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There is nothing more serious about War and trust me when I say that my intention is not to make light of this situation at all. It’s tragic, it’s awful and in moments like we’re living, or whenever there is a school shooting here in the USA, which is basically every day, I can’t help but think how I dislike the idea of guns, canons, and anything war related, even if its in sport.
This is something that I didn’t struggle with before but recently, and I’m talking about the last 10 years or so, I have become so pro-gun control that I am irked about “arsenal” and the idea of being “gunners.” And I know that it might seem a little weird or that I’m being too sensitive but all of this that I feel is just something that I wanted to share in case anyone out there felt the same way.
Obviously I’m not saying that we should change the name, like with anything, people can justify or excuse anything name for any business, etc. I just wouldn’t mind, as things stand at this moment in time, that our club would have a different name.
I’m trying to come up with a comparison or something similar but I really can’t. I don’t really know of any club, at least off the top of my head, whose name implies something that people might find that goes against some of their beliefs. Like, it’s not that I don’t believe in guns, they exist.
The last thing I associated with arsenal women players is violence, it’s war, its guns, it’s bullets, it’s death. And this is something that I’m struggling with at the moment because even in passing, the celebration of anything associated with things that I am fundamentally against is a complete and utter mindf*ck.
Anyway, the point of this blog is to talk about lots of things and this is what came to mind today. As always, I encourage anyone out there that wants to blog, that wants to release Arsenal related etc to do so. I believe talking about all things arsenal women is important and I support you.
d ❤
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Musicians need to be Goalkeepers
Today I am getting all my packing done and sorting a few things out before I fly out to Cologne, Germany to speak at an incredible conference at SAE Intitute’s headquarters. There, I have the pleasure of talking about my experience playing with pop superstars, how I’ve gotten there and what I believe are tools that will get a lot of people doing what they love in music, at a high level.
Among the things I touch on in my talk, is that musicians need to have to have two athletes inside them: one of them is goalkeeper and the other one is top secret, just kidding… it’s a skateboarder which doesn’t make sense on its own but I’ll explain this to you some other day. But back to the GKs… there’s a very specific reason why I mention this.
I say this with love because I LOVE goalkeepers and have been one at my local league for 9 years on and off. I love the position and because I love it, I can see certain things that not everyone can but, simply put: goalkeepers are very “interesting” people who have lots of attributes that other athletes don’t have, but one of them is basically having the memory of a goldfish. GKs need to be very, very good at forgetting a mistake they make, they cannot let it hold them down or make them doubt themselves for the rest of the match or the next shot they get. I know this should and can apply to every athlete in a way but goalkeeper mistakes are so amplified and scrutinized that it just feels much more different.
Goalkeepers are weird enough and when a club like ours seems to have a very strange and weird GK policy, club wide, it’s just very confusing and I don’t really know what must be going through the minds of the keepers or anyone near those decisions really. And if you don’t know what’s happening, here’s a very short and dumbed down version, a simplified one at that: Arsenal have decided that have 2 #1’s is a thing. Ok, this isn’t exactly the best explanation but it all started when the men’s side bought David Ray and the world of football assumed Ramsdale was going to just be our #2. Blah blah blah, I don’t wanna talk much about the men’s team BUT Jonas came out and said something very similar to what Arteta has been saying about how there are no number ones, and all that stuff. *Sigh…
Manu is our #1 and the reality is that as much as she isn’t world class to the eyes of many, she’s by far our best goalkeeper option. She should’ve played against united and if there’s someone that has earned numerous chances, is her. She saved us, pun intended, so many damn times last season I’ve lost count. Why is she not getting that start? why is Ramsdale not getting a start for the CL or vs man City? Why? What is happening and why is all this GK stuff happening in tandem with both squads?
