Auba and Out
A short one today due to the Winter break.
The Week In Ball
Below I discuss the allegations made against Mason Greenwood. As always with sensitive topics please don't feel obliged to read and skip ahead instead to Deadline Day Round Up
I feel it would be disingenuous to start off the newsletter with anything other than the allegations made against Mason Greenwood on Sunday. Yet again we have a male footballer very credibly accused of assaulting a woman and yet again the reaction to it both by his club and by swathes of men online has been sickening. That the default response seems to be that she must be lying or doing it for reasons other than fear or justice are disgusting and as this excellent fact checker from Channel 4 shows, the levels of false allegation are so small as to be basically non-existent.
Versus have put it perfectly in their statement on Instagram below.
I'd also recommend this scathing article in the Athletic.
In a depressing mirroring of last year's Deadline Day issue, I wrote about Ronaldo signing for United and my comments about that stand, particularly the below:
Perhaps more importantly, I don't want anyone affected by CSA/rape/assault to feel like they can't watch a game or support a team for fear of being triggered and I don't want young people thinking that these things aren't important and that you can just slip back into your life again when the dust settles, a luxury not afforded to the victims. I say all this of course with the caveat of the above mentioned lack of convictions for rape cases and the pitifully short sentences for the crime, most of these men just do what they do and get to go about their business without a care in the world and no-one any the wiser about what they've done.
I know this must be an awful time for those who have experienced abuse. Another day on social media, a place people should be going to for fun and escapism, to talk to friends and have a nice time, ruined by the stories coming out, another name to mute, another team to monitor to make sure the offender isn't on the team sheet.
As I tweeted earlier, I made a donation to Women's Aid and another smaller one to Rape Crisis England & Wales and I've just seen a fundraiser for Rape Crisis Scotland in response to Raith Rovers signing David Goodwillie (something which has already cost them their women's captain, the SLO and their shirt sponsor, Val McDermid), which I've also contributed to. If you're in a position to do so they're a couple of really great charities that work with rape survivors and those who are in a domestic abuse situation, so are well worth your money.
Deadline Day Round Up
And so to Deadline Day.
Let's begin with my guys, Arsenal. Lads. Mikel, Edu. What are you doing? Why are you doing this to us? I can't take the drama and the soap-style storylines that keep playing out. Just be normal, I beg.
For anyone who's been under a rock for the past couple of days I am of course referring to Pierre Emerick Aubameyang being offloaded to Barcelona on a free. On a positive note, it's good to see him moving his career through all my teams: Borussia Dortmund > Arsenal > Barcelona, but on a negative note *long weary sigh*: everything else.
I've always liked Auba, despite times where it's been so obvious he's having a bad time and he's not been mentally there. As I mentioned last week in the intro piece, footballers are people and we don't know what's been going on with him mentally over the past 18 months or so but the way that whatever caused his demise has played out has been extremely wearying and I don't think anyone has come out of it well.
On Sky's Deadline Day show last night Clinton Morrison was adamant that Arteta had done the right thing and that it 'showed strength' and that just made me cringe a little. If things were unfixable they were unfixable, I'm not trying to suggest Arteta prostrate himself to appease Auba (or vice versa), however this idea of strength and showing who's boss to the team just doesn't sit entirely comfortably with me. Call me a bleeding heart, I dunno, I just hate that kind of spiky, tit-for-tat seeming conflict and the implied display of a certain kind of masculinity that 'Arteta remaining strong' suggests. Maybe I'm way off here, I just get bad vibes off the whole thing.
Whatever the truth of what happened, what we do know is that Arsenal now have even less firepower at their disposal and while I still have a tiny glimmer of optimism about getting into Europe it's ever closer to being extinguished.
Which brings us to Spurs. As with most clubs Spurs offloaded more players than they bought in, however, they signed Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur and eurgh, these are two decent players. I don't like it. I am going to enjoy watching them in the Premier League though. Where they fit is beyond me but you know by now you can find someone out there who's going to do a really great breakdown of how they'll slot into Conte's plans.
