All of the preamble on kits is because, let’s face it, there’s still a lot of quiet around stuff that is happening from an incoming and outgoing perspective. Real Madrid are playing happy families on their socials with Vini Junior, with ESPN Brazil saying yesterday that he’s been offered a €22million-per-annum (£18.85million) contract, where he’s currently on €17.5million (£15million), and wants €30million (£25million) per-annum to ‘Sign da Ting’. In language we all understand (because that’s how we’ve been taught to think as football fans):

• Currently gets £336k-per-week
• Real have offered £355k-per-week
• He wants £577k-per-week

How do these footballers survive?

Quick caveat: wages are rarely truly accurate, and I’ve got a link below which demonstrates this, because the article talks about Vini’s current contract being € 25million per annum. And in the link below it also states that Forbes says his ‘on-field income’ – in other words, including bonuses, Brazilian National Team appearances, etc – amounts to closer to $40million (£29million) per annum.

Jebus – I don’t know about feeding his family, but there are small Islands he could feed with that type of cashola.

That is an obscene amount of money. I get it, ‘Brand Vini’ is big business, which is why Madrid don’t want to lose him; there’s what he can do on the pitch, but he also gives them cash for image rights, as well as global eyeballs. Kids/fans have been supporters of ‘players’ since the Messi/Ronaldo wars 10-15 years ago, so Vini Jr is just part of the wave that sees some kids supporting individuals as much as they support a specific club. It’s big business and big brands compete to get those big names to endorse their sh*t. But to a rapidly middle-ageing man like myself, even though I work in marketing, I still find time to be utterly bemused by those eye-watering numbers.

Arsenal clearly aren’t. They have run the numbers and clearly feel that ‘Brand Vini’ could be a nice little earner for them in terms of extra eyeballs and potentially knock-on effects in merch, awareness, etc. This article sets out Vini Jr’s full expected earnings – scroll straight to section nine to get an idea of the non-Real stuff. It’s difficult to really put a true figure on this stuff, but let’s take what is in that article as an idea on what he could be earning, and suddenly you see why this potential Arsenal deal is at least making him stop and think – at least before doing what I think he will do, which is ‘Sing da Ting’. If Madrid take 50% of his image rights, and he earns €20million off-field, then €10million goes to Madrid. If Arsenal have told him “you can have it all” then he’s bumping his salary up instantly by €10million-per-annum. So suddenly, with those back-of-a-fag-packet maths, if we assume Arsenal have told him they’ll match his wages at Real (we don’t know they have, but I’m speculating), in English pounds, according to the article and not ESPN Brazil (so I can keep consistency), the numbers (according to Forbes in the article) look like:

• $50million (£37.23million) at Madrid now – because Madrid take 50% of his image rights and endorsements
• $60million (£44.7million) if he was on the same deal at Arsenal now

So regardless of what Madrid put on the table, if he wants that sweet, sweet moolah, Arsenal become a preferred destination.

I still personally put this deal at around 25% chance it happens for us. The reason why? I think these levels of money are so crazy, that I’m really not sure that it matters too much for these footballers at that peak of wealth. I think footballers do use wages as a benchmark for how they are valued, so if that’s the case, then the image rights stuff will, I think, be swallowed by Vini Jr and his representatives. They’ll be annoyed with it, but ultimately the player gets a deal which means he can see another four years at his peak at Real Madrid, before probably heading off to Saudi aged 30 to get another mega payday – just like Neymar, Benzema, Ronaldo et al.

It says something about us as Arsenal fans though, eh? What I mean by that is that I’ve just spent circa 800-words putting together a case for us to land what would be the biggest transfer in Premier League history. Absolutely mental.

But, as I said, that’s because there’s bugger-all to talk about other than a shiny new yellow kit. And it’d be difficult to get to 1,000-words as I meticulously talk you through the ‘Arsenal State of Mind’ and ‘Blissful mentality’ that the Ad copy boys and girls and put together on the official site.

Still, at least there’s a friendly to overreact to tomorrow evening.

Back tomorrow as usual. Maybe something has happened by then. Where’s that meme of the drawing of a guy prodding a rock? Ah, here it is…

Makes sense; Arsenal have an unhealthy obsession with getting that stain of a football club out of jail with big transfer fees. We did it with Noni, with Kai, we took Davidf Luiz off them, plus Petr Cech. So that wouldn’t have surprised me at all if we’d have had a little nibble at that one. He’s signed a new deal at Chelsea though, so that’s that one off the table – which I’m very ok with, if I’m honest.

I thought about it though. I mean, he certainly looks a lot more of an aesthetically pleasing footballer than, say Viktor Gyokeres. I tend to sway towards the Joao Pedro-type player, because I can ‘see’ what he does when he’s not bagging. But if you look at the two players’ numbers respectively, if you’re telling your striker to bag 20+ goals in a season, you’re probably saying that’s more likely with Big Vik. Last season, in 3,694 minutes, Joao Pedro bagged 20 goals. In 3,481 minutes – that’s 213 minutes, which works out to be just under two-and-a-half full 90-minute appearances, by the way – Viktor Gyokeres got 21 goals. Big Vik registered three assists to Joao Pedro’s nine, so perhaps that gives you an insight into the differences between the players, but it does show you what the identities of the two footballers is. Big Vik does goals and pretty much nothing else. There’s a little more to Joao Pedro’s game. The second question I had when thinking about this, is that Joao Pedro was in a pretty crappy Chelsea team, so does he bag more in a title-winning Arsenal side? Possibly.

As Arsenal fans, it’s really interesting to see that relationship between Big Vik and the fanbase. Some think he’s just a wardrobe that is useful for bundling in tap-ins against weaker sides; others see a player who is ultimately all end product, which is exactly what we missed the season before last. At 28 there’s not really a lot more for him to evolve into, and I’ll be honest he wasn’t my preferred choice last summer, but I do think he grew into the side more after the Christmas period. From January onwards he registered nine goals and an assist in the Premier League, including a brace at The Scum. In all competitions it was 14 goals and all three of his assists, so you could tell that after the initial bedding in period, he found his place, and his teammates were able to get him into positions to score. So for next season, we should definitely be looking for an uptick in the volume of goals if he’s able to contribute from the start.

Unless of course he’s moved on. It’s quite surprising – unless you’re somebody like Chelsea – to be moving a player on after one season. But with the departure of Norgaard for Everton, I don’t think any of us can rule it out, and there’s certainly been one or two rumours about Big Vik being used as a makeweight for certain clubs. Personally, I think he’ll stay. Arsenal are, as we all know, going ‘all in’ on Vini Junior and if that somehow does happen (I don’t know any Arsenal fans who are more than ’50/50′ on that one by the way), then I doubt the club are going to be looking to disrupt too many positions. But if we get noises this week that Vini Junior is set to stay at Real Madrid and sign a new deal…well…I do think Arsenal will pivot to Alvarez. Mikel Arteta will be sad if the Vini Jr door closes, but if you offer him a player he previously worked with, and Arsenal just decide to go big on the Argentinian, then I suspect one of the more regular players from last season is getting nudged out the door.

I guess the question would then become “Who?”. I think most of us thought it would be Gabby Martinelli who is on his way. His career seems to have plateaued, his goal contribution domestically last season wasn’t good enough, plus there seems to be a very public courting of left wingers this summer. But Julian Alvarez played almost exclusively as a number nine last season. Yes, we know he can play across the front three, but if you’re spending that kind of outlay that Atleti are demanding, you need to have a proper plan for the player. If that plan is centre-forward, then surely Martinelli has to stay and duke it out with Tzolis on the left? If it’s to be on the left – which I highly doubt because he’s played there a total of four times in the last four seasons by the way – then you would look to move on Big Vik. So despite some of these rumours about the Swede’s potential exit, it doesn’t feel very likely to me.

I do wonder how many minutes Gyokeres will get though. We saw Kai bag a very tidy goal in Girona on Saturday night, and the German was favoured for the Champions League final. If he can finally stay fit for most of the season, then it feels like he’s going to be Arteta’s main man for most of the bigger games, so what will that do for Gyokeres’ chances of hitting 20+ goals again? I’d wager it would be tough for him to bag that volume of goals with 1,000 minutes less in the season, for example, but if you’re looking at the Everton game at home as an example of where he can be dangerous – off the bench to grab the winner late, before the now-legendary Dowman goal – then maybe he can be the kind of marksman who finds a place in this Arsenal side as a rotational gunman? I think if you’re telling the Arsenal fans who are still a bit unsure on him, that he’s going to be used in that way, I think a lot of us would therefore prefer to keep Gyokeres around for another season.

One things for sure, though, I do think we need to keep Kai fit. If so, I think that’s massive for our chances of retaining the league.

