Having spent the last few weeks worrying about how many of our players are going to come back from the World Cup in one piece, yesterday it was nice to see a training video released of some of those players not at the competition return to pre-season training yesterday. The most pleasing of all has to be Timber and White. Ben’s injury was such that I think a lot of us thought he’d be done for the summer and would spend the first half of next season just recovering his fitness, but he’s been speaking to people, and the Standard has some good quotes to read from him here.

It has been a really tough time for him over the last two seasons, and when you look at his injury record for 2024/25 and 2025/26, you can sort of understand why we’re being linked with somebody like Ezri Konsa. The Villa man is the same age as White, yet look at his record compared to Benny Blanco’s. It’s night and day. I am still not a fan of the move, if I’m honest, but that’s mainly because of his age and the cost it would take to prize him out of Villa. Given what they’ve just got for Rogers, they’ll probably want north of £ 40- £ 50 million, and you just can’t pay that for a player who looked a little shaky at times during the World Cup, plus who probably only has about four years of top-flight football left in him.

But the challenge Arsenal have, is putting all the eggs in the ‘Ben White fitness‘ basket. Four injuries in 2025/26 amounting to 13 games missed, and they’re all the types of injuries that have you worried – a couple of knocks, a knee injury and a hamstring injury. In 2024/25 it was three knee injuries (including one surgery) and one ‘unknown injury’ that kept him out for a game. But all that said, he’s a fantastic footballer; he offers so much to us in terms of the way he plays that right back slot differently to Timber, and personally, even with all of those injury problems, I’d still think we should be rolling the dice and having him for another season.

The big question will be over Timber. And those questions exist purely because I personally got Tomas Rosicky/Thomas Vermaelen vibes from the noises that came out at the end of last season. You remember, right? When they just couldn’t work out fully what was wrong with Rosicky, so he was meant to be out for a few weeks, then it was months, then it was like a whole season. That’s the worry with Timber, but I guess the good news is that what we saw yesterday is him in training with the team. We have to hope that basically the decision for him not to go to the World Cup was about sensible management and telling him, “you could risk it, but without rest, you might not play much next season”. The World Cup is the dream for any professional footballer, but if you are telling him he could miss another whole season, he’s clearly got to take the sensible option for the long-term health of his body. He’s already lost a season with an ACL when he first signed for us; he missed 11 games last season, plus 10 games in 2024/25 for both Arsenal and the Netherlands, and at 25 he still has a few more Euros and World Cups he could go to, so I’m hoping that he’s good to go come the start of the season. What we need to see, however, is a good pre-season from both him and White, because we need to know that they are ok to kick us off. Then, we need Arteta to rotate the two as well, because if Saliba is out for three to four months (although apparently not as bad as first feared, which is good), then it’s more than likely to be Mosquera in that right centre-half role.

Here’s the thing though, when you look at it, we kind of ‘do’ have cover. I get the John Stones links, I really do, but we could have, come the start of the season, the following players who could play the following positions:

  • Right back: Timber, White, Mosquera
  • Right centre-half: Mosquera, White, (Maybe Big Gabi or Calafiori at a push – Norgaard too if he stays)
  • Left centre-half: Gabriel, Calafiori, Hincapie
  • Left back: Hincapie, Calafiori, MLS

So we have seven players for four positions. That’s not too bad, right? So if we’re keeping Norgaard, for example, then it also gives us eight players. So I’m less stressed about our situation. I get it, none of those right centre-back positions are coming close to Saliba, but you aren’t dropping £ 75 million on an alternative, so until Big Bill is back, we have to make-do-and-mend. Mosquera is a guy who probably deserves a run of matches to see just how well he can do, so I’d be keen to give him a shot in that position, for sure. He may have wobbled a little at the end of last season, and he’ll not want to re-watch that Champions League final, I’d suspect, but that was him in at right back. My memories of him at centre half are impressing against Liverpool at Anfield, for example.

So I put us in a pretty decent spot in defence, all things considered, and so for me it is more about working out how to improve our attack that we need to focus on more. The good news is that Kai’s Germany were knocked out early against Paraguay, so hopefully he’ll be back within the next week or so. If we can get a fully fit season out of him, that would be massive too. And we shouldn’t forget the impact he has on the way we play and our style. Might do a little more on that tomorrow. For now though, I’ll leave it there, and catch you all tomorrow. Be good, be safe, enjoy your Tuesday.