We’re nearly there folks. International football is nearly in our rear view mirror. Well, for at least month, that is. But it appears on face value as though this latest round of games as been positive, so let’s run through who did what, shall we?

Starting off with the mid-morning kick off our time with Martinelli and Big Gabi for Brazil. The result may not have been in their favour, but if you look at it through an Arsenal lens, what are you wanting from this match given that the players are already out there? 1) Big Gabi gets a rest, 2) Martinelli gets a confidence-booster. Which is exactly what we got. Big Gabi never got off the bench, whilst on 32 minutes Martinelli got the second goal of Brazil’s 3-2 defeat. It was a well timed goal too and a good run as the ball looped over the back line for him to volley it in. Gabi has found starts limited of late as Leo has played more, so for him to get a solid 57 minutes before he heads back to London can only be a good thing.

Back over here in Europe and with the Management pottering around the house doing chores last night, I was left to see if there was anything good on TV, which there wasn’t. So I decided to watch the England game sporadically. It was a comprehensive one but I only really saw the first and last goals which, if I’m honest, are the only interesting ones. The first one from Gordon was a good finish, but the last one from Eze had interest for us because of the Arsenal connection. Again, if I think about what Eze needs to help him with it’s Arsenal form (which is already very good by the way), it probably is a decent goal in an England shirt. He may not have started, but he finished and his finish itself for the goal was well taken. Then you look at the other Arsenal players and as I said on social media, what do we need from the match?

  1. Myles Lewis-Skelly to play minutes, because he hasn’t had many so far so this will help sharpen his match fitness and ready him for our games.
  2. Declan Rice not to play too many minutes, because he is already a guy who racks them up and so getting him off nice and early would be lovely.
  3. Bukayo Saka not to play too many minutes, because he’s recently returned to fitness and we’ve seen how Arsenal have been loading up his minutes.

I think on that last point, if it had been a Southgate, Allardyce or Hodgson side, we’d have seen Saka probably play 85 minutes. But as Arteta recently pointed out in one of his pre match press conferences, he has a good relationship with Tuchel and I think they will have both have looked at what is best for the player and realised that 60 minutes is about right. He can now come home today, do some light training tomorrow, then take part in normal training on Friday and be ready for Saturday. That’s how you should manage a staged return to work for a player who has suffered a big injury last season and a minor setback already this season.

Elsewhere we also saw the continuation of the crazy-good form of Mikel Merino, who bagged another two goals to make it six in four matches now I think. According to UEFA he played in that right hand side of a three midfielder with Zubi anchoring it, in a very similar position to what he was asked to do in the City game against us and it does make me think about how with Odegaard out, we might need to find different ways to skin-a-cat, so-to-speak. The problem Merino has had – and I’ve heard Clive on the Arsenal Vision talk about this, so I won’t claim it as my own thoughts – is that he probably needs somebody who is a little more creative in that midfield three when he’s playing. Rice, Zubimendi and Merino is a bit too much of a ‘functional’ midfield. I think a slight maverick, or as Clive put it – a ‘footballer’ – is needed with him and in the Spanish side they have Pedri who is their creative eight with the vision, passing, etc.

Of course Mikel Merino scored with two powerful headers and when you’re looking for a midfielder to arrive onto the ball with his head in the box for you (think Newcastle away guys and gals), I can’t think of many better than Mikel Merino. He is such a valuable asset for Arsenal and you can see why Arteta wants to keep him close to the group and playing matches. When you have an aerial threat like that there is always space for them to get minutes.

Zubimendi was mercifully taken off on 63 minutes and so he will have some rest in to his legs too, which is nice.

Elsewhere we had just one more guy to come through without any problems, which was in Italy with Riccardo Calafiori, who played the full 90 for Italy and whilst that isn’t ideal, it shows that he didn’t come off with a knock, so hopefully today he heads back to England and can also be in training for tomorrow.

And so all of the 16 Arsenal players on international duty have, we hope, made it through unscathed and because of the timing of the games we might find ourselves with a press conference from Arteta on Friday (I think he’s doing it on Friday even though it is away, given it is a London derby) where he can talk with a little more authority on player availability, because he’ll have had the lads in for light training the day before and so can speak to the overall fitness of the group.

I might hate international breaks, I might find it farcical that we have another one in just a months time, but on this occasion we’ve done alright from it and my hope is that the players come back with a fire in their bellies for the next batch of games. Because we need to be going on a run now.

Catch you all tomorrow.