BACK IN THE SADDLE

Hallelujah Legion! Real football is back, baby!

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13 days is a long time to be sitting on any defeat, never mind an undeserved one. Yes, we are the stewing on a loss kinda blog here at Legion Towers. We make no apology for it.

 

But now, as the old saying goes, it's time to get back in the saddle, starting with Nottingham Forest at The Carpet, lunchtime tomorrow. We aren't fans of early kick-offs, gotta be honest. The later the kickoff, the more, ahem, inebriated the crowd is, the better the atmosphere. We often find that lunchtime kickoffs are a bit, well, flat.

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How did our players do on international duty? Said no one ever. We originally drafted a complete rundown of performances, minutes played, and all that jazz, but then thought, "Does anybody really give a shit?" so we scratched it. All anyone really cares about is "who got injured?" Thankfully, we seem to have come through unscathed. I read a stat that it's the first time in 12 years we've come away from an international break without picking up an injury? That surely cannot be true?

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To summarise, the outstanding performer was Mikel Merino. He bagged 4 goals for Spain across the two games, including a hat-trick away in Turkey.

 

We rate Merino. He seems to get a lot of undeserved fanbase hate. Being called the Spanish Fellaini, we think, is a little undeserved and harsh. He's a much better player than the perm-haired Belgian. We are using him as a rotation piece, yet he starts for this current, very, very good Spanish national side. Says a lot about our current squad depth, which we'll touch on later.

 

The low point of the interlull was definitely Max Downman getting fouled at a rate of once every 6 minutes by the same Spanish player for England U19's for the opening 36 minutes. Playing 3/4 years above your eligible age group and getting kicked up and down the park once every six minutes because you are too good says volumes about the kids' talent levels, but we all know that already.

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Speaking of the England U19s. Did you know they played 3 games in 9 days this international 'break'? Can we please stop calling it a 'break'. It's nothing of the sort.

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The other noteworthy news that caught our eye was Odegaard being fit to start both of Norway's games. Infuriating, but we'll leave it at that. No point rehashing our views we expressed in the Liverpool review.

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​​​​​Now that this interlull has finally been put to bed (until the next one in less than 3 weeks), let's concentrate on tomorrow and our opponents, Nottingham Forest. Jeesh, where to begin?​ They are a club in turmoil, and that's being kind.

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Let's start with their owner, the combustible, billionaire Evangelos Marinakis' decision in the summer to 'poach' our Sporting Director, Edu, to oversee his football operations. I don't know of any Arsenal fan who wet the bed at this news. We were all just a bit, "Oh, ok, who are we replacing him with"? There was no outrage. No doom mongering. More of a sense of apathy at his departure and intrigue on his replacement.

 

Most of you, and we, would agree that it seems to have worked out well so far, with Berta receiving credit for the work done in the summer. We feel there were a couple of deals that didn't make sense, and the sales side of it was terrible (again), but not all of the outgoing failings were down to him.

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Back to Forest. It didn't take long for fractures to appear in the relationship between manager and boss, which culminated in a spectacular falling out. It was a battle Nuno was never going to win. A piece of advice. If you are ever in a workplace and the owner hires someone who's notches above you on the totem pole and has 'Global Head' in their job title, DO NOT throw them or the guy who hired them repeatedly under the bus publicly.

 

Things got so personal that Edu refused to set foot near the place until the manager was gone and news broke earlier in the week that Nuno was clearing out his office. Weird they didn't sack him at the start of the interlull? Why wait until 4 days before their game with us? Who knows? Not our problemo.com

 

In terms of Premier League win percentage, Santo was Forest's most successful manager EVER. He posted a 41.9% win rate, nearly 20% more than one-of-a-kind Brian Clough. As you all know by now, the new man in the hot seat is Big Ange, who in his 2 years at spurs had a win rate of a tick less at 41%. What is it with Forest hiring ex-Spuds managers?

 

The Aussie is a divisive character; there is no doubt about that. He split the spurs fanbase by winning a European trophy yet finishing one place above the relegation zone in the league with a record of 11 wins, 5 draws, and 22 defeats with a goals tally of 64 for 65 against, a minus 1 differential.

 

Judging by Forest fans' reactions, his appointment has been met with, let's just say, a 'lukewarm' reaction.  Speaking to one of their fans on Twitter, he expressed disappointment with the hire. He doesn't think Ange will raise their levels at all (maybe the win percentages speak to that). He wanted Iraola (who also weirdly has a 41% win rate), or Glasner, or worst, Silva from Fulham. He was extremely pessimistic about this weekend. Let's hope he's right.

 

The footballing gods, of course, have decreed that his first game in charge will be against us. The time he will have with the squad will be extremely limited, however, with players returning on different days from different countries, so hopefully the new manager bounce isn't of the Zebidee kind (showing our age, folks).

So, why the fallout between Edu and Nuno? Why the animosity? It's hard when it's not our club to really know what's going on behind the scenes. But knowing Edu and Nunos' past histories, we are guessing, and this is only our take, that an agent war erupted?

 

Edu, as we Arsenal fans all know, has a long-standing relationship with Kia Joorabchian dating back to him being Edu's agent in his playing days. Edu's early days at the transfer helm were filled with uninspired Kia clients, including David Luiz, Willian, and the despised Cedric Soares. The latter being a bizarre and absolute agent-favor deal that ended up costing us somewhere in the region of £20m in total, including wages for the four and a half years he was with us. He made 64 appearances in those 4 years (not all starts) for a total of £312.500 per appearance and left for nothing. Sickening.

