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AGENDA SET FOR MIKEL ARTERA AT ARSENAL
Arsenal are the latest Premier League club to turn to a former player as their manager, with Mikel Arteta named the new head coach on Friday.
The Spaniard takes over with Arsenal languishing 10th in the Premier League and their last title-winning campaign under Arsene Wenger 15 years ago a distant memory.
AFP Sport looks at what Arteta must do to make Arsenal a force once again.
1. FORGE AN IDENTITY
Wenger transformed the culture at the club from the defensive-orientated days of “1-0 to the Arsenal” under George Graham, overseeing some of the slickest attacking play English football has ever seen.
The final seasons of the Frenchman’s 22-year reign saw a decline in results and an inability to challenge for the biggest prizes but Arsenal were still renowned for an attacking brand of football.
Some of that was lost in Unai Emery’s 18 months in charge as the Spaniard unsuccessfully tried to patch up a leaky defence before he was sacked last month.
“I want the football to be expressive, entertaining,” Arteta told the Arsenal magazine during his time as a player, speaking about how he wants his teams to play.
“I cannot have a concept of football where everything is based on the opposition. We have to dictate the game, we have to be the ones taking the initiative, and we have to entertain the people coming to watch us.”
Arteta does not have much managerial experience but serving an apprenticeship as a coach under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City over the past 3.5 years is seen as a big plus point.
Guardiola has managed to find the perfect blend of entertaining football while piling up trophies at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City.
Now Arteta’s task is to take the magic formula and apply it to Arsenal.
2. FIND CENTRE-BACKS
A constant in the decline of Wenger, Emery’s struggles and a run of one win in five matches under caretaker manager Freddie Ljungberg has been Arsenal’s lack of a dominant centre-back.
Instead of addressing an obvious area of need in the summer, the Gunners’ hierarchy splurged a club-record fee on forward Nicolas Pepe, while patching up the defence with the budget signing of David Luiz.
The Brazilian has been dropped in recent weeks, but none of Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Callum Chambers, Rob Holding or Shkodran Mustafi inspire much confidence.
Arsenal may not have much money to spend in next month’s transfer window but what they do have they must use on their defence.
3. BALANCE THE MIDFIELD
A former midfielder by trade, Arteta must find a way to prevent Arsenal’s midfield being completely bypassed to leave their shaky backline exposed.
Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira have potential but have gone backwards in their second seasons at the Emirates.
Granit Xhaka and Mesut Ozil have experience but have done little to earn their places in the side this season and could be among the first to be cast aside under Arteta.
4. CAN AUBAMEYANG AND LACAZETTE CO-EXIST?
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette are two of Arsenal’s few world-class talents but both want to play in the same position as the central striker.
Emery frequently changed his system to try and accommodate both but often at the expense of the team as Arsenal were overrun in midfield or lacked width.
Experiments with Aubameyang playing wide have limited the goal threat of a striker who shared the Premier League’s Golden Boot last season and Lacazette was even dropped by Ljungberg for 18-year-old Gabriel Martinelli in the past two Premier League games.
5. GET THE BEST OUT OF PEPE
Arsenal splashed a club-record £72 million (S$127.2 million) on Pepe from Lille, believing the Ivorian’s pace and eye for goal could make the difference in securing Champions League football.
However, Pepe has scored just once from open play in the Premier League and his struggles to make an impact have seen him dropped by both Emery and Ljungberg.
-AFP
UEFA appears poised for an emergency vote on suspending Israel from European competition next week, with national federations scrambling to position themselves amid mounting political pressure following calls for action.
The brewing crisis intensified this week when United Nations experts called for Israel’s suspension from international football amid the unfolding genocide in occupied Palestinian territory.
A source confirmed that Europe’s soccer body could potentially decide next week to vote on whether to suspend Israel from European competition.
Should UEFA vote to ban Israel, it would put the organisation on a collision course with the government of the United States — co-hosts for the 2026 World Cup — which is vehemently against such a motion.
“We will absolutely work to fully stop any effort to attempt to ban Israel’s national soccer team from the World Cup,” a spokesperson for the U.S. state department told Sky News.
But even though UEFA has the power to suspend Israel or its clubs from their competitions, it may not be able to stop them from competing in World Cup qualifiers, which fall under the ambit of global soccer body FIFA.
The general secretaries of all UEFA national associations are meeting this week in Marbella, where Israel is not officially on the agenda, but officials expect UEFA to call an emergency vote next week.
FIFA did not respond to a Reuters request for comment while UEFA declined to comment.
Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub said Israelis should not be allowed to participate in any matches, whether they are under UEFA or FIFA.
