FA Cup Saturday, Arsenal Charged, More Womens Signings

It’s an FA Cup Saturday, which means tons of football to watch. There’s always something special about this competition, but as I mentioned yesterday this is not a year where I’m overly fussed about it from an Arsenal perspective. We have bigger fish to fry with our title push and European escapades. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to be successful, but do hope success is thanks to some of our bench players making contributions. Today sees a number of our loanees in action, so that should be fun to watch. I’m personally excited to see how Charlie Patino does against Nottingham Forest. He’s somebody I could see spending next season with the first team, so let’s see how he does against a Premier League side (although they likely won’t be one next season.)

Speaking of another talent who has been on loan, Arsenal yesterday announced the recall of Brooke Norton-Cuffy from Rotherham United and his subsequent re-loaning to Coventry City. It’s a bit of a curious one, given that Norton-Cuffy has been featuring regularly and been a major part of Rotherham’s campaign. Rotherham are in 21st in the Championship, while Coventry sit in 14th. With that said, Coventry are only four points off 6th place and place in the Championship playoffs, so perhaps that is a factor in the decision. It seems Coventry were one of the teams who previously tried to bring him in this season as well. Whatever the reasoning is, good luck to him. He looks to be a genuinely promising talent and one we could see involved with the first team sooner rather than later.

In first team news, the FA have charged Arsenal with Player Misconduct following the rugby football match against Newcastle. It’s not the first time we’ve received such a charge, but it seems well worth the fine. The referee and his team’s performance on the day were laughable at best and it’s good to see our guys put up a fight. For so many years we have been labeled a soft side, so to see us change that narrative is refreshing. While it’s highly doubtful we’d ever see anything publicly, it’d be nice to see officials be held accountable as well. Will it happen? No, not anytime soon. Nobody expects referees to be perfect, but when you have technology at your fingertips it’s difficult to defend. Lastly, there was no charge for Newcastle who were just as guilty as we were of constantly harassing the ref over calls. Anyways…

While we are waiting for the men’s squad to make some January signings, the women’s side have wasted no time by bringing in winger Victoria Pelova from Ajax and midfielder Kathrine Kuhl from FC Nordsjælland. Arsenal Women currently sit in second place just three points behind Chelsea with a game in hand. It’s great to see them adding to the squad in the hopes of a WSL title push and a deep run in the Champions League.

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