YAMACast 11 – the one before the last match of the season

Well, there is 1 more game to go. And because of Arsenal’s emphatic win over Wigan on Tuesday, they have their own destinies in their hands. Win, and it doesn’t matter what anyone behind them does. Lose and well, pray that Sunderland gets Tottenham to lose to.

The podcast is late this week only because of the Tuesday match and rescheduling our guests. It’s long – as usual but this time it’s not due to some wild rant of mine. It’s because the conversation with this week’s guests was so good they just kept going.

There is a wide range of items to talk about this week, from the win on Tuesday, the maturation of the squad, preparing for Newcastle and obviously the preparations for the summer.

Summer really is of interest to me this year, because for whatever reason, I believe that Arsenal will be busy – real busy. All the evidence of past seasons says something to the contrary but there is a general sense that the club are finally in the position they wanted to be years ago when they moved into the Emirates. Additionally, the result of Sunday will likely have an impact on how they go about their summer business.

From transfers it’s like you’ll see most of the deadwood finally shifted only because most of their contracts are up this season. Arsenal stand to shift anywhere betwen £150 to £300k per week off their wage bill. That’s at least one major player and 2-3 solid player salary.

But before we can get to transfers we have trip up the Northeast and Arsenal are hot on the heels of a win against the team I had pegged as the harder of the two to face off against. BEfore the kickoff Tuesday, I felt Wigan posed the bigger threat to Arsenal’s top 4 hopes. But the win and especially the second half of the match was as emphatic as it could be.

By all accounts, in the dressing room Arsene Wenger gave his charges a “what for” up the back side. That kind of “ruthlessness” has been quite evident this season since about January and moreso since the loss to Tottenham when both Vermaelen and Szczesny were benched.

We talk about this and more with our guests.

Both guests this week are newcomers to the podcast and both are amazing people to chat with. First up is Akhil better known on twitter as @10akhil (www.akhilvyas.com) . If it was possible to supplant Tim Payton as the most interviewed Gooner – then Akhil has done it. He has his own song that supporters sing about him. And why not. He is passionate and goes to home and away matches with so much regularlity he could be part of the coaching staff.

After that we are happy to have Tim from the blog 7amkickoff.com (@7amkickoff) – a stateside Gooner like me. We discuss everything under the sun and touch on a topic near and dear to us both, the stick we both get for being American Gooners.

Both are great interviews and in both cases the off mic discussions were just as good the ones we recorded.

I hope you enjoy. Until next time – stay Goonerish!

Today’s Guests:

Tim from 7amkickoff.com

Akhil Vyas

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