Arsenal held an open training day session yesterday at The Emirates, where the players took to the field and went through some pretty basic numbers, whilst also doing a few autograph signings, etc. That in itself is nothing ground-breaking or new, but the fact that Leo Trossard, Declan Rice and Kai Havertz all made it out for training is a real positive for the squad. Especially when you think about the game this weekend and the opponent: An in-form Newcastle side who will leapfrog us into second if they win on Sunday.

It’s a little too late in the season to have any kind of extreme excitement for me from these returning players, but if we get some minutes at the end from Kai and if we get an Arsenal side at least willing to show something extra given it’s the last home game of the season, that’ll do for now. Then, thereafter, this season can well and truly get in the bin as far as I’m concerned.

The club are also due to announce the new home kit soon I think. I saw some stuff online about how the Arsenal Direct shop is saying something like “We’ll be back soon” with the background artwork on the graphic the supposed ‘A’ from the old Arsenal badge of the 90s. I’ve seen the pics, you’ve probably seen the leaked pics too, by all accounts it looks like another good job done by the club and I’ll most likely be partaking in it at some stage.

One of the good things about being an adult with your own money is you can go out and buy yourself things like football shirts, when you want, so I am lucky that I can afford to do so, if truth be told. I remember being a kid and basically having to ask if my birthday present could be brought forward four or five months, sometimes it would be a hard ‘no’ and I’d have to wait until November, but back in those days the kits would be worn by the players for at least two season’s. They’d alternate the home and away kit so that each season one changed, but the other one stayed from the previous season. So getting the shirt knowing that it’ll be around for at last another year-and-a-half meant that I was sometimes happy to wait.

Back to matters on the pitch though and the return of Rice et al can only be a good thing for this weekend. He’s an integral player in Arteta’s side and before the open training session I think most of us were wondering what sort of patched up team we would see against the Geordie’s. No Timber, no Gabriel, no Rice, no Merino (suspension), no Trossard (came off with what looked like a hamstring injury), no Gabby J, no Havertz – “how on earth are we going to line up?” That’s what was I was wondering. But the arrival on to the Emirates pitch of three of those guys at least gives us more options. Hopefully Trossard and Rice are fully fit and if so, you’d expect both of them will start.

Havertz won’t, but just seeing him getting minutes is a positive. He started the season so well, he was also bagging goals and I remember saying on the Same Old Arsenal pod earlier in the season that I fancied him to hit 20 goals in all competitions. He’s on 15 at the moment and he’s been out for a third of the season. I’m convinced that, were he to have stayed fit, he would have hit an extra five goals in the 20+ odd games he would have played for us in that time. He was averaging a goal every two+ games before his injury, so I don’t think it is unrealistic to have expected him to get one goal  in every four.

That would have represented his best figures in a Premier League season and so it’s a real shame that the injury happened when it did. I think for me personally, I have come to really appreciate him and the value he brings to this Arsenal side. As a guy who meshes together our midfield and attack, as a focal point for balls into the box (I’m remembering his header against PSG at home in the League format of the Champions League as an example), as somebody who ran and ran and ran, covering so much ground for us. There’s understandably – and rightly – been lots of talk about getting a new striker in this summer. We definitely need it. But Kai has proven me 100% wrong certainly in his ability to play that role and were he to have been fit for the whole season, I am thinking we’d be a lot closer to the Scousers than we are today.

It is what it is though, he’ll get a nice reception this weekend I suspect and that will be a positive on a day in which there will be a lot of people around me probably hiding a frustration deep within themselves that a season that offered so much, has ultimately ended in a serious of unfortunate events and Arsenal falling short again. That season overview perspective probably needs to wait until the chapter is fully closed on this season, which as we know isn’t for a few weeks. So with that in mind, I’m going to park any further thoughts, bid you all a fond farewell for the day and be back tomorrow.

Have a good one peeps.