do you have any thoughts rpf-istically about martin zubimendi......... i feel like it took me the whole season to begin to understand him as a player and i haven't even started piecing together what the #dynamics are
LET’S TALK ABOUT IT. i have loved the concept of martin zubimendi ever since i read this guardian article about him way back in 2022 about his connection with xabi and thought wow….wouldn’t it be so crazy if he came to arsenal given mikel’s connection with xabi….well well well look where we are now
most of my thoughts are from the first half or so of the season because after that i got a bit busy lol but i remember v clearly a reporter asking some absurd question about odezubirice midfield clicking because they were all born within 2 months of each other and then going hmm. rpfistically i think he is far easier to pin down than the rest, he has a real consistency of character about him primarily because it takes a certain sort of person to play a 6. most articles describe him as clearheaded, calm, cheerful - there was one that called him “subtle and selfless” - and i really do agree with that! there’s a steady confidence about him but also very clearly a shyness (see recent gifs of declan shoving him towards the crowd).
in practice that means the relationship i’m most interested in exploring is zubirice lol, in some cases with martin as the distant third point. they’re fun to me because zubi has absolutely no interest in making a bid for authority i.e captaincy and therefore declan’s posturing makes 0 difference to him because he’s not interested in the power play bs. he knows he’s good, he knows he plays a midfield role that’s indispensable, he cheerfully lets himself be manhandled by declan because it’s not threatening in any way. plus the language barrier i think that removes the more substantial reasons for declan to affect a persona and actually clears the way for some authenticity and a friendly coworkers w chemistry vibe. tbh i’ve written some lighthearted hetbending stuff for them as a way to destress from the rest of my wips, girl!declan zubirice is so fun














