Happy Sunday.
I didn’t watch the FA Cup final yesterday. This is before:
What follows is as follows:
Does this mean Erik Ten Hag can stay now? Here are my thoughts:
But what’s quite funny is that while winning the cup saw United qualify for next season’s Europa League and beat Chelsea in the Europa Conference League, Newcastle have no European football at all. I think I can speak for all right-thinking football fans when I say that this is a situation that should not be tolerated at this point in Alexander Isaac’s career, and that it is our duty to save him.
It’s a joke, but there’s a ring of truth to it too. He’s 24 and too good a player to be scratching around Eddie Howe’s side trying to control Joelinton’s blunderbuss passes. It’s been widely reported that Mikel Arteta is very interested in him, but I’m not sure how likely a deal this will be. It may not seem like a big difference, but if you pull out the PowerPoint you used on Declan Rice, you might at least get his head turned.
Elsewhere, Sturm Graz are keen to sign Mika Vierres permanently after spending the second half of the season on loan. He has appeared in 22 games and scored 9 goals and 4 assists, so his stock is relatively high. It’s hard to know how much Arsenal want or how much the Austrian side can pay, but winning the league would put them in the Champions League next season, which would blow away any spare cash they might have.
It was interesting that during a small period of the season when we struggled to score goals, people saw the youngster hit a few times at Motherwell and seriously pushed for him as the answer to our problems. Desperate times and all that. With Eddie Nketiah likely leaving, it could be argued that he could push for a squad place with us, but that would be the case. Especially if we sign another striker this summer. As a random example, it’s like some kind of striker whose team is no longer in Europe.
But I think the expected outcome for Biereth is that we sell him, we get a reasonable fee with an appropriate sale clause, and the loan system does its job. We sent a lot of academy talent out on loan last season, and he was probably the only one who really shined and opened a few doors for himself. We might talk a little more about the others during the week.
But now I’m going to do something I should have done a long time ago. Find one that matches every sock I own. There are too many. Part of me thinks I should start over, massacre my socks and buy new ones, but I’m smarter. One type of dark sock, one type of white/sports sock, then you won’t have any mix and match problems. But that seems like a lazy choice, so I’ll do it another way.
Whatever you do, I hope you have a great Sunday. Join me and James tomorrow afternoon for our first Arsecast Extra of the post season. until then.