Back tomorrow.

I liked Dowman’s performance, who assisted for Kai’s smart finish, then also bagged a good effort from the edge of the box. For all the talk of new signings, yesterday was a timely reminder that we have a potentially generational talent coming through into this team this season. Dowman is a year older, a year wiser, a year stronger, and he’s going to take somebody’s minutes this season for sure.

Speaking of new signings, Christos Tzolis also got on the scoresheet, with what feels like it might be a bit of a trademark goal of his that we will hopefully see more of. I, like you, I’m sure, did the whole “watch ALL the YouTube comps” of this fella when he was rumoured to be signing, and his finishing from distance was certainly something that stood out. He knows where the goal is and wants to run at his defender and get a shot away. That’s exactly what he did with his finish yesterday, and I hope it is more to come.

I am always wary though, because I remember seeing Gervinho bag two goals for us in his first game for The Arsenal – I think it was against FC Köln – and I remember thinking then that we’ve got a baller/killer on the flanks. That obviously didn’t work out, with the culmination of that being the now-famous horror miss of an open goal at Bradford City in the League Cup. So whilst it’s still great to see Tzolis (unofficially) open his account, we need to be mindful that one pre-season goal does not make a career. We’re going to need to see it on a more regular basis from our new Greek winger.

One player who was on the scoresheet, with whom I don’t think we’ll be seeing a lot of, is Gabriel Jesus. It sounds like all parties are up for a move this summer, and certainly he’ll find himself very far down on the pecking order if he were to stay beyond August. His finish had an element of fortune about it, as he pounced on a tackle won in midfield to be put in on goal. It was a smart finish, it was a tidy finish, and it’s one that I think will be good for a shop window or two, but I can’t see him wanting to replicate last season, in which he made 27 appearances but only 988 minutes in all competitions. He’s a guy who is 29, will only have a few more years of a playing career left, and has already won titles at Man City and The Arsenal. What use – other than money – is there for a player of his pedigree and with the career he’s had? He’d be far better suited to getting himself back to Brazil, or to a European club who want to make him first choice. I could see him do well in a less-intense league; perhaps Italy? It’s somewhere that he would be able to at least get another two to three years playing, I would have thought – just look at how Giroud got on after he left the Premier League?

I didn’t watch the whole match, because I refuse to pay for pre-season friendlies, but I’ve seen people talking up Ethan and Myles as well, which is really good. I spoke about Ethan in Friday’s blog, and Mikel had some nice words to say about his maturity too, and with the Community Shield happening next weekend, as well as a friendly in Dublin in midweek, it does feel as though we need to be seeing him get some more minutes and continuing to impress. Maybe even a start in the Community Shield? With Martin still not back, and Kai and Gyokeres only just being eased back with the first 30 minutes, there’s a spot there for both Ethan and Myles. And with Norgaard on his way to Everton, there’s more space available in that midfield, because even if we announced Bruno literally this second, I don’t think Arteta would through him in next weekend after just one week of training with the team. If I was to guess, I’d think that it’ll be a lot of youngsters starting next week’s showpiece opener.

Scratch that – just seen it’s the week after that the Community Shiled kicks us off, but there are still three games to play between now and then, and if I’m ethan I’m looking to play plenty of minutes to impress the boss.

That’s probably all I can give you for today. I suspect today or tomorrow we’ll get more Bruno noises, as Norgaard completes his Everton deal, which will free up space for the Brazilian, and when that is confirmed, you can’t say we’re not now in a stronger position than at the start of the transfer window.,

Catch you tomorrow – if you want some bonus content, we did a summer pod with Gooner HIllsy yesterday on the Same Old Arsenal podcast. Watch that here.

Yes, there’s a game on today as Arsenal take on Girona, but you and I both know that isn’t the first thing that popped into your mind – was it?

Step forward our guy HandOfArsenal:

EXCL : Arsenal Football Club have personal terms agreed in principle with Vinicius Junior. Roc Nation will go armed into negotiations with Real Madrid with a monstrous offer from the English Champions…….over to you Vinicius Junior. Story W/ @MrArsenicTM

— HandofArsenal (@HandofArsenal) July 31, 2026

I swear, that guy IS Berta, right? Or maybe…..

I’ve got it – it’s his daughter Paola.

I’m using the homogenised version of ‘guy’ now….

How else would you get such scoops?

Anyway, that doesn’t matter, but what does matter is that alongside Ornstein, HandOfArsenal has proven themselves to be somebody who is pretty accurate with their intel, they clearly have approval of the club to do this, and they have delivered another side to the Vinicius Junior to Arsenal story that we didn’t know. A knew angle. Fresh #Content. Grade-A5 Kobe beef wagyu ribeye flavours delivered into our eyeballs courtesy of social media platforms. And naturally all of our Arsenal timelines blew up.

Of course, this means nothing, and is far from ‘a done deal’. But from the initial “that’s ambitious from Arsenal – love it” through to “well, it probably won’t happen”, then “ahh, shame, it definitely didn’t happen”, now to “Wait….is there an outside chance here?”

This is a potentially seismic change that could impact Arsenal Football Club in so many facets. And what we’re going through on this change curve varies with who yoiu are and where you are:

We got the Ornbomb last Saturday – shock.

I think most of us hit ‘denial’ on Sunday, as we realised it probably wouldn’t happen.

Then came the “Arsenal are only doing this because of the inactivity – FFS!” – frustration mode activated.

Getting bantered by rival fans as Sky Sports’ Jose Mourinho mouthpiece Gary Cotterill said “He will stay at Madrid” came out around Tuesday, I think – that was the depression.

Hand Of Arsenal last night shifted most of us back up that graph above.

Experiment? Is that the part with which we all start working out what our team will look like? How we’re going to function and drawing up First XIs using various lineup apps? If I speak, I am in trouble…

I guess the Decision part, as HandOfArsenal says in their tweet, is all on Vinicius Junior. Arsenal have done all they can. They’ve run the numbers, they’ve debated the impact, they will have considered how this affects squad composition, they’d have thought about what might be needed in terms of sales to be generated, there’s the other players and what that does to wage negotiations they’d have factored in – and all of this still points towards the most ambitious move in the history of the club. That’s not even hyperbole; this is a peak-age, top three footballer in the world. This is a brand that will instantly catapult Arsenal even further globally than they’ve ever been. KSE aren’t doing this because they found an extra £500million down the sofa; they know that a brand like Vini Junior’s could be a massive statement for their whole franchise. They know that it will make the world sit up and take note. And as the USA rides the crest of the World Cup wave (good to see that parasite Infantino has backed down on his FFE money-scheme now – if he can just ‘step down’ next, that would be great), KSE know that the right move now could mean big cash value added to their already huge asset in Arsenal Football Club.

Heck, I’m not knocking it, because we’ve been living in an age of people realising the importance of personal branding for at least the last 10 years. But right now, with image rights being at the centre of this whole discussion, I think we can see why Arsenal’s chances might just be up to about 40% of this actually happening. And even that feels mental compared to a week ago. KSE know this. Arsenal know this. Vini Junior and Roc Nation (his agency) know this. And most importantly, Real Madrid know this. Which is why it is a sticking point. Because Madrid knows the knock-on effect the outcome of these discussions could have. In the same way that Arsenal fans and the English media are speculating over Vini Junior’s potential arrival at The Arsenal, meaning big changes in terms of our wage structure, if he stays and Madrid give him what he wants (higher percentage of image rights), then they open the same Pandora’s box, but for image rights of their big names. Which is why we’re in this position right now. Arsenal have gone big, they’ve gone bold, they’ve gone hard.

And as Arsenal fans, you can’t knock it.

I also think that the fact we’re getting this sort of information is really good, because it shows a little more on the inner workings of these big transfers. Also, hopefully, if it doesn’t come off, we’ve all been given enough of a sneak peak into how this deal unfolded. So if it doesn’t happen for The Arsenal, we all know why – and it isn’t because of Arsenal. It will simply be that Real Madrid blinked, or maybe Vini Junior just decided he would blink and simply couldn’t leave them – which I understand.

The Spanish media mouthpiece of Real Madrid – Marca – are leading with ‘sign it or leave’ – and although that was from yesterday morning, I’ve seen a screengrab of the back page of Marca today which also leads with the same news lines – so this is clearly at a stage in which briefings are happening. And hey, he may still decide that he wants to stay, even on those Real Madrid terms that aren’t exactly what he wants. But if that happens, then you won’t hear me complaining about The Arsenal’s moves – they just need to know sooner or later so we can move on if needed.

Is there a downward bit to the change curve if that happens? Asking for a friend.

