ROWE FORWARD
There’s a lot to like about Arsenal. The retro kit launches, the $exy football, Gunnersaurus, the videos of Ian Wright being Ian Wright. But when does a club have just too many vibes? Can someone be too much a top, top, top bloke? Content might be king, but not when it gets in the way of the football.
The tipping point for Arsenal surely came at the end of last season. Shortly after getting pumped 3-0 by Brighton to further derail their Premier League title challenge, Mikel Arteta called a press conference on 19 May to announce the “newest member of the Arsenal family” at their Colney training ground, a chocolate labrador named Win. “I carefully chose the dog and in my opinion it’s the perfect representative of who we are right now. Her name is Win, we all love winning and Win needs a lot of love. So the love for Win, that was basically the feeling.” The following day, Arsenal lost at Nottingham Forest, gift-wrapping the title for Manchester City.
The point is, there’s a time and a place for va va voom. Not everyone needs to be Thierry but in recent years, especially under the leadership of Arteta, it has felt like anyone that is not able to board the Vibe Train would be left behind at Drayton Park station, or worse, sent on a night out with Emmanuel Eboué at Rowan’s bowling alley to rediscover their “passion”. Thank goodness, then, for Emile Smith Rowe, who is perhaps the antidote for all of this. A young outrageously talented, apparently normal man, who happens to suffer from pre-match nerves – as well as some unfortunate knack – but still has the world at his feet, even if Wednesday’s Carling Cup appearance in Arsenal’s 1-0 win at Brentford was his first start in 499 days.
“I have changed a bit of my mentality … just to go for it,” Smith Rowe said after the game. “I have not really got anything to lose. I have tried to change that inside me. I used to have a lot of doubts. I used to question my confidence, at times. But now I am really strong. I am feeling really fit and I am taking that into now.” At a club where PR can sometimes feel as important as points, ESR’s approach feels a bit more genuine than the rest of the bluster. Football Daily hopes it doesn’t take as long for his next start.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
12.06pm: “The club will vacate Glanford Park after the Brackley Town fixture and fulfill [sic] the season’s fixtures across at Gainsborough Trinity … falls in attendances will undoubtedly mean further cuts and this will inevitably impact the playing squad and promotion aims” – before a spectacularly snippy piece of fan-blaming, the future of Firewall FC takes another bleak turn after owner David Hilton decides to withdraw his funding, forcing them to declare that they’ll soon be playing National League North games elsewhere.
2.04pm: “This statement was issued without the knowledge or consent of Gainsborough Trinity. Whilst the club has always been clear that any requests from [Firewall FC] to play fixtures at the KAL Group Stadium would be considered, this would always have to be done by due process which would involve both clubs and the ground owner” – oh.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
That Newcastle United got the better of Manchester City in the Milk Cup doesn’t change the fact that a big gulf remains between the two clubs. The Persian Gulf” – Peter Oh.
Re: Aston Villa’s heavy kit (yesterday’s Football Daily). What on earth was the kit made of for Wednesday’s defeat to Everton? Something heavier than chainmail and clodhoppers?” – Dave Cross.
As a fan hoping that my years on the season ticket waiting list might bear fruit if Everton’s new stadium opens, I am slightly haunted by my visit to Valencia around 2009. I took my teenage daughter to see a game at the Mestalla. We also passed the Nou Mestalla, a silent building site, work halted as they had run out of money. She’s all grown up now and I see the Nou Mestalla is still not finished” – Alan Runswick.
Re: John Wark and his Rumbelows telly man-of-the-match prize (yesterday’s Memory Lane, full email edition). How about Juninho and his Coca-Cola bike? The diminutive Brazilian won several of them and was wont to give them away to the local kids he played football in the street with” – Kevin Worley.
I can’t tell you whether John Wark kept his man-of-the-match award, but I’d like to imagine he would have used it to watch Escape to Victory, only to return it to Rumbelows claiming there was a problem with the sound when he heard what had happened to his lines” – Ed Taylor.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our letter o’ the day is …Kevin Worley, who wins a copy of the Football Weekly Book – out now! We’ve one more left, so get tapping.
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