Happy Friday folks. Wherever you are, hope it’s a good one.

Those in the England national team camp who played last night are probably not waking up with that feeling after their poor performance yesterday, that’s for sure! I missed the first 15 or 20 minutes of the game, so didn’t see Kane’s tap in until halftime, but I did see Denmark’s fine finish from outside of the box and I don’t know whether it’s just me or not, but have we seen an inordinate amount of goals from outside of the box? I feel like almost every game has some kind of great long-range finish and from a spectator point of view long may that continue. Goalkeepers at this tournament are probably getting quite cheesed off at this stage and ol’ tiny dino-arms Pickford will be once again annoyed at the closing down that doesn’t appear to be happening from his teammates.

Mind you, there’s a lot that isn’t happening in that England team, starting with the most basic of things: finding another teammate with a pass. It was so weird to see players like Walker, Foden and Kane all stink the place out and even Declan Rice was poor and sloppy with his passing too. This England team is so talented, but once again we find ourselves with a manager who has absolutely no idea how to change things. Honestly after this tournament is done, if he leaves England and is in line waiting for when Ten Haag effs up, then it would be a double-bubble win for everyone who isn’t a United fan if he’s their next manager.

England went ahead against Denmark and absolute sh*t the bed. There was no creativity, it was passive football and on the up side, it made me thankful for Mikel Arteta. That’s because had Arsenal have gone in at halftime 1-1 against a clearly more inferior opponent like the Dane’s, we’d have seen a very different Arsenal side in the second half. He would have spotted where the deficiencies were in the team, plugged the holes and we’d have adapted ‘in game’ to what the opposition had. Gareth Southgate is completely unable to do that and there’s something that Johnny Cochrane said on our ‘one in, one out, one bangs’ podcast that we recorded last night on the Same Old Arsenal podcast last night, Southgate is very much a ‘vibes’ manager. The difference is that a) he’s not a particularly good one, and b) ‘vibes’ managers don’t really work in modern day football. Just look at what teams are looking at when it comes to manager profile these days. It is about systems, processes, projects and control. The last ‘vibes’ manager out there who really stands out is Carlo Ancelotti and whilst he’s doing the business right now, at 65 he’s probably not got another 10 years at the elite top of football.

So that’s the reason that, for me, Southgate should be hooked, although you can’t do that during a tournament, so England fans will just have to choke down these kind of performances, then it’s another tournament that passes England by with a very talented group that is wasted with a no-talent manager.

In the other games Spain beat Jorginho’s Italy and although I didn’t watch it (was on the tube heading home) I couldn’t believe when I saw that Alvaro Morata is STILL in the Spanish national team. I swear, after the nuclear apocalypse, the only things left to inhabit the earth will be cockroaches and Morata – who will still have a seven year contract somewhere tucked under his arm. Fair play to the lad.

From an Arsenal perspective it’s still all very spurious and ‘spray and pray’ from the media it feels like right now. This morning I see us linked with Conor Gallagher but after last night’s “just faaaakin’ run araaand a bit’ performance from him, I’m not sure how that one fits with us. I was with a Chelsea fan last night and I asked him about Gallagher and he said that he’s alright in a team that’s winning, but if you go behind then he feels like a bit of a pointless player on the pitch.

There’s some stuff about the Turkey left back Kadioglu and supposedly he’s available for around £17million. I haven’t watched any of him really but Turkey play tomorrow at 5pm so if I can make it work I might check in on him. Or record the game so I can play it on x2 speed the next day.

The other one that seems to have popped it’s head up again is the Gyokeres links. Decent player, had a great season at Sporting, but two year’s ago he was bumping in goals against Cardiff and Rotherham, so that one isn’t quite filling me with the giddiest of joy I must admit.

One thing I will say, however, is that Arteta and Edu have given us enough good results that they deserve to be trusted, so I will certainly be putting my hopes in to the Swede should we go ahead and pay the cash for his signature.

And with that I will call time on today’s usual ramblings. Have yourselves a wonderful Friday and I’ll be back tomorrow with some football-related thoughts.

Laters peeps.