At this stage, despite the noises of him being up for sale and Arsenal looking for a left-wing replacement, even Gabriel Martinelli being back is good news. With Leo gone, he’s now the de facto left winger. If Arsenal have a bit of a faceplant on the new left-wing signing, we have to look to him to up his output for next season. And whilst I am sure I am like you in thinking it’s probably best for him and the club to move on, I still have an affection for the player. I still want him to be successful. And if he has some pre-season games in which he performs well, maybe bags a goal or two, I think it helps all involved. It will help to put him in the shop window for prospective employers, might bump a fee up a little (as, we hope, will his winning goal in the World Cup knockout stages), but at worst it shows that he’s ready to be part of the team for the start of the new season. I’d have him playing this weekend against Girona – even though he’s only just checked in with the squad.

Hincapie is in there, Dowman, Big Vik, Ben White, Kai, Gabriel Jesus, Tzolis…heck, we’ve even been treated to a bit of Nelson and Viera. Getting the band back together boys and girls!

One person I will be interested to see a bit more of this summer is Ethan Nwaneri. I had a chat with Johnny about it on the recent crossover Dugout episode on the Arsenal Opinion Podcast (you can check the full episode out here), and it’s a curious case with young Ethan. I’m not sure any of us really know what to do with him. We all want him to succeed at The Arsenal; he’s a Hale Ender, he burst onto the scene with BANG BANG goal threat and an explosive dribble over 15 yards, but then last season became the forgotten man after he signed his deal last summer. The loan move to Marseille was a disasterclass in planning; anyone who’s anyone could have told you there’s an outside chance that De Zerbi could go thermonuclear at any moment, so whilst he’s a good coach, it was always going to be volatile. And so we didn’t get what we wanted, which was an Ethan Nwaneri with 20 games, five goals and five assists in France to his name, but rather a man that Habib Beye just said needs to train a little harder.

I’m not sold on Noni, and neither was Johnny on the pod, and I personally would give Ethan a go on that wing. The central spaces are just too congested, and if we have Bruno G landing on our doorstep any day now, then what does that say for Ethan? If Arteta only sees him as a central player, then his days look numbered. And that would be a real shame.

So what we need is for him to get hella minutes this summer, and maybe there can be a touch of the Saliba’s 2022 for him as he tries to wrestle a place in the squad from a more established guy. And why couldn’t he? Arteta has shown willingness with the likes of Saliba, because before that Ben White was our centre-half, plus we have a history of senior pro’s being displaced before we thought they might. Saka effectively ended Pepe’s career. Before him Bellerin took advantage of Debuchy’s injury. We have seen that if you are good enough, then you can push others out, and that’s what I’m hoping for Ethan. It might mean that somebody else sees less game time, but it is what it is.

I would try him at right wing, though. This summer, I mean, because Noni posted a picture of himself boarding a plane to get to pre-season training, which means he won’t be ready for Grona. Saka won’t be there; maybe Martinelli is just going to be able to do a 20-minute cameo, and besides, I already mentioned that he’s the left-wing guy, so why not Ethan on the right? I read/heard somewhere that internally at the club they don’t view Nwaneri as a winger; I would argue differently given what we saw two seasons ago. Try it again. He’s older, he looks like he’s filled out even more, he knows what Arteta expects from a pressing a defnesive duties perspective, so give him a chance to prove himself.

What I would say is that Arsenal shouldn’t feel the need to sell this summer. If there’s no space right now, let’s get him a good Premier League loan where there are clauses that mean he has to play 30 games. If he gets that, I think he could bang, and if he does, if we get another season of inconsistency from Madueke, then we have ourselves a ready-made understudy to Saka from 2027/28. It all feels too simple, right? That’s what happens when you play football on apps/PCs, I guess. But one thing’s for sure from my perspective: I really don’t want to hear that we’ve agreed a fee with another club for his servcies this summer. That would be the worst outcome for me as a fan.

Right, I’ll leave it there. I have to paint a brick wall and a back gate. Catch you all tomorrow. Think we’re going to do a Saturday morning Same Old Arsenal pod.

Did you see that coming? I certainly didn’t, but Messrs Ornstein and McNicholas dropped an Athletic Bomba on our social media feeds, and yesterday was spent with Arsenal fans recalibrating their ‘dream starting XI’ for next season, with the Brazilian superstar firmly placed in it on that left wing.

It’s exciting, isn’t it?

There seems to be two schools of thought here. Two ways in which Arsenal fans are reacting to the news that Arsenal are ‘exploring the possibility’ of a deal. The first group – of which I’m choosing to be in for a change – is just excited at the prospect of this happening. The second group, of which I have a few mates whose feet are firmly in that camp, are saying that it’s never happening in a million years.

That may well be true. It will be a very difficult deal to pull off. Real Madrid do not want to sell one of their prized assets. We’re used – as Arsenal fans – to seeing players join Real Madrid or Barcelona, not exit them. The only time players leave those clubs is when they are surplus to requirements. The Ozil deal was amazing; we all couldn’t believe it, and it was a very exciting transfer, but ultimately he was being moved on because Real Madrid wanted to find room for Gareth Bale. This time it would be different. This time it is Madrid not wanting to lose Vini Junior for free. We’d have a statement signing that would blow anything else out of the water. I’d go as far as to say that it might be the biggest transfer the whole of the Premier League has ever seen.

And that’s probably why so many are sceptical, which I totally understand, because the financial numbers behind it would probably be eye-watering. The rumours are that he’s currently on €400k-per-week at Madrid, or that he’s turned that down. Arsenal would have to make that a pound instead of a euro, for sure. But then you’re getting a higher tax rate in England than Spain, so the Brazilian would end up being worse off with take-home pay. But does that matter to these players? I read something a while ago that talked about the way players use weekly wage as a benchmark of their own value. They all meet up with their international teams, and those who are on the highest weekly wage are the big dogs in the team. They are already multi-millionaires; they don’t need the money, but they do need the kudos from their fellow pro’s. So perhaps that would be something for Vini Junior? Perhaps what this situation is, is not about money, but status?

If that is the case, maybe Arsenal’s interest does mean that it is possible, because coming to the Premier League – the biggest and best in world football – and being ‘the guy’ is his aim. As has been pointed out on social media by a few people on my timeline, at Real Madrid he is in the shadow of Mbappe. The Frenchman is the superstar, with Vini Jr the wingman, so a move to The Arsenal will put him in a top team, but as the guy. He’d be joining a team that made the semi-final of the Champions League two seasons ago, the final last season, only losing out on penalties, having just won the Premier League. He will have watched that Champions League final. He might have even seen over a million people line the streets of London for the parade. He’ll be looking at The Arsenal as one of the most exciting teams in Europe to be in, and he’ll have had a few Brazilian’s named Gabriel who would be talking to him about what it is like at The Arsenal.

He might even be looking at the fact that a certain Brazilian could be about to sign next week. If he and his representatives are speaking to Arsenal about the possibilities of a signature to play in red and white, he’ll be well aware of the talent at the club, plus he’ll be well aware of how strong we will look with both him and Bruno Guimaraes joining the team. This is a good time to be joining The Arsenal, and with Mikel Arteta just having won the Premier League title, there’s proof of concept that Arsenal can go the distance and win trophies.

Real Madrid must be thinking about this too. As already mentioned, they don’t want to lose him for free. They want him to be at their club and so will no doubt offer a new deal on better terms. They’ve also entered the race for Diomande. As I speculated yesterday, that deal is supposedly a message to Vini Jr, or so some have suggested. But Madrid do have a surplus of attacking players if Diomande signs. I don’t think the two are related, personally, because Diomande plays on the right and Vini Jr on the left, but if that deal gets done, then there will certainly need to be movement out of the club, and that could give Arsenal some opportunities – even if it isn’t with the Ballon d’Or runner-up.

And with all that said, suddenly it does seem like this could be an achievable deal, albeit one that I doubt gets moving any time soon. It feels like there needs to be some more moving parts for this to start to actually move along. What Arsenal can’t afford to do, however, is chase this deal all summer and then find out he signs a new deal and we have left ourselves without that left-wing position being solved. So I hope there are some clear plans around ‘Plan B’ or ‘Plan C’ if we find ourselves with a week before the transfer closes and we are still nowhere with the signing. Aim for the moon, Arsenal, but if you can’t get there, have yourselves something else lined up, please.

That’s it from me today. Back tomorrow as usual, as we start another week, hoping for some big Arsenal news. Catch you then.

