Odegaard assist, Tzolis knock, Timber’s troubles plus Wengerball
Good morning everyone! It’s Lewis here covering for Blogs for the day. I’d tell you how things look in Berlin right now, but I’m sitting in a dark room trying to ignore the rest of the world: after a few days looking after my unwell toddler, she’s passed whatever she had on to me and it’s my turn to ache and groan.
I doubt she’ll wait on me hand and foot in quite the same way I did for her, but who knows, maybe she’ll surprise me?
There were a few mild surprises in the international games last night. First off, Martin Odegaard recovered from whatever Bernardo Silva suffers from to play the full 90 minutes as Norway lost to Wales. Odegaard assisted the opener (with a beautifully weighted pass – you can see that here) for former Premier League winner Oscar Bobb. Norway will play Portugal on Sunday, meaning we have to hope the skipper gets through another game against Bernardo Silva before returning to north London.
There was another encouraging surprise (swiftly following a concerning one) when I saw how Christos Tzolis left the field following an early injury with Greece in their 2-2 draw with the Netherlands; it doesn’t look like he was in too much discomfort as he jogged off. The left is already the position Arsenal look lightest in, we really can’t afford to be losing anyone out there.
Greece are without Giannis Konstantelias long-term – it was his injury that opened the path for Ethan Nwaneri to make his move to Borussia Dortmund – so it makes sense that they’d be cautious with another attacking player.
Jurrien Timber played just under 80 minutes in that one, lining up at centre-back. He got caught under a long ball a bit for the first goal and didn’t look great on the second either. Hopefully that’s just him shaking off some rust.
Riccardo Calafiori could be in action against France tonight, which is about the biggest test you can get in a Nations League game. Let’s cross everything that he comes through that unscathed as we approach the final chapter of this tome of an international break.
If you want to kick your Friday off with some vintage Arsenal, I can recommend this very enjoyable Wengerball compilation they’ve thrown up on the official YouTube. All the beauty with none of having to watch the late 2000s team escape scything challenges, the early 2010s team defend a corner, or Shkodran Mustafi repeatedly blow his own feet off.
There’s word that Manchester City – who have always insisted they are Sheikh Mansour’s private hobby and not state-owned – will argue that all their money came from the state, rather than their oh-so-generous benefactor. They already argued these irrefutable facts to the independent Commission, who dismissed them out of hand:
“it was an explanation that the club had concocted well after the event in an attempt to conceal the realities of the Disguised Funding Scheme”
When you read that, it’s hard to see how an appeal panel would see things differently.
That’s all from me today, but there’s plenty for you to plug into your ears to get you through to the weekend. Philippe Auclair was the perfect guest for this week’s Arsecast, and Andrew and James have recorded a Waffle episode over on Patreon. Apparently someone has asked them about shampoo and they have some hot takes? I’ll have to get around to overruling whatever they say on the stuff, I’m clearly the authority on the matter around here.
Right, I’m going to see if I can get back to sleep to shake off whatever it is that’s making me feel like this. Have a good Friday!
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