There’s more Olympic mayhem for Arsenal and Mikel Arteta to deal with as Gabriel Martinelli has now been called up to the Brazil squad for the Tokyo games.
The 19 year old had been initially left out of the final group, but in an announcement last night he – alongside Everton’s Richarlison – has been named.
Lista olímpica definitiva do Brasil, com 22 nomes. Richarlison, liberado pelo Everton, a grande novidade. pic.twitter.com/pHtjKX2TCP
— Leonardo Bertozzi (@lbertozzi) July 2, 2021
Brazil’s first game is on July 22nd against Germany, and the final, should they reach it, takes place on Saturday August 7th, just six days before the start of the new Premier League campaign.
It means Martinelli is going to miss pre-season, and will probably need some time when he does return to integrate into the squad fully. With early games against Chelsea and Man City, it could well be a delayed start to the new campaign for the exciting attacker.
The news comes after William Saliba apparently withdrew from the France squad this week, but as David Ornstein reported last night, it looks as if he is freeing himself to secure a season long loan move to Marseille.
🚨 Exclusive: Arsenal defender William Saliba looks set to join Marseille on loan. Not done but 20yo has picked #OM from many options & now clubs need to agree deal. #AFC want him to get full season playing — still part of long-term thinking @TheAthleticUK https://t.co/RemZlyyb5J
— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) July 2, 2021
Tell them to eff off. It’s a Mickey Mouse tournament. Nobody ever grew up thinking “what I want to do is represent my country’s u23s in the Olympics”.
Heh. Spot the Non Athlete.
Not anymore but I used to run for London.
sorry your ESP isn’t working.
clown.
Oh dear. Didn’t quite make the Olympics then, did we..?
I don’t think it’s horrible news.
Gabi probably wouldn’t be starting the first few games and this tournament could really make him. He needs games at a competitive level and he might not get that early season at Arsenal.
The absolute worst would be if he was benched for the majority of the tournament. But I’ve got a feeling he could well be the Olympic sensation.
Totally agree with this
I’ll take some of that Gnabry Olympic magic please.
Great point. My initial reaction was “fxxking football at olympics, it’s a joke” I still think that just became open minded to it might do our boy good.
In Brazil, the Olympics is a massive deal.
But this isn’t really a devastating problem for Arsenal. He’s already had his 6/7 weeks summer holiday rest, so he won’t need time off after this summer tournament – like Saka will. Just a few training sessions with the squad.
He’ll likely miss that Brentford game – which we should be winning anyway – but Chelsea is on 22nd of August – 3 weeks after the Olympic final – he should be well able to be in the squad for that.
Maybe nobody ever grew up thinking ‘what I want to do is play a few mickey mouse cup games for a mid-table club and sit on the bench and watch them knocked out of the Europa League’.
I jest, keep calm everyone. The Olympics are a big deal in Brazil and he has a chance of a winners medal, good luck to him.
You jest, but there’s a (un)healthy dose of the truth in what you say.
And the truth hurts. It’s just that some people are better at dealing with it than others.
If you told me, “hey, instead of repping your country in the olympics, you should come to pre-season training camp” i would tell you to get in the sea, only with many more obscenities.
Great idea to loan Saliba to another Ligue 1 club.
We’ve seen him play well for St Ettienne against French teams. We’ve seen him play well for Nice against French teams. So it’ll be really useful to see if he can hack it for Marseille next season.
Against French teams.
Yeah, would rather see him loaned out to another prem club. On the plus side he’ll be playing in the Europa League but still I don’t really get it. He needs to get used to life in Wngland. So I guess he either needs another year to get over the personal problems he faced last year and/or he just isn’t interested in England at all any more.
If he has another good season in Ligue Un he could pique the interest of PSG, I guess, which would mean a comfortable return on investment if he wants out.
We are basically paying him 40k a week to do a tour of his own country.
I can only hope he writes a Bill Bryson esque memoir of his travels.
What makes you think we’re paying him anything?
Marseille will most likely be paying his full salary.
I can’t wait for the memoir Willian writes. We’ll most likely pay him the full £30 million advance.
*Breaking*
William Saliba signs up for the third season of his wine tasting show “Cheer and loaning in Champagne”. Along side Robert Pires, the two will explore the southern vineyards in the Provence region while driving a 2004 Peugeot 106.
Yeah but, you’d watch it wouldn’t ya!
Haha. Does it even count as a country tour if all these clubs are only in southeastern France?
The Ornstein tweet says Saliba chose OM out of a list of options. We don’t know whether those options included a premier league club but if it did, then I think this dude might not see a future at this club. But then again, we could look at the examples of Kurt Zouma and Christiansen. Zouma was loaned back to ASSE, then spent two seasons on loan in the EPL. Christensen spent two seasons at Gladbach in the Bundesliga. Both are team regulars now. Hopefully there’s an actual development plan in place. Otherwise, the club might be distancing our youth… Read more »
No they are the backup options.
