Hello and welcome to a brand new ArsBlog Arscast right here on arseblog.com. How are you? Hope you're well. Thank you very much indeed, as always, for being here. It's been a pretty quiet week, relatively speaking. No midweek games for us anyway,

and that has given Mikhail Artetta and the players a bit of a chance to sort of decompress,

as he said, to reset, to get ready for this weekend's trip to Everton and what lies beyond

and what lies beyond is an EFL Cup quarterfinal against Crystal Palace, there's a home game against Brighton,

a home game against Aston Villa, then we've got FAA Cup and we're into the new year,

so there's a lot of points to play for it this time of the year. And as we know, very often,

around the festive period, you know, the Premier League table, the league table can take on a

very different shape, you know, over the space of a couple league table can take on a very different shape,

you know, over the space of a couple of weeks. If results go your way or don't go your way.

So that is something obviously that Mikhail Artetta and his coaching staff and the players

will be absolutely aware of and, you know, they'll know as well.

The performance levels have got to improve after what we saw last week against Wolves,

but I am in no real doubt that there will be a concerted effort to make that happen,

starting with Everton on Saturday. In this particular episode, we're going to talk about the

EFL Cup draw, the potential EFL cup draw. Well, the draw is not potential, but our

participation in it is because we still have to play our quarterfinal against Crystal Palace. We're going to talk about the reaction to wolves. We're going to talk about some of the moments of the season so far, taking some questions from our Discord members, because it has been a bit of a quiet week. A little later on, I will give you the winners of the Eberaceza T-shirt competition, which we ran last week. With thanks to our friend Dan Evans and a store like 94, thanks to so many of you who entered, so we will give you the winners a bit later on. But with me to talk about all the bits and pieces that are going on a bit more besides. Delighted to welcome back from The Athletic and from Tifo, it is Kaya Kina. Kaya, how are you? I'm very good, Andrew. Thank you. How are you? I'm fine. Thanks very much indeed. Looking forward to all the football we've got to play over the festive period and everything else. So you girding your loins for what's to come? Yes, yes. My loins are good.

Well and truly.

I wish I don't,

I'd everything else. So you girding your loins for what's to come? Yes, yes. My loins are girded well and truly. I'm always, I don't, that's such a strange phrase. I don't really know, I don't know what that means in literal terms. I'm guessing us to do it like medieval stuff, is it, to sort of protect your bits, you know? I could be wrong. No, that's good.

Prepare for a challenge, it says, yeah.

Okay, okay. Yeah, I'm ready for a challenge.

Yeah, that's my sort of take on it anyway.

...