What he’s doing at his age is remarkable.

This contrasts with the approach in the US, where the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) have publicly-available policies for players, or staff, who have been accused of sexual or domestic violence.

This is also because there are very different procedural rules around naming individuals prior to indictment and the nature of libel laws. It’s not an instance where it’s just on the club, PL, or FA to develop better policies.

Pickford usually deserves it though.

The prevailing trend in discussing the team assumes that something will happen which will improve the team’s overall attacking output. There’s tension between our position in the table and the team not appearing to have any idea on how to create chances in the current set up. Arsenal still has the 11th best npxG and xG from open play trails behind Everton, Brentford, Brighton, City, Chelsea, Newcastle, Liverpool, Tots, and Villa. Arsenal has scored 13 goals from open play, the same as Wolves and Bournemouth. 38% of the team’s non-penalty goals have from from set pieces, only Luton and Everton are more reliant. Nothing about this attacking output screams title challenger, its mediocre.

Arteta’s discussion yesterday about the game state and opposition strategy is relevant, but I am not sure it offers a complete explanation for the steep drop in output. Open play goals/90 are down to 1 from 1.84 and open play xG/90 is down to 1.25 from 1.68. We are taking improvement for granted, and Arteta deserves some benefit of the doubt here, but I’m curious in what he will do to effectuate what’s needed.

Couldn’t watch any game yesterday but was getting updates on this one and was wondering about his performance. Slot relied on Kokcu to do very similar things and pretty much play all over the midfield. Still wouldn’t mind Kokcu.

Anyone thinking Odegaard get’s phased out at the end of the season isn’t being serious. He has the armband because he has the confidence of the manager to communicate his ideas to the team, in the same way that Jorginho had the armband towards the end of last game.

Leadership comes in a variety of forms. We had “captain without the armband” Xhaka last year, and Ode seems very content with allowing guys who are naturally vocal the space to do what they do. English culture has an obsession with the captain as some kind of cultural ideal. The reality inside the club is likely very different.