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Hello! Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal — hot or not?
Coming up:
Divide… and conquer? Arsenal split fan opinion — but what do those in the game think?
Photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton
Opinions on Arsenal are like… well, you know how the old saying goes. Everybody’s got one. And TAFC is no different. The club should take the attention as a compliment. Quality teams occupy the mind. People don’t feel strongly about middling contenders.
You can split views about Arsenal into diametrically-opposed camps: their own supporters, for whom beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and followers of other sides, who find fault with manager Mikel Arteta’s methods constantly. They claim the north London side are too reliant on set pieces for goals, too prone to the dark arts, not enchanting enough and devoid of panache. It’s a wave of slander towards a squad who are seven victories (if that) from their club’s first Premier League title win in more than 20 years.
My prime observation of Arsenal is that their competitive levels are phenomenal. They don’t clock off, and they never phone it in. They’ve lost three times all season — three times across four competitions, all of which they could yet win — and all of those defeats came via goals scored after the 80th minute. It’s incredibly hard to beat them, and they so rarely take a trouncing. You have to go back 13 months to find a day when they lost by a margin of more than one goal.
What our Oli Kay wanted to find out, though, was how the rest of the Premier League rate them. What is the prevailing view of Arteta’s Arsenal in the eyes of the players, coaches and chief executives who come up against them week after week? The verdict is here — and it’s extremely complimentary.
‘I love what they do’
I picked out a handful of quotes from Oli’s article to give you the drift of it (I’d strongly recommend going in for the full read). The figures quoted in it were allowed to speak anonymously, so they could give an honest view:
🗣️ EPL club analyst: “At 0-0, you feel you’ve got a chance of frustrating them. But once you fall behind, different story. With this Arsenal team, everything becomes even more compact. It’s incredibly hard. I love what they do.”
🗣️ Rival CEO: “They’re like a python. They squeeze the life out of you. The third-best defence in this league is Everton, and they’ve conceded 50 per cent more goals (33) than Arsenal (22). There’s tremendous respect for Arsenal’s capability.”
🗣️ Club board member: “They’ve worked out, better than everyone else, what you can get away with in this league and how far you can push it. And part of me thinks, ‘Fair play to them’.”
The same analyst also pointed out — and it’s hard to argue — that Arsenal’s approach to set pieces has revolutionised the way other clubs think about and work on them. Arteta has been highly innovative in that sense, and not for nothing is the set-piece coach part of the furniture in English football now.
There was some griping about them — that they’re encouraging a swing from technical football to a more physical style, that they don’t provide the entertainment value of Liverpool last year or Manchester City before them — but the overriding feeling is that Arteta, in his own fashion, has it cracked. They’ve been there from the start this season, they’re still there, and the title is on. They deserve to see it through.
Iran Doubts: Trump message brings latest twist to World Cup participation
The debate about Iran’s participation at the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico this summer is rapidly tying FIFA in knots. We’re in a cycle of daily pronouncements at the moment, none of which are remotely consistent.
The first came from U.S. President Donald Trump, who admitted — in the wake of American and Israeli strikes on their country — that he “doesn’t care” if Iran attend the finals. This was followed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino insisting he’d secured assurances from Trump that the Iranians would be free to go.
Iran’s sports minister then warned they might boycott the tournament anyway — after which Trump complicated matters yesterday by posting on Truth Social: “I really don’t believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety”. Iran then used an Instagram account to take him to task, saying: “No one can exclude Iran’s national team from the World Cup”.
So here’s where we’re at: Trump says he doesn’t care if Iran take part, Infantino says the U.S. president would welcome them to the tournament, Iran say they’re minded to pull out, Trump says they probably should, to which Iran say they’ll show up if they want to. It’s a mess — and, as Adam Crafton writes, for all Infantino’s schmoozing of Trump, this situation feels out of his control.
News round-up
- Chelsea have signed captain Reece James to a new contract this morning. It’s another of those whoppingly long deals — six more years, taking him to 2032 and the age of 32.
