Hello,
And welcome back to another week of Arsenal and this newsletter.
This week started off with the unfortunate news that Jurrien Timber had indeed suffered a knee injury in the win over Nottingham Forest and could see around seven months out. I don’t have a ton to mention on this, other than, I feel awful for Timber. He gets a move to a big club and then within 50 minutes had gotten a knee injury that will have him more or less out for the season. On top of that, from an Arsenal perspective, he looked really good and also important to our style.
The week continued with the news that David Raya had officially signed with the club.
And more importantly, has a dog. That makes another Arsenal signing this summer that has a dog. I did some extensive research like I did this summer, but unfortunately couldn’t find anything about his dog. But, fear not, I dissected his first interaction with team dog Win.
Finally, the match against Crystal Palace. I’m not sure if I have fully breathed out yet after holding my breath for roughly 23 minutes at the end of the match.
Some highlights of the match that stuck out to me. Declan Rice losing his contact lens.
There was a part of me that was hoping that they wouldn’t be able to get it back in and they would have to go full goggles on him, a la Edgar Davids. But, thankfully for him and I guess Arsenal, he was able to get it in there under the pressure of 20,000 fans watching him poke his eye.
The other thought that came to my mind when Tomiaysu went off with the, let’s say, questionable second yellow card, would it be possible to play with two keepers?
Isn’t that why we signed David Raya for moments like this? Throw him on at the end of the match, have him cover the right side of the net and Ramsdale cover the left. It would certainly have helped when Crystal Palace was relentlessly attacking the net or at the very least it would have calmed my nerves a bit. Defintley something worth writing Howard Webb about.
Oh, also, you should have zoomed in on the drawing above,
Poorly
Podcast:
Hello, people asked for the animated podcast to come back and good news for those people, it is back. It’s available animated on Youtube and Spotify and, for the first time, available to listen on the podcast app of your choice.
Community pet drawing:
At the end of each week, on the discord, I ask for pictures of your pets and I select one to draw.
I Illustrated a Book:
This a reminder that I’ve illustrated a book! It is about the invincibles and was written by Dave Seager who was written five Arsenal books. There are 39 drawings in the book; if you pre-order now, you get a free calendar, which is a fun little treat.
Olive and Velma update:
We were traveling last week with Olive, so no photos of Velma this week. But to make up for it, Olive got to meet and hang out with Velma’s brother all week.
The contact lens moment was quite the moment of drama yesterday (as a contact wearer I held my breath when the athletic trainers or whomever went to fix the issue) -- not to mention the match itself. Tomi’s second yellow was oof; so soft. 🙁