Hector Bellerin has been selected by the Spanish national team for the first time as they prepare for their Euro 2016 qualifiers with Slovakia and Macedonia.
Since making his debut in the Carling Cup two years ago the 20-year-old has established himself as Arsenal’s first choice right-back, scored his first goals for the club and made his debut – in March – for his country’s under-21 side.
His latest promotion further consolidates a stellar rise to prominence and comes as a much deserved reward for a promising start to the season.
Santi Cazorla joins Bellerin in Vicente del Bosque’s squad with Juan Mata and Diego Costa also earning recalls.
Congratulations to Hector, we wish him the best of luck…there’s a lot of twats in that squad.
Full Spain squad
Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Porto), David De Gea (Manchester United) and Sergio Rico (Sevilla)
Defenders: Juanfran Torres (Atlético de Madrid), Gerard Piqué, Marc Bartra and Jordi Alba (Barcelona), Daniel Carvajal, Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Juan Bernat (Bayern Múnich) and César Azpilicueta (Chelsea), Hector Bellerin (Arsenal).
Midfielders: Jorge Resurrección ‘Koke’ (Atlético de Madrid), Sergio Busquets and Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona); Francisco Alarcón ‘Isco’ (Real Madrid), Cesc Fabregas (Chelsea), Víctor Machín ‘Vitolo’ (Sevilla), Santi Cazorla (Arsenal) and Juan Mata (Manchester United).
Forwards: Paco Alcácer (Valencia), Diego Costa (Chelsea), Pedro Rodríguez (Chelsea) and David Silva (Manchester City).
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Update – We’re not quite sure what’s going on, but the confirmation story on Arsenal.com has been removed. Did they make a mistake or jump the gun? We’ll keep tabs. Interestingly there’s nothing on the Spanish FA website about the call up.
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good luck to him, hopefully he gains good experience from more experienced players
Genuinely happy for him. Well done HB.
Just hope he doesn’t get injured when on international duty now…
Looking at the squad..
Spain have a serious lack of quality choice in the striker department.
Apart from Costa who else is there ?
I don’t know why Morata hasn’t been called up much, he’s a pretty good forward.
Alcacer is actually quite good. Not sure why they ignored Jesé though.
Monreal deserves to be in there, surely.
Happy for Hector. Conqueror of armies.
Very happy for Bellerin, a cracking player, but I do just wonder how long now until barca start the tapping up process
I’ll sucker punch Xavi and Busquets.
Xavi is gone.
Punch him anyway, he’s a complete twat.
Well done Hector!
Well deserved Hector! Feel for Nacho though.
Sad day for us though I am happy for him. Won’t be long before barca and madrid come sniffing for him. Thank God we hung on to Jenks. Hope he has a great time and gets a debut..
This guy has the world at his feet; we are blessed with one of the best full-backs of his generation.
I hope he’s not infected with a certain DNA in camp.
I think he may have that DNA already.. isnt that why we poached him ala cesc?
Speaks English with the british accent I hear…Fab never did that. Seems like someone at home in England already.
Good to see no Navas…not good to not see Nacho Monreal.
What is Wellington looking at?
is there a reason why the squad numbers on the training shirts are positioned differently? ?
He’s looking at a picture of Kieran Gibbs holding up a Bolton shirt and thinking “ha, suckers”.
To be frank, they are well equipped on that left side though, with Alba, Bernat and Azpilicueta.
Don’t know why I don’t really feel excited when our players are selected for their national teams
Yeah Arsenal before england, ireland and everyone else obviously!!
Think someone’s taking the piss. It’s the exact same squad sheet from a few days ago only they added Hector. Numbers wise and everything it doesn’t add up. Maybe if Juanfran or Carvajal dropped out maybe. Like everything today it’s a joke at our expense
I wouldn’t say that ALL jokes are at our expense today. I, for one, would love to see how much frownier LVG’s frowny face has gotten in the, uh… face of the De Gea debacle. Could it reach cartoonish proportions of frowniness? Could he end up looking like that Squidward Tentacles character when it’s upset? would it cause a bend in the fabric of time and space where United will be mediocre for generations to come? We may not have had the most active of transfer windows but lest we forget, we still got Petr Cech, the world class goalkeeper… Read more »
Unbelievable. Not outfield player signed to improve a squad that has never even finished 2nd and you don’t think that makes us a laughing stock?
If there were good enough strikers to be had for unsilly money we would have gotten one. But there aren’t any. If you need proof, look at ManU: more money to throw around than Arsenal, and look what they came up with. If the French press is to be believed Martial almost cost them as much as di Maria.
That’s nuts.
And if he turns out to be incredible and smashes in goals left right and center? At least they’re showing they’re actually actively trying to improve their team whereas here we are with the exact same squad (plus Cech) that caused us so much frustration over the course of last season.
Shout out to the great job our transfer people & scouts have done this window, marvelous work
Barca can tap up as much as they want but I don’t see hector doing a cesc after seeing the results and unlike last time out we R not under financial constraints
Arsenal deleted the tweet & removed the news story on the webpage. Isn’t Hector with the Spanish U21 squad at the moment? Something is weird here.
Then Busquets or some other wanker will try to pull a disgusting barca jersey over him and he’ll say (in his cocknish accent) ‘OI! Get thees filthy sing off may u wankuh’
Thus the campaign to extract him to Barca begins.
OT blogs why can’t we comment on the liveblog?
Is Coke’s middle name really Resurrection? That’s pretty cool.
Given that Monreal is competing against Alba, Azpilicueta and Bernat it’s not surprising he hasn’t been recalled.
Congrats to Hector! He deserves it.
Guys quick one here.
Where will Indosat play?
I just hope Busquet does not put a Barcelona shirt on him and start anoda Barcelona DNA saga.
Worth remembering during all this Deadline Day #HashtagEmoji chaos that none of us really had a clue about Bellerin this time last year, and who fancied Coquelin to make such a breakthrough either? Happy for Bellerin, and he deserves that spot and deserves to be ahead of Debuchy also. Hopefully another player can make a similar step up this year, and its worth remembering his and Coquelin’s breakthroughs in light of the inevitable backlash when we don’t buy anyone this afternoon.
This.
I’m just glad the fucking transfer window is closed. Its one of the shittest aspects of modern football. The sums are grotesque and the clamour for “somebody, anybody” is baffling (it used to be Carlton Cole, _insert any defensive midfielder of Sub-Saharan African heritage that had 1 decent game against us_, and Scot Parker. Couple of seasons ago it was Soldado, Paulinho and Capoue. Now its Charlie Austin and Pato.)
The only players that matter now are the lads with cannons on their chests. I couldn’t give a flying fuck about anyone else.
All I can see is there is no David Silva. WTF?
Have another look under “forwards.”
“Breaking News. Wenger has just signed a new hot Korean prospect!
fu-kin-no-won”
Only team in the top 5 leagues in Europe not to sign an outfield player.
If that’s how it end’s their needs to be some serious questions asked
Everyone else spends/improves but hey what do you expect from a club owned by bankers? They love it in the vault.
Asking an honest question here:
Do we really believe Wenger when he says they’re “working very hard”, when it comes to transfers? Seriously?
You’re right, he’s just sitting somewhere with his feet up, getting shitfaced and laughing at you.
probably reading this blog
A friend Sunderland fan was complaining the other on how is was to be Sunderland fan. I told him to try to be a gooner on deadline day. Ups and downs, nail biting frenzy, reading crap from from tabloids and boom it happens. Not very hopeful this time though
Oh to be a Sunderland fan.. Watching players such a Kaboul and some other cunt lose every week. That would be the life, none of this “mesut Ozil on deadline day” crap we’ve been through. While I’m at it, Sunderland is a great city with weather as beautiful and radiant as the women that fill its streets. Oh, to be a Sunderland fan.
No one is coming in. At the end of the day of we g3nuinely couldnt improve on what we havr then im all for not buying average or young potential.i meanwhat the hell, woudnt want us spending 50mil on martial…lmao. utd had all summer to sell de gea and they fuck it up last minute. Bunch of clowns. It could be worse. Hoping danny welbeck comes back strong.
This is the beginning of Hectors journey to Barcelona. Unfortunately.
We can never make a young player of his talent stay loyal when a team that ACTUALLY WINS THINGS comes knocking at his door.
if you exclude all the trophies that we’ve won recently, you’d have a potentially interesting point there
unless using ALL CAPS WHEN REFERRING TO WINNING means that we didn’t actually win any FA Cups or Community Shields in the last two years, or perhaps they are NO LONGER TROPHIES due to the power of ALL CAPS? Either way I’m a bit confused.
