The Saka and Xhaka Show

Hello,

Quick maintenance update before I get into it. There will be another newsletter next week or later this week covering the season as a whole. After that, I’m going to take some time off. Doing 6 drawings a week is fun, but can also be exhausting. You don’t think that it would, but it oddly takes a toll on the body? It’s weird. Anyway, I’ll pick things back up once the signings start coming in.

This week started with the announcement that the last mural for the Emirates Stadium revamp project was complete. The mural features over 700 Arsenal supporters and it’s beautiful. Hats off to the artist that pulled it off.

Continuing with the week our Starboy put pen to paper and signed a new contract with the club until 2028. Obviously, fantastic news, but my favorite moment was in the behind-the-scenes video of the interview Arsenal put together with Saka and Ian Wright (which you should watch.) In the behind-the-scenes video, Ian Wright says “B, where are we?” and Saka responds with arms wide open “Home."

1. as I mentioned last week, I’m a sucker for this stuff. You get an Arsenal player saying that he likes playing for Arsenal? I’m all in. Put it in my veins.

2. There’s truth to this. Bukayo joined Arsenal when he was seven. This is his home. That makes this signing all the more special, especially after years of seeing our young players leave for elsewhere.

Onto the match, this really was the Xhaka and Saka show. By the 15th minute, Xhaka had a brace in what was most likely his last game in an Arsenal shirt. There are other things that happened, as you would suspect with a score line of 5-0, but I want to focus on Xhaka for a bit.

Other people are going to more eloquently write about his redemption arc and the fitting send-off from the fans that he received yesterday. I want to quickly focus on a silly story.

I had the pleasure of meeting Xhaka about a year ago. I was fortunate enough to film a video with him and Matt Turner last summer. When Xhaka walked into the room someone asked him if he was familiar with my work.

To my surprise, he said yes. Then he looked me dead in the eye and said "Your work. Eh, not so good, no?" To this day, I have no idea if he was joking or not, but I've never been more honored in my life. I like to think I got the smallest of glimpses of why he is so loved by his teammates.

Anyway, thanks Granit for everything.

Below, are this week’s pet photos and the community pet drawing. I’ll be back one more time and then a break!

Poorly

Community pet drawing:

At the end of each week, I create a post in the subscriber chat (it’s free) asking for pictures of your pets and I select one to draw. This is the last one of the season, but this was popular so I’ll bring it back next season or maybe a few times over the summer.

Shop Update:

Speaking of revamps like the Emirates Stadium, but on a considerably smaller scale, I’ve redone the shop for Poorly Drawn Arsenal. There are some new things on there with more on the way. Check it out at shop.poorlydrawnarsenal.com

Olive and Velma update: