Morning, a very quick Sunday blog for you because I have overslept a bit. Not much. Waking at 8am isn’t exactly indolent behaviour, but I feel like I’m slightly behind schedule and as we all know it’s feelings that count, not facts. Looking around I see that England went goal crazy last night, sticking seven (7) past Croatia. Bukayo Saka got two of the goals, making it 4-0 with a close range finish from a Jude Bellingham cross (watch here), and it’s interesting to see him in that position. It was something we spoke about on the Arsecast last week, that two of his Arsenal goals this season have been essentially from there, close range and dead centre. Some woeful play at the back handed Saka his second (watch here), which made it 6-0, and hopefully those goals do him good. He’s been guilty of a couple of bad misses in our opening cluster of games, but generally I’ve been quite encouraged by what we’ve seen from him this season. He looks sharper, fitter, and is consistently getting himself into dangerous positions. Only Erling Haaland has had more shots on target in the league, and while there’s no question his finishing has let him down a bit, I’d be much more concerned about him if he wasn’t as involved. The goals will come for him, I’m sure of that. Anyway, a big win for England and while we always worry about injuries, let’s hope these games prove useful for some of our players. Elsewhere, David Raya got a start for Spain as they beat Czechia (who England play on Tuesday) 3-1. Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino were second half substitutes, and the latter got himself on the scoresheet with an 89th minute strike (watch here). He has a knack of being in the right place at the right time, a and he made no mistake with the finish. There’s possible action today for Jurrien Timber as the Netherlands face Serbia, and having been out for such a long time, getting some competitive minutes could be good for him. There’s also the prospect of Martin Odegaard playing against Portugal and coming face to face with Bernardo Silva again after what happened in the previous game. I say face to face, but if we know anything about the former Man City man – whose previous club are guilty of the most enormous and egregious financial cheating of all time thus rendering everything he ever won there tarnished and diminished with the grottiest asterisk in football history – he’ll probably avoid that direct confrontation. Silva would shoot a man in the back then claim he was attacked first and was acting in self-defence, the scaldy little rat. Fingers crossed there’s no repeat of the snide violence he inflicted on the captain and if, during the match, a very localised sinkhole opens up and swallows Silva, sending to him to a hell where Maroon5 play 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for eternity, then nobody can argue that he didn’t deserve it. Personally, I would like to see him in a hell where there are two Maroon5s playing at the same time, but each one performing a different terrible song so the discordant nature of the clashing sounds sends him insane, but if it’s just the one then I think I can live with that. Right, I’ll leave it there for now, but we will have an Arsecast Extra for you a bit later on today. We’ve already put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com, so fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server. The pod should be out around around 1 or so. Until then, have a good one. The post Arsenal boys in the goals for England and Spain appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.