I do wonder if, certainly from a winger perspective, something big needs to shake loose for all of the dominoes to start falling though. The reason I’m thinking that this morning is that I saw that Diomande is the subject of a bid from Real Madrid, for which Leipzig have rejected around £85million. A couple of days ago Fabrizio Romano was saying that we had enquired about the Ivorian, but given he wants to go to PSG, Liverpool have previously made a bid and I’m sure I’ve seen that City had a look, that one feels like it is going to be a little beyond The Arsenal. I saw some stuff saying the players’ representatives have been a bit of a pain in the arse, and when you’ve got the likes of PSG and Real Madrid involved, you’re getting in to a bidding war that I think Arsenal just need to steer clear of.

What we know about The Arsenal and Arteta is that he wants a level of commitment from any joining player. We’ve heard on countless occasions that “Play X only wanted Arsenal” and that is not something you’d say would be obvious from Diomande. We also know that Arsenal won’t get drawn into overpaying on the valuation. The Morgan Rogers situation showed that. But going back to my original point, it feels like there needs to be one big move for a player, to shake other players out. If Diomande goes to PSG, then surely Barcola gets clearance to move. If he decides that actually he fancies a bit of Real Madrid, then does a Vini Junior become available? Possibly not, but does Rodrygo become available? It’s funny because we were all looking at him last summer, but there’s been little noise about him this summer, which is strange because he played just over 1,100 minutes. For a player of his quality he won’t like that. But if Madrid get Diomande, then you’d think that somebody like Rodrygo would be on the market for a move. He did his ACL in March, which of course ruled him out for three months, but even before then, he was hardly a regular. If he’s still not fit then that might be a problem if any club is interested, but I’ve seen some suggestions that he’s stepping up his rehab, so perhaps something could happen there. Madrid have Mbappe, Vini Jr, Endrick, Rodrygo – could they afford to have Diomande as well and have enough minutes for them all?

What we need to be careful of, however, is not making our move at the right time. It seems to me like the big clubs are all after left wingers this summer. That’s problematic for us because it means competition. It means bidding wars. But it also means that if you don’t get your deals done, you run the risk of being left behind and searching round the back at the bins for players. We’re the champions, Champions League finalists, semi-finalists the year before, so there’s no way we should be doing that; players should be banging down our door.

That means making your decision, making your move and going for it. Come on Arsenal, let’s move. Now.

The one I haven’t heard of for a while, is that fella Yildaz from Juventus. He’s rated by TransferMarkt as one of the most valuable left wingers in the world, and they put him at €75million. That’s a tidy sum, and I’ll confess not to know tons about the player, as I don’t watch Italian football. He got 10 goals and 11 assists in 47 games and 3,600 minutes. That’s a modest return in a worse league than the Premier League; Martinelli got 11 goals and seven assists for us last season, so whilst I think we all know we need an upgrade, is Yildaz the man to be that upgrade?

What he does have in his favour is that he’s just 21. That means he’s still building his game. If we’re going to go young, however, why not try somebody like Said El Mala, who has been doing numbers at my German club FC Koln. He’s 19, has just bagged 13 goals and five assists in the Bundesliga, and I suspect he wouldn’t cost the earth. TransferMarkt has him at €45million. The German Bundesliga isn’t the Prem, but it is still one of the top three or four leagues in world football, and if he’s doing those numbers at 19, could it be worth a punt?

I guess with that one he probably needs another season to show his consistency, and that he hasn’t just run hot for one season. We had that one season from Martinelli in 2022/23 in which he bagged lots of goals and assists, but he’s now not been able to replicate it for three subsequent seasons – the same could be true of this kid.

But it does feel like we need to see some names popping up now that aren’t just Barcola or Diomande. I feel like the Barcola stuff is just going to rumble on, so why not just start looking elsewhere? We all hear the stories of how many plates Berta likes to spin, how many fingers he likes to put in different pies, but it all seems a little quiet on the winger front, so what’s going on, Andrea?

Maybe something will shake loose this week, but it does seem alarmingly quiet. Then again, perhaps that’s just what Arsenal want.

Back tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get something exciting today.

Laters kids.

It’s a good move. It’s a sensible move. Only time will tell if it’s an upgrade, but at £34million – and it still feels crazy to say this – it’s not a bank-breaker. In a summer in which fees seem to have gone mental, on account of the financially doped/shady clubs inflating prices, this represents the kind of value that you hope will turn into an Eduardo.

We’ve known about this one for a while, so of course it doesn’t come out of the blue, but there’s been enough scouting reports of the player over the last few weeks to knoiw what we are getting, which is a young lad, at perfect age for a winger, who is both-footed and looks like he has an eye for goal. I’m not going to get too over-hyped on this though; he looks like a good player, he’s said all the right things, but let’s not forget that the Belgian league is very different to the Prem. It’s regularly seen as the sixth or seventh most difficult league in Europe and, having seen Big Vik arrive last summer from the Portuguese league, qwe need to be mindful that Tzolis is not going to find himself bagging goals and assists with the frequency he did on the mainland.

That’s ok though, because I don’t think any of us believe he will, but I guess our expectations need to be that he delivers enough end product to match Leo last season, at a bare minimum. In 50 appearances and just under 3,000 minutes, Trossard bagged eight goals and 11 assists, which I think most of us would think that Tzolis should be able to do depending on how much time he gets on the pitch. If he matches Leo’s minutes from last season, I’d be hopeful that he could get into both double figures on goals and assists, and I think that’s certainly an achievable target to set.

The good news is that he is fit and ready to hit the ground running. He said as much in his interviews with the club when the announcement was made yesterday, and given that we have a number of players not back from their extended leave due to the World Cup, having this guy ready for Girona next week can only be a positive thing. I liked the player profile on Arseblog from Phil Costa that went up yesterday. I particularly like the idea of him being a ‘shift and shoot’ player, and with that being something we often saw Trossard do, you can see why the club have moved quickly to secure Tzolis’ services. I like the sound of his two-footedness too. I don’t want to put unfair expectations on him, but I hear ‘two-footed,’ and I immediately think of our former magician Santi Cazorla, so if Tzolis had a similar level of output to the little Spaniard, we’ll be absolutely laughing.

The squad augmentation can’t stop there though, and the noises of Guimaraes continue to rumble on. We’re now at the ‘set to bid‘ part of any big transfer. At some stage we’ll make a bid, which will of course be rejected by Newcastle, as they try to hold on to their captain. It’s a funny one because you just know that whatever Arsenal go in at, it will be rejected, but equally you don’t want to piss off the selling club with the old class ‘derisory’ bid. The noises are that between £70 – £80million gets this done, so I suspect we’ll get wind of some kind of opening salvo over the weekend. Ideally, if Arsenal are going to get this over the line, you want it done this week, so he has a few games to bed in during pre-season. He’ll still be on holiday following the World Cup, but these players these days spend most of their holiday staying fit and training anyway, so I suspect getting him up to speed won’t take that long.

In the meantime, we can watch all the videos of Tzolis and what he will bring, whilst also trying to work out whether we should all part with our hard-earned cash to buy that new away shirt. I can’t work out just yet whether I like it or not. I’m not really that fussed about the new home shirt, but the bruised banana always taps in to the nostalgia gene, so I can’t say I won’t be swinging by the local sports store to pick one up at some stage in the near future.

Right, that’s me done for today, I think. I’m nursing a bit of a hangover so I need to go and find some paracetamol. Back tomorrow with more rambling. see you then.

Last night’s ‘HandBomb’ was that Morgan Rogers is advancing, and talks aren’t expected to be a problem. Apparently, the two clubs are in discussion, as I was speculating about yesterday, it looks like Villa is making moves to get their replacements going, too. My view on it remains that how ‘good’ this deal is, is dependent on the fee we pay. There are people out there who will say, “Well, it isn’t your money so what do you care?”, but my contention that is that it should matter to Arsenal fans. We don’t have a bottomless pit of cash, the PSR rules are such that we can’t just blow £500million on players anyway, so if you go hard and heavy on one player, it could mean you aren’t able to secure a player on a certain fee in another position. The difference between a Rogers at £100million and a Rogers at £130million could be a young prospect we miss out on.

So yeah, the fees does matter, in my opinion.

There’s also the whole “£72million Nicholas Pepe” curse that we are all very familiar with. That fee we paid for the Ivorian was a millstone around his neck. If Elliot Anderson isn’t essentially Rodri 2.0, he’ll be deemed a ‘waste of money’ at £116million, rival clubs to City will ‘banter’ City for the figure they paid, and it heaps more pressure on a player. We all thought with Declan Rice that he might suffer from the £105million price tag, but that quickly was kicked into touch, with us now even mocking the fact we got him ‘half price’. So if the rumoured fee of £130million is true, then personally I’d hope Arsenal start to look elsewhere. Transfermarkt has his value at €90million, which is about £76.5million. If Villa were to get £100million for him, that’s more than a fair deal, I’d think.

