Matchday Saturday, a 3pm kick-off, a game in which you’d normally be expecting Arsenal to pick up all three points against a struggling West Ham side and yet, here we all are, a little nervous about history repeating itself.

Mikel was asked yesterday what he felt about the fact that Arsenal had lost 50% of their home matches to West Ham in the last few years (four losses in 42 matches, I think, was the stat that was used, with West Ham winning two of those) and he of course acknowledged that it was something they were aware of. He also praised Nuno Espirito Santo (I always feel like that is a car manufacturer’s tagline) while giving some flowers to ‘excellent’ Graham Potter; somebody who has thwarted him at more than one club during his time in Premier League management. But Mikel will know the context of those games and he will also be aware of how we need to be better in the attacking third today if we’re going to get all three points because I can see this one being a less-than-open football match. I suspect we will see exactly the kind of game we have seen against West Ham in the last two seasons; low-block football with transitional counter and a West Ham side that will most likely look to bloody our noses once again. There is a world in which I see a three-times-in-a-row scenario happen. I am not naïve and arrogant enough to think we’re going to have it all our own way today.

So what we need to see is an Arsenal team that is well aware of that. We need to see quicker movement of the ball. What has characterised our football in these low-block games over the last 14 months or so has been a slow and methodical build-up. You will be able to picture this in your mind’s eye as much as me; Arsenal have the ball at the back, Gabriel is trotting forward with it, looking for a forward pass. He lays it to Rice. Rice takes one touch, two touches, three touches, four touches. The opposition is sat in a back five with two holding midfielders. They aren’t budging. Still we edge forward. We’re in the opposition final third now. Ball goes wide left. No space. Ball recycled back to the middle. Then out wide to Saka. We’re looking for an individual bit of brilliance from him but he’s doubled up on. So he comes back inside to the centre. Ball gets recycled again.

We can’t have that. We can’t have one of those frustrating first halves where it looks like we’ve just given up a half of football for nothing (think Man City at home a couple of weekends back). We need Arsenal to start with rapid ball movement and progression from the first minute. Nuno is a manager well-known for his defensive stability. Like Mikel when he first joined The Arsenal, he will start with the back and work his way forward if he is given enough time to mould this West Ham side in his image. Whether he is there as early as today, given he’s only been in the job a week, remains to be seen. But Potter didn’t really last long enough to truly mould West Ham in his image, so the ball-playing side that he was trying to get them into wasn’t really fully there; the muscle memory of Moyes must still be there in the background of this West Ham side, even if it was over a year ago that he was manager.

I am expecting West Ham to look to use the likes of Summerville and Bowen as their rapid pace merchants to hit us on the transition, with Paquetá the deep-lying distributor to cause us issues. From set pieces they might call on Füllkrug, but we’ve also had problems with Callum Wilson over the years when he was at Newcastle, so I think there’s plenty there to occupy our centre-halves should they get the opportunity from set pieces. Indeed, it was two years ago that we suffered at the head of former Arsenal player Dinos Mavropanos from a corner, so you can’t exactly say we don’t have recent history to act as a warning sign.

Arteta will be contemplating that as he picks his starting XI today- well, not the stuff about Mavropanos, but more about how recent history has been against us in this fixture. So he needs to pick a side that can counter how West Ham will set up. I think there will also be an element of leaning in to rotation too. I fully expect our back line to revert back to the one that played against Newcastle and I expect Zubimendi, Rice and Ødegaard to be our midfield three. Rice was rested, Ødegaard played excellently, so it stands to reason those players will be given the nod. But what of the front three? Big Vik is now a regular in the absence of Kai, so that’s a given, I suspect. Then it becomes about the wide forwards and I think we all know that Saka is getting back in after only playing 20-odd minutes in midweek. So it’ll really come down to that wide left position and I have to say I’d be surprised if it is anybody but Eze. Leo played against Newcastle, he played against Olympiacos, so I think he’ll come on from the bench today if he plays. Likewise, I don’t think this is the sort of game that Martinelli thrives in, because it’ll be one in which there’s little space to run in behind, so I can just imagine that he’ll end up doing that thing where he hugs the left touchline, gets little space and is a little frustrating if it were he to start. So for me it’s Eze as the lock picker for that left-hand side. Give him the minutes, let him drift in and connect with Gyokeres and let’s see if he and the Swede can replicate what they did against Forest.

It’s a game that we have to win if we want to show that we’re serious title contenders. The big games are one thing, but you have to take care of everything else at home and if we’re going to have genuine title aspirations, these are the kind of games you just have to find a way to win against what will inevitably be a stubborn opponent.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some more thoughts, as well as with James and Amanda first thing, for the Same Old Arsenal podcast. See you then.