Morning all.
Blogs is on the golf course early this morning, so you’ve got me filling in from an oven-like London.
I guess we should start with the signing of Illan Meslier, whose arrival on a free transfer was confirmed by the club yesterday.
The Frenchman clearly lost his way at Elland Road. He was Daniel Farke’s undisputed first-choice goalkeeper before a series of high-profile mistakes during the 2024/25 campaign saw him taken out of the firing line as Leeds chased promotion.
By that point he’d made 215 appearances in English football, but last season he didn’t play a single minute, slipping behind Lucas Perri and Karl Darlow in the pecking order.
If you’re among the more anxious members of the parish, that might sound a few alarm bells. Personally, I’m not sure this is one we need to overanalyse.
Everything points to Meslier being Arsenal’s third-choice goalkeeper behind David Raya and Kepa, so the chances of him getting his gloves dirty on a matchday are pretty slim.
I had a quick look through the archives and the last time Arsenal called upon a third-choice goalkeeper in the Premier League was back in 2016/17, when Emi Martinez played a couple of games after injuries to David Ospina and Petr Cech. The Argentine also featured in 2014/15 when Ospina and Wojciech Szczesny were both unavailable.
Go back a little further, and there are other examples of injuries and suspensions leaving us short between the sticks. Some of you will remember Jens Lehmann being coaxed out of retirement for that game at Blackpool in 2011. He ended up being the fourth goalkeeper used that season. Vito Mannone, Mart Poom, Rami Shaaban, Stuart Taylor, John Lukic and Lee Harper have all had their moments too.
Thankfully, they’re very much the exception rather than the rule.
The domestic cups are a slightly different story. Arsene Wenger and Mikel Arteta have both been happy to hand opportunities to younger or more peripheral goalkeepers. Tommy Setford, last season’s third-choice keeper, made appearances in both the League Cup and FA Cup, so perhaps that’s the pathway Meslier has been sold.
It’s not exactly a starring role, but as we saw with Christian Norgaard’s arrival last summer, the chance to join Arsenal is a compelling one, even if regular football isn’t part of the sales pitch.
For his part, Meslier says he arrives with “anger and determination” to get his career back on track. Working with Inaki Cana alongside two experienced goalkeepers should provide the ideal environment to rebuild his confidence. And if things go to plan and he doesn’t play very much, he’ll still have spent a season at Arsenal, which may well be enough to persuade another club to take a chance on him down the line. At 26, he’s still young by goalkeeping standards.
Interestingly, he’s already got a couple of connections within the squad, having played alongside Ben White at Leeds and William Saliba for France Under-21s. Familiar faces never hurt when you’re settling into a new dressing room, and the former, who is rehabilitating his knee, was there to greet him at London Colney on Tuesday.
He’ll have to wait a while for a reunion with Saliba, whose World Cup duties will continue for at least another eight days. France made light work of Morocco in Boston, winning 2-0 to set up a semi-final against either Spain or Belgium, who meet tonight.
Even if they fall in the semi-finals, France still have the entirely unnecessary third-place play-off to negotiate before Saliba can finally head off on holiday and start thinking about the back problem that has been troubling him for months.
I know they laboured a little against a bruising Paraguay side in the previous round, but I don’t think it’s controversial to say Les Bleus have looked the standout team at this World Cup. They’ve scored 16, conceded just twice and seem to have the bit between their teeth, no doubt fuelled by the memory of losing the final to Argentina in Qatar four years ago.
Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele both threatened early on, and it felt like only a matter of time before France broke through. It should have happened midway through the first half when Manchester United’s Noussair Mazraoui clumsily chopped down Mbappe, but after three minutes and 12 seconds of VAR searching desperately for a reason not to award the penalty, the Real Madrid forward did the officials a favour by missing it anyway.
Usually ice-cool from 12 yards, Mbappe looked visibly irritated by the delay and produced one of those hesitant little run-ups that seem to have infected modern football. The result was an underhit effort that Bono read comfortably.
As someone with precisely zero experience of elite football, I’d like to offer a bit of advice. You’re 12 yards out. There’s one bloke in the way. Just absolutely twat the ball as hard as you can!
France recovered well enough. Desire Doue and Lucas Digne both went close before the break, then Mbappe finally got his reward after the interval. Saliba won a header to keep Morocco pinned back, Doue poked the ball into Mbappe’s path and the forward curled a lovely finish into the far corner for his eighth goal of the tournament.
Six minutes later it was game over. Dembele surged through the middle before finding the bottom corner from the edge of the box with a beautifully composed low effort. Bono got a hand to it, but couldn’t keep it out.
Morocco huffed and puffed without ever really looking like getting back into it, while Arsenal target Bradley Barcola might easily have added a third as the game drifted to its conclusion.
There had been plenty of concern beforehand that Paris could descend into chaos regardless of the result, with around 8,000 police deployed across the city, but a quick look at the news this morning suggests the evening passed without major incident. The same can’t be said for London’s Edgware Road, which looked a little lively.
So Saliba’s quest to emulate Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit by winning the Premier League and World Cup in the same year rolls on.
As mentioned earlier, he’s been playing through the pain barrier, with reports in France suggesting he’s barely training between matches as he manages the sciatica caused by a lower back issue. One journalist at L’Equipe even claimed this week that Saliba might not make it to the end of the tournament.
Personally, I’d be amazed if anyone voluntarily walked away from the chance to become a world champion, so I’d fully expect to see him in the semi-finals. What happens after that is another matter. If surgery is required to address a herniated disc, Arsenal could be without one of their most important players for a significant chunk of the season.
You’d imagine Mikel Arteta and Andrea Berta have already factored that possibility into their transfer planning. Links with Aston Villa’s Ezri Konsa have surfaced, and I’d be surprised if he was the only contingency being discussed behind the scenes.
Right, that’s enough from me. If anything Arsenal-related crops up during the day, we’ll have it covered on Arseblog News. Otherwise, Blogs will be back tomorrow. Catch you soon.