I like Rogers as a player, I really do. I remember in the last two seasons against us, he’s looked particularly dangerous on several fronts. He’s somebody who will have a shot from distance, he’s a guy who can take on a player or two, and, I think, two seasons ago in particular at Villa Park, every time he picked up the ball, he looked like he could hurt us. But I am still a bit bemused as to how he’s being deployed if he signs. Centrally? If so, where? Left eight? Left wing? Last season, to be fair, he started 14 times on the left wing, and got five goals, so as opposed to Eze, where we thought he was going to be the left-wing choice and then nothing of the sort happened, perhaps you could see this as something he is deployed as?

He also got five assists there, and played left wing in Villa’s home win against us, although I must confess I don’t 100% remember how he played last season. He bagged two goals against both West Ham and Man United over Christmas as a left winger, and when Villa were running crazily hot last season over their xG, I’m pretty sure it was he who was a big reason for that.

I like his athleticism too, something called out in this video, which I watched earlier. I can see why Mikel would want somebody with the physical profile that he has; the Premier League is a very physical league, full of battles and duels that have to be won all over the pitch, so if you have somebody like Rogers, you know you’re getting a dual monster and battler.

I still can’t help but think about how this works with the team at the moment, though. Does this mean Martinelli goes? If that’s the case, then we don’t really have any touchline wingers anymore. Tzolis is about to arrive, he’s right-footed, but players on the left are going to be somebody who wants to come into the field more, but I guess the counter to this point is that Martinelli was never really massively impressive as a touchline winger as it is. He found his best form coming in from the left, and I think Arteta has tried to push that out of him when he’s played, so if we get both Rogers and Tzolis, it will be interesting to see what job Arteta asks both of them to do on the left.

The other final bit of news is that apparently Barca have set a deadline of the end of this month for their offer for Alvarez to join them. Honestly, that club are a bunch of pr*cks, with their ultimatum. If you want the player so bad, pay the money, instead of constantly trying to low ball teams. They did it for years with us, now they’re doing it with Atleti. I hope the Spanish capital side stay firm. Or better, sell him to us foir cheaper than barca offered. That would really piss them off.

But for now it just feels like that one is probably one in which Arsenal need to just have a ‘watching brief’ on. There’s no point in moving for him whilst the circus is in town and ringmaster Laporta is playing his games in the press. Just leave it be and see if Barca do indeed walk away.

Right, that’s me done for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with more thoughts. There’s that pointless ‘Bronze place’ trophy this evening. I just hope no Arsenal players see a single minute. Play all those that haven’t played much, except The Arsenal boys, thanks.

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a good one.

I remember him scoring a headed goal at Euro 2024 against the Germans in the July of that summer. He would go on to sign for us about six weeks later, but by then we sort of half-knew that he was of interest to the club. What we didn’t know, is what a big game player he is.

I’ve already spoken about it just four days ago, after he got a late winner for the Spanish against the Portuguese, but last night he was at it again. And I think at this stage, people like me need to sack off statements like ‘underrated’, because he’s a bloody superstar. I bet back home in his native Spain, he’s already a hero after the Euro’s, so now he’s just cemented his greatness in their eyes.

What we need, is a full season of Mikel being fit and contributing, because unfortunately for him, he’s had two significant injuries in both season’s that he’s played for us. Because if he is, I think he’s getting A LOT of game time next season. And given how clutch he comes up when he plays for Spain or us, you wonder whether Mikel Arteta might be thinking that in reality, Merino could dislodge somebody like Gyokeres for the second striker role. I am, of course, suggesting that Kai Havertz is our main striker, but I do think it’s a tough call between Gyokeres and Merino. And I think Merino would edge it.

Think about it; last season, according to TransferMarkt, Merino played 11 times as a centre forward. He scored four goals, got three assists. That’s a ratio of 0.64 g+a per match. Gyokeres, by comparison, got 24 g+a in 54 games, which is a ratio of 0.44. If Merino played 54 games as a central striker, by those maths, we’re talking 35 goals and assists in total. He’s probably a 25 goal and 10 assist striker we’ve got, playing in central midfield.

You could counter-argument that and say “small sample size”, but we have two data points, because last season he also got a stint as a centre forward. He got nine goals and three assists in 12 games. that’s a 0.75 contribution per 90. Over two separate date periods. If you even put those together, you get 10 goals and siz assists in 23 games.

This guy is an output monster.

And when you look at the fact he’s done it for Spain at multiple competitions, and in qualifying too, suddenly you start to realise that this isn’t a hot streak like Joe Willock had when he first went to Newcastle on loan, this just is who Mikel Merino is.

Guys, I’m thinking he might even be our best striker next season, although I’m still probably edging towards Kai. But Mikel Merino is massively in the conversation now. We can’t deny that. His goal yesterday was classic strikers instinct. Even before the goal, he makes an intelligent run in between the Belgian centre halves. What’s that phrase that Neytiri says in Avatar?

I SEE YOU…

Mikel Merino, I SEE YOU…

Now I/we just need to see him fit.

The other good news, is because he has only just come back to fitness for this World Cup, and didn’t play much for the last few months of the season, he should be good to go come the beginning of our season. And given all the question marks about some of our players like Rice, Saka, Saliba, etc, all the good news stories about players like Merino being fit and ready to go, is a warming sight.

Tonight it’ll be England versus Norway, and the good news is that at least one Arsenal player is coming home. That means, come 13th July, you’d hope that player(s) is back with their family and getting a few weeks off. If it’s the England lads, I suspect they might get a bigger break, but hey, it will at least mean one week less at the competition.

Elsewhere there’s still the Bruno G stuff rumbling along, and I had a few chats with some Geordies on social media last night, who are leaning in to the ‘burned bridges’ vibes. I get it, Ornstein drops an Ornbomb and you pretty much take it as read that it’s fact. David doesn’t do spurious. He’s pretty black and white (pardon the pun) with his messaging, so it’s clear Bruno wants The Arsenal. Newcastle are briefing their journos that they are a bit puzzled because there hasn’t been an offer, but I suspect Arsenal will make one soon. The problem might be, that Newcastle ask for a crazy figure. If they go in at £100million as what they want, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Arsenal walk away. This isn’t the same as Rice; Rice was four years younger, a solid eight years at the top ahead of him, plus there was a bit of a bidding war. Like Isak last summer, this doesn’t seem to feel like much of a bidding war. That doesn’t mean to say other clubs won’t have a sniff, but I can’t see too many dropping a ton on Bruno Guimaraes at 28-going-on-29. It just doesn’t feel realistic. Even in this market.

I still also feel like this could be a big bumper payday for Bruno at the end of it though. And by staying at Newcastle. HandOfArsenal put an update out, and the final bullet on the update said that Bruno doesn’t want this being protracted; he wants it sorted before pre season and won’t do an Isak. So that means Newcastle can dig in, insist on an over-the-top price, because they know Bruno will go on pre season, he’ll just carry on, then stay at Newcastle if Arsenal don’t mean Newcastle’s demands.

I have no intel, I have no idea, but I’m just going on gut feel, having seen this sort of situation play out before. Remember Morgan Gibbs-White going to the Scum? If I’m right, I seem to recall there being talk of handing in a transfer request, before suddenly he signs a new deal and does that weird “Mr Marinakis” video after the new contract was announced. That could very well happen here. Obviously I hope it doesn’t because he’s a very talented player, but I just have that feeling, you know?

Anyway, we’ll see what shakes out, because if Bruno is true to what he apparently said about the pre season stuff, this should all be sorted out within the next two weeks.

Right – I’m off to buy some masonry paint. outdoor wall painting awaits me.

have a great Saturday.

Plenty of discussion on this one inline, on socials and in the GCs on WhatsApp. I think the discourse on this is predicated on his role. I still maintain I suspect he’ll be number three, and if that bears out, then I’m quite ‘meh’ on this one. I’m not angry, I’m not excited, it’s a body coming in and I’m sure he’ll be a good cheerleader for the team. He’s played 107 times in the Premier League, 265 career appearances, he has experience and he won’t be on mega money at Leeds United. I heard somebody say that it was a two-year deal, which very much therefore feels like a “come be with us for a couple of years, train with the team, pick up a wage, get Arsenal on your CV and you can move on after that”. I don’t think anybody should read anything else into it. We move on.

Who to, next, then?

