As you’d expect on the eve of the current Interlull, there’s very little Arsenal news rumbling on at the moment – well, Arsenal men’s news, that is. I am not really up to speed on much of the Women’s stuff but I saw they lost to Bayern yesterday evening and after a disappointing draw against Everton, I suspect Jonas Eidevall is feeling the strain a little bit this morning. Like I say I’m not really as close to the women’s team, so it’s difficult for me to have too much of an opinion, but I started to see rumblings about him as a coach over a year ago and I suspect there will be a few more dissenting voices after recent performances, especially with the talent he has at his disposal. Let’s hope he, as well as the Arsenal Women, can turn it around this weekend when they play Chelsea at the Emirates. I’m sure that’ll be a packed house so hopefully the Arsenal fans that go can come back happy at the end of the day.

As for what’s happening in the men’s game, well, it’ll be England tonight and so all that means for me is I need to adapt my travel plans from work. I won’t watch it, I have no interest in it, I just hope Saka and Rice can avoid any serious injury. We paid our dues in the last international break with Odegaard out injured for the last six weeks, so we should be due some injury luck from the footballing gods. We probably won’t get it, now I’ve said that, but there we go.

As for our other players, we have David Raya who has gone to Spain and should probably be the number one by now, as well as Mikel Merino. He’s one that I actually think it would be good if he gets more minutes; he’s made two sub appearances and 30 minutes or a start in the tank now will probably help us for Bournemouth. But that’s about it from an Arsenal perspective; Big Gabby and Martinelli head to Brazil, Calafiori is off to Italy, Kiwior plays for Poland so I strike my original thought as he probably needs minutes too, as well as Saliba and Trossard off with France and Belgium respectively. Keep them in cotton wool would be the desire, but the reality will probably be quite different, because Deschamps has finally realised what a gem he has in Saliba and started to play him, whilst Trossard is in form at the moment and so I’m pretty sure he’s getting some minutes packed in to his schedule for the Belgians.

One person not going away is Gabby Jesus. His is a curious case and has plenty of us wondering what the future lies for a guy who Arteta said last season ‘changed our world’ when he joined. When he did sign we were all excited, he kicked off his career in blistering fashion and up until that wretched World Cup in Qatar he was brilliant for us, but his injury that he took in to that tournament that he then exacerbated for Brazil feels like it was a Sliding Doors moment for his Arsenal career. When he signed I’d looked up his injury record and he’d tended to pick up at least one knock per season, but nothing that was that massive that would put you off signing him. In fact if you look at his injury history on TransferMarkt, you’d see that the most games he missed before us was in 2016/17 with 15 matches in all competitions. So I think we all knew he wasn’t a super robust player and would pick up knocks, but in his first season for us he was out in total for 17 matches and 99 days – the most in his career.

And I don’t think we ever truly got him back. That was until this summer, when Arteta said he was looking fantastic, he himself had not gone on holiday and instead had tried to focus on his fitness and get back in to what Arteta described as the best shape he’d seen him in, only for him to pick up another knock at the start of the season and set him back. Last season his injuries and the form of Havertz found him playing second fiddle to Havertz and now with Kai’s form, there’s no way anyone would put him in front of the German. So he finds himself at a bit of a crossroads I think; and Jesus is a bit like Kai in that I think he needs to be shown the love a little more to really blossom. But this is an Arsenal team with grand ambitions and we can’t be hanging around and giving minutes to players just in the hope that he finds some form.

What he really needs is a dose of what Martinelli has been given in the last couple of games: goals. He needs some end product to boost him; in his cameo appearances of late it has felt to me like he’s taking an extra touch, twisting and turning the defender just one too many times; I used to worry about that about van Persie – he’d go one way, then the other, then come back again, then just when you’d think he’d done it too many times he’d get the shot off. Well Jesus is doing similar, except he’s not actually getting the shot off. There was a moment in the PSG game in the second half where he had an option to release and just held on to it that little bit too long. Probably because it happened right in front of me in the ground, is where I realised that he is suffering from a crisis of confidence.

Could this injury to Havertz be a blessing for him? Perhaps. But the fact that the noises are that the club are not concerned and think he’ll be back after the international break makes me wonder whether we’ll still see Kai at Bournemouth. Maybe in the midweek game against Shaktar there is an opportunity to give him some minutes. But for me I think that needs to be alongside Martinelli, if it happens, because those two were striking up a good relationship two season’s ago before Jesus picked up his knock. Perhaps that’s another thing Mikel hasn’t tried yet (because for Southampton he obviously went for Sterling and Jesus as a pairing) that he should consider?

Whatever he decides, it is probably worth giving him a go, because he’s a player we are going to need this season. There are too many games, too much football, for us to rely on just Kai Havertz, or Trossard in at false nine. We need Gabriel Jesus back and firing on all cylinders.

Back tomorrow with more thoughts.