Give me the asterisk. Give me all the asterisks. I’m gonna get an asterisk tattoo. I might even change my name to something like Steve Asterisk.

I hope Chelsea don’t hire Cesc Fabregas.

Right, I’m gonna leave it there for this morning, but we will have an Arsecast for you a bit later on today so stand by for that. Until then, have a good one.

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