STEVE ROUND EXITED – XHAKA SAYS GOODBYE – MEDICALS DUE – BALO-GONE SOON

Mikel Arteta went all Game of Thrones this week and exited Steve Round, his assistant, from his coaching staff. This shock move has all the hallmarks of a Logan Roy scene in succession. Sometimes, you need a bloodletting to show the cattle who is the farmer in charge. If you wanted to take this more football-like place, then look no further than Sir Alex Ferguson who used to regularly shake up his coaching staff to ensure his coaches were at the bleeding edge of the game.

From what I understand, I don’t think he’ll be missed. He wasn’t doing a lot to add to the technical levels of the team – likely a good move for a junior coach, but I think it was inevitable Arteta was going to have to upgrade that position at some point.

The odds on favourite right now? I mean, it has to be Santi Cazorla. The Spaniard has been flirting with Arsenal all year and it’s no secret he wants to get back to Arsenal. He was bessies with Arteta during his time at Arsenal so it might work. The question for me is what is Arteta looking for? If he’s looking for a popular person to integrate with the players and bring good vibes to the fans, then Santi is the man for that. I don’t think he’s done much coaching, so I can’t speak to how he is on that front, nor can we guess. All we know is he was an extremely technical player, so if he can translate even 20% of that into his coaching, we’ll be doing a-ok.

Jurrien Timber and Declan Rice will be having their medicals over the next two days, those will go just fine, and the squad will welcome them to training. Arsenal have done such a great job here. We’ve landed our 3 main targets early, they’ll integrate, get the max time with Arteta, and be ready to go game day one. No other club has moved with such speed. Now we have the privilege of sitting back and watching the others scramble.

There will be exits, no doubt about that.

Flo Balogun will be the most painful. The £50m number in the market is there because it’s to set an expensive benchmark we’ll likely not reach. But it’s better to start at £50m and drop to £40m – than start lower and end up with a shit fee. There are plenty of clubs in need of a striker and not many on the market that can do what he does. I suggested Chelsea will want a piece of the action in February, according to reports today, that is the case. I have no doubts he’ll have plenty of clubs in for him.

We are in a luxury position with Thomas Partey. If he decides to stay on the bench, we have top-class coverage. If he goes, we’ll move on Lavia and have some proper succession planning next season. I don’t think Partey wants to stay and I suspect the money from Saudi on a long-term deal will prove too tempting to pass up.

Then we have a bunch of squad players that’ll be marketable. Sambi will go, Tavares has interest from West Ham, Rob Holding will get a move, and I really think KT will be on the march out of the club because he’ll want minutes.

There’s a lot of money to be made and I think the interest will heat up over the next few weeks.

Point is: It’s good times for us now. We’ve done the hard work with the big players. Arsenal is a better team than it was 2 months ago already. Anything else is bonus from here on in.

Ok, that’s me done. If you want some extra content, Johnny and Matt recorded a podcast last night.