Not really sure where to go with today’s post match blog musings, to be honest with you, because the situation we – thankfully – put ourselves in by winning all but one of our other Champions league games, meant that yesterday night’s dead rubber was the most dead rubbery of all that you’re going to get. It didn’t matter if we won 10-0, lost 0-10, or played out a five-a-side style 10-10; the end result was still us topping the group.

It’s not even like a pre season friendly where you’re looking for clues as to how the team might play, because you’re in anticipation of the new season, because we’re already well in to it and just a couple of week’s away from the halfway stage. So last night I took to watching the game in my kitchen as I prepared the evening deal for me ‘n The Management.

Arteta rotated, thankfully, but perhaps not as hard and deep as many would have thought. Broadly speaking I was ok with it though; in came Ramsdale, Cedric, Kiwior, Elneny, Jorginho, Nelson, Nketiah and Trossard. I kind of expected there to be some of the current starting ‘best XI’ and Havertz and one of Saliba/Gabriel was what I thought it might be, so I was a little surprised to see both centre halves playing. So there was to be no opportunity for some of the young kids to make a start and I found that a little odd. I did wonder if they’d give Nwaneri a go given there was Cedric behind him and perhaps to mitigate any risk of chucking the kids in at the deep end we could have seen a couple of them share minutes perhaps, but alas it wasn’t to be and as one Gooner remarked on Twitter which had me chuckle: The kids might as well have just headed off to Amsterdam.

I guess it is still good to be part of the match day squad experience and it all adds value. It’s just a shame we didn’t see Walters get any time at all. Instead Arteta decided that his subs were to be the senior players coming on in the second half to ensure that we held on to what we had, which as we all know now was eventually a draw.

And I think Arteta will be fine with that. I suspect what he didn’t want there to be was a “lost their last two games” narrative going in to the Brighton game, but you and I both know the media, so we can expect a “without a win in two” narrative to be formed over the next few days. No matter, I’m sure Arteta doesn’t care and for him it was more about that winning mentality at all stages and in all games and at halftime that’s exactly what we’d had. Ramsdale had made a couple of tidy saves, we’d found our post rattled once from a good header, but it was Eddie that broke the deadlock with what was a very smart finish indeed. He’s an enigma, is our Eddie, eh? Sometimes he pulls off composed and impressive finishes like that, yet there are plenty of games in which he just doesn’t seem to have that cutting edge. Think of the dying embers of the Wolves game when he dragged his shot just wide. It seems like for every brilliant finish, there is a poorly timed dragged shot wide with Eddie. And at 24 years old we can’t still call him a kid; he needs to bury more chances.

Having said that, I think he’s got six goals in all competitions now and if he adds maybe one or two by the time we hit the new year, then you’re looking at a reserve striker who is on track for circa 15 goals in a season. If he ends up with that having played second fiddle to Gabriel Jesus all season, then you’d probably say that he’s actually ended up doing his job.

I think it’s also worth giving some props to Reiss Nelson too, who popped the ball around well, showed a decent bit of drive and even got the assist with the pass to Eddie. He can consider his evening’s work well and truly completed and I’m sure Arteta will be happy.

Other than that, there’s not really a lot to write home about. Havertz added to his run of having decent enough games of late, Trossard did ok and the only injury problem was for Elneny, who isn’t a regular starter. It’s a shame for him and of course it’s another one in the treatment table which we could do without, but it seems like we have got out of this one without any other issues and now we look forward to Brighton on Sunday. Would’ve been nice to see some kids get on but it is what it is.

That’s it from me for today. Off in to the Big Smoke for a day desk jockeying. Have yourselves a good’un.