“Israel has violated the principles, values and FIFA’s statutes. Therefore, I believe that Israel should be sanctioned,” Rajoub told TV2.
“The sanctions should come from UEFA and FIFA.”
WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS
Israel’s national team are set to face Norway and Italy, the top two teams in their World Cup qualifying group, next month.
“We don’t have any indications that we are facing such an act (UEFA suspension),” a spokesperson for the Israel Football Association told Reuters.
“We are focusing on our international matches against Norway and Italy.”
Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) is one of the member associations that have been the driving force behind calling for a meeting on the Israel situation. The NFF declined to comment.
Lise Klaveness, the president of the NFF and a member of the UEFA Executive Committee, has also been vocal about the crisis in Gaza ahead of her country’s home game against Israel on October 11.
“Neither we nor other organisations can remain indifferent to the humanitarian suffering and disproportionate attacks that the civilian population in Gaza has been subjected to for a long time,” Klaveness said in a statement last month.
“We want to donate the proceeds (from the game) to a humanitarian organisation that saves lives in Gaza every day and provides active emergency aid on the ground.”
The Dutch football federation (KNVB) said it knows nothing about a vote to suspend Israel.
“As soon as the football association receives a message about this, it will take a position,” the KNVB told Dutch outlet NOS.
Last week, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Israel should be banned from international sports competitions. However, officials from the Spanish FA (RFEF) have kept a low profile on the matter.
Israel maintains that its war is not against the population of Gaza but against the Hamas militant group whose fighters led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and precipitated the war.
The subsequent war in Gaza has killed more than 65,000 people, according to local health officials.
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A hat-trick from George Agha and a sublime free-kick goal from David Edeh ensured a comfortable start for five-time world champions Nigeria in the WAFU-B U17 Championship, as the Golden Eaglets routed Baby Cheetahs of Benin Republic 4 -1 in Yamoussoukro on Wednesday.
Agha converted from the spot three minutes into the game after Boluwatife Thompson was hacked inside the box.
Edeh displayed fantastic football artistry to score from a free-kick in the 5th minute of the encounter.
The Eaglets were in cruise control as Agha bagged his brace in the 14th minute. The charges of Manu Garba were very dominant with a three-goal advantage.
Warris Soumanou in goal for Benin Republic was caught napping and his error of judgement gave the Eaglets another goal after a beautiful exchange of passes and dribbles between Thompson and Edeh, which set up Agha for his hat-trick in the 32nd minute.
It was raining goals and it was the turn of the Beninoise in the 45th minute, as a low drive from Jeremy Zannou gave the Baby Cheetahs a consolation goal.
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Mohamed Salah’s dramatic stoppage-time penalty ensured Liverpool maintained their winning start to the Premier League season with a 1-0 victory at promoted side Burnley on Sunday.
With British record signing Alexander Isak forced to wait for his Liverpool debut having been left out the squad for the trip to Lancashire, the champions struggled to break down a dogged home side in the first half.
After a regroup at the break, the visitors upped the ante in the second half, with Dominik Szoboszlai finally forcing a fine save from Martin Dubravka in the Burnley goal.
Burnley were holding on for a well-earned point with ease, before the ball agonisingly struck substitute Hannibal Mejbri’s arm in the penalty area and Salah slotted the spot kick into the net in the 95th minute to break home hearts.
Liverpool are still to really get going this season, requiring a winner in the last 10 minutes of all four of their league victories so far. The goal that clinched an undeserved success at Turf Moor was certainly the most fortunate.
After one of the longest transfer sagas in Premier League history finally reached its expected conclusion, Liverpool supporters were forced to wait two weeks for their first glimpse of their 125-million-pound ($169.45-million) goal machine due to the international break.
While coach Arne Slot said this week that Isak would have to be utilised carefully due to his previous injuries and lack of action so far this season, the Swede was still expected to at least be on the bench at Turf Moor.
The wait goes on as, without their expensive new forward, Liverpool mustered just one shot on target in the first half, from left-back Andrew Robertson.
Burnley, who conceded the fewest goals in English football league history last term to earn them promotion, otherwise frustrated the champions with ease. Even Lesley Ugochukwu’s red card for two bookings in the 84th minute did not seem to fluster them.
Even without Isak, Liverpool still had much attacking talent on the Turf Moor pitch but they just could not find that killer pass.
Salah was especially below par but he made no mistake in the most pressurised moment after Hannibal had stuck up an arm to block Jeremie Frimpong’s cross
The champions’ impressive Premier League goalscoring streak stretches to 38 games nonetheless, their longest such run in the competition.
-Reuters
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