Sweet you can mess with this in Swedish which I do and it pisses people off the same way: we have two forms of “one” (we choose based on the gender of the noun that follows, bit like spanish un/una), this would also be used like the English “a/an” when you just use indefinite article, like a/an pear/apple.
So I use the correct (“a” couple) if I actually mean two of something but the wrong one on purpose (like “an” couple) to mean like… a few… but not two, probably more like three or four. Which triggers people but imo you can kind of tell that because it sounds sloppy and inexact lol
have you decidedly excluded that they’re Irish? I mean their English is stellar. I have read many tweets from Orbinho and never once caught a typically Swedish grammar mistake.
I’ve a vague memory of hearing him on some podcast and I’m pretty sure I don’t remember him being either. But I dunno, it’s all a jumble with the podcasts now.
I have done google research on this very important topic and whilst I did not find out a definitive answer on the native language of the lad, I have found out that Rob Bateman (who joined Opta in 1998 and is now Head of something there) started Orbinho in 2009 as a side project to post fun facts on twitter about his favourite team Arsenal.
English or not, 10 goal involvements just halfway through the season for two young winger/attacking mid is genuinely something to be excited about. For context:
Wilshere never did it in a full season.
Ox never did it in a full season either with us.
Iwobi never did it in three years.
Ramsey did it four times in eight full seasons with us.
Theo did it only four times in eleven full years with us.
Nasri did it once in three full years with us.
I don’t know whether it shows how good Saka and ESR are, how disappointing/injury prone most of our other young players in these positions have been recently, or both. But I’m excited about it.