The Interlull is over + Eidevall resigns, Tuchel for England

So that’s it for this Interlull.

The final games involving Arsenal players took place last night. Gabriel played the full 90 in Brazil’s 4-0 win, with Gabriel Martinelli not involved  – presumably because of the calf injury that had been reported earlier in the week. He does appear to have been on the bench though, but it’s too early to say if that’s reassuring or not. He’ll be assessed on his return to London Colney.

Mikel Merino started and played just over an hour in Spain’s 3-0 win over Serbia, David Raya with another clean sheet for his country in that game, while Jakub Kiwior played all of Poland’s 3-3 draw with Croatia. And that’s it. Until next month when we go through another couple of weeks without Arsenal hoping our lads will return unscathed.

It’s a late afternoon kick off on Saturday when we visit Bournemouth, so Mikel Arteta will have a bit of time to gather his troops and pick the right team to get the job done. Perhaps more than those who were away, these next few days will tell us a bit about those who didn’t go. Ben White, Jurrien Timber and Kai Havertz have all had problems of late, but of course we wait to see what the prognosis for Bukayo Saka is too – while Martin Odegaard is probably still a few weeks away.

There was a rumour of a problem for Takehiro Tomiyasu in midweek but I only saw one outlet report that, and with little or no follow up from anyone more credible, so hopefully that’s not something we have to deal with. Now, we’ll just wait and see how much information the manager is willing to share in his pre-game press conference on Friday, and take it from there.

Meanwhile, Arsenal Women are in Champions League action tonight taking on Valerenga at the Emirates. They will do so under the stewardship of Renee Slegers, after Jonas Eidevall resigned his post yesterday. To be honest, it felt inevitable after a poor start to the season saw him lose a significant portion of the fanbase, and when that happens it’s nigh on impossible to win them back.

There were obviously some good times, winning the Conti Cup twice, and he/Arsenal had some terrible luck with injuries. When quality players like Vivianne Miedema, Leah Williamson, Beth Mead and others suffer ACL injuries in relatively close succession, it’s bound to have an impact, but results and performances have been unconvincing and the club will now go in a different direction.

Sporting Director Edu says:

Our focus will now turn to the process of appointing a new Head Coach, and in the meantime, supporting Renee, as she takes interim charge of the team starting with two important fixtures this week.

There’s an international break coming up after the weekend game against West Ham, so that seems like a good window to make the decision. For more expert analysis on this, Tim and Jamie got together to record an emergency Arsenal Women Arsecast reacting to the news which you can find here, or in all the usual podcast places.

Elsewhere, there’s a lot of chatter about England appointing Thomas Tuchel as their new manager. Obviously I have zero skin in the game, but to me it’s very solid choice given his experience, availability and track record. He has won leagues, cups, and the Champions League in his career, and he’s also familiar with many of the players and the demands of the Premier League and the English press.

Of course there are sections of that press this morning, to varying degrees, banging the drum about how the England job should be for an Englishman. And look, I think most of us understand that in an ideal world you’d want your country – England, Ireland, whoever – to be managed by somebody who comes from there. But should you ignore the best person for the job for someone who has the right passport? I don’t think so. It also ignores the fact that international management has been a ‘cosmopolitan’ marketplace for a long time now. This isn’t anything new.

If there was an outstanding English candidate overlooked for Tuchel, I might understand the outcry a little more, but in the absence of that it comes across as little more than xenophobia. As I said, some are more strident than others, laughably so when it comes to the usual suspects from the Daily Mail etc, but the only English person even vaguely mentioned for the job was Graham Potter – a man who hasn’t managed since April 2023, when he was sacked by Chelsea and his stint there basically tanked the reputation he had built before then.

Eddie Howe? Maybe, but he clearly didn’t make himself available for it, and the deep pockets of Newcastle would have been able to ward off any advances from the FA anyway. So who else is there? Which Englishman should have been appointed? And let’s not pretend that one or two bad results for a sub-par candidate wouldn’t have seen the same press desperate for an English manager stick the knife into that man as if he was ‘just a German’ anyway.

Tuchel will surely be going into this with his eyes wide open about how his tenure will be viewed and reported on, so it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. In as much as international football is interesting to you. Which might be ‘not at all’, in which case, let’s all move on.

Right, I’ll leave it there for this morning. Over on Patreon we have an episode of Waffle, the podcast in which James and I answer questions about anything and everything except Arsenal, and I’ll be back here tomorrow.

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