Just over 48 hours to go until our season starts up again and whilst I don’t have the same excitement as we all do when the season starts proper for the first time in August every year, there is a little bit of nervous excitement that resides within me this morning. The final preparations are being made, the club will probably travel up to the Midlands tomorrow, Arteta might even do his press conference today, which will be interesting and certainly they’ll be plenty to ask him about.

Mostly, I hope that in his presser there is a Fat Tony character to ask in his husky voice from The Simpsons:

It is my wife you see. She is very insistent. She is asking me “Where is Tomiyasu? When are you going to go and get Tomiyasu? Why haven’t you already got Tomiyasu”….and so forth. So you see:

Where is the Tomiyasu.

And then if he’s not fit for Wolves, which at this stage given we haven’t seen him in any training pics you have to assume that is the case, when WILL we be able to get him back on the pitch? I get that Arteta doesn’t like to give away much and perhaps it gives a little bit of uncertainty for the opposition to ponder, but in some instances I’m not sure it will make that much of a difference to Wolves. Perhaps they might target a clearly weaker Cedric in aerial duels and perhaps they will look to isolate him by getting the ball out wide to their wide men on our right hand side on Thursday, but it will therefore be incumbent on the rest of our team to protect what would clearly be one of the weakest parts of our side if Tomiyasu is out.

Isn’t it just the most Arsenal thing ever though? By that I mean at a time  in which we’ve all been talking about how important it is that key players stay fit, we’re already worrying about not seeing one of our key players for a prolonged period of time. Arteta said before the Burnley game that Tomi would be out for ‘a few weeks’ but that as a timeframe doesn’t really tell us anything. It suggests two to three but we’re already getting in to week three now, so I ask again:

Mikel, where is da Tomiyasu? I must insist.

The next question if – and we have to assume it is a more likely when – we find out that Tomiyasu is out, what does Arteta do? I’ve assumed above that he would use Cedric but there has been times in the past year and a half that he has preferred a square peg in a round hole. WE saw that at the end of last season when Calum Chambers was preferred to Cedric. So maybe there isn’t a question to be asked about how we cope with the Portuguese full back for a few weeks. Perhaps the question is how are we going to deal with Bob Holding at centre half and Ben White at right back for a few weeks?

Neither ‘solution’ is particularly palatable for me to be honest. Cedric is so limited defensively, isn’t that great offensively and half the time he plays it just feels like we’re whacking a body in the team to make up a starting XI. But the alternative isn’t really any better. Ben White as a makeshift right back is ok, but he won’t get forward or produce the same as Tomiyasu at right back and there’s also the issue of shifting pieces in your team to ‘make do’, whilst actually impeding your side by playing two players in weaker positions instead of one. We did that last season with Granit Xhaka moving to left back. It didn’t work against Villareal. It meant we lost him and what he brings to central midfield, then we also lost that dynamism at left back and it was his slow play that cost us a goal in that first leg away at Villareal.

If we move Ben White out wide right on Thursday in the absence of Tomiyasu I know that it won’t be the same as that Villareal scenario last season, because Holding is a natural centre half so we aren’t playing two players out of position, but it does weaken us in centre half as well as in right back. So neither scenario feels like it’s a great way to start this important half of the season. Holding trying to bring the ball out of defence, or attempting a raking diagonal long ball, only to blast it in to touch, gives me chills, if I am honest. But I think we all need to accept that one of these scenarios is more likely than the other on Thursday night.

Which all goes to show you why so many of us were frustrated with the lack of business in January. We all saw the opportunity, we all understood the exits and why they needed to happen, but in the absence of anything else we should have kept hold of one or two for sure in my opinion. There have been plenty arguing that IF we can start fit with our first XI then we have a real chance of top four, but personally I see that only as a real outside bet right now, because already we’ve got an injury worry before we’ve even started our run of games to the end of the season, the footballing gods are ALREADY showing us that the dream of keeping key players fit is folly.

And Tomiyasu is a key player. All of my waffle today has shown this. He has come in to this Arsenal team and been a revelation and we should all be delighted with what he has done. He’s given us hope in a sturdy and stable back four – when fit – and when comes back in we will be all the stronger for it. So whilst I have frustration that we might be missing him this week, my hope is that it might just be this one game and that we will benefit from his re-integration in to the first team for when we play Brentford at home.

Catch you all tomorrow.