Hello again, Saka’s back + UEFA crackdown required

Morning.

Although the Interlull is over, we have to wait until Tuesday until we play again due to the fact this is an FA Cup weekend. It’s a minor inconvenience, but hopefully a useful one as it will basically give every player who was away with their country a week (or more) between games, so recovery time will maximised.

Bukayo Saka posted a pic on Instagram (you can see it above) with the caption: ‘Hello again’. Hello indeed. Welcome back, young man. As I said yesterday, I’m sure the plan is to reintegrate him over the next couple of games, home to Fulham and away at Everton, and then hope he can play a meaningful part in the first leg against Real Madrid. After which, you assess his fitness, his reaction to competitive minutes again, and go from there.

I have to say, I like the idea that between now and the end of the season we’re likely to see Saka and Ethan Nwaneri share that burden on the right hand side. For the former, it means we don’t have to do what we do with Martin Odegaard, which is play him for 90 minutes every game immediately after returning from a relatively serious injury. For the latter, it takes some of the pressure off a young player who has been sensational at times, but whose inexperience at this point of his career (which is perfectly normal by the way) has been evident too.

Down the line, Mikel Arteta has got some thinking to do about how he gets them both in the team at the same time, but for now that job-share programme seems like the best idea and something which could be really beneficial for both. Saka will be determined to make up for lost time and to make an impact; and I’m sure Nwaneri’s personal goal (one of many) will be to hit double figures for goals scored before the end of the campaign. All going well, there’s some real potency on the right.

Meanwhile, as reported by Simon Collings in the Evening Standard, UEFA have opened a disciplinary investigation against four Real Madrid players. They say:

A UEFA Ethics and Disciplinary Inspector has been appointed to investigate allegations of indecent conduct by Real Madrid CF players (Antonio Rudiger, Kylian Mbappe, Daniel Ceballos Fernandez and Vinicius Junior) during the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 match between Club Atlético de Madrid and Real Madrid CF on 12 March 2025.

Further information regarding this matter will be made available in due course.

I think we can all agree, players celebrating too much is the biggest problem in football right now. Forget the increasingly corrupt FIFA and its madman president cosying up to the worst people on the planet for grotesque photo-ops; forget the Club World Cup – a tournament nobody wants or needs designed as an Infantino ego-trip in a summer when overworked players should have been given the chance for some time off; even forget Gary Neville being even more Gary Neville than usual; this is the stuff that must be cracked down on hard.

I’m not saying they deserve lifetime bans, but I think all decent people would agree they should be banned from playing in European competition for the duration of April. After which, if there are games to play, then it doesn’t affect us whatsoever so why would we care? It’s about time UEFA stood up the scourge of players being happy when they win a big game against their local rivals. They should just get down the tunnel after trading manly handshakes. Perhaps we need to consider the establishment of some kind of constabulary force to keep an eye on all this stuff …

Right, I’m gonna leave it there for this morning. I have to take Lana to the vets where she had her hip replacement. There’s nothing wrong with her hip at all, that worked out great, but she has an ongoing issue with her elbow, and today they’re gonna do some stem cell injections to see if that helps. I suggested horse placenta but the vet looked at me funny. What are you gonna do?

Have a great Friday folks, there’s a new Arsecast with Charles Watts below if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet. Enjoy!

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