Doesn’t make sense, but that is the beauty of being a fan… it affects me deep to my core, but it’s also not my problem haha.
d ❤
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I never talk about the refs but…
I’m gonna go ahead and make an exception today and it’s going to be borderline insane. Of course, one of the most imperative things for the women’s sport to grow, is the quality of the officiating. You don’t have to have followed the league for years and years to have seen how bad calls have ruined matches, CL qualification and much more. It’s a problem in the men’s game too and the highest level. The reality is that the speed of the game is outpacing the officiating and the growth and visibility of the WSL are making it so glaringly obvious that the refs just aren’t at a decent level.
However, as much as I want the league to have the best calls, and all of that stuff, I have to shamelessly admit that city and chelsea drawing was basically the best thing that we could’ve hoped for. Yes, it basically came down to a bad ref call BUT our goldfish memories are precisely that, and I’m not mad at the notion of neither team winning, both teams dropping points and Arsenal basically benefiting. I am this petty and I don’t care.
One of the most famous cliches in football is that “it all evens out in the end”… like NO. There is no way of quantifying or equating bad calls, or missed offsides, etc etc. I do not think this is the best way to think about this and surely don’t think it’s good enough. It’s unacceptable as a matter of fact. Yet you still might think karma will come bite me in the ass, but if arsenal get bad refereeing calls it wouldn’t be because some random Venezuelan blogger mentioned it.
Speaking of things actually biting us in the ass and things that were under our control, mistakes like the goal we gifted at Man Utd are the types of errors that we just cannot commit. Doesn’t matter who is at fault, that’s not the point. This is the point though, we need to focus on US, what can WE do? what’s under OUR control?
I still haven’t been able to watch the match back but I absolutely will and let you know my thoughts.
d ❤
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I didn’t watch the match yesterday and I will not be able to until maybe tomorrow night, if I’m lucky. So, it would be an absolute farce on my part to make comments or analyze anything in depth or give opinions based on nothing. So, in the meantime, please watch this incredible video, as they always are, by the goat Shebahn.
I will be most likely doing a podcast about the match once I watch it, aside from talking about Jonas getting a new contract and much more. Enjoy your weekend!
d ❤
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The Kit & The Curse
I have gone back and forth and back and forth about my opinion about the Stella McCartney kit. I have come to the conclusion that I just want to see it and get it over with, and by “it” I mean the anticipation of how much I’m going to like it or dislike it. Not that it matters at all hahaha. Actually what I am mostly looking forward to is any bit of content that relates to how the players feel based on how the kit makes them feel. I find that very interesting.
Now, onto the match vs Man Utd away… a fixture that usually gives me nightmares. To add spice to this, I have just read a stat that said that arsenal have lost 2 and tied 1 match, so that means we haven’t won in 3 matches. This can be interested in a few ways, aside from the factual truth that we haven’t won in 3 matches in a row. We can think that we’re due for a win or we can think that the bad run of form against them continues. And to be honest I don’t know where I stand.
At the moment I’m actually confident we are going to win, with the caveat that we can’t start with the same line of defense. But, to my point… I feel confident because ideally we have one of the greatest phenomena in football which is: the curse of the returning striker, and in our case that means Alessia Russo. This needs to happen… luck has to be on our side. I NEED THIS.
Nothing would make me happier than a former ManUtd player coming back to haunt them and since I spoke about nightmares, my hope is that the players and their fans have at least a little bit of fear as to this becoming a reality.
I have a rehearsal for a show I have Saturday night with one of my favorite musicians, the badass, the queen that is Orianthi. She’s from Australia and I’m channeling the Matildas connection somehow.
Here’s my preferred lineup, it’s not what you expect!
I’d have the Aussies on the left and Katie playing as a 10. No Frida.
d ❤
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New contract???
Pardon the rather hostile and click bait style title to this post, but my question is a genuine one. Jonas Eidevall has signed a new contract at our club and by the comments on the tweet announcing it, I’d say people have very strong feelings about it. People have very strong opinions as to why he shouldn’t have signed and others have equally as strong ones as to why he deserves a new contract.
