Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Total Soccer Show.

My name is Taylor Rockwell. I am your host for

today. And today I'm going to be talking to Mr. James McNacliss. James has been covering Arsenal for the Athletic this season. He's been doing an excellent job making sense of what has been a fairly illogical campaign thus far. We spoke Friday morning. That would be today, if you're listening right now with McKellArteza still not yet unveiled as the new Arsenal manager, but given that it feels like it's only a matter

of time, we went ahead and discussed the process of actually acquiring Arteta, what he will be

like as a manager, what his style might be, and then what his big obstacles will be with this

Arsenal squad right away, what it's going to look like to see his sort of influence coming into this team.

We also get into the backroom issues that have played a significant part in Arsenal's present status.

There's some mess at Ozo v. China conversation near the end as well.

So be sure to listen from start to finish.

I guess doing it the opposite direction would be impressive, but definitely

unnecessary. So let's just go ahead and start from the beginning and say, with me on the line to help me make sense of all things. Arsenal is Mr. James McNichliss of the Athletic. James, thank you very much for taking the time to chat with me today. Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Of course, of course. So it's early morning, East Coast, I guess a little bit, what, like early afternoon at your time, you're still waiting to figure out exactly when Arsenal are going to make things official. But we do think things are going to be official, right? Yes, absolutely. Everything seems to be in place. I understand Micheloteta's been at the Arsenal training ground at London Colney this morning. It's just a question of when they make that announcement.

But, you know, it's been a protracted period this week where they've done this deal.

Everything was agreed with Michel Artetta a couple of days ago, but they've had to hammer things out with Manchester City.

It seems we're very, very nearly there, and we are on the precipice of Arsenal having a new manager.

And would that be with Man City hammering it out?

Is that just sort of like finding a way to release him from his contract?

Is there a compensation they have to pay?

Yeah, Manchester City believe they're due, I think more than a million pounds worth of compensation.

Yeah, which, you know, it's unusual in employment law, but they clearly have put

something in there to protect them against this scenario. It's not an amount that intimidates

Arsenal. It's just been a bit of an odd period because Arsenal and Artetta have been talking.

Arteta's been talking to Man City and making sure they're aware of the discussions he's been having.

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