Series 3 of Escape to the Chateau. Maybe he’ll learn lots of new tricks to build his future.
If we are going to loan Saliba for a third time, wouldn’t it make sense to try to find a Premier League club to take him?
t seems a waste to loan him for three years, then still need him to adjust to the league & country.
Arteta: Edu, I want a CB. He must be young. And talented. Hugely expensive. And with PL experience.
Edu: Okay, but what do you want me to do about the young, talented, hugely expensive CB we already have at the club. Send him up to Newcastle?
Arteta: Why on earth would we want to send him there for?
Edu: *sigh*
I can totally imagine this happening
Totally!!! It looks like he probably wants to stay in France rather than prove himself in the EPL!! What does that say about him as a player or his prospects of playing for arsenal or both????
You mean that he would rather start for a club in Europe than be a backup who rarely plays to a player with less experience but who we are making one of the most expensive defenders in history? Especially following a season where Arteta chose to register an injured Mustafi for the EL over him and didn’t even get his paperwork for a loan done on time?
It will be good development for him, even though not as much of a step forward as perhaps going to a club like Newcastle might have been. He’ll be coming back to us hopefully with CL football of our own to look forward to!
I will give you this – your ability to spin literally every decision as a positive is pretty phenomenal. Arteta is borrowing from the future (our 3-4th year in a row of doing so) to spend serious resources on a position where we already have a young promising player to make a similar young player one of the most expensive defenders in history. The main argument for White at this point is simply his experience is in the PL whereas Saliba is in a foreign league. White given all of this is going to need to be an absolutely dominate… Read more »
It’s a managerial disgrace, isn’t it? Unbelievable how Arteta and Edu still have their jobs. I mean, Saliba is a 20-year-old VvD. We’re going to lose him now, as he’s already spiritually gone from the club. No chance he signs another deal with us, and no chance we can give him a shot next season – not with evil Arteta around. I’m surprised we haven’t moved Aubameyang on yet. Balogun just turned 20, he’s been a wild success at every level of his development, and we nearly lost him last season because of this club’s moronic way of dealing with… Read more »
Also Blogs – is White a banned word or something? Every time I reference him in a post I get my comment moderated.
He won’t be coming back to us. I’d give him a 10% chance of signing a new contract now – what rapport has he with Arsenal to suggest he’ll sign a new deal? Sweet FA as the kids say. Thus, we’ll have to sell him with 2 years left on his contract.
Also kinda funny that both Saliba and Guendouzi, the two players most pissed off with the club right now, might end up at Marseille… I have images of them starting some “I hate Arsenal” boys club over there!
Deezy, most of us have been trying to make sense of this club’s decision making in the last five years.
At this point we have no idea where we’ll sit on the table next season. It seems fair that the club is afraid of strengthening the competition.
Damn. Thought we’d got away with one when Martinelli was initially dropped. Just have to hope he has a good competition and it doesn’t cost him his chances this season.
On another note, how the hell is Dani Alves still playing full back at 38?
Dani Alves doesn’t play right-back anymore – doesn’t have the legs for it – he plays further advanced now – either right-wing or even centre midfield for Sao Paulo.
Latest Injury Odds
Does Saliba loan make White deal look imminent? Don’t we need to extend Saliba’s contract if he is actually in long term plans?
The White deal must basically be done. Saliba will have 2 years remaining after this latest loan to the French league, so he will either need to extend or be sold. That said, it’s really difficult to envision him wanting to sign an extension with us at this point. We’re making a player with a very similar profile & effectively similar experience (Arteta would not register Saliba for the PL so we can’t really knock him his experience is all in the French league) one of the most expensive defenders in history instead of giving him an opportunity to fill… Read more »
Yep…..think we’re hoping to sell him for £50m next summer after a stellar season at OM
He’s kind of the anti -Willian at this point. He’s played extremely well wherever he’s played on loan (the French league is a real league even if many PL fans don’t think so) but for whatever reason Arteta just doesn’t fancy him.
I think it is quite the opposite, in fact. I think we do fancy Saliba, but we want him to develop and mature a bit further before we rely on him for 38 games. What’s a little disappointing is that Saliba has reportedly chosen to stay in France for another year rather than go to a PL club, which would have been a big step forward in his integration to English football. That said, Marseille are a good top five team, so he’ll be carrying weightier expectations and responsibilities this season, and that is still a good progression for him.… Read more »
He has more top flight experience than White does at this point, the only difference being that White’s is in the PL. So why is White about to be one of the most expensive defenders in history while Saliba needs yet another loan to develop? He’s looked pretty developed whenever other managers have played him.
