So the good news from the press conference yesterday appears to be that despite coming off injured in midweek against Bayern, Leo appears to be fit, as confirmed by Mikel when doing his pre-Chelsea chat to the assembled media. That’s a relief. Considering just how impressive he’s been for us this season, losing him at a time in which his form dictates that he really should be starting against that reprehensible football club on Sunday, is a big plus for us.

Arteta wouldn’t be drawn on Havertz and Gyokeres, saying that they are both close and whilst Nagelsmann’s comments the week before last suggested that Havertz would be somebody probably closer to Christmas playing for us, we’re still a little more in the dark about Big Vik. I do think it is weird; we haven’t really been told anything other than he picked up a muscular injury which was reported as a hamstring strain. A quick Google tells you that a hammy takes anything between a few days to months for a complete tear. We know it wasn’t a tear, it clearly wasn’t what they call a ‘Grade 1’ because that takes just a few days or a week or two. But there has been no mention of a ‘tear’ at all, which puts the recovery at between four to eight weeks. If we’re ok to assume it isn’t a tear of the hammy and just a strain, then as of Sunday Gyokeres has been out for essentially a month, because the Burnley game was on 1st November.

My hope is that he is surely in contention for Sunday, but I do find it interesting that nobody asked (unless they did and it hasn’t been picked up) about the two players in isolation, because surely Big Vik is more likely to be returning sooner than Havertz? I would have hope that we can see him this weekend but if not, you’d hope that we could see him on Wednesday against Brentford, surely?

In the meantime, it might mean Mikel Merino once again reprises his role in attack and Arteta was of course happy to give some flowers to a guy who I think almost all of us now are much more appreciative of than we were a year or so ago. I remember this time last year thinking we’d bought an okayish central midfielder who would be a backup if we needed it (and it turned out we bloody-well did need it). We ‘found’ ourselves an auxiliary centre forward last season and now that he’s bedded in, he’s been acting as a fantastic deputy for our injured guys. And in the meantime, we’ve shifted our playing style and I’ve noticed our Merino has adapted too, dropping on to the right at times, tucking in to midfield at times and then rotating with either Trossard moving into the central space, or Eze taking up those positions for which he scored his goals last weekend.

If Merino plays tomorrow it will be interesting to see what Chelsea do, because I suspect they might have seen how Merino is vacating those attacking spaces and they might put somebody on him to do a tracking job. I’ll save a little more tactical thinking about how the game might line up for tomorrow, but I do think this is going to be a fascinating tactical chess match between two of Guardiola’s disciples.

There was a question asked about Gabby Jesus, who along with Nwaneri played in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Watford this week (must be bloody handy to shout over a fence and see if the lads want a kick about) and whilst Arteta wouldn’t be drawn on how available he might be soon, I suspect we might see him in a match day squad or two in the next couple of weeks. If you remember what happened with Timber when he did his ACL, the club really took their time to bring him back and he only read made the return on the last game of the season, a full 10 months after he picked up his injury on the first day against Forest. Gabby J is a few years older, so the healing will take longer, but he’s done 11 months now and so I think Arteta might be thinking about maybe an additional week of training before he’s in for match day squad inclusion. He apparently came through that friendly unscathed, he’ll probably have some sore legs for a few days, so who knows? Maybe a cheeky subs appearance in midweek against Brentford isn’t off the table?

He was asked about Rice winning the Balon D’Or, which is the type of question I hate, plus about Estevao’s quality, which of course he didn’t want to talk on an individual, but I do wonder if we have a game plan for certain players if they play or not. For example, Maresca predictably said that Palmer is back in training, having said he had ‘no chance’ just over a week ago. He hasn’t played since September so it’s a little like Odegaard for us in that regard in that you wouldn’t think he could get a full 90 from Palmer, but does Arteta plan for Palmer from the start? Does he plan for Estevao from the start? Or the bench? We talk a lot about how our squad depth is immense – and it is – but Chelsea also have quite a deep squad, having spent the best part of three years stockpiling every player they could get their grubby mitts on. If you take their attack, for example, you’ve got the aforementioned two players, but also Delap, Joao Pedro, Garnacho, as well as Gittens. They’ve even been giving Tyrique George games too, so it isn’t as if they have a ‘bare bones’ team.

That’s a challenge Mikel is going to be set tomorrow but the good news is that we’ve seen how he can spot things and adapt in-game to them, evidenced by the second half against Bayern in which we just upped the gears and showed our power against the German champions. You feel like once the game kicks off and the patterns of play start to get set, we might need to see Arteta making similar tactical adjustments when he see’s what Chelsea and Maresca are doing.

But, as I said, perhaps that is for tomorrow’s blog, so I’ll leave it for today and hope you have a great Saturday and maybe we can get another splendid hate-watch day like last Saturday.