Seems like this Greek lad Christos Tzolis is the one most likely to go through, with a £35million move being mooted across a few channels yesterday, and I have to say I don’t mind this deal. In a summer where Premier League clubs are looking to charge farcial amounts for their tlent, perhaps looking to mainland Europe to unearth the next gem isn’t a bad idea. I listened to the Arsenal opinion pod earlier this morning on my run and the lads were talking about how City picked up Doku from Rennes, he had a ‘bedding in’ season, then this season and last season he was making a real impact. They picked Doku up at 21-years-old from Rennes for £55million in 2023. This guy is a little older at 24, plays in obviously a weaker league in Belgium, but his numbers are pretty good. If you take the idea that Gyokeres’ target that I set was basically to just be half of the output machine that he was in Lisbon, and he achieved that, if Tzolis is the one replacing Trossard for £35million, having scored 22 goals and got 29 assists in 52 games. If he can translate that into even 10 goals and 10 assists for the first team at Arsenal next season, then that’s absolutely fine.

He’s apparently rapid, he’s got Champions League experience and two goals and an assist, so he’s been playing in the elite competition. He actually played against us in our 3-0 win in December. WhoScored put him down as a 6.5 out of 10 score on the day, which was second best in the team, on a day in which they really were second best, as Noni had arguably his best game for Arsenal that day, bagged two goals, and I wonder if this potential arrival really does signal the end of any chance that we see Noni on that left hand side.

Mind you, given Saka can’t seem to do 90-minutes for England at the moment, Noni is probably looking likely to be starting the season off on that right-hand side anyway, at this rate. That goes the same for a few Arsenal players for the start of this season, methinks. Saliba’s rumoured back problems won’t go away, so if you’re Christian Mosquera you’re looking at the start of the season as an opportunity to rack up some minutes. And whilst a doubt remains over Timber, and Ben White back in training (and having a lovely ol’ catch up with Meslier as the club showed on a video yesterday), he’s probably looking at the start of the season as an opportunity to get himself minutes too. I think a few of us thought that his Arsenal race was run, but I don’t see how Arsenal sanction any move for White whilst we still don’t have full knowledge on the Timber situation. It’s a bit of a worry, I have to say, because what was thought to be only a few weeks, has turned into him missing a World Cup. And even if he is fit for the start of pre-season training, if I was Arteta, there’s no way I’d sanction a White exit right now. He’s experienced, he knows the first team, the Premier League, he is looking fit and he can slot right back into that role and know exactly what Arteta wants. Keeping Ben White, whilst there are so many other questions around fitness of players for the start of the season, is feeling kind of important now.

It’s why the Bruno Guimaraes move now – if it happens (and I still remain sceptical, as I wonder whether it’s an agent play for a mega-deal from Newcastle) – makes sense. Rice is playing with pain and spends half the time with an ice pack strapped to his leg. If Bruno comes in, Rice can be eased in for the new season. Zubi has hardly played this World Cup, so you’d hope he’d be ready and raring to go, whilst Myles will also be in contention. So there are options there for Arteta for the start of the season, even if he decides to give the World Cup lads extra time off to recover. I saw talk that Rice, Saka and Saliba will basically not be seen until October. I suspect that’s a little hyperbolic, but if you give them three weeks off after the World Cup, that takes you to the second week of August. Then they have to pick up as pre-season training again, so they’ll be a month behind the other lads – that takes you to the middle of September, so that October timeline suddenly doesn’t look as unrealistic, right?

If we get the right cover and quality in, then I’m all up for it. We don’t want to see Rice and Saka in particular breaking down and then not being seen until 2027. The club will have all the data and medical records they need, however, so I personally am feeling quite relaxed. Again, as I’ve said once or twice already this summer, that’s the benefit you get when you are champions.

Right – catch you all tomorrow. Hey! I even managed to get through 1000 words without talking the World Cup – great stuff!

I’ve got no love for France, from an England perspective you probably want them out, but not to Paraguay. Football like that can’t be winning out.

In the other game we have ourselves our first hosts who are heading home and, with Morocco looking like they gave a proper schooling to Canada, you have to say they look like a good side. They’ll give France a proper match when the two teams meet next week.

The other final set of round of 16 games is tonight and, with a lot being made of the altitude stuff, I think we’re going to see Mexico progress against an England team who haven’t really impressed at all during this competition. There was one half against Croatia that looked alright, but that’s been about it. We talked about the World Cup and the altitude stuff yesterday morning on the Same Old Arsenal pod, amongst other things, and my assertion along with Amanda’s was that it will definitely have a material impact, coupled with England’s unimpressive form. Last night I had a dream that Stuart Pearce was sitting on a park bench round the corner from me, and I asked him if he thought the altitude would make a difference. He basically told me that England had ‘no chance’.

So there you go. Cheese dream Stuart Pearce has spoken, and so I’m debating whether it’s even worth watching the game to be honest with you.

In the Arsenal world, the big talking point is Leo Trossard potentially heading off to Turkey for £17million. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, for a guy who turns 32 in December and with one year left on his contract, that’s not a terrible fee. His profiling at the World Cup will inevitably help, because he’s been the Belgians best player, but that in itself has me pausing for reflection. He finished the season really strongly for Arsenal, he got the all important goal against West Ham, and the next day we were crowned champions as City drew with Bournemouth. Crossers has his place in history as a Premier League winner and he’ll have that forever in the history books.

His profile is going to be a tough one to replace too. Very good in small spaces, a guy who can turn a man on a sixpence, plus he’s come up with big goals against big rivals. He will definitely be missed for sure.

It’s a real conundrum because you can make the case either way.

This exit does at least confirm that the club are going hard for a replacement. I suspect it also probably means that Martinelli is the one to stay and duke it out. Given his age, his contract length, that probably makes sense to be fair, but his contribution in the Premier League was pitiful last season, so we 100% need to see more.

I wonder if – when this deal is confirmed (probably after the World Cup) – we’ll see clubs doubling down on their asking price for their players when Arsenal come knocking. It does feel as though we’re being given inflated numbers in this market, but when clubs also know we have a need, there’s suddenly an opportunity to try to get an extra couple of mil out of us because they know we have to pull the trigger on a wide player. Who that player is, beats me, because the only big link we’ve had is Morgan Rogers. He’s a good player, he has played on the left for Villa before, but to my mind that’s always been as an auxiliary option, rather than his best position. Maybe Andrea Berta has a left-of:field (pun intended) option that nobody has heard the details of yet?

I’d take that Kroupi lad, and not just because it appears Spurs are courting him, and it would be funny. No, I’d take him because he’s rapid, he’s good on the ball and he showed twice against us across two games, that he knows where the goal is. He even made a joke about winning us the league after his goal against City, so I suspect that he might have a soft spot for The Arsenal.

If Arsenal want to move, however, you do wonder if they’ll have to do it relatively quickly. There’s a few reports out there suggesting The Scum have already held some preliminary talks with the player and his representatives. Whether that’s true or not is kind of irrelevant; if Arsenal want a player, they showed last season with Eze that they can move quickly to get him. But I wonder if they’re looking at that fee and thinking they can get somebody like Barcola for similar, and given that Barcola has played at the highest level already, and is part of the current French World Cup squad, Arsenal might be waiting for the dominoes to fall with other players coming in to PSG first.

All a lot of “ifs” and “buts” though, and having drunk a shedload yesterday at a bbq, I don’t think I want my brain having to work through those kind of permutations on a Sunday morning. So I’ll put a pin in thinking about Arsenal speculation for today, and I’ll come back tomorrow with some more thoughts.

Catch you all then.

From an Arsenal perspective, the Women announced the signing of Georgia Stanway, which is a pretty big coup, and, given there have been a few high-profile exits this season already from the ladies’ team, this will be a boost to the squad.

On the men’s side, all is still quiet on the western front, although I think the natives (Arsenal fans) are starting to get restless on social media. It doesn’t help when you hear that the young lad from Leicester – Monga – is now going to Man City. By all accounts, he looks like a wonderkid, but Arsenal weren’t willing to go the £10million+ for him to sign, which I think is fair enough. Yes, he’s a very good talent (so I hear), yes, he plays in a position we are all looking at as needing a pathway and evolution, but the reality is that he’s 16 and there’s no way he’s impacting this Arsenal team for the immediate future.

And that’s what we have to be looking at now. We need to make proverbial hay while the sun is shining. We are the champions, we have a bunch of teams around us who all have uncertainty and new managers, and there is a lot of change and transformation happening. Chelsea is having to reshape their team under Alonso. Iraloa needs to work out how to turn Liverpool back into a title-challenging side. City doesn’t have Pep, Bernardo Silva, and there are questions over Rodri. Villa looks like they might need to sell before they buy. Bournemouth have a new manager and another bunch of players who have exited. Then, at the bottom, you have The Scum, who have picked up some decent signings that will probably help to lift them above mid-table. We are in a ‘now’ moment, and so we probably need players for ‘now’. It’s why the Guimaraes signing makes sense, although I suspect it is incredibly unlikely. With Tonali and Gordon both gone, their fans will have the pitchforks out if they let the Brazilian go, so I suspect that one will be dead in the water. But going back to the original point, Monga from Leicester isn’t going to be a player whom we need to bring in to strengthen. He’s for when this particular project reaches its natural conclusion.

