So it looks like it’s City in the final of the League Cup for us in March then. The current top two are battling it out for the first trophy of the season, after Newcastle went out with a bit of a whimper against Pep’s 115 Charges FC, of which Pep isn’t happy that Marc Gehi can’t play in the final.

We knocked him and his Palace side out already – why should City get a rule change? We’re all aware of the concept of being cup-tied, so why is it that now this rule shouldn’t apply? You knew the rules when you signed the player. We had it last season with Neto who couldn’t play the cup games. I remember when we signed Aubameyang and he couldn’t play in European competition. If you sign people midway through the season, they get cup-tied. It’s a ‘thing’.

Anyway, let’s get back to talking about The Arsenal, shall we?

What I’ve got on my mind this Thursday morning, is how Arteta has been using Havertz, because I quite like what he’s doing. Against Leeds at times it felt as though Havertz was playing as another striker with Big Vik. He was taking up positions that were closer to the Swede and I do think it unlocked something in Gyokeres. It may just be that we caught Leeds at a good time, it may well be that playing away from home affords Arsenal more space, but to my untrained eyes the closer distances between our two attackers meant that Viktor was more involved. He didn’t cut an isolated figure in between two centre halves. He was able to exchange a few more passes and although he did have a one-on-one that was blocked that he should have done better with, we are at least seeing a few more of those start to happen (think how he also got one against Forest).

I think the team are starting to realise that they need to get the ball quicker to him and in a one or two-touch move – think how quickly we went from back-to-front in the Kairat game with Havertz’s pass to Big Vik. That’s what the team are starting to do more of, and if he gets one or two of those a game, he might only bag with 50% of those chances, but if he gets a couple each match and scores at least one, we’re laughing.

I think Eze can be that direct and quick passer to Gyokeres as much as Kai. I also think we saw it for the Forest game earlier in the season. But the one guy I think maybe doesn’t suit what we need to do with Big Vik is Martin Odegaard. I’m just going on the eye test here, but we have all seen enough of Odegaard to know the player he is. I really like him, I loved his progressive passing approach against Leeds when he came on, but in recent weeks we’ve seen more of the Odegaard that drops too deep and is recycling possession, without much incision. Remember the video at the start of the season where the skipper sent a message to Big Vik, congratulating him on signing and saying, “if there’s anything I can do, just let me know”? Big Vik’s response was simple: “I just need assists”. The assumption was that naturally those two would click and that it would be Odegaard doing those balls in behind, but I think I’ve seen more in recent weeks from Havertz and Eze than I have from Odegaard when it comes to feeding the big man up top.

That doesn’t mean it can’t change, mind, and hopefully it will. Because Odegaard is going to get minutes, and he’s going to play. He’s Arteta’s ‘guy’ on the pitch; he’s the captain, so he will play more often than not. So we need him to be delivering for the strikers. I love the way he leads our press, but it’s time to step up and lean into the ‘chance creator’ role now. I think that means less of collecting the ball from deep. He needs to have a closer distance between himself and the three forwards. When he’s at his best he’s drifting over to that right hand side with Saka, but perhaps he needs to drift a bit more into central positions too?

Hey, I’m no tactical expert, I’m no genuis with data, but I am just a fan who see’s things with his eyes and I just think there’s a little more that Odegaard needs to do to foster that relationship with Gyokeres – and I say this because I think we’re going to see more of Havertz ‘AND’ Gyokeres, rather than Havertz ‘OR’ Gyokeres up top.

It’ll be interesting to see what he says ahead of the Sunderland game, because that one represents another chance to see where he’s going with the striking options, given that we now have all three of our main guys who have recently been on the scoresheet. I mentioned yesterday that some tricky games are coming up, including a midweeker against Brentford and away at The Scum, but having all of your strikers recently score in different comps is very valuable from a confidence perspective. Let’s just hope that some of the connections I believe I’m starting to see with this side can be maintained between now and the end of the season.

Right, I’m going to leave it there. Tomorrow I’ll start to look at Sunderland and what they might do to potentially hurt us on Saturday. Apparently, they’re missing Xhaka, which is a bit of a shame given that it would be nice for him to return to the Emirates, but in terms of handing us a small advantage, it certainly has an impact to have him missing, so let’s see how they’re feeling in tomorrow’s musings.

Catch you all then.