Jodera:

How and why do you say so??

But I really want league to start, for the past few days, I just dey use my free time deh watch highlights of our last season matches

He was looking Jaded and much older during the last interview session he had just few days ago.

It’s on Arsenals instagram page.

Fkforyou:


He was looking Jaded and much older during the last interview session he had just few days ago.

It’s on Arsenals instagram page.

Hmmm...

Can you please forward me link. I would love to watch it

Ijustwantto:
Sorry for disturbing your thread with pictures oooo. I just say make I post this last one. No vex😎😎😎

You wan kill jodera with tears😂😂😂😂

England for win if not southmumu and his triplets of failures,harry Kane and arsenal bottlers. Omo curse too much

The lads are back in training
It's refreshing to see their fresh faces, new hairstyle etc
Work have started already


We rejected 2 EPL teams bid for ESR, I guess they are below our valuation
Anything less than 35m is a no
We still need to bin nelson, nketiah and maquinhos
We need some BCD matches before heading to US for preseason proper


ESR should just swap shirt with Ø the 10 is useless on him abeg

Good to see my boy Saliba make Team of the Tournament. Well deserved, many more to come. Get some rest and let’s get ready for next season!

Roland17:
Good to see my boy Saliba make Team of the Tournament. Well deserved, many more to come. Get some rest and let’s get ready for next season!

Better player.

I just hope all of them get extended rest. At least Saliba, Rice and Saks (esp) should not arrive camp until at least 2 weeks (or less) before season starts

🚨Ethan Nwaneri will likely participate in the entire pre-season of Arsenal's first team, starting with a tour in the US 🇺🇸 according to Team news and ticks ✅
🔸️Last night, Ethan Nwaneri also played in Arsenal U21's 4-2 win over Boreham Wood and it only took him 3 minutes after coming on to score in this match.
🔸️Ethan Nwaneri is currently the young player with the highest salary in Arsenal history. He was also tutored directly by captain Martin Odegaard last season.
🔸️Therefore, Martin Ødegaard's role is also the position that Ethan Nwaneri is expected to take on when entering the Gunners' first team.
🔸️If he continues to perform excellently as he is now, the opportunity for Ethan Nwaneri to be considered to keep playing for Arsenal's first team next season is entirely possible...!⏳

A long but Interesting Read:

HOW OTHER SPORTS INFLUENCED ARSENAL’S RISE? (Rebounds, Rotations And A Pendulum Defence)

Arsenal's progress in recent years has been remarkable. Year-on-year under Mikel Arteta, they have bettered their points tally each time. There are lots of reasons for that, from the importance of belief to new signings elevating the team.
One factor worth noticing is the influence other sports have had on Arsenal. Some of those influences are more apparent than others, but there is no doubt the club have taken inspiration from outside football, whether from basketball and rugby, or more niche sports such as handball.
Here, The Athletic examines exactly how some of those sports have influenced Arsenal.

Basketball
We’ll start with the most popular, and obvious, example.

The comparisons between Arsenal’s play and basketball started 18 months ago. Curiosity sparked when Martin Odegaard was part of two basketball-inspired celebrations in a matter of weeks in matches away to Brighton & Hove Albion and Tottenham Hotspur.

Although the Arsenal captain could be vague when asked about it, he later told Overtime FC’s TikTok: “It’s just a principle we have in the team called the Basketball Rule and it’s (about) being in front of the man.”

This was to explain his goal at Brighton, when he reached a loose ball before Kauro Mitoma on the edge of the box to finish. Earlier that month, when asked about the amount of quick turnovers Arsenal were forcing during their mid-season friendlies, Reiss Nelson said: “We call it the Basketball Rule. In basketball, there’s a lot of rebounds, so that’s something the boss has incorporated into our style.”

Arsenal ranked second in the Premier League last season for winning possession in the final third (253 times). Pressuring the ball appears to be a key part of this basketball rule. In basketball, man-to-man defending emphasises the defender keeping the ball in front of him and not letting a dribbler get past. The best defenders in the sport take it a step further and apply pressure on the ball-handler, looking to force a mistake.

Looking back over recent months, here are a few examples where Arsenal players have done well in that respect to force a turnover and set up a counter-attack, against Chelsea, Luton Town and Everton.
Man-marking is not new to football, but the instruction of being in front of (or in line with) the opponent in possession does seem important. Declan Rice is a master at anticipating passes anyway, but being well-positioned no doubt helped Emile Smith Rowe and Gabriel Jesus produce moments they tend to be less associated with.