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Nuno, on the other hand, is a Jorge Mendes guy. Their paths are very similar to Kia and Edu in that, back in Nuno's playing days, he was Jorge Mendes' first-ever client.

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Could it be that Edu was pushing Kia's clients over Jorge's? Both Douglas Luiz and Omari Hutchinson are Kia's. Not one signing was a Jorge Mendes guy. Was it the final straw that the club's biggest transfer of the summer, Hutchinson, was omitted by Nuno from the Europa League squad? Was this out of spite? Was he trying to make a point? If so, it spectacularly backfired and led Edu to sack the most successful Premier League manager in Forest's history and replace him with a guy who spent £350m at spurs to finish 4th bottom and win the European equivalent of the FA Cup.

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It sounds like we are being harsh on Edu. Look, we ain't gonna lie. He was lucky to keep his job in his early days with us. All that murky agent stuff was distasteful and only stopped because the Kroenkes got some buttoned-up guys in the building, like long-time trusted aide Tim Lewis, to dig into the finances, and didn't like what he found.

 

On the flip side, maybe it's not Edus' fault, and Nuno took exception to four players coming from the same Brazilian side, Botafogo, who are owned by John Textor (ex Palace owner), a close business friend of Marinakis.

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So how did Edu actually do this summer? Was our cigar-smoking, BBQ-loving ex-employee a spectacular failure in his first transfer window at the helm? Take a look at their deals below.

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INCOMINGS

​Omari Hutchison - £43.5m

Dan Ndoye - £42m

Dilane Bakwa - £35m

Arnaud Kalimuendo - £30m

James McAtee - £25.5m

Igor Jesus - £19m

Nicolo Savona - £13m

Jair Cunha - £12m

John Victor - £8m

Cuiabano - £6m

Douglas Luiz - Loan (Fee £3m)

Zinchenko - - Loan (Fee Unknown)

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OUTGOINGS

Anthony Elanga - £61.5m

Danilo - £23m

Ramon Sosa - £12.5m

Andrew Omobamidele - £10.5m

Matt Turner - £8m

Carlos Miguel - £5.5m

Lewis O'Brien - £3.5m

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They were the 6th highest spenders in the league with a net spend of roughly minus £115m. They spent more than Man City, Spurs, and Everton, and that's just transfer fees. You then take into account the massive salaries that Luiz and Zinchenko are on, so spending money hasn't been the problem.

 

We're going to be honest here. Edu played a blinder in getting £70m for Elanga and Matt Turner. Seems pretty good business to us? Let's not forget everyone at the Club World Cup in the summer was raving about the 'masterstroke' signing of Igor Jesus of Botafogo, even though he was a 1-goal-in-4-games guy in the previous, single season he had in the Campeonato Brasileiro.

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As mentioned, they added Premier League experience in Douglas Luiz and our very own (but not for long) Zinchenko. A lot of top clubs had been tracking winger Ndoye. He's always looked impressive to us whenever we've seen the Swiss at international tournaments.  Hutchinson is someone we know all about, and they added another young Englishman in Man City's McAtee. Savona, the tall right back/centre half they signed from Juventus, is highly rated. He played 28 times for the Rossoneri last season as a 21-year-old.

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Their 2 best players are Gibbs-White, who was involved in that weird Spurs transfer tussle this summer, and centre forward Chris Wood. Midfielder Elliot Anderson had an impressive showing for England in their last international away to Serbia. At the back, Murillo, the center half, is let's just say 'a unit', but they are definitely weak in the full back areas in Aina and Williams. Aina, in particular, has found it tough going against Saka, so he will have been happier than anyone seeing him pull up injured against Leeds.

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Their 3 league games so far resulted in an opening day win, then a draw, and, before the break, a heavy home loss to a woefully out-of-form West Ham. We also noted that they have played the same starting eleven in all 3 games, with only one of their summer signings (Ndoye) starting.

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On our front, the 'usual suspects' are injured. No Havertz, No Saka. The return of Gabi Jesus, at this point, is anyone's guess.

 

The good news is that Saliba trained today, so we see no reason why he shouldn't start. We always view the French publication L'Equipe with skepticism. They reported Wilo out for 3/4 weeks. This is the same publication that had him rejecting a new deal with us before his last contract signing.

 

More injury good news is Ben White and Christian Norgaard also trained, and we expect them both to be in the squad but not the starting lineup.. Our bench is going to be almost as interesting as the starting eleven because there are going to be some high-profile names watching from the stands at various points in the season. We wonder how they will react, especially after Christmas in a World Cup year.

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Have you noticed that for the last few seasons, if we were going into a stretch of games without the likes of Havertz and Saka, we would be in full panic mode as a fanbase, catastrophizing all over the interweb. Maybe because it's been the interlull, but we have been particularly quiet this week. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because their replacements are Gyokeres and one of Eze/Madueke.

 

This is the value of having quality squad depth when you have a manager who grinds players into the ground until they break. Sorry, but he does. To be fair to Arteta, he isn't the only one. Pep did it with Rodri because he knew that without him, they were a pretty average side. Arsenal Legion dropping truth bombs today, but that's the reality.

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We have our usual fun guess at the starting 11 below. See if you agree. It always seems harder after the interlull as some players return fresher than others due to travel, etc. We think Eze will start. We just aren't sure on what side.  We also expect the return of Odegaard to the starting lineup. Those are the two changes we are making from Anfield.