Saturday round-up: Pressers, apps, Club World Cup

Morning.

It’s an FA Cup weekend so no game for Arsenal’s men. Hopefully though it’s a good weekend on the training pitch with plenty of time to prepare for Fulham on Tuesday. I don’t need to say anything more about Bukayo Saka, but all going well he can play some part in this one. We might get a little more from Mikel Arteta on Monday when he holds his pre-game press conference, but let’s see.

Arsenal Women play Crystal Palace tomorrow, a back-down-to-earth kinda fixture after what transpired in midweek. The spotlight on the Champions League is obvious, but the bread and butter stuff of WSL action is what we have to deal with on Sunday. Tim Stillman was the only reporter from the written ‘press’ to attend Renee Slegers pre-game press conference in person yesterday – and one of the upsides of that was the fact he got some face to face time with midfielder Lia Walti. You can hear what she had to say in a short bonus episode of the Arsenal Women Arsecast here.

When we launched on Patreon back in 2018, part of the promise, so to speak, was to ensure that we didn’t just put extra stuff behind a paywall: it was about improving things in general too. Our coverage of Arsenal Women is evidence of that, as is the fact Arseblog and Arseblog News are now completely ad-free. So when you come to read an article, you don’t have to navigate a billion spinning, whirling, twirling always twirling banners and pop-ups which obscure the content etc. We’ll keep doing that too, by the way, so even if you’re not a position to subscribe to Patreon, you still get some of the benefits.

A quick note again re: our Android app, it’s coming v soon. Google are being a bit annoying about some small details but all going well it should be available v soon. There’s an update for iOS coming too. Fingers crossed we can get everything done at some point next week.

For some extra reading this morning, Tim’s column this week is about the Raheem Sterling deal. It obviously hasn’t been a success on any tangible level, but perhaps behind the scenes there might be one or two positives to glean from it – have a read here.

I’d also point you in the direction of Barney Ronay’s piece on the Club World Cup. I can’t even begin to put into words the contempt with which I view this so-called tournament. Its ghastly, overly-ornate trophy with its repellent orange sheen; its utter meaninglessness in the football calendar; the shameless cash-grab by FIFA to create another pointless TV competition whose rights were essentially sold in the kind of money-laundering operation that should be investigated by the Serious Fraud Squad; and just the outright contempt which oozes from every part of it towards football fans who know what is important and what isn’t, and this absolutely isn’t despite what that snivelling, obsequious, unctuous, little creep says about it all.

Hey, I found words! Finally for today, thanks to everyone who asked about Lana. She’s fine this morning, but was a little zonked yesterday after the anaesthetic! Have a great Saturday folks, till tomorrow.

ps – everyone hates them!