It’s Friday, it’s press conference day, it’ll be Mikel Arteta and hopefully when he’s asked about Eberechi Eze at some stage, we get that Arsene Wenger pre-Ozil signing smile that has become so iconic over the years.

We talked about the magnitude of it on the Same Old Arsenal podcast last night and I think it is fair to say that James and I had a fair bit of fun. This has been a fun transfer turnaround, further encapsulated by the excellent Kimmo on social media:

We’ve had a swift resolution and decisiveness from The Arsenal, we’ve had fan meltdown from the Scum, then last night as the stories on how the deal came about started to emerge, we found out that what Tottenham thought was the reason for the delay – to let Eze play in their Europa Conference League game against Fredrikstad at Selhurst Park last night – was actually mostly likely a delaying tactic. Whether it is from the club or the player we don’t know, but the fact that Oliver Glasner admitted on Channel Five last night that Eze called him to say he was ‘not well’ and therefore couldn’t play in their first leg, shows that perhaps it might have been a delaying tactic in the first place.

Personally I think it is a shame. It would have been a lovely book end for Eze to start and star for Palace in their first European match ever, before waving a goodbye to the fans, but in the cold light of the next day I’m sitting here thinking that it makes sense that he pulled out. He’s supposedly got a medical today, he’s about to sign for the club he supported as a kid, his head will be a million miles away from Selhurst Park and just imagine if he’d have picked up a knock. There’s nothing in the world that is going to prevent him from making sure he can’t get through that medical and given the size of the transfer too – £60million+ add-ons (funny how add-ons never get included or reported when Liverpool sign anyone, eh?) – you can understand why playing in that game would probably not be the smartest move. Arsenal and Arteta may, or may not, have wanted him to pull out of last night. I am thinking not however, because Arsenal have always wanted to do the right thing by players, broadly speaking and so I suspect this is somebody from the agent side thinking that they should probably protect the player in this process.

If the deal can be done and medicals confirmed today, there’s every possibility he could be at the ground tomorrow, but knowing Arsenal as we do I suspect that the media team will want to have themselves a real kick-ass launch video. I think if we all know Arteta as I think we do, he won’t want a match day dominated by a transfer. He’ll want focus, attention and every detail observed for Leeds, which means he won’t like any circus around Eze. Let’s see what shakes out.

And what should be shaking out apart from Eze today is the focus on Leeds United. Amongst all the furore, we have a game against a Leeds side with a win already under their belt and with nothing to lose tomorrow, so we need to be focused on our opponents, who apparently have been dealt a blow because the guy who looked like the star in their team, the guy who made everything tick against Everton Ethan Ampadu, is reportedly out. Daniel Farke confirmed he’ll be out until after the international break and that is certainly a boost for us and blow for them.

So, how are their fans feeling, ahead of this one then? Well unsurprisingly most of them are predicting a loss, but quite a heavy one as well, which is quite unusual for this early stage in the season. Usually the hopes of fans – regardless of where they are or whether they are newly promoted or not, means that you see a few more of them predicting favourable results. But a quick scan of a couple of forums tells me they are thinking 3-1 losses, 3-0, 4-0, there’s a 1-1 in there I spotted and a smash and grab 1-0 victory from one person predicting Gnonto as the scorer (good player – I thought he was impressive for them last time they were in the league). You can understand why; newly promoted, but also they also have a style under Farke that he has apparently been criticised of when it comes to adapting it. Having marauding fullbacks like they did in the Championship is going to result in Saka and whoever plays left wing having a lot of space to work with. Against Everton Leeds dominated territory, possession and in the first half basically reduced Everton to nothing in an attacking sense, but Farke isn’t silly enough to think they’ll be getting that much time away from home against us. The challenge we and Arteta has, however, is that the sample size for analysis at this stage of the season is so small. I sit here today genuinely not sure if Farke is going to go balls out and try to attack Arsenal, or whether he’ll change his approach, sit in to a low block and see if he can frustrate. You’d have to think it’d be the latter, but the Premier League is an elite sporting division and just flipping your style within a week – a style in which you’ve basically played for two years in the Championship – isn’t going to be easy. You can’t really train a side in a few days to become a peak-Dyche Everton, can you?

I hope not, which is why I am hoping that we can take advantage tomorrow of the season being in it’s infancy, or Leeds missing their main man and captain, as well as us needing to make a statement victory after the questions of last weekend.

I’ll come back tomorrow with some more thoughts on how we line up, but for today, you have yourselves a good one and let’s stay glued to that timeline for Eze news.