Before the Game: What’s the Deal with Folarin Balogun? Arsenal & Westham

I’ve been talking with a couple of us this week.

So moving on, we talk about our game, we’re moving on to our game against West Ham, and by the way, if you want to link to read the article about Folarin Balogun, it’s in the description below. It’s available if you’ve got a free subscription to The Athletic. You should be able to read that, I don’t think it’s behind a paywall anyway. 

It’s moving on to our game against Westham. 

What are the odds? 

I don’t want us to go into that game thinking we’re all that, yes people! People have been pandering the phrase: ‘Every game in the final’, and maybe rightly so. But, you know, I just want us to go and build confidence with that game with a win going forward and when we eventually meet tougher teams like City, obviously, and Newcastle – and I think we have Chelsea – we need to win. 

Win every game right now. 

Yeah, So I was talking to a seasoned Arsenal fan this week after work, and he said he would prefer he’d prefer Caicedo over Declan Rice as Partey’s cover. 

So basically he’d rather we got to cover for Partey and then he prefers Caicedo over Rice but would want Rice as Xhaka’s cover. So you see, I mean, obviously, Xhaka could end up being Rice’s cover. But the point is, if he had to choose one person, if we only had to buy one, he would choose Caicedo. But he’d rather that we had both. So that Rice, you know, takes Xhaka’s place and then Xhaka acts as cover because he’s getting older, but has got unquantifiable qualities that will be beneficial to the team. And then he’ll take Caicedo as Partey’s, successor. 

What do you think? 

Let me know in the comments. 

But do you think we can actually afford both? Say we sell, Folarin Balogun, for, like, £35 million or £40 million and add that to the transfer kitty and then go ahead and splurge on two midfielders, Rice and then, we just make do with what we have upfront. 

Maybe get a winger? That’s not pressing. 

Anyways, for the game against West Ham on Sunday, We need to be careful of Paqueta. He seems to be finding his form now. Bowen and also Rice. Rice would probably want to put on a show for Mikel Arteta, you know, let him know what he’s missing. 

So right, Rice might want to put up a show, but those are players that we should be worried about. And then, there’s Michel Antonio who can be a pest. He can. He’s strong, he’s fast and he’s a pest, so we’d have to keep him quiet. We can’t make any silly mistakes at all. 

And for the love of God, once, we are one or two goals up, can Mikel put in Kieran Tierney? Because he”s much better defensively. I think we suffered a lot in our game against Liverpool because Liverpool kind of figured out that we were weak on the left after a while, so they kept peppering. Zinchenko. 

I have no issues with Zinchenko, it’s just that the fact remains that he’s better technically than Tierney. But when you need someone who can give you good defensive qualities and as well whipping in decent crosses. His passing may not be sublime as Zinchenko’s but you need a Tierney. 

And I would rather we sold… what’s his name? This guy we loaned to Olympic Marseille. Oh, dear God, I’ve forgotten his name. I’m pausing this and I’m going to look for his name. Give me a second. Nuno, Tevares. Yes, I know, he’s been gone so long, I’ve almost forgotten he’s there. 

So I’d rather we sold Nuno and kept Tierney. I know he’s injury prone. But if we have, if we keep Zinchenko and Nuno, we basically have one left back that can score and is prone to horrible mistakes and maybe has a little bit of an attitude problem. And Zinchenko, who’s beautiful in the midfield and with passing, but just basic defensively or decent defensively. We need a left-back that can defend. That’s why I’m thinking Nuno for a decent amount and, you know, keep Zinchenko and keep Tierney. Yeah, those are my thoughts. 

Let me know what you think in the comments below. 

Now moving on to Chesney…