Cont....

Cont...

Those moments lead to what is the most obvious comparison made between football and basketball: transitions.

Funnily enough, this was something interim manager Freddie Ljungberg and Arteta were vocal about wanting to stop happening to Arsenal in the aftermath of Unai Emery’s November 2019 sacking. Now, Arsenal are utilising these transitions to become more dominant, although the best examples came in the 2022-23 season.

In the 1980s, Magic Johnson, the legendary Los Angeles Lakers star, popularised what in basketball circles is known as a fast break. The idea is to get the ball — via turnover or rebound — and race to the offensive end of the court before the defence can get set. They called it ‘Showtime’ when the Lakers did it, because it was an exciting style of play. Now, it’s a staple of NBA basketball. The Golden State Warriors, led by Stephen Curry, became an NBA dynasty with five titles in eight years by thriving in transition.

We see the same traits in Arsenal when they pounce on the ball, force turnovers and immediately apply pressure on the opposing defence, finding opportunities to break quickly.

One of Arsenal’s key attributes in 2022-23 was five players racing into the final third whenever they attacked. It would become six when Ben White overlapped, but even with five they often took up the width of the pitch before exploiting space more centrally.

Below are two examples. One against Manchester City, where Bukayo Saka joins the move late to finish. The other is against Liverpool, where Saka is the wide outlet and Gabriel Martinelli waits to burst into a more central space to score.

Similarities with basketball can also be seen in how Arsenal use blockers — Alexandre Lacazette obstructs Nathan Ake to create space for a Saka goal against Manchester City in 2022 (above). Blocking is more often seen in Arsenal’s set-piece routines.

Cross-sport similarities have also been seen in how Arsenal move the ball, specifically out wide.

Arsenal fans will be familiar with White waiting for Saka to make a run inside a full-back before passing into that space for him to receive, as seen below.

Arteta himself spoke about wanting this movement from his wingers when working towards earning his coaching qualifications, saying: “I don’t like creating (straight) lines between the wide players. Why? Because the full-back passes to the wide player like this with his back to goal. He can’t progress the play. There’s always someone at his bum so he cannot play forward.

“When you do it like this (with the winger coming inside off the line), the angles you create mean you are always receiving the ball like this (on the move).”

These types of passes have drawn comparison to the off-ball ‘cutting’ or ‘slashing’ movements in basketball, where players dart across a defender to receive a pass in space. They have been vital to White and Saka’s relationship on the right and helped Arsenal become more threatening over the past two seasons.

Cont,....

Rugby
It could be argued rugby has had just as big an impact on Arsenal, although that is not always on the pitch.

Like most clubs, Arsenal will often have coaches or analysts up in the stands during matches. In rugby, that tends to also be where head coaches watch play from, as opposed to being down on the touchline, like in football. Being elevated in the stand provides a different vantage point from which to spot what is going right or wrong during a game.

Arsenal use this in first-team and under-21 matches. When Arteta was first appointed, Ljungberg took this role in the stands, with a direct line of communication to the bench.

Asked about watching games from that viewpoint during last year’s rugby union World Cup, Arteta said: “I spoke to Sam (Allardyce, former Bolton Wanderers, West Ham United and England manager) about it and he was really comfortable to have the first period (of a match) there. When he explained the arguments of why he did it, it’s just brilliant. That’s being ahead of the game and managing yourself in a way that can make the team better.”

Last autumn, rugby had a more obvious influence on Arsenal players. When there was an international break at the same time as that sport’s World Cup, Rice, currently on international duty at Euro 2024, spoke about how he and his England team-mates have sought to improve their mental approach in matches that could go either way.

“We’ve had some people in before to do some talks,” the Arsenal midfielder said. “Not only the (New Zealand) All Blacks; England as well (and) South Africa. How to get over the line. How to do things differently and how to have that mindset of, ‘We ain’t getting beaten. No matter what’.”

It will be impossible to tell whether that mindset has carried over to his game at Arsenal, but it is likely. Arsenal’s improved performances against the rest of the top six, who they went unbeaten against in 2023-24, is a testament to that, considering new signing Rice was key throughout.

