Morning folks, hope all is good with you, during this isolation period which is increasingly feeling like a widespread household arrest we’re all involved in at the moment. The Sainsbury’s supermarket opposite me is doing my nut in though. I’m not a queuer. I simply refuse. Whenever there’s a queue I get The Management to stand in it whilst I go off and wander. Airports, deli counters, trains, etc. Just hate doing it. Maybe I should have been born Italian or Spanish or Portuguese; they don’t queue either.

But the supermarket opposite has queues all the time – it’s a massive supermarket too – so I’ll be damned if i’m queuing and on this occasion it’s a line the wife won’t cross either.

I get that and so we’re basically using everything in our house  until the cupboards are bare and I have to make an evening dinner out of some plain flour, chia seeds, some cornichons and one single tortilla. That’s going to test all of my culinary abilities, that’s for sure.

‘What does this have to do with The Arsenal?’ I hear you say. Well, nowt, because the well looks to have run dry. I did get asked by somebody to name what types of dinosaur the first team would be but it’s kind of difficult when your knowledge of this extinct race is limited to about four or five that you saw in Jurassic Park.

I guess Guendouzi would be the one with the massive fan gills that spits that weird ooze at the fat guy in the first movie. My thinking behind that is that his personality is one of a little rat bag sometimes, plus you’ve got the likes of Kolasinac saying that he’s the joker who always laughs (and blatantly annoys the hell out of him) at things like when the Bosnian loses at cards or something. I could imagine that dinosaur Guendouzi would have gone back to his mates and been like “hahahaha. Totally just shot my goop all over that fat dude with glasses. Hahahaha. Can I get a high five?”

“Matteo, we’re frigging dinosaurs, we can’t even itch our own feet with our hands, you melt”

In times gone by I’d have put Bellerin as a raptor, as they were hella fast and quite dangerous, according to the movies, but his injuries have slowed him right down and so he’d have to be some kind of senior management raptor these days; the kind of raptor that let’s the other raptors find and kill the prey but then he rocks up for the first bite. In the dinosaur world that’s the ‘Alpha’ but I don’t really see Hector as the Alpha. He comes across as a little too cool to be a dominant force in the Arsenal pack. That’s why we humans are more civilised; you don’t have to be the most physically strongest to have the most power and in some cases, there are some really weedy specimens of humans that get gifted it.

I would also have plumped for Ozil as a Pterodactyl at one time too, but that would have been based on his vision, ability to see – helicopter view like – the whole pitch and pick out passes for any player. But since the universal acceptance from Arsenal fans these days are that the Mesut of three years ago doesn’t seem to be hear any more, that feels a little redundant as a comparison. Perhaps he’s a Pterodactyl who is just perched up high on a cliff top, can see exactly what is going on and what prey to go for, but is just a bit like “nah…i’ll, um….get it later”. An ageing Pterodactyl with little desire to grab his next meal, just hopeful that those in awe of his former glory will take pity on him and chuck him some tasty morsels at some stage.

So now I’m looking for one for Granit Xhaka. Perhaps Brontosaurus? My thinking here is that he’s a bit slow, a bit ponderous, with a massively long neck and because of that – like Ozil – Xhaka does have vision and we know that from his ability with the ball at his feet to pick a decent pass. Perhaps some of the other dinosaurs found him a bit frustrating at times and his bulk meant he had the turning circle like the Titanic, but I still think he had a place in dinosaur society. I guess he just needs the right motivation and love.

Anyway, I think I’m basically running out of comparisons here with my little knowledge that I have, so I’ll call it a day for now. Catch you again soon. Going to try to get back up with more frequency on the blogging but it’s very hard with the lack of material.

Laters.