Me too. Didnt he start his journey at fekin barca?
“THING, THING A SONG, make it beautiful to last the whole day long…”
yeah, but you can prove *anything* using facts, can’t you?
The charity cshield is a friendly ffs.
perhaps, but look at all these two-bit small clubs listing Charity Shield wins as trophies:
http://www.manutd.com/en/Club/Trophy-Room.aspx
https://www.mcfc.co.uk/the-club/club-history
http://www.chelseafc.com/the-club/history/style/trophy-cabinet.html
http://www.liverpoolfc.com/history/honours
So maybe they’re all wrong, and we’re all wrong, and you alone are right. That might be it.
What Sam said.
I love this club with all my heart but the blind faith that some of my mighty Gooners have is remarkable.
If Giroud or Theo gets injured, then what?
Then we still have Dat Guy welbz
And Joel Campbell by the looks of it. Will be interesting to see what happens to him leading up to January. I doubt he’s the reason we’ve not got another striker in but, at least that means we have four to choose from, and not forgetting Alexis has done alright for us there too. It has been a worrying start to the season goals-wise but given the previous form of our players I reckon they just need to click and the goals will come. That our top scorer’s initials are OG and it’s not Olivier Giroud is disappointing so far… Read more »
15 goals for any striker is not enough especially ours with santi, ozil etc feeding them. Henry 20+ every season and dennis,bobby,freddy and pat in double figures.
Yes Joel Campbell and Akpon can be the answer! SF
Ok, let’s have 5 strikers on the books, just like ManU!
Oh wait…
Then we put on our other strikers who are probably not quite as good but not miles worse either. We go from Ollie/Wally to Welbs. The width isn’t the issue, it is having a world class first choice. Perhaps Ollie’s medium term future is to be the second striker a’la remy / bony, but to get there we need to sign someone who is as good as costa / aguero, not someone who is roughly on the same level as ollie/wally/welbeck. We didn’t manage this year, and that’s a shame but our squad is better than it was last year… Read more »
How exactly is it “better than before”??
You think cech’s arrival will make giroud score 20??
Get this into your head…this same team bar cech finished 12 POINTS behind chelsea.
If Chelsea the defending champions found it necessary to upgrade, why would a team which finished 3rd place and 12 points behind feel they don’t need to because they had “cohesion and automatism”
The best we can do is 3rd place. Nothing more. Everyone and their granny knows how to nullify this team. we’re so bloody predictable its not even funny.
1.It’s better because we bought Cech and didn’t sell anyone in the first team. If you put last years squad next to the current one, you’d pick the current one. That is the definition of better. I didn’t say cech’s arrival would make him score 20, stop talking nonsense. 2.Yes it did, in my opinion it underperformed in the league last year and I’m hoping that the arrival of Cech and a better performance will get us closer to the title this year. 3.I don’t support chelsea, I support arsenal. Do you feel we should have bought Pedro? I’m not… Read more »
1. You bought Cech and didn’t sell anyone…SO what?? For the past 4 games, where have we been struggling most? That’s right – OUR STRIKING POSITION. We have created the most chances in the league and have only scored 3 (2 due to Mr OG). Wanna know another fact?? Our start to last season and this one is very similar(matter of fact last was slightly better). 2. The weakest position in the team is the front line…so tell me how Cech signing is going to change that. 3. You’re an Arsenal fan? good for you. So am i. There’s nothing… Read more »
Well the transfer window is about to close with no sign of the badly needed striker – RIP Arsenals title challenge, over so soon, tragic waste of potential, yadda yadda
I think we may be playing for your job this season Arsene 🙁
I.R the update, the last I heard was that he had been called up to the spanish u-21s, which I saw on the Arsenal.coms twitter feed, it was only at a glance though so I’m not entirely certain on that.
This was a ridiculously stupid transfer deadline day.
So ridiculous that I’m honestly quite happy that Arsenal had nothing to do with it.
There’s no world class striker available who is better than Giroud at the moment, maybe January.
To all the people thumbing down, who would you buy that would be better? That you could get?
Serious question.