Another surprising transfer was that of Wout Weghorst from Wolfsburg to Burnley. Wolfsburg have been having a terrible season after flying high last year but this does feel a little bit like frying pan to fire. As with everything, which will become apparent with the next signing I talk about, we don't know how much the personal/personnel side of things affects people's decisions. Anyway, Weghorst has been a prolific striker and he certainly fits Burnley's demographic of a big lumbering unit so maybe he's the key to their survival after Newcastle stole Chris Wood (who hadn't exactly been firing Burnley into safety anyway).
So... Newcastle. Bruno Guimarães. This is a coup. I don't follow Ligue 1 particularly closely but I know Guimarães is a good player who's been on my radar and my TL for a while, and, as I tweeted, I also know that Lyon are mere points off European places with a game in hand, so I have no idea why he moved. Was it to be the hero? Does playing in the Premier League have that much sway? (Compared to Ligue 1 probably yes, let's face it). Was he particularly impressed with Eddie Howe and the club? Was it, it has to be mentioned, the money? Either way I'm excited to see him playing and to find out if he can replicate the form he had with fellow Brazilian Lucas Paqueta.
Finally, we move to Everton. First off, Frank Lampard? Not keen friends. It feels like a really peculiar fit and even though I do of course have all the usual biases against him, I think it's weird regardless. It feels especially strange for him to go to Liverpool (the city) given his political vibe and yeah, time will tell.
Secondly however, Donny van de Beek and Dele Alli. Now I love Dele, have done for years. I think his drop in form is a real shame and I hope this move helps him back to the level we know he's capable of. As for Donny, I don't really know much about him due to, well, the fact I've barely seen him play (I didn't follow his Ajax days). However, considering the shitshow at United I hope he too gets some decent playing time and proves what a good player he is.
To round off this section a brief word on AFCON. I managed to watch a few bits of the games and it seems like Sky have at least added a second commentary voice, although the rest of their coverage is sparse, whereas despite it being very brief (only 15 mins before kick off, can you imagine that at a Euros quarter final, even if England weren't playing?) the BBC did at least have some in studio analysis and a reporter at the game. Fingers crossed by the next tournament they put even more effort in.
As for the matches, I wasn't able to watch the entirety of any of the four games but there was some good action in the ones I saw. Egypt Tunisia was as tetchy as expected and I was glad Equatorial Guinea (with my new favourite pink haired, low socks, short king Iban Edú) managed to pull a goal back and put up a decent fight against Cameroon. Tomorrow the semi finals are on, Burkina Faso v. Senegal and Cameroon v. Egypt. Both promise to be excellent matches.
The {Offside} Thirst Trap
We travel back to Spain this week and rock up to Barcelona, not in the hope that we're going to be signed on a free but instead to admire the lovely (and maligned? I've definitely seen people being mean about him on Twitter) Eric Garcia.
I just think he's very beautiful. If you wish, zoom in on the collage and check out the middle bottom shot. Those eyelashes, right? Who gives men the right to have eyelashes like that because he's certainly not unique. Extremely rude imo.
Also if you ever watch the fun video stuff football clubs like to do for their 'socials' Eric always comes across as very sweet. Plus: glasses. More footballers should wear glasses.
Extra Time
This article by Rory Smith is a brilliant profile of everyone's favourite transfer confirmer Fabrizio Romano. His story is one of both graft and fortuitous meetings.
More cryptocurrency shenanigans explained here, in an investigation into a brief partner of many clubs and La Liga as a whole, IQONIQ. Shady shady people doing shady shady business.
Mundial had a great bit on Comoros in their latest newsletter. Sign up here!
The always brilliant Grace Robertson has done a fantastic newsletter on the Bundesliga Tax. Honestly it winds me up something chronic when people slag off the Bundesliga; it's a fun league with some great players! It might be in a bit of a slump at the moment but let's not kid ourselves that the Premier League has always been as good as it is now.
You may have read about the French government voting to ban the wearing of headscarves whilst competing in sport. Sport should be inclusive and welcoming to all and if you care about that consider signing this petition, it's so close to hitting 50K!
February is the Football v Homophobia Month of Action, read more about their work here. And while I haven't done a Merch Stand section this week I recently bought their Football v Homophobia and Football v Transphobia badges and can recommend!
To end this week, Canada beat the USA 2-0 in the World Cup qualifiers at the weekend. Alphonso Davies was streaming himself watching the game on Twitch and his reaction to the win is wonderful (also re. earlier: glasses)
That's it for today, take care and see you next week!
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