- Pedro Neto said sorry for pushing a ball boy during Chelsea’s defeat at Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday, and also gave the kid his shirt — but UEFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against the winger regardless. You can’t escape the long arm of the law.
- Despite overseeing just two games so far as Sweden head coach — and despite their World Cup qualification still resting on UEFA’s play-off this month — Graham Potter’s contract has been extended to 2030. He was previously on a short-term deal. They must like what they’re seeing.
- In a sign of the times, Tottenham Hotspur will leave their season-ticket renewal window open until June 7, which is two weeks after the 2025-26 term ends. That gives their fans a chance to see if they’ve been relegated from the Premier League or not.
- Rangers and Celtic both spoke out yesterday in response to the disorder that marred their Scottish Cup tie last weekend. Rangers condemned “cowardly” graffiti referencing the 1971 Ibrox stadium disaster, in which 66 people died.
All-round hero: The things you didn’t see as Real Madrid’s Valverde hit a hat-trick
It’s only fair to give Federico Valverde a little more love, after the night of his life against Manchester City. There was a great line from Real Madrid’s Champions League win on Tuesday: team-mate Trent Alexander-Arnold describing Valverde as “the most underrated footballer on the planet”. “He covers every blade of grass,” the full-back said.
If you watch Valverde closely, it’s true. He has this habit of popping up everywhere, and while we waxed lyrical about his hat-trick against City, just as pivotal was his role in helping Alexander-Arnold neutralise Jeremy Doku down the visitors’ left. He was simultaneously Madrid’s best attacker and defender — the very definition of covering every blade of grass.
Come the World Cup, Valverde’s presence will be massive for Uruguay. It hasn’t exactly been sweetness and light in the Uruguayan camp, but at the outset of Marcelo Bielsa’s reign as head coach, they played some fabulous stuff. If Valverde can follow up the night of his life with the tournament of his life, they’ll be opponents to avoid.
- There’s been a lot of gnashing of teeth about the performance of Premier League sides in the Champions League this week. Were they tired? Were they outclassed? Was it simply the way knockout games can go? Our data department crunched the numbers, and it’s abundantly clear the English schedule is more bloated than others around Europe.
Around TAFC
Catch a match
Selected games (times ET/UK)
Friday Championship: Wrexham vs Swansea City, 4pm/8pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Sky Sports.
Saturday Premier League: Arsenal vs Everton, 1.30pm/5.30pm — USA Network/Sky Sports; Chelsea vs Newcastle United, 1.30pm/5.30pm — NBC, Peacock Premium/Sky Sports; West Ham United vs Manchester City, 4pm/8pm — USA Network/TNT Sports; La Liga: Real Madrid vs Elche, 4pm/8pm — ESPN, Fubo/Disney+; German Bundesliga: Bayer Leverkusen vs Bayern Munich, 10.30am/2.30pm — ESPN (U.S. only); Serie A: Inter vs Atalanta, 10am/2pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime, Fubo, DAZN (U.S. only); MLS: Charlotte vs Inter Miami, 7.30pm/11.30pm; LAFC vs St. Louis City, 10.30pm/2.30am — both Apple TV in both regions.
Sunday Premier League: Manchester United vs Aston Villa, 10am/2pm — USA Network/Sky Sports; Liverpool vs Tottenham Hotspur 12.30pm/4.30pm — NBC, Peacock Premium/Sky Sports; La Liga: Barcelona vs Sevilla, 11.15am/3.15pm — ESPN, Fubo/Premier Sports; Serie A: Lazio vs Milan, 3.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+, DAZN/TNT Sports, DAZN.
And finally…
One of my few regrets is that I was never a Heart of Midlothian mascot as a kid. I applied often enough, but my name didn’t come out of the hat. C’est la vie.
These days, mascots at a high level of football have the added bonus of appearing on TV when the teams line up behind them. One of those at Nottingham Forest’s Europa League defeat to Midtjylland last night seized the moment by turning to the camera and sticking his fingers in his ears (above). You can just hear his parents before he left the house: “Best behaviour, and don’t do anything silly…”