It’s match day folks and I’ve woken up with a bloody trapped nerve at the base of my spine. I hope it isn’t a life metaphor for what we’ll have to go through today, because it’s bloody painful. Hopefully with some exercises and a bit of moving around it’ll get freed up a bit.

And that’s what Arsenal need to do today, I suspect, because I cannot for the life of me see a high-press Leeds side who will try to pin us back in our own half and dominate possession. The problem I have, however, is that there is very little data out there to suggest how they will set up in a low block, or even if they can.

I mean, they ‘literally’ could, because that just entails having your back four in place, dropping two holding midfielders in front of you, compacting the spaces between the two and congesting the box and area around the D. Leeds are a Premier League outfit and so they know perfectly well how to do that. But this is a side who like to dominate possession, who like to press, who push their fullbacks forward and use Ampadu to dictate the flow and rhythm of their game and passing movements. Against Everton they had 21 shots (only three on target though), 55% possession, 481 passes to Everton’s 411 and that was a continuation of what they did last season in the Championship. But Arsenal ain’t an Everton and this ain’t the Championship. Pragmatism has to be the name of the game for Daniel Farke (I don’t know whether it is the name that does it to me, but I always think he also looks like Lord Farquaad from Shrek) and I just can’t see how he goes full Ange ‘it’s just who we are mate’ on this match.

The weird thing is, he’s been accused of not adapting his style in previous seasons, so will he just go balls-out this evening?

We have to hope so. We get enough low blocks at The Emirates, it’d be nice to see a side that isn’t one of the bigger sides having a bit of a go, but of course I’m entirely biased because I want to see lots of space for us to exploit. I don’t think we’ll get it, I think Leeds will drop in to a compact shape despite what Farke has said about not defending for 95 minutes and I suspect they will aim to use those pacey wide forwards of Gnonto and James to see if they can spring traps.

Arsenal will need lock-pickers I think, so for me, for today, I’d be thinking about either Trossard or Madueke on the left. Trossard didn’t get on last week and will be chomping at the bit, but I just have the feeling that Arteta is going to see if Madueke can have a run at Bogle at right back today. If Leeds do press their fullbacks forward then it’ll mean space for him and given the sub-par performance in pre season and against Man United, I just wonder if Martinelli might be facing the axe given his lack of form right now.

The injury to Havertz means it’ll be Gyokeres up top and in Roden and Struijk they have two six-foot-two/three defenders who will fancy a tussle. So he’ll need to be mobile and continue his runs in behind the last man as we know he will want to do. But I think it’ll be one of those games in which his ball control and ability to fashion chances in tight spaces will be most tested. What we need to see from him is the connection with the other players and, more than anything else, that means the likes of Odegaard, Rice, Saka and whoever plays on the left needs to be able to play the right ball into space in front of Gyokeres if he gets the chance to run into some green space.

We know most of the team already, but perhaps there are question marks over the full backs and I suspect it’ll be Calafiori to get the nod again, but perhaps Timber will be in at right back instead of White. I thought White did alright at Old Trafford, but he seemed to come off a little gingerly last Sunday and with Arteta saying yesterday “With Ben, let’s see how he reacts and what we decide” I suspect it’ll be Timber to be given the nod with maybe White from the bench.

On the availability of players, we’re one game into the season and already we have knocks. You have Arne Slot moaning about having some injuries to players in the same positions (having said about it being an excuse last season…), but here we are with Havertz out for an unspecified period of time, Norgaard out last week and today with a minor knock, as well as Ben White not being fully fit. You can see why Arsenal have stockpiled, because we’re already seeing players go down and the season hasn’t really even got up and running yet!

That depth, however, does mean that we have such a strong squad that we can handle it. Even in attack with Kai out, we found Merino last season as an auxiliary forward, Nwaneri has been touted as a possible option, Trossard can false nine it and I still think Martinelli could do a job. So we’re pretty well stocked to handle one or two injuries and today we’ll see that evidenced again with our strong bench.

It will be even stronger from next week too, with Eze sure to be announced either today or tomorrow. You’d think that it’d be today though, because he’ll no doubt be at the ground to watch the game and there’s no way the cameras aren’t finding him if he’s there. And if he’s paraded before kick off or at halftime on the pitch, it’ll be weird to see the club having not released his ‘welcome’ video before that happens. I suspect the social media and videography team are doing overtime right now to get everything lined up.

The rest of the squad and the manager have to focus on Leeds though. The fact they are a bit of an unknown quantity does make me nervous, but you can have no excuses if you have aspirations on challenging for the title. These are the types of games that you have to find three points from. It doesn’t matter if it’s low scoring, it doesn’t matter if we don’t seem to click, all that matters is that we pick up points, because I have a suspicion that both City and Liverpool will win their respective tricky games today and on Monday. So we have to do our job.

I’ll be there, might even get in there early to sample an Asahi and see whether they’ve done a better job with that than the shambles that was Camden Hells, so I’ll be hoping for some joy come 7.30pm when the match is done and I’m heading home.

Back tomorrow for some post match musings.