Arsenal dreaming of silverware
It's a Friday grab bag with thoughts on the World Cup, Gabriel Jesus, and Arsenal vs Lyon.
It has been an eventful week. The World Cup round of 16 knock-out matches have been mostly entertaining and have set up nicely so that basically the teams left (outside of Germany and Spain) are the teams that have performed the best overall so far in this tournament.
I am excited for the Quarterfinal matches.
France vs England is going to be a really interesting and close matchup. The Netherlands vs Argentina could be interesting but I also fear low scoring. Portugal came out of the round of 16 looking really good (if dropping Ronaldo is this good for them, we might need to worry about Manchester United) and should be favorites against a Morocco team that just keeps finding ways to win. The last match is probably the one that is most one-sided on paper with Brazil heavy favorites against Croatia.
It hasn’t all been great news unfortunately for Arsenal with one of the biggest injuries of the tournament has happened to Gabriel Jesus.
The Jesus Questions
This has been covered extensively already on Cannon Stats with this by me looking at how Arsenal can cope with an injury:
We also had
looking at what options there might be to replace him:Ultimately I think that the idea of “replacing” Jesus is far-fetched.
The main reason is that replacing and matching or exceeding what he is able to bring to the team is a pretty rare skill set. Trying to get that is hard and expensive, this was something that came up again and again last year at this time when I was going through the players that Arsenal was linked with at forward. On top of that, I believe that Arsenal are thrilled with what they have currently in Jesus and that would put a cap on the ambitions for any move that might be made for an out-and-out striker.
I think the internal option of Eddie Nketiah is plan A with the possibility of bringing in a wide player (who could also play centrally) something that was already in the plan but maybe a bit more likely now.
Could there be a loan with an option to buy for someone like João Félix? I agree with Adam again that I find that far-fetched but it will really depend on how desperate Atleti become to move him on. The other name for a loan is Memphis.
He is a player on the outs at Barcelona and they are still potentially in an area of looking to save some money on wages.
Silverware in Arsenal’s Future? Arsenal vs Lyon
The second pre-season is underway with the Dubai Super Cup.
Arsenal got out to a good start grabbing four points with a win in both the match and the shootout again Lyon. Overall this looked like a very good performance from Arsenal even with key players missing. The final scoreline was 3-0 and that is reflected in the overall chances that both teams created in the match.
In this match, Arsenal created just shy of 3 expected goals from 18 shots.
Overall I came away pleased with the performance of the team, with a good impression from the performances by Keiran Tierney, Reiss Nelson, and Eddie Nketiah who will very likely be key players so that the guys coming back from the World Cup can get some needed rest and recovery.
Arsenal will have a chance to seal the Dubai Super Cup on Tuesday when they go against Italian Champions Milan.