Before I give my opinion, here’s basically where others seem to stand:
YES, he deserves a contract because of almost winning the WSL, because of getting to the UCL Semis and most of all, by doing all of this without a full squad. People on this side of the fence think he has created a great system with amazing team spirit which as been appealing to some world class players to join, etc etc etc
NO, he doesn’t deserve a contract because he hasn’t won trophies aside from the Conti cup. He hasn’t delivered. He hasn’t used subs efficiently and even with injuries he has played players. albeit out of necessity, at wrong positions. He hasn’t bought a world class keeper, and many others.
To be fair and as middle of the road as possible I have to say that both sides have very interesting points. But I’m not down the middle, am I? I usually feel like there has to be actual results to that merit an extension and in Jonas’s case, I don’t think he has achieved enough to warrant an extension, which is not the same as believing he is underserving of one. These are separate things and I totally understand if this is confusing or contradicting.
I wrote a few days ago that I don’t just support the manager of my club blindly, hell no. The opposite… I love my club so much that I want the absolute best of the best at everything, all the time. The thing is that with players, sometimes they can’t win or justify an extension via trophies whereas the managers are usually measured by the silverware they win, and in Eidvall’s case is just one trophy, that to borrow and paraphrase what Ruesha said once, it was just 4 matches that he had to win, maybe even just 3. Whatever, the point is that he hasn’t won the WSL in many tries, he hasn’t won the CL, and I personally do not see him as the manager to bring us to glory. I repeat: I do not see him as THE guy.
Mostly because I don’t agree with a lot of his choices and don’t agree with a lot of what he does. And that is the nature of my ego and the prism through which I watch football. There are times when I see things and say: “I don’t know what’s happening but I trust the manager” and there are other times when I say: “well that’s insane, he clearly has no idea what he’s doing” and the latter has happened a lot in recent times.
Katie randomly on the bench, LWM + Jen starting the season, failing to qualify for the CL group stages and more. If it were up to me many things would be different but thankfully it’s not up to me and he actually knows what he’s doing, or so you’d think.
But beyond what he has or hasn’t done, I want to see what the near future looks like before I would truly agree with the decision of giving him an extension. Like, I love the guy, I like what he says and how, I love how he treats the girls but I personally want to see some players moved on, I want to see what life post Kim Little will be like, I want to know how he utilizes the players when everyone is fit, because if he isn’t getting results then that’s a problem but if he already has a new contract things are different. What I mean by that is that there might be less of a sense of urgency since he already has the contract and doesn’t have to deliver per se.
However, this last assumption is pretty insulting on my part to be honest. That’s not my goal at all. I would never imply that he is unprofessional or wouldn’t give his best just because he has a contract in the bag. What I am saying though, is that there’s no way a new contract doesn’t play into the future because the contract is there and you can’t change the facts.
I’ll be team #JonasOut in minutes if certain things remain as they are, make no mistake.
d ❤
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Hate cannot be part of the norm
The negativity that has been sadly now standard around women’s football is pretty insane. And let me be clear, it’s actually the negativity on social media. Twitter or X or whatever has become so terrible and people are not just giving their opinions, they are spewing hate. All of this is pretty common for the men’s game, where toxic masculinity is engrained in the culture, but it’s truly sad to see how that attitude has been adopted by certain portions of the fanbase and simply put: hate cannot be the norm or part of the equal vision. It’s not sustainable.
Recently I read a tweet that was not actual abuse but it was so charged with entitlement and had a heavy condescending tone. I’m gonna quote the whole tweet here:
“I don’t care that we were ‘incredible’, that our support is ‘unmatched’ or that they ‘heard’ us. We want something in return. We offer the players the chance to play in such big occasions, to play for sold-out crowds, we deserve something from them too.”
What?
This is quite possibly the absolute worse take I have ever read in my entire life and without spending time dissecting this dross or criticizing it, what I will say is that at least this person didn’t insult the players directly. Ok I’m kidding, there’s no credit to give this person at all. My point is that if you agree with the statement they made, we are ethically, morally and fundamentally worlds apart.
