FRIDAY BRIEF: INS AND OUTS, EtH NONSENSE, IWOBI IN PARIS

Did you hear the news? Erik Ten Haag asked for his players to be in at 7am.

What a leader.

Ruthless.

A disciplinarian of the highest order.

That’ll get those boys firing.

Honestly, imagine that being your big swing? I know technical staff who get to work at 0530 every day. Palming off 7am as early is beyond a joke. But more importantly, do people really think a coach who is nose deep in a Glastonbury cesspit is motivating his players by bringing them in to work 3 hours early on a Thursday?

This is how simple people think about leadership. Bang the table. Mete out punishment. Roar about working hard. Make people run laps… take the ketchup out of the canteen. Yawn.

These things don’t work. I told you at the start of the EtH reign of misery that his Sgt. Major leaks to the media spoke to insecurity and that approach alone just doesn’t work these days - particularly with managers that don’t get majority of their decisions right. Imagine trying to convince a group of players you can tactically outsmart Arteta after you sanctioned £95m on Antony. If you could buy Antony in a laypersons retail outlet, you’d find him on the beach inside the blazer of a looky-looky man.

EtH been rollerblading the green mile since December - these nonsense stories about discipline are the death rattles of an underwhelming couple of years.

So let’s get into something serious: According to a fact I will NOT verify… City has dropped points in May 5 of the last 6 seasons.

Mull on that my friends.

Sorry, did I write mullet?

Ooof… what is going on here chaps and chapesses? I won’t give a critique. I don’t want to get flamed at an Oxford debate by Hector. But, my word… those bike wheels tell you all you need to know about the Real Betis content budget these days.

I’m not really one for getting riled by awards nominations, but the POTY award from the Premier League had Alex Isak but not Bukayo Saka or Bill Saliba. VVD and Haaland made the list. Cole ‘Penalty Merchant’ Palmer managed a nod. Ignoring Saka is a high crime and a double misdemeanour. What a terrible miss. Congrats to Declan and Martin Odegaard. Also, to Mikel Arteta who was nominated for Manager of the Year.

Jorginho signed a new deal with Arsenal. There hasn’t been too much controversy over it. Not like there was when we signed him 3 hours after my online recommendation of his talents. Does he owe me a cut of his deal? Maybe. I like this re-signing. The player has bundles of experience, he’s been electric this year, and he’ll pick up the elder statesman slack Big Mo will leave behind.

Think we can also be pretty sure that means Thomas Partey will be exiting.

Arsenal are planning a victory parade just in case we win. There have been some folk critiquing this forward planning. Honestly, you can tell when people who are still getting their own birthday parties organized by their parents are in the room… because public planning is an absolute monster and there is no club in history that planned a victory parade AFTER they won a trophy. You need to close streets, organize balloons, signage, staging, sound, videos, a campaign… this cannot happen the Sunday night before the event.

There are some sexy rumors surrounding exits. Emile ‘I love a Chigwell Kebab’ Smith Rowe and Eddie are rumored to be of interest to newly promoted Ipswich. The biggest barca-like-ballers in Championship history will be looking for players who can rock the beautiful game and they’d not go far wrong with the goals of Eddie (he will get them, I promise you) and the creativity of Emile. Not sure they have the capital, but we’ll see.

Aaron Ramsdale has been linked with a Newcastle move, again. They need to sell before they buy but have you ever considered they sell us Bruno and then the entire budget to buy Ramsdale? I have considered that.

I know there’s a lot of talk of strikers, but one I’d chalk off your list is Alex Isak. Don’t expect him coming the other way. Think we have different targets. Suspect we’ll invest more in midfielders and wingers than we will on strikers. But I certainly don’t think the injury-prone Swede is quite our cup of tea. We need a physical monster up top, that’s not Isak, I’m not sure he’d suit our system in the same way some of the other players would. We also don’t need a £100m striker while we have Kai playing to £80m levels. We can spend the big money in other positions.

I noted the other day that Fulham have track record of switching off once they get to 40 points. You doubted me. Said I was lying. Threatened me with legal action.

I present the first piece of evidence (Fulham players flying kites at training):

Here is the second piece (Iwobi in Paris at the club for his birthday):

These jokers do NOT care about our title push and they are going to get absolutely walloped at the weekend.

So depressing. So very, very depressing.

Ok, on that happy note. I’ll say goodbye! x