Monday Sep 23:
No diary last week as I was away for a few days and not that much happened anyway. There were a couple of things I wanted to mention though. Slot’s Friday presser was really good. I thought he struck the right tone with every question. I wanted to mention that because in the previous diary I’d said I was a little unsettled by the way he spoke about rotation.
On Friday he was asked a few things which I was interested to hear his response, and each time he spoke I was nodding and thinking that’s exactly what I wanted him to say. There’s a lot of common sense when he speaks.
The most interesting thing over the last few days though was definitely Trent’s comments. Lots to unpack there, and I’m not going through it in any real detail but there’s enough there for whichever camp you’re in. If you think he’s staying there’s plenty there you can use to back that up, and if you think he’s off to Madrid there’s enough there to support that too. It all depends on how you want to interpret it.
I’m more encouraged than I was before his comments, put it that way. Talking about wanting to captain the club suggests his plan is to stay, but my biggest takeaway from it was the stuff about Slot. He didn’t need to say some of the things he said, as if he’s thinking of leaving (or has already decided) then the easy thing to do is not really volunteer anything you don’t need to.
Trent saying he wants to be the defender nobody wants to play against and that he’s asked Slot to be tough on him and to call him out in meetings if he’s made mistakes, I think that’s a big sign that he’s not going anywhere. He was very complimentary towards Slot when he didn’t need to go as far as he did. So overall I’m leaning towards him wanting to stay and it’s on the club to sort it.
Meanwhile, City have taken yesterday’s result so badly that they have resorted to saying nice things about us. I say City, but it’s specifically one player. A player who fucking despises us no less. Bernardo Silva was asked about the difference between the rivalry with Arsenal compared to the Liverpool one and said: “Maybe that Liverpool have already won the Premier League, Arsenal haven’t. That Liverpool have won the Champions League, Arsenal haven’t.
“Liverpool always faced us face-to-face, to try to win the games, so from this perspective the games against Arsenal haven’t been like the ones we had and have against Liverpool. So yes, maybe a different rivalry.”
“There was only one team that came to play football. The other came to play to the limits of what was possible to do and allowed by the referee, unfortunately. But at the end we got a draw, the best we could get considering the context of the last moments of the match.
“We’re not happy as we wanted the three points, but personally I’m happy with the way we came to play and faced the game. I’m glad we always enter the pitch to try to win every match. It all started in the very first second. Then the referee allowed a sequence of time-wasting events.
“The thing that bothers me the most is having a lot of meetings with the FA at the beginning of each season. They tell us they will control this kind of situation and will stop them, but in the end it doesn’t have any worth. They say a lot but nothing happens.”
A City player complaining about rules not being enforced is the height of irony though. Technically everything he says is factually correct though.
Oh, one other thing from last week I would have mentioned if I’d done the diary is this video of Curtis and this boss little Red Harry. I mentioned this on the pod after Bournemouth but if you haven’t seen it, check it out as it’s just proper fucking wholesome content.
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