Emirates Cup: As good as it used to be?

This weekend marks the 7th Emirates cup, as usual four teams will compete. Those are, Monaco, Valencia and Benfica. I have to be honest, I was a bit disappointed when I first saw the line up. It seems to have deteriorated over the years, at first teams like Real Madrid, Juventus and the Milan based sides were invited to play but that seems to have changed now, maybe they’re tied up with their own commercial friendlies. Overall though I do still see the tournament as a good value for money event for familes that can’t usually afford to get to the emirates to watch a game. Also we don’t know what stars will be on show as some are not back from the World Cup and of course the star of the World Cup James Rodriguez has moved on from Monaco to Real Madrid. One positive is we might see Falcao back in action from his injury. From an Arsenal point of view we may see Joel Campbell and Calum Chambers play. I think it will be too early to see Alexis Sanchez at this point but maybe if we’re very lucky an appearance from the bench is the most we can hope for. So lets look at arguably the star players from the 3 sides

Monaco – Falcao – We all know about this man, a prolific striker that scores buckets of goals, linked with a move to Real Madrid, lets hope he plays and gets back to his best after the disappointment of missing the World Cup.

Valencia – Feghouli – The stand out player for Algeria for me in the World Cup and Valencia’s best player last season. Watched this tricky winger a bit last season and was impressed every time.

Benfica – Gaitan – A great attacking midfielder who helped Benfica secure an impressive treble last season, I’m sure that he will be looking to impress, with a few Premier League sides said to be very interested in bringing him to England,

That concludes the round up of the Emirates cup, lets hope its a great tournament and we keep up our winning ways and add our second trophy in 3 months… because it is a real trophy. Wouldn’t want people calling for Wenger’s head if we do not win it…

Back to matters with our own club now, This week has seen the departure of Carl Jenkinson on loan to West Ham. I think the boss has played this one very well as Jenko is at a cross roads as far as his future is concerned. Wenger could’ve been rash and put him up for sale, but being a man that likes to justify his actions, sending him on loan was probably the best option. He’s either going to show that he is too good to sell or show that he is good but maybe not quite good enough for us. Jenko’s future is in his own hands. The loan system has been successful for us in the past with players like Wilshere, Rambo and Szczesny coming back stronger players playing their way back into our team. Perhaps Joel Campbell has done the same………. Anyway best of luck to Jenko and we hope to see him back this time next year stronger than ever.

In other news, Steven Gerrard disgraced himself once again this week by insisting that Luis Suarez was too good to move to Arsenal. All I can say about this man, is that he is fast becoming one of the most hated players in England, when he was once the hero of England.

Arsene hit back at these comments at the pre match conference today, by saying this:

“You’re never too good for Arsenal and Steven Gerrard knows that,”

“But I can understand completely that he asked him to stay because he wanted him (Suarez) to play with him and have a chance to win the Premier League. But it didn’t happen, and anyway, Suarez left.”

Nicely put Arsene.

I would also like to add that Suarez obviously didn’t think he was too good for us as he took to the press to engineer a move to us this time last year.

It was quite an open conference today, when pushed on transfers the boss made it clear that he was by no means done in the market. He was unfortunately quick to quash rumours of Quintero and Balotelli joining us, but did not rule out signing Khedira, giving a typically cryptic response.

That’s about it for this week, but before we sign off, we would like say thank you to all of you who took the time to read and pass comment on our first piece for this blog at the beginning of the week. The feedback was greatly appreciated and made us eager to instigate some cracking debates in the next coming weeks. Once again a big thanks to @Sirgunner1886 for letting us in on this project. You should give him a follow on twitter as he is a thoroughly nice chap 🙂

Anyway until next week…………

@northbankmen