Now THAST is how you kick off a summer tour as a football club.

Forget about the fact that the MLS All Stars have had just a few days of training together, forget about the fact that they are a composition of the best players from the American ‘Soccer’ League, this was an emphatic Arsenal victory that is the perfect tonic for how we want this summer to shape up.

So far we’ve had two games in which we’ve drawn behind closed doors against Watford (admittedly with a very patchy looking side that doesn’t really resemble the first team too much), followed by an unfortunate draw against Nurnberg which sounded like we all the ball, were comfortable, then poor ol’ Karl Hein made a boo-boo and we found ourselves with another draw, but this felt like the first ‘proper’ outing for the first team squad and they duly showed the gulf in class and gave us all a glimpse of what could be an exciting chickens.

I know we need to temper our joy at such a fantastic win – with some fantastic goals that’ll I’ll get to by the way – but as I’ve said previously in the last week or so, the importance of the performance is more than the result at this stage, but it sounds like we got both yesterday.

Of course I say ‘sounds like’ because there’s no way I was staying up to watch The Arsenal in a pre season friendly at 1.30am UK time. Not on a school night, that’s for sure. So I’ve woken up this morning and watched the goals and I have to say we look like a team with a purpose based on the little that I have seen. Even within five minutes we’d asserted our dominance and Gabriel Jesus’ chipped goal to the back post was all kinds of naughty. There’s a little hesitation in my mind as to whether he was just standing it up for somebody to come in at the back post, but we saw him deliver a sublime chipped finish when we played Leicester at the start of last season, so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Then we had Leo Trossard banging in a sweet outside of the box finish and what I loved about it was the shift and hit he did. I feel like that too, was reminiscent of his disallowed goal away to Leicester last season but this time there would be no VAR to rule it out. Again, I must caveat today’s ramblings by saying that I haven’t had the chance to watch the game in full, but by the sounds of it Trossard really impressed yesterday and that is something that I think a few of us have been sleeping on a little, if I’m honest. With all of the furore over the new signings that we’ve done early this summer, I think many – me included – have forgotten just how good the squad already is and with players like Trossard showing his talents like he did yesterday, it feels like we have a deep squad that will help us massively this coming season when fighting for Champions League and Premier League points.

It’s the same with Jorginho. He’s a decent squad option and for the first time yesterday we saw him on a penalty, which is tantamount to a goal before the ball has even been placed on the spot. It was also Jorginho who played a sumptuous pass to Saka in for the first goal that we scored via Jesus, again showing his quality, but let’s not forget he is one of our squad rotation options!

I know, I know, I’m getting carried away. But it’s hard not to at this stage, right? We’ll most likely come back down to earth when we play Barca and United in the next week, but for now I’m an Arsenal fan who has seen his team go quick and what looks like cleverly in the transfer market, has just delivered the joint equalling highest victory over an MLS All Star Team, plus has looked like they have a purpose and drive about them that hopefully can carry us through to the beginning of the season and more. Winning is great, but if you don’t put the performance in, then it’s kind of a false economy, really. I saw that Spurs lost to West Ham in Australia. West Ham fans might have a chuckle at that result, but when you see how Spurs battered them in every metric, if I was a West Ham fan, I’d be a wee bit concerned with that. If anything the Scum can probably come out of that game feeling happier with their performance. I’m sorry to invoke that clubs name, but I’m merely doing it to show that in pre season, it is performances rather than results that matter.

And we got both yesterday. So many players were purring by the looks of it and when you look at Odegaard’s pass for Martinelli for his goal and our fourth of the night, you can’t help but get even more excited. Our captain is a genius; a master technician who applies himself to his craft like a renaissance painter looking to leave a legacy that lasts beyond his years. I love watching him and I hope to get more of that kind of football from our Norwegian throughout next season.

Then, to cap off a wonderful evening, Kai Havertz steps up at the back post to bang home a volley. It was a composed finish and one from a player with whom many of us feel the jury is still out on, but hope that we can see Leverkusen Kai rather than Chelsea Kai. If you’re going to hazard a guess, you’d hope Arteta has the keys to unlock him on that front.

And tyhe boss will be more than happy with the evening’s efforts. It’s now on to New York for the weekend where the team will line up against Barca, which I think will be a fascinating test of where we are at.

Catch you wonderful humans tomorrow.

Oooh, quick PS – if you missed it yesterday – I had a chat with journalist Charles Watts and Dave Seager from GunnersTown in our latest ‘one in, one out, one bangs’ series. Have a watch here if you fancy it.