That was one of those ‘on paper’ routine nights, wasn’t it?

Arsenal had a job to do. They needed to avoid a banana skin. They needed to de-risk the whole evening. They needed to make this a perfunctory three points.

Brentford are not a team to be trifled with. Yes, they have a pretty shoddy away record, yes, they sit in mid table and dispatching teams like that is exactly what you do if you want to be champions. We’ve seen Pep’s City do it for years. Yet when I reflect on this 2-0 victory courtesy of Merino and Saka’s goals, I can’t help but breathe a big sigh of relief, because this was anything but ‘simple’.

Mikel knew he had to shuffle his deck a little bit. We’ve lost so many players to injury this season that ‘loading’ must be one of the first things he thinks of when he wakes up in the morning. So he rang ‘some’ changes; White in, Madueke in, Odegaard in. Zubimendi and Rice remained and given how awesome both of them are, I don’t think there was an Arsenal fan on this planet who didn’t think “yep – they have to start”.

And given his form, Mikel Merino is another one that, at this stage, has to keep his place too.

And given he helped us open the scoring in this game, it’s hard to argue otherwise, even if Gyokeres might have also feasted on such a sumptuous ball from White’s delivery. But the feasting was for our Basque makeshift forward and at some stage, I think we’re going to just have to change his Football Manager position, because he is every bit the striker and his headed goal was superbly taken to get us up and running. Mikel also referenced the fact he was all over the pitch and for a guy who most of us were a little like “wait. What is he?” his form has been so good that I don’t think Arteta can keep him out. Two goals in two games and he’s looking every bit the number nine. What a time to show your technical and physical qualities when so many around him have gone down with injuries.

The timing of the goal was enough to settle nerves, but Brentford are a tough but to crack and I thought this was a game that played out exactly how many of us would have predicted; they are organised, they don’t give away a lot of chances, they are physical and they have a guy who basically bullets in a throw in if you give him half a chance. And to be fair to them, they had a few of those chances, as well as a fair few corners as well – one of which nearly got an opening for them with basically their first shot. The mark of a great ‘keeper is to do very little all game, yet when called upon, do the hard yards and Raya was superb for Schade’s smart header that he flicked onto the bar with his hands.

If we win the title, he will have 100% have played his part, despite the fact that so often he is a bystander in these types of games. But he was alert, he was quick with his reflexes, he earned his clean sheet bonus. I do have a question about the defending though and I recall hearing somewhere that we weren’t that great with set pieces last season when Big Gabi was out. Now it is him and Saliba and when I watched a replay of that chance this morning, Schade has a little too much time and space for me on the six yard box and afterwards Mikel did reference that we conceded against Chelsea for a set piece and Sunderland’s first goal came as a result of a set piece via a long kick from the ‘keeper. So perhaps it is something that we need to be mindful of and the fact that Arteta referenced it in his post-game interview suggests he’s going to be thinking about it too when he gets them into training next. Which won’t be until tomorrow and will mean not a lot of time to work out the kinks with the early kick off against Villa looming on the horizon at the weekend.

For now though, thinking about the midweek games, we’ve had a very good one if you consider that Chelsea lost, Liverpool and Sunderland drew with each other and whilst Villa did win, they were hardly water-tight at the back. Our game felt like it was a difficult one, but as I re-watched the highlights this morning, I realised that in that second half we probably should have finished the game off and forced Kelleher into a fair few smart saves. The one that really sticks out as the goal we should have scored was Saka’s chance on 89 minutes and at that point in the ground I was thinking we’ll just need to get out of it with an old-skool ‘one-nil to The Arsenal’. But Bukayo was not to be undone on this night and his goal a few minutes later felt like footballing karma gods telling him he could have one. His shot on 89 was scuffed and gratefully received by the ‘keeper, but the shot two minutes later was certainly pure enough, but with a dash of fortune favouring the brave as it looped underneath the bar after Kelleher had parried it in to the air.

So the points were secure, the five point lead has been restored, the players, fans and manager can all go home happy. But as usual we aren’t just allowed a simple day at the office and for the next 24-48 hours we’ll all be sweating on the fitness of Mosquera and Rice for Villa on Saturday. The saving grace with the Mosquera injury is that Arteta said on Tuesday ‘a few days’ with regards to Saliba’s injury and you have to hope that he is available for Saturday to replace Mosquera. Timber came in and did well, White put in a man-of-the-match performance at right back (which I think everyone associated with The Arsenal will be delighted with), but we need to get these players back. I don’t even want to think of the possibility that Rice could be out for any length of time right now, so I’m going to park those thoughts and words at this moment. 

Arsenal move on, Merino moves on, three points down, 24 games to go. Let’s see what the weekend has in store for us.

Catch you all tomorrow for some more thoughts and a look at Villa and how they are getting on.