I’ll get into the Arsenal men’s teams’ second win of pre season after a somewhat feisty encounter in Singapore against Newcastle yesterday lunchtime UK time, but before all of that, let’s have a word or two to say about the fabulous England Lionesses, who retained the Euro trophy on penalties by defeating Spain in the final.

Annoyingly I couldn’t watch the game as I was in Cologne airport and they weren’t showing it anywhere, nor could I get a signal or stream good enough to view the match, but by all accounts it sounded like an absolute cracker and as Arsenal fans, seeing/hearing/reading about how it was the Arsenal girls that made the difference on the night (and throughout this tournament, actually) just puts an extra special cherry on top of the cake. Chloe Kelly with an assist for Alessia Russo, Ageymang playing her part by getting England through two of the knockout phases with her late goals, Kelly’s overall impressive performances in general, with captain Leah Williamson doing her part at the back – Arsenal won the Euro’s and after the Champions League win a couple of months back, this is an amazing achievement for some of those Arsenal players. Let’s hope it carries them over into next season as Arsenal try to dislodge Chelsea Women from their dominant perch.

Over the other side of the world the men were of course gearing up for their season ahead by beating a physical Newcastle side and again, because I was out and about I didn’t get to watch the game, but I’ve seen highlights of the key moments and clearly the biggest talking point is Max Dowman’s second very positive cameo against top-level competition. This wasn’t one of those ‘Newcastle Select XI’ that you sometimes see. This was a side full of their first team prepping for the new season and if anyone was in any doubt about what sort of game they were going to get, it was evidenced with Joelinton ‘leaving one in’ on Dowman. Big Man – slapping a 15-year-old in the face. Naturally some of their fans thought it was hilarious, but what was more hilarious was that Dowman had the last laugh, because he bossed some of their men and even won us the penalty that Odegaard converted to secure the win.

Arteta said it was a test and batted off the physicality of Newcastle, but I would imagine that if he gets an option for future games in pre season over the years, a club like that is the last you want to play. Perhaps it was because they’ve had a pretty rubbish transfer window so far, that has meant they’ve signed just Athony Elanga (who scored their first goal to be fair) to compliment their first team, whilst spending the rest of the time fending off the advances of Liverpool for Isak, which led them to feel like they needed some kind of ‘win’ by getting something out of us yesterday. But they got nothing for their efforts and the hope is that they continue to have a ‘meh’ window, because I suspect Eddie Howe knows that if they don’t strengthen significantly more than they are at the moment, that they’ll struggle to juggle the multiple competitions of the Champions League and the Premier League. If they lose Isak to Liverpool, however……sheesh…that will make their job a lot harder indeed.

Of course that prospect is hardly palatable for us either, because an Isak at Liverpool makes the Scousers one heck of an attacking outfit. They’re shifting on Diaz for €75million and then they’ll look to bring on Nunez so they can push for Isak, which will make them a force to be reckoned with next season. So let’s just hope they don’t get him, that he stays at Newcastle and that Newcastle give Liverpool the same runaround all summer that we all thought they’d give us when we wondered if we were after the Swede.

But back to Arsenal, back to Dowman and back to the questions about whether he’s ready to force his way into Mikel Arteta’s plans this coming season. Naturally Arteta and the club want to keep it low key on a child prodigy, but if he keeps up with cameo’s like this then it will be hard to ignore him. We have all talk about Ethan’s development and that not being stunted by signings, but if this kid puts in more displays like that, the question over the new signings should probably also be aimed in Dowman’s direction. He was fast, his ball control was brilliant, he forced Ruddy into a few good saves and also had an important role in the eventual winner from Odegaard. I suspect this will be a similar situation to Nwaneri last season in that we didn’t really see him until the new year, but this time around we have more squad depth I think; Arteta has already talked about how we have raised the base of the squad and unless there is another mega injury crisis like we had last season, I can’t see Dowman getting the volume of minutes that Myles and Ethan got.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t look to impress in the League Cup competitions, or if we get a certain level of opponent in the FA Cup, there will be minutes for sure. But these things need a blend of patience, timing and also fortune, as well as talent. Dowman is forcing the talent angle to make himself seen by Arteta, but let’s not forget about the curious case of Charlie Patino who, last season, made eight appearances and a total of 382 minutes for Deportivo La Coruna last season. Dowman could be somebody who forces Mikel’s hand, but even Nwaneri who has been doing bits for the last few season’s since he broke through as a 15-year-old, still had dips in form last season. Arsenal and Arteta will be super mindful of this and I think we, as fans, have a duty to try our hardest not to hype-train this kid too much. He’s in a good place, he’ll train with the first team this season, he’ll get some minutes in competitions and Arsenal will monitor his development closely. And that’s how it should be.

Right, I think I’ll leave it there for today because although I could talk about the fact Gyokeres is now out in Singapore with his teammates, all that really happened was a wave to the fans. I could talk about how Calafiori went down injured again too, but I think for now we have to park that, as we don’t know how serious it is. Let’s see if either players get some minutes against the Scum on Thursday night.

Back tomorrow with some thoughts.