OK, you guys win. Arteta and Edu are arch villains ruining our club by signing Ben White and brutalizing poor William Saliba, a clear and present superstar central defender who is so ready to rule the Premier League at age 20 and take us back to error-free champions league quality football. This is unforgivable, and as Daveo stated elsewhere, one of the worst mishandlings of a player in the club’s history. Pure and utter disgrace …
Nothing good can come with Arteta and Edu calling the shots at Arsenal. Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this?
That’s the spirit 😉
I’m learning! 😉
One of the key assumptions you keep repeating on here that is just factually incorrect, is that the club has been operating under a self-sustaining model & there will be lots of spending this summer so the White transfer isn’t really a big deal. Yes, there likely will be lots of spending – similar to the past 3-4 years. BUT the club has been continually borrowing from the future as we have so badly mis-used our resources.
Just because we borrow doesn’t mean we aren’t self-sustaining as a club and business endeavour. Clearly we’ve suffered losses on and off the pitch that are directly connected to our profitability, but the club has also doubled its value in the last decade. The club has misused its resources, and the failed initial transition from Wengerdom hurt. But we’ve sorted that mess, mostly, and are doing the right things — investing in younger players, and a manager, that will appreciate in value while serving the club. But yeah, I’ve learned my lesson as stated above: Edu and Arteta are villainous… Read more »
The value of the asset is related to the Premier League growing wildly in profitability, which is why the PL now almost entirely consists of billionaire owners, many who are Americans who benefited from the same phenomenon in American sports. However our spending the past few years has far exceeded our income, which is why we’re no longer a self-sustaining club in reality. We are effectively just doing what Chelsea used to do, but our loans are coming from the bank or IOU’s to Kroenke, whereas Chelsea’s was via the form of IOUs to Abrahamovich. The thing I genuinely don’t… Read more »
Has every club in the PL doubled in value in the past decade? I hadn’t seen that stat. We played a tight financial game under Wenger, and undid the pursestrings when he was in his final few years. We thought we could fix our problems by throwing money at them, but it didn’t work – we needed a plan. We have one now. I don’t argue that Arteta has done a tremendous job, but he’s done a job with what he’s inherited and he’s young — he’s going to improve every season. He delivered a trophy in his first partial… Read more »
You will.
Martinelli: I’m okay with this. It’s a national team and opposite to the countries in Europe, football at Olympics actually means something to Brazil(ians). Instead of playing friendly matches for us, he will build up his fitness in a tournament where performances matter as well. He will be back with us before the start of the season, just as fit as he would be had he stayed for us, but with important and hopefully positive experience in his pocket. Considering he probably wouldn’t start the season as a first 11 player, I don’t see major downsides. This probably also means… Read more »
Why not integrate him into the team this year?
Oh, right, we’re buying a shiny new £50 million CB and we need Holding to provide stability.
Maybe Saliba should have been integrated last season? You know, instead of Mikel registering an injured Mustafi for half a season.
What a complete clusterfuck.
This Brasilian team eh? Just one Fuchs given…
He rarely gets a game under Arteta, so probably best for his development.
A cursory glance at Wikipedia shows that he played 22 times last season (compared to the 26 before), despite coming off surgery to his knee cartilage.
I’d say he’s been well managed back from a horrible injury to a young player. Last thing you do, if you care about the future of a massively talented player, is overplay him after an injury like that.
I get we are frustrated he hasn’t played as much as we’d like, but blame the injury gods for that, not Arteta. He likes him, and most importantly his attitude, so he will get games.
What that doesn’t tell you is that most of those appearances were 5 minutes. I think it is more that Arteta doesn’t trust an attacking Martinelli & Tierney left side together.
Personally I’d prefer to watch some exciting football if we’re not going to win the league.
Provided he gets some game time, I think this tournament will do Martinelli some good. As some Brazilian clubs have pulled their players out, he should be more likely to feature and hopefully play himself back into form.
Training sessions aside, pre-season matches usually field a lot of U23 players anyway. At least these matches will count for something.
Enjoy Japan, Gabi and Gabi.
Everton must be pissed – Richarlison is also playing in Brazil’s Copa America team at the moment so he won’t have a summer break until August – probably won’t play for Everton until September.
Nothing to do with Arsenal of course other than Everton were ahead of us in the league for 37 games last season until we pipped them to that elusive 8th position last season.
Well, good thing they just hired Benitez. Nothing like bringing in a loathed former manager of your rival who once called you a small club and plays dour football and hasn’t done anything of note in years to make your fanbase happy!
Anyone else find it funny that Saliba is missing the Olympics to push through the move to Olympic Marseille?
No? Only me then…
Olympics will be good for them both. I hope they win it. Be good for their confidence. They’ll come back in shape and ready for the season.
Don’t see any real problem as long as they don’t get injured…
I’m pleased for both our Gabis and I hope they get to play and Brazil do well, it’s a competition they take seriously.