You can’t win anything with kids
It’s Wednesday 12th August 2020 & Julian Nagelsmann is about to start his first pre-match press conference of the new season.
It had been an interesting summer in the transfer market.
Mustafi and Xhaka had joined Yeovil Town on deadline day, both stating it had been a childhood dream of theirs to play for The Glovers and they were looking forward to challenging for the Conference title.
Auba had finally made his big money move, in a £500 million switch to Inter Miami and Bellerin had been made captain.
Arsenal’s game against Salford City FC (who had been promoted to the Premier League on the instruction of the new Supreme Commander of the EPL, Alex Ferguson and due to 17 teams going bankrupt he season before) is the first ‘Thursday Night Special’ in Facebook Sports new midweek coverage of top flight English football and Nagelsman had taken the unprecedented step of naming his starting XI 24 hours before kick off.
Michael Owen, Facebook’s face of football coverage, is hosting the event, having been banned from all TV after his year long spat with Sir Alan Shearer culminated in Owen giving Shearer a wedgie live on the BBC during the FA Cup final coverage.
He was about to ask for the first question, when there was an almighty smash at the rear of the room and a haggered, angry figure crashed through the doors.
‘Arsenal are rubbish, the Invicibles were over-rated, the Emirates is a dump…..’
Before he could scream anything else Adrian Durham is knocked to the ground by security and dragged out of the presso.
The first real question of the night comes from Dave Seager, Chief Editor of @Gunnerstown (the no 1 rated Arsenal News Site),
‘You’ve taken the bold step of naming your team 24 hours before kick off, any particular reason for that. Also, you’ve named Ozil as 11th sub. He hasn’t made an appearance for the last year, what will be his role at the club this season and is he likely to play’
“We set up to play our way and not our opponents, they will have to play to stop us not us play to stop them. Ozil’s role? Vic needs a hand with the kit. As for playing…..it’s a big bench, I have to fill the spots”
The next question comes from David Ornstein:
‘With City being done for tax evasion (& relegated 2 divisions) & Klopp moving to PSG, taking most of last years EPL winning team with him, do you really believe that this team can win the Premier League’
Julian takes a deep breath and starts:
“1 – I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that was possible and 2 – with the old guys last year, this team won the FA Cup and the Europa League, this is the youngest and most dynamic team ever assembled in the EPL, so obviously, YES”
From the back of the room, a little voice can heard yelping. Everyone turns around to see Alan Hansen (now working for Ask Jeeves Sport) straining to get his hand as high in the air as possible.
‘Julian, Julian, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you can’t win anything with kids’
An audible snigger goes around the room and Julian composes himself.
“Eddie scored 50 goals for Leeds last season, a league record, Pepe won the Balon D’Or, Saliba and Guendouzi are the defensive pulse of the revamped French team and Holding and Willock are the spine of the new English national team.
If you are good enough, you are old enough.
Alan, check your history!!!
BIS SPÄTER”
English by birth, Australian by choice. Traffic Engineer, Arsenal ST Holder, Sun DreamTeam Winner, Writer on @GunnersTown, Depeche Mode, Welcome to my world…
And who told you Ceballos will be around then?
He will be in far away Spain where it’s much cooler. He can’t stand the English sun. So says Unai the great!
May be he’s made of candle wax!!