Bearing in mind you can’t get Benzema or Lewandowski. They would be better (particularly the latter).
Who could you get in the last hours of the window? No-one.
Who could you get over the 2 months the transfer window’s open? 3 or 4 options at least.
Who?
On the plus side, we have a collection of brilliant players, we didn’t lose anyone in the window again and Chelski, Manure and Liverpoo are really shit! 🙂 COYG!!!
I’m sure if Giroud was playing for some other clubs in France or Italy we will call him world class. It’s only human nature to value more what others got and underestimate what we have. Fair enough but I genuinely believe we have a great team. Individually I won’t swap for anyone. They just need a kick in the butt to deliver. And they can. We listen too much to pundits so called experts. If early results are to go by then Leicester are title contender this season. I remember we were upset last summer because balotelli didn’t come. And… Read more »
Well all wenger needs to do is kick them in the butt then? Theres your anwser arsene. Happy days.
I don’t think anyone is blaming the players. But the big problem is why haven’t we kicked on? Still defensive frailties, still ineffective possession football. If the players are not good enough, then we can agree with the pundits that we genuinely need to sign a player. BUT if the players are really good enough, they’re not showing it on the pitch. If that is the case, the onus is on the manager since the players are not the problem. He didn’t get the tactics, player preparation and selection right for the squad to perform consistently enough throughout ONE FULL… Read more »
We have kicked on. We’ve got a vastly stronger squad than we did three years ago (vastly!). Our team has looked ineffective for the first three games, that’s true, but so does every team during parts of every season (including the title winners). It may be that Wenger’s tactics are outdated, but on the balance the evidence is in his favour. Our results over full seasons have been directly correlated to quality of the players. In the dark years up to 12/13 or so, I’d say we outperformed based on the laughable squad we sometimes had, but that us usually… Read more »
We haven’t. Our standard of play might have varied throughout the stadium years but we haven’t moved past that second tier of top clubs. FA cup is a knockout competition against mediocre opposition, it’s not a judge of our performance. We haven’t moved past finishing 3rd or 4th. You want a benchmark or yardstick? We’re not close to the level of Bayern, Atletico, Juventus…these clubs don’t spend big like the Barca, RM, City$ of the world but you can say they are at that level. If we meet any of these clubs in the champions league, no one would put… Read more »
First off, Atletico is several steps below Barca, Real and Bayern (those are the true elites). Atleti just recently started becoming a force to reckon with despite indifferent previous years. This shows me that Arsenal has only to perform extremely well in both league and UCL to start getting listed as a super A-list club. Even Juve isn’t essentially that strong. Arsenal would be challenging trophies with them if we were in Italy with our squad. All these things are transient especially in today’s sports world. Only a couple seasons back, Ramsey was getting tagged as ‘world class’. I believe… Read more »
We still aren’t a genuine contender you say? Well maybe not, but we are definitely closer than we were 2 years ago. Of course the FA cup is a judge of performance, dont be silly. All the big teams play it and use their first team. I do think you are wrong on european clubs: Atletico – we would be favourite, they aren’t close to the level they had a few seasons ago unforunately. A bit like dortmund a few seasons ago they managed to build an amazing squad on a small budget but can’t hold on to their players… Read more »
We’re nowhere near the level in that first half of the season when Ramsey was the welsh jesus and it’s hard pressed to see us reaching it with him being played out of position. We’re better off only because we added Sanchez in that sense. I don’t want to say regressed but we’re definitely not improved from two seasons ago other than adding another world class player to the side. It’s like we bought sanchez to keep up the status quo of bring good but not great. I’m not putting Bayern in the same category as Juve and Atletico, it’s… Read more »
You wouldn’t swap giroud for aguero and costa??
Actually, no I wouldn’t. As ‘off’ as Giroud has been this season, he fits our system and play.
Look at Torres, who, before he signed for Chelsea looked some player, the same could be said for Shevchenko. Before they played a game for Chelsea, on paper they looked like quality additions.
The point I am making is like defensive midfielders, you need strikers that suit your team’s ethos. Would signing Cavani have improved us, sure, on paper maybe, but ultimately you have to do it on the day.
Before the season started there was plenty of optimism. It’s not been the greatest start but plenty of the season left. Just need to get back on track.