So how do we solve this? Well, you can’t because it’s a problem that every individual who spreads hate need to stop themselves or get banned from social media which only happens with elevated levels of abuse and language but make no mistake, tweets like the one I posted do nothing to build up the team, and I’m not saying they don’t have a right to express their opinion, I don’t want this person censored. I disagree and I also have the ability to express my own opinion, which is that their opinion is a very bad one.
Don’t be like that person.
d ❤
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My love for managers is Conditional
There’s something that I mentioned on the podcast that I kinda wanted to expand on here and that is the main point I guess, which is why my support for Jonas isn’t unconditional. You don’t have to love every player, you don’t have to love every manager. You definitely shouldn’t abuse either one but if there’s one figure that is responsible for a lot, as part of the job, is the manager, and as things stand now (since we’re not winning and so is the nature of this game) I’m not loving Jonas.
Back in the day when Wenger benched Bergkamp for the CL final and never played him… HE LOST ME.
When Joe Montemurro didn’t play DVD for a few matches and had her play as DM against the giant that is Sam Mewis.. HE LOST ME.
And if Jonas keeps up with some of these decisions he’s going to lose me. And that’s fine. It’s ok and that is the life of a football fan. I’m fickle and petty but if you know me you’ll know that even if we are winning, I always have thoughts on how things could be better “for me” or in “my opinion.” And you don’t have to look much farther than with Mikel Arteta. I don’t love what he’s doing with Raya/Ramsdale and I certainly don’t like what he does with Partey at right back or that he doesn’t play Smith Rowe. Things like that. But I still love the club, the players and him overall, same as Jonas, because I have to believe that they are always trying to do what’s best for the club and have a vision, wether I agree with it or not.
It is very clear to me that the partnership at CB he went with isn’t the strongest and I don’t understand how you know that and still go with it. Why you wouldn’t start Amanda and Laia, or at the very least Amanda with whomever, is absolutely insane to me. I understand Steph is amazing, but why have her at right back when Noelle is there? Is she injured? not fit? if so why have her on the bench?
Just because I don’t see it or agree with it doesn’t mean that I’m right or he’s wrong, of course. I assure you he knows what he is doing and I am just being passionate. If we had scored all the chances on the other end, this wouldn’t be a thing. Maybe that’s what he thought… I’ll give Amanda and Laia the start vs ManUtd and show the world what they can do at that stage against that team, assuming we would score and not miss sitters vs a team that isn’t that good. Well that didn’t happen and it’s not like we lost because of anything other than not scoring.
So what has to happen? What is the plan? Time will tell I guess but we can’t expect to keep the lights on until Viv and Beth come back and then suddenly we score 6 goals per match.
Let’s be patient and see what happens on Friday.
d ❤
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Liverpool reaction
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They’re here…
Insert any and all predictable/fitting comments about how we’ve been waiting a long time etc etc etc… Months that have felt like a year… they’re over. In 52 minutes the WSL season starts. Finally.
I just saw the lineup and I’m extremely confused. This is the kind of stuff that managers do that absolutely do my head in and I cannot understand it. I really cannot. On paper things sorta make sense and they also don’t. Usually I can tell the formation from the players but at this point I’m already tired of trying to figure stuff out. By the way this is not a dig at Jonas because he obviously knows what he is doing.
I just cannot understand why you don’t start Amanda or Laia. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense and that he’s wrong, I’m saying that I would like to understand it. I would love for it to make sense, but it really doesn’t. This is also fascinating because I know there’s a reason why… there’s also a reason why he’s having Steph play as a right back when Noelle is available and on the bench.
But… who cares? The season starts TODAY!! I rather watch our girls play in a weird lineup with players out of position than any team, ever!
I’m so very excited for this season and I feel very confident that we will do well. I’m not really sure how I would make predictions without saying we will win the WSL but I’m not sure we will actually. I do see us winning a cup though. I have a feeling City are gonna be insanely good this year and I truly hope Chelsea aren’t and for me to feel we will win the league I’d need more than paper.
I expect a 3-0 win today, very comfortably because that’s what I need to have a good day haha.
LET’S GOOOOOO
d ❤
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A very subjective look into AWFC 