Happy Saturday and welcome to the first day of the season, albeit without any Arsenal, although that’s ok, right? I mean, it allows us to take some sides by cheering on the teams of those that we perceive are the nearest rivals, so at least that’s something. 

So today you and I will be temporary Everton and Sunderland fans, as both of those sides play the Tiny Totts and City. I’m also going to be routing for Hull, because until the walls actually fall off for Leicester, there will remain the questioned to whether they can have another amazing season and prove that it was no fluke. Plus, there are some narratives for Leicester for me to now dislike, included the fact that Vardy rejected us. But also the fact that Ramieri has already made his first stupid comment of the season in an attempt influence officials, by saying that refs need to protect Jamie Vardy. No Claudio, they don’t, your man needs to stop going down under no challenges to cheat to win penalties. He’s a diver. He proved it multiple times last season including against us. There is no such thing as ‘winning’ a penalty. It is cheating and Vardy is a master at it.

So let’s hope for some fun scores today that we can all cheer on.

In the meantime, let’s have a we look at what Arsène said in his presser yesterday, and he spoke about his excitement in the start of the new season but also was careful with his words in making sure that he stressed the importance of not spending the most cash to guarantee the title. In a way, he and Ivan must have been pretty happy that a team like Leicester won the league, because if it’s not Arsenal, then a side who haven’t spent any cash (or very little cash) are the next best thing. It it gives a justification in to their words when quizzed on our lack of activity. I get that, but if really pressed, I’m sure you’d have both admitting that nine out of 10 sides that win the Premier League, buy the best players so by us once again not having ourselves in the right squad preparedness as we should be, we’ve already made our lives harder for the start of this season. Sure, it probably wouldn’t be as bad if we were playing Hull at home or something like that, but the fixtures have been out for a long time and Arsenal and Arsène knew that we should have been ready to go from this weekend. So I’m afraid there ant really be any excuses.

Still, let’s focus on some more positives, which is that Arsene doesn’t feel there is any issues with the Alexis and Özil contracts. The manager has said that the discussions wil take time and whilst I’d like to take comfort in his words, when he says that there is still two years to run on both deals, it does worry me a little bit. If I was in his shoes I’d be very worried about both running down their contracts and us being forced in to moving them on next summer so we don’t lose them on a free. Both of those players were supposed to be the marquee signings for the we world of cash that Arsenal are in, so if we lose those guys, it will feel like a massive bit of Groundhog Day for us next summer, won’t it?

Oh dear, I tried to be more positive and ended up turning that para into a negative one! I guess that’s where we’re at though. The club have pretty much failed to do what is needed this summer and everyone’s feeling a bit down. The only way to arrest the spiralling negativity though, will be a win on Sunday. Beat Liverpool and we’ll all be feeling a little bit better about the club, won’t we?

So that’s all you have to do Arsene, beat the scousers and out everyone’s minds at ease.

Until then.

P.s. I could have talked about Mustafi, but the boss didn’t really give anything away, so until it happens, there’s no point going over old ground, is there?