Morning all, hope you’re doing well today.
Here’s a quick Saturday round-up for you, with as much as I could find this morning about Arsenal players who were in action yesterday.
Viktor Gyokeres: He played the full 90 of Sweden’s 2-0 defeat to Switzerland in a home World Cup qualifier. Alexander Isak appears to have played alongside him for the whole game too. After 3 matches, they are bottom of their group, with just a single point, while Granit Xhaka’s Switzerland top the table with three wins from three. Xhaka scored a penalty in this one.
SofaScore gave our man 7.2, while Isak only got 6.5, so in terms of arbitrary, algorithmically generated player ratings, he is – for today at least – 0.7 better. It does look as if Sweden need to get scoring again to have any chance of qualifying.
William Saliba: Played the full 90 as France beat Azerbaijan 3-0 in Paris. Or somewhere else in France. I can’t be arsed to look it up. Paris feels a safe bet though. It looks as if France were absolutely dominant, taking 33 shots to the opposition’s 1, and Saliba completed 68 of 69 passes, 49 of which came in the opposition half.
Adrian Rabiot scored for France. He’s one of those players who seems like he’s been around forever, but he’s still only 30. I quite enjoy how football warps time in your brain every now and then. For example – Dennis Bergkamp will have been retired 20 years next year. That’s both nuts and insane to me. But it’s true. You can’t argue with the march of time though.
Leandro Trossard: Appears to have started up front for Belgium in a 0-0 draw with North Macedonia. He was replaced in the 74th minute having had 4 shots, but obviously not finding the net with any of them.
Gabriel: He got booked and played 90 minutes in Brazil’s 5-0 friendly win over South Korea. Arsenal teammate Gabriel Martinelli was on the bench, but didn’t play at all in this one. Brazil have another friendly on Tuesday, when they take on Japan. Suffice to say, that’s quite a lot of travel for our lads before they return to London. I hope the Brazil FA have at least stumped up for premium economy.
Ethan Nwaneri: Played 90 minutes and was credited with two assists as England U21s went to Moldova and won 4-0. Sky Sports report: “Arsenal attacking midfielder Nwaneri was given licence to roam in the number 10 position and provided assists for the opening two goals scored by Chelsea winger Jamie Gittens and Stoke striker Mubama in Chisinau.”
There’s a shaky camera compilation here if you fancy – and on this week’s Arsecast I spoke to Clive about Ethan and Myles Lewis-Skelly, and the fact they perhaps haven’t played as many minutes as some might have expected. Listen here.
Cristhian Mosquera: It looks as if he was an unused sub as Spain U21s beat Norway 4-1.
Tommy Setford: Our young goalkeeper was between the sticks as England U20s lost 1-0 to Switzerland.
And that’s as much as I think there is. Today, Martin Zubimendi, Mikel Merino and David Raya are all available for Spain as they take on Georgia in a World Cup qualifier; Riccardo Calalfiori’s Italy are away to Estonia; while Max Dowman could play for England U19s when they take on Belgium in a friendly.
For some extra reading this morning, there’s an Interlull quotes round-up on Arseblog News. Jakub Kiwior was interesting when talking about his move from Arsenal to Porto this summer, saying:
The club didn’t want to let me go and it took a long time for them to agree to the transfer. I was valued there; no one wanted to get rid of me. Arteta didn’t want me to leave for Portugal either, so I never felt unwanted. The decision to leave was entirely mine. I wanted to play, but with Gabriel and Saliba ahead of me, the chances were small. I convinced him [Arteta] myself. I went to talk to him and explained how I saw everything. He understood my ambitions and my desire to play, and he thanked me for how I behaved as both a person and a player.
I don’t think you can argue with that. He showed pretty clearly he was good enough to go and play somewhere regularly, and the fact he didn’t want to go to another Premier League team is a little tick in the right box for me. He’s slotted into a Porto side that are sitting top of the Portuguese league right now, so good luck to him!
Right, that’s it for today. Back here tomorrow with the blog as usual, and we’ll have a Sunday afternoon Arsecast Extra for you too. Until then.