One influence from rugby that may be more visible on the pitch is in Arsenal’s defensive structure.

Over the past few seasons, their press has aimed to guide opposition teams into a trap near the touchline. Over time, their execution has become more intense, with White often one of the side’s most advanced players on the pitch, to help condense space as seen below.

That swing, with White pushing so high up and everybody else covering, is reminiscent of a shape drill done as early as under-12s in rugby.

The drill is focussed on a ‘Pendulum Defence’, where the back three in a rugby team (the two wingers and a full-back) will swing across the pitch depending on where the ball is. Usually, two wingers hold the width with the full-back central, but during this drill the ball-side winger would push up, the full-back would push out to the touchline and the far-side winger would come central.

It is a principle that is worked on in football, when far-side wingers pick up loose players infield, but the extreme nature of Arsenal’s setup felt more comparable to how the pendulum defence is actually executed in rugby.

The influence has also gone the other way.

In 2022, then England rugby union head coach Eddie Jones spoke of Arteta’s trip to their camp the previous year. Asked what he learned, Jones said: “A fast start — how fast they get out of the blocks. Every game, they’re at it. They play with energy, they know how they want to play, they put the opposition on the back foot.”

Fast starts were a theme of Arsenal’s play at the time. They were lacking at the beginning of last season, but returned in 2024. That relentlessness kept their title charge going until the campaign’s final round of matches.

@jodera, so u sit down, type all dis history without including how gbassnal will win its first ucl??
Make I dey go

Ijustwantto:
@jodera, so u sit down, type all dis history without including how gbassnal will win its first ucl??
Make I dey go

Waka!!

🤣🤣🤣

Jodera:


Waka!!

Ijustwantto:
@jodera, so u sit down, type all dis history without including how gbassnal will win its first ucl??
Make I dey go

🚨 Arsenal’s move for Riccardo Calafiori has stalled because Bologna and Basel are in a stand-off over his sell-on fee.

The Gunners have been pushing for weeks but their negotiations are 'frozen' with Bologna threatening to call off the deal.

(Source: Mirror Football)

ESR will soon leave but for a good price
There are reports Nathan is already working closely with odegaard to replace ESR in the squad

This wasn't hard was it?

iamoyindamola:
ESR will soon leave but for a good price
There are reports Nathan is already working closely with odegaard to replace ESR in the squad

This wasn't hard was it?

Maybe you guys can sucker Everton to buy smith Rowe for another 40

Like y’all did iwobi 😂

What do you all think about signing Rabiot for free?

johnjunior39:
What do you all think about signing Rabiot for free?

I no gree.

I don't think he's someone that can elevate our play plus he's injury prone.

By next season, we'll still be thinking of buying another upgrade if we buy him

Arsenal's away kit.

Dope or No??

Why are the players looking like they don't want to win trophies next season?😂🤣🤣

Jodera:
Arsenal's away kit.

Dope or No??

Jodera:
Arsenal's away kit.

Dope or No??

I’m buying this one it is available in naija. (most likely next month )

Ijustwantto:
Why are the players looking like they don't want to win trophies next season?😂🤣🤣

Lol,
You don take am say you wan banter me this season shey??

Where's the Messi brotherhood?

BlueRayDick:


I’m buying this once it is available in naija. (most likely next month )

Yeahhh, it really looks dope.
Not like last season's own

Messi sef, I still dey troll am sometimes but not in Goat debate.
Bottlers deserved banter, especially the fans

Jodera:

Lol,
You don take am say you wan banter me this season shey??

Where's the Messi brotherhood?

You should be buying football jerseys that carry grace like fc Barcelona. Just my opinion though 😎

BlueRayDick:


I’m buying this one it is available in naija. (most likely next month )

Injury na bastid o. Pedro Neto would been a big addition but his injury issues eh.

Nelson edging closer to Westham.

https://www.nairaland.com/8159028/nairaland-fantasy-premier-league-2024


All FPL managers we are moving a new site

This will really hurt ,if it is really true

IZUKWU:
This will really hurt ,if it is really true

Not true currently

IZUKWU:
This will really hurt ,if it is really true

After everything they offered him, if he choose to leave, he should leave.

Calafiori deal almost getting completed after breakthrough have been confirmed. Player told bologna that he only wants arsenal. Hopefully, here we go soon and we move on to other targets