The international break can often be a boring time for football fans. A full 10 days without their beloved club side in action and the underwhelming prospect of watching England travel to Eastern Europe to claim a slender victory.
But during this spell one tweet did catch the eye. It came from Belgium striker Michy Batshuayi, who like many pros took to social media after training to broadcast to the world about his hard day’s graft.
Arsenal in the transfer window has been a recurring theme – we wait, hope and pray and inevitably watch the window slam shut on deadline day needing 2 more players. It seems that Groundhog Day this year has been cancelled, though. The imminent signings of Shkodran Mustafi from Valencia and Lucas Pérez from Deportivo bring a much needed injection of hope and options.
At the end of last season it was clear the spine of our team was far too vulnerable – now we can have a legitimate and realistic hope that we have a wealth of options in every area. The jury is out on Lucas Pérez but Mustafi is a World Cup winner, has been in La Liga team of the season and you better believe if Wenger spends £35m on a centre back they have to be pretty good.
Two and a half months ago I came to the defense of Joel Campbell and why the stars aligned for him to take his chance at Arsenal and cement a place in the first-team. With recent events ending in him being loaned out to Portuguese giants Sporting Lisbon, and the likely full move away from the club that is surely on the horizon, another door (yet under different circumstances) has been opened for a different wide player who has yet to show what he is capable of – Serge Gnabry.
Born in the Porsche capital of the world, Serge David Gnabry was born to an Ivorian father and a German mother. Despite showing great natural ability in sprinting, he joined TSV Weissach at the age of five to begin his footballing education. Stops at GSV Hemmingen, TSF Ditzingen, SpVgg Feuerbach and Stuttgarter Kickers would come before the big move; to hometown club and storied Bundesliga outfit VfB Stuttgart in 2006 at the age of 11. During his five years with Die Schwaben, Gnabry gained a reputation for being one of the brighter talents in his age group, resulting in his breaking into the German U-16 side in 2010 and earning himself five appearances. It was then that Arsène Wenger and Arsenal would come calling.
The spring of 2007 was unseasonably warm in London. As the sun crested the early morning, a man shaved and brushed his teeth – rehearsing the lines again in his head.
As he continued to prepare for his morning meetings, he questioned what he was about to do. In the past, he had been clear in his mission – often taking on riskier and riskier endeavors to bring success to the club he loved.
There’s the story of how he had camped outside Atlético Mineiro’s training ground in Brazil in order to sign Gilberto Silva, and the promises of a more attacking team he’d made to an out-of-form Dutchman at Inter.