A Saturday’s bag of odds and ends

A Saturday’s bag of odds and ends…

Today, May 23rd would have been the FA Cup Finals at Wembley.

We are now on Day 77 without Arsenal football! I project the next match for the Gunners will be on June 20th. That’s 28 days from now.

It was great to once again see more photos from training camp as the first team continues to get ready for the Premier League restart.

So, now that Mikel Arteta has his troops back in training, can he rekindle the fire his squad was starting to light prior to the shutdown?

We have also heard a lot about transfers, both comings and goings. To date, the list of comings has topped 80, while the list of potential goings is as follows:
Matt Macey, Sead Kolasinac, Sokratis, Shkodran Mustafi, Lucas Torreira, Mohamed Elneny, Dani Ceballos, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Alexandre Lacazette, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Konstantino Mavropanos

The most exciting name on the list of potential signings is Thomas Partey of Atletico Madrid. Just take a few minutes to watch his highlight reel on You Tube. The guy is a beast and has the ability to take over a game in midfield. He would be the perfect fit for defending our back four, plus he has strong passing and scoring skills as well. If I was making the decisions, I would make a player swap, and send Alexandre Lacazette to Atletico for Partey. That’s how good I think he is.

The big question remains. What to do about Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang? If we are building for the future, than he should go. We have a lot of talented young forwards who are all very special as well. However, if our goals are short term based, than Auba needs to stay. No matter what the final decision is, one thing is for sure, Aubameyang can not be allowed to go next summer on a free transfer.

Have you watched any Bundesliga games on TV? It’s very weird, especially the audio portion of the broadcast. This will take some getting used to.

Here’s one for the books. Apparently, several clubs in the Premier League have suggested filling their stadiums with cutouts of people. This sounds more like a “Twilight Zone” episode than a football match. Yikes!

That’s about it. Good luck to the European league executives as they attempt to maneuver through the scheduling, promotions, relegations, government health and safety standards, player health and safety concerns, TV rights battles, and financial woes…all created by a germ.

Cheers, and stay healthy!

Gunner1953