Having not watched any of our pre season friendlies – and I think I should probably underline the word friendly for today’s blog of context – I wasn’t going to start yesterday lunchtime by watching us play The Scum. But I followed what was going on and have also read a few match reports and seen some of the stats from the game. So what that means for today is that you’re not going to get too much of a reactive post, but more of one with a little more ‘calma’ about it compared to social media. I’ve got a couple of WhatsApp groups in which people aren’t too impressed with the performance, but as Arseblog has already said this morning, these pre season tours are more about strength and conditioning than anything else, which is a line I’m willing to take when it comes to yesterday.

Yes, they won and yes, they’ll be more than happy to crow about it this morning. I’m less worried about that. For me the question needs to be asked “what did we learn?” from both teams and I don’t think Frank will have taken too much from it. Arsenal went behind to a goal that shouldn’t have been because of a foul just before it, the Scum sat back like a small team defending a lead (they had a total of six shots and one on target all game), whilst Arsenal apparently struggled against a low block, whilst dominating territory, shots (off target), passes, corners, etc. The familiar challenges existed for us that were there last season, but you only have to look at the number of subs made to see that this was about getting minutes in legs.

The best thing about yesterday was Richarlison posting a picture of himself with the player of the match trophy and tagging Big Gabi, who responded brilliantly in kind with his THREE player of the match trophies from the PREMIER LEAGUE against the Scum. Isn’t it just so very Tottenham to have one of their players giving that smouldering look after they won in a friendly, to a guy who wasn’t even playing? Brilliantly hilarious.

What’s not hilarious is that Trossard appeared to have a knock and is it me, or have pre season’s somehow become treacherous in recent years? Maybe I’m just rose-tinted-glasses’ing it, but I feel like 20 years ago players would go on pre season, get fitness in their legs, then when the first game of the season rocked up you’d have a full squad of fit players. That doesn’t feel like it’s happened for at least the last three years and here we are with two weeks to go until the season starts, with questions over:

  • Big Gabi – still has not featured
  • Timber – still has not featured
  • Calafiori – came off against Newcastle and didn’t feature yesterday
  • Trossard – came on, felt something according to Arteta, then came off after 20 minutes

So it appears already like the injury curse hasn’t left us, which is why you can see why Arteta is stockpiling players. At this rate we’re going to need a few more!

We’re all having a great time looking at Dowman, but if we keep getting players dropping like flies, then he’s a very real option.

If we’re going to glass half full it though, Arteta at least doesn’t seem concerned. Hopefully the players can come back, rest up for a few days, then next weekend we can see them as more of a cohesive unit and not as injured. This time next week we’re on a one week countdown and we really could do with seeing a fully fit and firing Arsenal.

And that includes performance-wise too, because by the sounds of it there were a few players off their game yesterday. I can only comment based on what I’ve been told, but Odegaard was apparently a little off, our left hand side still isn’t quite functioning and one of my mates said that Rice looked a little off the pace. I think a lot of those things can be put down to building up their fitness, but the left hand side is one that is becoming more concerning. It just hasn’t happened for Martinelli this pre season, by all accounts, so that is a worry but in Noni Madueke, there is an unknown ‘X-Factor’ lever that Arsenal can pull when the players get back to England this coming week. We’ve talked about him as the Saka back up, but I suspect he’s looking at that left wing spot and thinking he can craft himself a fair few minutes there. And with Martinelli blowing a bit cold at the moment, there will be an opportunity. If Madueke impresses in one or both of the home games, it wouldn’t surprise me to see that he’s taking the jersey off of Martinelli t Old Trafford. If that happens, it’s up to Gabby to respond and as fans that what we want; players have to be fighting for their jersey all the time because it pushes them to be better. I still believe in Gabriel Martinelli, I still think that 2022/23 variant is in there somewhere, we just need to find a way to unlock it.

Perhaps that is through Gyokeres, who naturally drifts to the left as part of his game. Yesterday he was on the pitch but game state and the fact he’s only just joined the team meant that he was never going to set the world alight in the 14+minutes he had at the end of the game. By then the Scum were just happy to camp in their box, be organised and see out the 1-0, so we are not going to learn anything from our Swede. That will come in the games at The Emirates and it’ll be interesting to see how he starts to adapt his game to ours and vice-versa.

The next game will come on Wednesday night at 6pm against Villareal and what we will want to see, as well as Mikel Arteta, is an Arsenal side who are more cohesive than the one that has undertaken this tour.

Back tomorrow with some more musings.