I watched the game at The Emirates from the comfort of my own home yesterday and it was the first one I’ve been able to catch live this pre season, so I will admit to quite a degree of excitement ahead of the match against Leverkusen yesterday evening.

It was the return of Granit for an appreciation match, it was us against the German ‘Invincibles’, it was our first on home soil for a while and it was an opportunity for Arteta to see how much work is needed in the next ten days to prepare us for Wolves at home.

It was a strong starting XI too. Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel and Zinchenko made up the back five, Jorginho sat in the six, Odegaard played right eight, Havertz left eight, with Trossard, Gabby J and Vieira across the front three to make up a starting line up that would not look completely out of place if it was starting a properly competitive game.

Leverkusen are no mugs and Arteta clearly saw this as an opportunity to get a very-close-to-it starting line up. The caveat of course is that Leverkusen have played a couple of games less than us this summer and I think you could probably tell; they looked a little leggy to me, a little off the pace and if we get them in the Champions League then I’m pretty sure they will be more impressive than that if we get them in the weird new format of the Champions League this season. 

But you can only play what is in front of you and that isn’t Arsenal’s fault that they came across an opponent a little behind in their preparation than us; Germany’s league starts a week later and so it is what it is, and what it was last night was a pretty one-sided affair. Within the first two minutes being two goals up is a lot of fun for the home fans and they were pretty cool goals too, I have to say. Zinchenko’s strike was clean, but the movement in the build up was impressive too I thought; a good run from Havertz, a nice dummy from Odegaard I think thenk, then a lovely swipe at the ball from the Ukranian in his new number 17 shirt. That obviously gives him a super power that we haven’t had before. 

And we didn’t have to wait long for the second one, either, did we? This time it was Trossard who was the beneficiary from a Havertz assist and for both the German and the Belgian I thought their quick feet in the box was impressive. we all know that the result is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, although having a confidence booster like this is good, but for me the real positives was seeing how sharp some of the players are.

Like Gabby Jesus, for example, who bagged another goal this season and as I said on social media last night, is looking particularly sharp. Arteta said it at the beginnign of the summer, that he saw a fire in Jesus, that he was impressed by how serious he is this summer and for us as fans it bodes well, because it feels like we never got back that Gabrial Jesus from before the winter World Cup over 18 months ago so to see him rocking up and putting in performances like yesterday is great. His goal – our third – probably will have the ‘keeper thinking he was a little disappointed in himself, but the way he rode a couple of challenges before slotting it felt very composed. All the talk at the end of last season was how Kai was the de facto centre forward from now on, but what we saw yesterday was that Gabby J is not done in this particular debate. Of course the proof will be in the injury-avoidance pudding and you do feel like Jesus needs a big long run without any knocks to stand a chance of properly winning his centre forward slot back for the long run. That, and goals, lots of goals. 

Arteta will be pleased though. If he has the fire of Gabriel Jesus, the ice of Kai (who bagged a lovely quick reaction finish from a Saka-rebounded cross to make it four against his old club), plus the clinical nature of Trossard in the box with Saka’s obvious ability and quality, you’ll feel that there is goals in this Arsenal attacking front line. I haven’t even mentioned Gabriel Martinelli, who came on for a cameo and who a lot of people I speak to are thinking needs to have a season similar to the one two season’s back when he comfortably got in to double figures. he too, like Jesus, had a truncated season with injury knocks and you just feel as though he needs to get himself a long run of being injury free to force his way back in. Whether he’s done enough to start against Wolves remains to be seen; Trossard finished the last season strongly and with the starting jersey, plus has had a good pre season too, so I suspect he might get the nod for Wolves and Martinelli will have to bide his time for matches.

There were also some lovely second half promise showed from some of the younglings too. Nwaneri looks very polished for a 17-year-old and although Lewis-Skelly did get caught maybe once or twice in his second half display, I think there were more positives than negatives, including a nice turn of pace whilst under pressure against their right winger, I thought. Josh Nicholls made a couple of nice runs too and whilst I’m not sure how many minutes these young lads will get when the serious stuff kicks off, Arteta alluded to it yesterday: If they continue to perform like this in training, etc, then they will get chances. I certainly think we’ll see Nwaneri get minutes; kid looks ready. It’s hard to explain because he didn’t do anything that massively stood out like a mazy dribble or anything like that, but the way he strokes the ball when he passes it, the composure and calmness in his running, it just looks like he’s been playing football at the top level for a few years already. He doesn’t seem as raw as some other players and you can see why last season there were players telling Arteta to get Nwaneri on for that West Ham game in which we battered the Hammers. I think we’ll be seeing the most of him next season out of all of the young players, for sure.

So all-in-all it’s been a very positive first game back at The Emirates. A confidence-boosting win, some good first team performers, plus some great young players getting minutes too. A good day at the office for Arteta and he’ll be very pleased going in to the final friendly before the big kick off the weekend after this. 

Have yourselves a happy Thursday and I’ll catch you all in the morrow.