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I know that I have said this before but, when you write about a club, it’s the contentious or divisive players that really do your job for you. Brilliance, especially obvious brilliance, is really difficult to write about. Because it’s so obvious. I cannot juice 1200 words out of ‘William Saliba is good at defending.’
Granit Xhaka? Olivier Giroud? Theo Walcott? I will always hold a candle for these players because they made producing a weekly column on this site very easy. They were box sets in their own right, they fell in and out of form, suited some games and some opponents and not others. They were a constant source of debate and intrigue with depth and texture.
I am actually slightly grateful for the miniature soap operas that have surrounded David Raya and Kai Havertz this season, they have got me through this season and I know I will write about them again. I easily could have written about either one of them this week were I minded to do so.
But I will keep those in the back pocket for a quieter week or when I am lacking in inspiration. In truth, I have found ideas for this column harder to come by over the last 18 months. It is a truism that ‘we’re quite good, aren’t we?’ Or ‘everything is going pretty well all considered’ just doesn’t make for interesting copy.
In the notes app on my phone, I have the whole first team squad listed out in squad number order . If I am struggling to conjure a wider theme or incident to write about, I peruse the squad list and wonder whether there is an individual I can analyse in depth. This mundane writer hack has been rendered far less useful recently.
I rarely ever have anything to say about Gabriel, Saliba, Ben White, Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka or Gabriel Martinelli. (Gabriel Jesus is a vein I can find a little more easily given my knowledge of his career in Brazil and with the Brazilian National Team and because, externally at least, he does seem to be a figure of discussion).
There are only…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2023/12/of-rice-and-men/
Author : Tim Stillman
Publish date : 2023-12-07 13:00:12
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