I did see the Telegraph linking us to Ezri Konsa from Villa, but I think that feels like a Berta “casting the net wide” jobby to me. He’s just turned 28, he’s a right-sided centre back that can also play right back, and he’s got a deal that runs until 2028. Villa might be tempted to cash in on him, but given how much they’re asking for Rogers, they’d also probably want the earth and the moon for him, too. Plus, there’s the English premium to take into account. Add to that the fact that he’s not overtaking William Saliba for that position. We have Mosquera as the deputy to Saliba, who can also do that, and besides, isn’t that just who Ben White is for us? He’s converted to a right back who can play centre half, whereas Konsa is the other way around, so this one doesn’t really feel like a deal that has any real value in it from an Arsenal perspective.

And yet…we know Arteta loves a defensive signing…so I guess we can’t really rule it out.

Other than that, there’s not a lot really going on, unless you count Marcel Desailly’s words about Saliba moving to Real Madrid. To be fair, he did say that it would happen ‘one day’, but with the way Madrid are right now, and having just got Mourinho on board, I couldn’t think of any club worse to join. When you also factor in the point Desailly made about Gabriel only being the player he is because of Saliba, I guess I probably shouldn’t have even brought this conversation up! But, when it’s all quiet, we’ve got to talk about something together, right?

Ok, that’ll do for me for today. We’re gonna do a bit of a ‘check in’ pod tomorrow morning on the Same Old Arsenal pod at 9.30 am UK time, so if you fancy coming along and saying ‘hello’ – pop in here.

This morning, I had a look, and it seems Brazil versus Japan is the first game on, which actually kicks off at a very reasonable 6pm. That’s being played in Houston, Texas, which means it’s five hours behind and a 1pm kick off, so I will definitely whack that on tonight as I’m prepping dinner. Feels like it could be a fun one. Big Gabi, future Arsenal star Bruno Guimaraes ( ) and maybe even a sprinkling of Gabriel Martinelli too, perhaps? Of course, we’d have to deal with Cunha, Alisson and Casemiro, but at least there’s no Richarlison at this competition. That frigging chicken dance is too much for one man to take.

Japan impressed a lot of people when they came to England and tidied up a bit after themselves, but their football is pretty good too. I suspect they’re probably going home tonight, but you never know. An upset could be on the cards.

Actually, how often are there ‘upsets’ these days, when it comes to the finals? I just had a look at the 2022 finals to see, and low and behold, the Japanese dumped out the Germans in the group stages of the last competition. Belgium were also yanked from the competition at the expense of Croatia and Morocco, whilst in the knockouts, Croatia did over Brazil and Morocco overcame Portugal. So I guess there are upsets to be had. I just assumed that in the World Cup, a bit like the Champions League, the bookies are usually spot on.

At the moment, the bookies are saying France, Argentina, Spain, England, Brazil and Germany (in that order) are expected to go the distance, and when you look at the French side, you can see why. Big Bill Saliba at the back, Mbappe, Olise and Dembele up top…sheesh, that’s a good side. I don’t like Haaland one bit – I think he’s an incredibly arrogant twat – but his candour when he said “they’re probably gonna win the whole thing” was appreciated. Most of the players at this tournament know that they’re probably not making it to the latter stages.

As for England, I’d be surprised if they get to a semi-final again. I just don’t see it. They should have enough for Congo, and to be fair, also Mexico, despite the home advantage they will have. I don’t see them getting beyond what will probably be Brazil in the quarter finals, though.

All of this World Cup waffle, and I’m nearly 500-words in without a drop of Arsenal goodness. That’s probably because I’ve not seen much going on, to be honest with you. The Bruno G stuff has a slight angle to it, which is that his agent has been using Arsenal’s interest to secure a new £200k-per-week, which I think is fair enough. A few peeps are speculating that the Diomande stuff to PSG will set the chain-reaction for a Barcola exit, but I think it’s probably a little too soon to be going into the weeds of that one. Both players are still at the World Cup, although the Ivory Coast play Norway tomorrow, so if Odegaard et al progress, perhaps Diomande’s future gets sorted and he does head towards PSG. I remember Liverpool’s pursuit of Zubimendi, though, which ended up with him joining us a year later, so despite what’s being read right now, it does feel like that deal could have a few swings to it.

If it does swing that way, I expect Barcola to probably have a look at his situation, but what’s interesting is that Diomande spent most of his time last season as a right-winger fro Leipzig. He played 25 times on the right and 10 on the left. PSG have Doue on the right, who played 24 times on the right last season – so would those two be sharing positions? Both players can play on both sides, but you tend to find players have a side that they are preferred in, or that they perform better in. Just look at Martinelli. He’s better on the left, but he has had some games for us on the right wing. If a side wanted to buy Martinelli, but they already had the left-hand side sewn up, so they wanted him on the right, do you think that would be a good move for the player and the buying club? I don’t. So I wonder if the same needs to be said about the Diomande/Barcola potential exit. Just because Diomande could arrive, I don’t think it necessarily drives an exit for the Frenchman.

If it does mean Brcola wants to move on, the good news about Arsenal is that we have shown that we are willing to move if the player is right. Just look at the Eze situation; that shifted almost overnight from him joining the Scum to joining us, as a result of the Havertz injury. Five uears ago I’d have been concerned that if somebody like Barcola came on the market, a club like Liverpool could steal a march by just acting quickly. Now, I’d back our boys at Highbury House and London Colney to act if they needed to act. So let’s see how this one shakes out.

Right – that’ll do me for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more musings – be interesting to see if any Japanese players stand out tonight.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Why am I telling you this? Well, obviously, because that’s what’s happened today, but it’s also a question I’ve played with in my head. That question is:

If you could only guarantee one signing this summer for The Arsenal, what would it be?

It’s the sort of ‘in the pub’ question that is always an interesting one to start a debate, and whilst I can’t exactly start said debate through this one-way medium, I hope that if you are reading this today, or any day, that you pop your thoughts in the comments. It’ll be interesting to know what you’re thinking.

First, some ground rules, though, like any good ‘in the pub’ chat. You have to pick a realistic player. Somebody that Arsenal might actually sign. We’re not getting in a DeLorean and signing peak Messi. We’re not going to pay Mbappe’s wages and fee (and, frankly, I don’t think Arteta would want him if I’m honest). We can debate over how much a player will cost, but it’s your choice as to who you’d like in that one position, as it is my choice to dump down my thoughts onto this page here today.

But, as I am my mother’s son (she was an A-Level maths teacher), I will endeavour to at least walk you through my thinking as best I can, exploring all my options, before finally settling on my one choice. I did this for The Same Old Arsenal podcast the season before last, in which I got my mates on the show to talk about one player they’d want to sign, one to sell, and one that they thought would ‘bang’ in the upcoming season. This is a bit of a shorter version of that summer series.

So, firstly, the position. Where do we need to strengthen the most? There’s no doubt that if Ben White disappears, we’ll need another right back. Mosquera is a good option, but it feels like a third-choice option, much like Myles is at left-back, now that he’s found his home in central midfield. Mosquera is number two at right centre-back, number three at right-back, and I think that means plenty of game time for him. And, if the noises of Kepa having a £ 5 million release clause are true, somebody might punt for him, and we might find ourselves needing a new ‘keeper. But these don’t feel like the most pressing problems. Remember the summer in which we only signed Cech? That’s kind of what I am thinking about, and if that’s the parameters of this game, I can’t be going for a backup right-back, even if the news about Jurrien Timber being sent home from the Dutch National team are true – we just need to get Ben fit and ready for the start of the season at this rate.

***As a quick aside from our ‘pub chat’, that is a bit of a concern, because if they don’t think he can play a part until the latter stages, which would be mid-July, Arsenal must be more than a little worried about his participation for the start of next season***

I think the emergence of MLS as a central midfield option secures that part of the pitch. I also think that Merino being back adds versatility across multiple positions, including in attack, so whilst my first instinct was that I think we need somebody to replace Gabriel Jesus and shift Gyokeres one notch down on the pecking list of strikers (I still think he gets plenty of game time, by the way), I can’t stop looking at that left-wing position and thinking that’s where we need to have our number one priority.

