Next Gen, Wembley, Champs League etc etc « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
By Tony Attwood
If you want a review of the Next Gen under 19s game against Marseille there is one on the Arsenal.com site – and it is absolutely purring about the quality of the performance.
Here are the players – the two marked * also played in the last under 21 game for Arsenal.
- Stuart Moore (on loan – our keepers are injured or unfit)
- Hector Bellerin
- Martin Angha *
- Sead Hajrovic
- Elton Monteiro
- Nico Yennaris
- Kristoffer Olsson
- Jon Toral
- Kyle Ebecilio
- Serge Gnabry
- Chuba Akpom *
Here’s the rest of the under 21 team.
- Jernade Meade
- Ignasi Miquel
- Daniel Boateng
- Craig Eastmond
- Conor Henderson
- Thomas Eisfeld
- Chuks Aneke
- Sanchez Watt
What strikes me is that we are getting to know the names of the under 21 side – people like Miquel, Eastmond, Henderson, Eisfeld, Aneke, Watt. Now we have coming up close behind them some exciting under 19s as well, including Serge Gnabry who seems to be getting rave reviews. Here’s another interesting snippet, Hector Bellerin and Nico Yennaris both came out of Barcelona. No wonder they made such an effort to get Cesc back, they know we can keep on taking their players away from them.
So, a fine 3-0 start in Next Gen and a fine start in the under 21 league as well.
Meanwhile on a different planet Wembley played Uxbridge in the FA Cup Preliminary round last night. The game was live on ESPN, and I watched a spot of it, but it was so frightening the way the tackles were going in I had to turn it off. Which means I don’t know the final score. Can anyone tell me. And did both teams end up with 11 players on the pitch? Just in the short spell I watched it didn’t seem possible that they could.
It just shows how refs will change the rules to suit the skill of players I suppose. Two feet off the ground flying into the ankles of a guy who had the ball about 10 seconds ago… it was truly horrific.
And so immediately onto the Champs League draw. Despite everyone who says that it is pointless always qualifying for the Champs League the fact is that because we do, we in the top seeds. Here’s the groupings…
POT ONE
| Arsenal | Chelsea | Barcelona |
| Manchester United | Bayern Munich | Real Madrid |
| Porto | AC Milan |
POT TWO
| Valencia | Benfica | Zenit St. Petersburg |
| Shakhtar Donetsk | Schalke | Manchester City |
| Braga | Dynamo Kiev |
POT THREE
| Olympiacos | Ajax | Anderlecht |
| Juventus | Spartak Moscow | Paris St-Germain |
| Lille | Galatasaray |
POT FOUR
| Celtic | Borussia Dortmund | BATE Borisov |
| Dinamo Zagreb | CFR Cluj | Malaga |
| Montpellier | Nordsjaelland |
Obviously we can’t play Man City, but any other grouping is possible as long as there is only one from each country. Zenit look to be increasingly powerful, but it is interesting to see how Juventus are only in pot three. And their manager is still suspended for a year, although he is appealing.
Also I would like to avoid Paris St Germain, who despite their wobbly start have such a powerful side that eventually they must come through.
Last snippet on a day of snippets is that the Telegraph is running the story that Liverpool will buy Walcott if they can dump Carrol. Would Theo really take that much of a step down? I suspect not. Anyway Mr Wenger says he is not selling Theo, no matter what. Which means he clearly wants to keep the new big squad he has created, so at last we can go through a season without being destroyed by injuries.
And that’s about it.