CRACKING THE CODE
Full disclosure. The blogs this weekend will be a bit shorter than our usual.
The reason is that here at Arsenal Legion, we aren't big golf guys. We are with Mark Twain, who said "golf was a good walk spoiled". HOWEVER. This weekend, starting today, the Ryder Cup begins. What an event it is. Even guys like us who aren't into golf, five minutes in, are channeling our peak inner ghost of Seve shouting at the TV about fairway accuracy and short game. Such fervour is usually reserved for dodgy refereeing calls.
Can't wait for it to start. The wife's Daytime Soap lounge has been converted to a Do NOT DISTURB Bethpage Black viewing vantage point for the weekend. The fridge is full. The snacks are stocked. For the golfers out there reading this, we hope you enjoy it. COME ON EUROPE!!
Before we get into the Newcastle Utd preview, let's talk about some great news that dropped yesterday. William Saliba has agreed to sign on for another five years. This will take him to age 29, so pretty much most of his career will have been spent in an Arsenal jersey if he sees it to the end. This is a HUGE deal (pardon the pun). We all know Real Madrid were sniffing around, but Wilo, a massive Gooner since childhood, and a generational talent, only wanted to stay and play his football at The Carpet.
Since Arteta's reign, we are now viewed not as a career stepping stone but a destination for entire careers. Yes, he will be massively financially rewarded, but we get the feeling, much like Saka's upcoming deal, that money wasn't the overriding factor. Players can sniff trophies, and they know we are so close. Keeping our best players certainly helps lend fuel to that endgame.,
So, onto this weekend's opponent, Newcastle United. The Bar Codes. Our worflags friends from the north east.
They don't like us much, do they? They seem to save their flag-waving special days and events for when we visit. What have we done to piss them off so much? Are they still salty from us beating them in the FA Cup final in the 97/98 double year?
They seem to have manufactured a one-sided rivalry out of thin air and spite that only began pretty recently, with them trolling us by signing Bruno G. Never mind the fact that we were never really in for him; it didn't seem to matter in the signing reveal video. Our being perma-linked with Isak seemed to add fuel to their fire. All seems a bit one-sided and frankly a little stalker level weird.
Mo money, mo problems seems to have been the theme since their takeover went through in 2021, which catapulted them into the financial elite of world football. They went from being Kevin Keegan's "everyone's favourite second team" (because everyone loves a plucky loser) to "everyone's second-least favourite team" (because no one likes a rich, bitter loser).
£450m spent to win the Carabao Cup and lose their best striker since Alan Shearer, clearly wasn't part of the blueprint.
This summer, they spent roughly £250m on players like Woltemade, Wissa, Elanga (overpaid for him), Thiaw, and Jacob Ramsey. Their outgoings were dominated by one player, and that, as we all know, was Alexander Isak, who joined Liverpool (as we predicted) late for £130m. Sounds like a lot of dough, but they had to spend roughly all of it on Woltemade and Wissa to fill the void, so they made zero profit and ended the window significantly weaker.
With regards to team news, they are missing the aforementioned new signings, both Wissa and Ramsey, but welcome back Gordon from suspension and Murphy from injury. Arsenal old boy Ramsdale should be on the bench. Could he not do better than backing up Nick Pope? His agent needs his P45 in the mail. What a waste.
For us, Madueke joins Havertz and Gabi J on the sidelines, but the return of Saka last weekend was timely. Odegaard is set to return but there was no update on the status of Hincapie.
Our stab at the starting eleven is below.
Again, we have a multitude of lineup options. We think Arteta will block out the noise, open himself up for criticism, and stick with his fellow Spaniard Merino again. The reasoning? Newcastle is a physical side, especially in midfield, and without the Spaniards presence and power, we look a little lightweight in there. We do have Eze staying in the lineup, but shifting over to the left with Saka starting on the right. No deserving starts for either Trossard or Martinelli, but making decisions like those is why Arteta gets the mucho dinero.
Even with Odegaard returning, we are going for Merino to start ahead of him. We touched on this in previous blogs. Arteta will not have taken kindly to his captain missing two huge games with a sore shoulder, and a spell on the sidelines watching could well be the result.
A lot of pre-match chat is about what kind of Arsenal we will see. A negative not to lose the game mindset or a bit more expansive setup sent out to win.
We are beginning to have the belief that maybe there is no such thing? No such debate. Maybe Arteta has already cracked the code. What we see every week is Artetaball. This is him. This is us. Sometimes, controlling the game, you lose at Anfield from a worldie, but other days you go to somewhere like Bilbao and win comfortably, or City at home and dominate and are unlucky not to get the three points.
The AI predictor went for a 2-1 victory for us, but we can't see there being three goals in the game. We have come to realise that 1-0 is the new 4-0. Yes, we are choosing victory over aesthetic vibes. Give us a VAR controversial goal for the win. Hey, it seems to have worked for them against us there in recent years.