With the Bayern game on tomorrow night, we should get a Mikel Arteta press conference with one of the players this evening, and I wonder if the media narrative and fainting couch approach by the English mainstream media translate to European competition?

I’ve seen a few bits and bobs from yesterday, and what I saw made me chuckle. Apparently now (and I’m not linking to any of these because I don’t want to fan the flames and amplify the nonsense) was some media outlets deciding that, where last season set pieces were ruining the art of football, now it is just Arsenal’s all-round play that is damaging the reputation of the Premier League.

I know, funny, amusing, and irritating all at the same time, right?

It’s pathetic that professional journalists have to stoop to the lowest form of clickbait to get traction by citing something wrong with The Arsenal, because they know the size of the global fanbase we have is enough to generate digital tailwinds for their lazy gutter-trash pieces of what can barely be described as journalism.

Now, I will admit, I think most of us would agree that on Sunday we weren’t great. We slowed the ball down too much; there needed to be a bit more urgency in the first half. Perhaps we could have just passed around with a bit more pace. But whilst I think that is a valid criticism, talk about us ruining the Premier League this season because of the style of football is just patently wrong. It wasn’t Arsenal on Sunday who formed a block that showed little ambition other than going long in hope of Liam Delap getting on to something. To be clear: I don’t blame Forest for their approach. Glasner has to set out his team to frustrate because they know that with the quality of players we have, if he pressed us high, then we would find space and it would almost certainly result in more goals scored. But there was no way that was going to happen.

Speaking of goals scored, how are Sunderland, Forest, Fulham, Coventry, The Scum, Bournemouth, Palace, United, Villa, Newcastle, Hull, Everton, Leeds and Liverpool all getting on with making the Premier League great by scoring goals? After all, that’s what makes games exciting, right? Because last time I checked, those 14 teams out of the 20 in the Premier League have all scored fewer goals than us. So whilst we can all admit that we’d like to see more goals in the ‘for’ column for The Arsenal so far this season, let’s not pretend that we’re the problem here. Low block football, cautious football, tactical cancelling out happens throughout the Premier League. Arsenal’s ‘struggles’ in front of goal come because most of the time we come up against this kind of football where we have to break down low blocks, because teams know how strong defensively we are. You know when old pros talk about how United, or the Arsenal teams of the past, used to “beat you in the tunnel”, because of the quality, physicality and presence of their side? That’s kind of what happens with us and our back line. If you’re Oliver Glasner on Saturday morning doing your pre-match team debriefs, you’re not telling your players that “we’re gonna have a right go tomorrow”, because you know you’re going to be cut apart. So you set your side up to be difficult to break down and maybe nick one.

We have a whole big match tomorrow night before we next play Everton at home on Saturday, but how do you think David Moyes is going to set up his side, eh? I can tell you now for free, they ain’t playing expansive football. They didn’t last season, did they? We all remember that for the Max Dowman goal, but let’s not forget that it wasn’t until the 89th minute that Viktor Gyokeres scored the first one. WE battered them and had 25 attempts at goal on that day. The season before that? The Sean Dyche 0-0 in which we saw the usual Jordan Pickford spend a minute on every goal kick he took in the first half. That game Everton had two shots in the whole match. We had 13. I’ll do more of a preview as we head into the weekend and that game, but already those ‘neutral’ journos who want to write puff pieces about The Arsenal, will be starting their articles. They already know how the game will play out, and it feeds their narrative that Arsenal play boring football. Hey, come at our team, then see how boring we are, eh? And in the season before that, just to put a bow on this particular discussion, is that we relied on a last-minute Havertz winner again, having had 26 shots on goal to Everton’s five.

I’m not trying to fully defend us. I didn’t enjoy watching the game on Sunday. I suspect you didn’t either. But the hyperbole around Arsenal’s style of play after a result like that isn’t warranted. So I just felt like I’d call that out this morning. More evidence will come tomorrow, too, because I don’t think we’ll see a Bayern Munich team that just sits back and watches us play the ball across our back line. I suspect we’re going to get one hell of a game.

I’ll be back tomorrow for a match preview of that game. But until then, be good, do something amazing today, and I’ll catch you in the comments.