I reckon we will walk the league with new signing owen gole top scorer.
He’s definitely been prolific so far.
Owen Gole even claimed that little flick of Collocini as his, cheeky Irish ‘bugger …
didn’t Super Jackie score some screamers late last season and isn’t Welbz our FA cup Man utd fuck you goal scoring winner. Stay injury free and we win or come second. COYG!
I have no doubt this team will mount a serious title challenge than the rest of the pundit’s favourites panick buyers,our team is more stable if they can still pick up points while still not at their best i can imagine how it will be like when they start firing from all cylinders. There’s goals coming from Alexis,Giroud,Walcott,Welbeck,Ramsey,The ox,Santi,Ozil, when it starts raining it will pour#Believe.
City are probably the only top team whose fans aren’t complaining. They’ve got a great squad but watch Arsenal beat them, again!
Our players need some mental boost. I honestly don’t believe signing Benzema for example woulda given us the League or UCL as claimed.
fans love to have superstars in their squads. Swansea didn’t need any top top striker to beat United and hold Chelsea at the bridge. Tactics and ‘Mental Strength’ sometimes is what we need to imbibe at Arsenal. Wenger’s task is to work on that and bring silverware
its as right as arsene claiming hes tryina improve our squad, hes with the u21 one… fuck this shit (at least oliver giroud is the best O.G.)
Hopefully with no striker coming in….OG can keep us in it.
One think we have to remember is that over the seasons arsenal has more different goal scorer than anyone else. I always consider that we play with 10 potential goal scorers. At the end of the season, when we finish above manure you’ll get my point. No one is denying that bringing an new players can reinforce the team but who? It needs to be an upgrade to what we got and those are from real, Barcelona, PSG or athletico and they are regular starters there, assets for those teams.They don’t want to sell, players don’t want to leave. Only… Read more »
Stop lying to yourself. No player in this team is guaranteed to score more than 20.
A new signing would’ve taken pressure off alexis and giroud, but no…wengers knows best right?
I’m trying to get a grip on my disappointment. This has to be a new record (the only club in the top five league not to sign a single outfield player). I think since we’re refusing to strengthen with the money we have, then the fans should get the benefit of having thier ticket prices reduced? Aaargh!! Our club is becoming too hard to defend (even thierry henry is having a difficult time defending wenger’s inactivity on sky)
I hear you mate.
After the transfer coups of the last two windows, this one was soul-shattering, We only have one of the best keepers of the decade to show for it.
I know hardcore fans supporting the club since 2013 when we bought Ozil who are now considering boycotting the club altogether.
Time for me to look for that good old Wagner voodoo doll, I guess. Lost track of it since I saw how Jeff plays at 18 yrs of age!
Thanks for the rant, very original. 1. That isn’t even close to being a record, and I’d definitely prefer us to keep the powder dry than spending for the sake of spending. 2. Yes, and they should give out free iphones at the games too. The world isn’t based on your opinion of what’s fair. 3. We’ve gone from being a club selling our best players and ruining the chances of silverware year after year to keeping them and improving the squad three years in a row. That isn’t difficult to defend in my opinion. Wenger is playing the long… Read more »
So now people running with the narrative that there wasn’t a single player in world football that could supplement or improve on any position. Wenger and his team had targets, and they didn’t succeed in securing them. Even a poke at an up and coming would have been better than nothing.
I agree that the argument ‘noone was available’ doesn’t really stack up. There are thousands of massively talented players out there, and perhaps we need to widen our scouting network outside the usual (french) geographies.. but it would have been a mistake to buy an up and coming for the sake of it.
Let’s face it Wenger is the problem not the players.Wenger is too arrogant to admit his mistakes and some of us too dumb to keep believing in his bullcrap.
to
Care to elaborate?
Of course he is. You think he’ll EVER admit we need better than giroud to win the league? You think he’ll ever admit he messed up big time in this window? We have AKB justifying us coming 4th place almost every season for the last 10 years. Our best chance of winning the league in 2012/13 and 07/08, we lost out because of his arrogance and incompetence. Note in this period, liverpool has come 2nd TWICE. I honestly do feel sorry for giroud. he’s going to be under enormous amount of pressure and will get a lot of stick from… Read more »
Wenger out!!!we will never win the league with this man in charge of our transfer policy