Which is why I’m still more than a little confused about the Morgan Rogers and Morgan Gibbs-White rumours that have emerged. Two fine players, Rogers particularly bagged plenty of goals for Villa last season, but neither of those players has spent any significant time in at left wing. We’ve seen that Arteta is unwilling to shift Eze there last season, and given he’s only one year into his Arsenal career, I doubt he’ll be jettisoned after a pretty decent season last time out. The only other option if you’re signing somebody like Rogers or Gibbs-White – who has not played left-wing at all last season – is if there’s going to be a big sale like Odegaard being moved on. I just don’t see that. He leads our press, he’s the captain, and whilst I know Arteta is a ruthless man in the pursuit of success, I just don’t see this being a thing this season. It feels more likely that Arteta would phase Odegaard out over time, rather than completely cold-shoulder him.

So for me, personally, I hope these are red-herring news reports, as Arsenal look to pull off some kind of mega deal on the left wing. But what are the options? Well, according to TransferMarkt, we’re looking at:

• Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
• Vinicius Junior
• Yan Diomande
• Kenan Yıldız
• Matheus Cunha

That’s the top five, for which I think, if we’re all honest now, we’re unlikely to get at least three of those. I don’t see a world in which PSG part with Mr Unpronounceable-to-an-Englishman, Vini Junior isn’t moving from Real unless pushed, whilst Cunha is at United and even they will fight to keep him. This fella Diomande looks good though. Rapid, good with the ball at his feet, 13 goals and 10 assists and a ‘Rookie of the Year’ award in the Bundesliga. My initial thoughts on somebody like that are that the Bundesliga doesn’t really fully translate to the Premier League, but at 19, he’s going to get better, and given we haven’t had an Ivorian for a few years, I’m starting to like that as an option. He looks – by his numbers, like he’s a dribbler and somebody who can beat a man, and it does feel as though we need somebody like that on that left-hand side. Martinelli seems to have lost that verve when it comes to creating a bit of chaos, so perhaps it’s time that we did look to somebody new, fresh, with a new approach and ideas.

The challenge we might have is that it sounds like Liverpool have been close to this for a while, so I suspect they’ve already done enough groundwork. It doesn’t mean we can’t ‘swoop in’, but Liverpool aren’t Tottenham, so it might be a little too late.

I’m somebody who always leans towards that younger talent that you can then mould and, if it doesn’t work out, sell on – which is also why I’m not as hot on the two Morgan’s. They don’t play in the position we need the most, they are a little on the older side, and it does feel like we might need somebody to stake a claim in that left-wing spot as their primary position. I do think one of Martinelli or Trossard might go this summer, so if you’re asking me to pick my choice, it’d be this fella at Leipzig.

But what’s your call? Who are you thinking might be ‘the one’ that you want this summer? Let me know in the comments.

But as the countdown begins, as I start to see more and more tactical preview shows, I guess it is time to put those game faces on and start to look at what lies ahead of us on Saturday evening.

It’s a scary prospect. I mean, sure, they play in a Mickey Mouse league that they’ve just won by six points and have been coasting for the last few weeks, enabling them to focus on the Champions League prep, but they are still a thoroughly impressive side. And we will – by the sounds of every European football expert out there – find ourselves as underdogs on Saturday. They have spent the season resting players at the right moment; they have the balance and blend to their season that enables them to do that, plus they have some of the most frightening attackers on the planet. In the knockout stages, they smashed Chelsea 8-2 on aggregate. They did Liverpool 4-0 on aggregate over two legs. Then there was that crazy 5-4 game against Bayern, which they followed up with a 1-1 draw at the Allianz. So they know where the net is.

But they also aren’t the tightest at the back either. In the Champions League this season, they have scored a whopping 44 goals across their 16 matches, nearly three per match. But they’ve conceded 20 – so they don’t always keep a clean sheet and they are going to leave space for us this coming weekend. We all know Arsenal’s impressive Champions League run, built on the foundations of a solid back line that has conceded just six compared to PSG’s 22, but have also ‘only’ bagged 29 from PSG’s 44. It’s also worth pointing out that we have played two games less, so perhaps that goal tally might be closer to them if we had.

What’s interesting, when you look at the numbers side-by-side, is that PSG averages a higher possession than us, which is not so surprising, but also more ball recoveries and tackles won. Because of the fact that they’ve played two games more, I looked at the ‘average per match’ on the UEFA website, and PSG averages 6.44 tackles per match compared to our 4.43. ON ball recoveries, they average 39.07, compared to our 34.86. The ‘saves’ are more similar – PSG have 2.82 to our 2.43.

So what does this tell me, the very poor data nerd in disguise? Initially, I looked at those numbers and just said out loud, “Well, they’re just better at us at most things, right?” Of course, that could be true, but it could also mean that they make more tackles per game because they put themselves in more compromising positions defensively. Teams towards the bottom of the Premier League often lead the way in things like tackles or blocked shots, because they have to do more of it by volume. Perhaps the same could be said for PSG? Or, perhaps I’m just injecting a little too much Hopium at a time in which we all might need a fair dose of it?

The number of ball recoveries, as I interpret it, could be due to a higher press from PSG. I do think they do press higher than us, and when you can force that from your opponent higher up the pitch, you get more turnovers. In the Champions League this season, we’ve tended to dominate games on possession, often just shutting down matches, so when you slow down the game, then perhaps there is a tendency to see fewer ball recoveries. I think.

There’s one more stat that I saw that I thought might be worth highlighting, which is a goalkeeping stat on the number of claims that Raya for Arsenal, or Chevalier for PSG, makes. In fewer games, Raya has made 38 claims and 19 high claims, whereas Chevalier has 18 claims and 11 high claims. Our goalie commands his box more than the PSG one – could this be an opportunity for us? Given our penchant for set pieces, I certainly hope so.

So there are a few titbits of opportunity for us, but the key will be to stop their constantly rotating and fluid front set of players. The news on Hakimi will be key, because like Calafiori (who I would play in the final, by the way), the Moroccan likes to roam and pop up in unusual places. If he isn’t available (and he’s been out since they played Bayern a month ago), then that’s a big plus for us. They also have Chevalier and Nuno Mendes, who haven’t played since then, but it wouldn’t surprise me if all of those players have basically just been given a month off to prep for this one.

So there is still a bit of team news and expected tactical set up to be concluded ahead of this one, whereas for us it is pretty much just Jurrien Timber who is the question mark. There’s no way he starts on saturday, but getting 20 minutes from him could be big, so let’s just hope for more positive updates. Apparently he was in training yesterday, so that’s great news.

Other than that, we play the waiting game as the build up to this intensifies. It was weird that Arteta did the Champions League presser last week, but I guess there will be more embargoed words that will come out from that one today or tomorrow, as the team make their way to Budapest for the last match of the season.

Right, that’s it from me for today. It’s going to be another scorcher for the UK, so I’m going to finish up here and make sure I have my set up all sorted for a day of work – outside in my garden.

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a great day.

Just two wins.

Sounds simple, right?

Well, yes, the logic of it is. Arsenal start the first half of this two-part challenge tonight against Burnley, a side already relegated and without a full-time manager, who by all rights should be on the beach or at least feeling a little down about the fact they will not be in the Premier League next season. This is a Burnley side with four wins all season, nine draws and 23 defeats to their name. Only Wolves have lost more games. They have conceded 73 goals in their 36 games – an average of just over two goals every match, and have scored just over one per match with their 37.

Burnley have also allowed the most shots of any team in the league – 607 – as well as the most shots on target with 209. On a game average perspective, they have conceded nearly 17 shots in total (16.9) for every match this season, with the opposition also getting nearly six on target (5.8). To give some context, West Ham (sadly all but relegated now after their defeat to Newcastle yesterday) has given up 538 shots and 185 on target. So Burnley have had 69 more shots on their goal than any other side in the Premier League this season.

And yet…

We know that this is The Arsenal, and we never make it easy for ourselves, do we?

If there’s a way to make this difficult, Arsenal, of all teams feel like they could do that, although today I’m hoping that even the smallest fear any Arsenal fan has is extinguished early on. Get that first goal of the match in 15 minutes, and everything changes. Go in at halftime at 0-0, and the stadium might feel a little different than it will tonight before kick off.

I think the Arsenal fans at the ground will be big-time up for this one. The Atletico Madrid blueprint showed us just how much of an impact we can make, and, with it once again being an evening under the lights, with the team bus being greeted at 5.45 pm just like that game, this is set to be another fervent atmosphere that the players need to feed off. The noises coming out from the back channels of people with access to players on social media were that the staff and players were genuinely stunned by the pre-Atletico Madrid build-up. In a really good way. It helped to inspire them, and I think the same will happen tonight. I certainly hope it does. Red Action have done another great job in organising the pre-meet at 5.45 pm by The Bear roundabout in front of the Armoury, so the fans will do their early bit to lift the players in those opening salvoes, but then it needs to be the players that step out onto the pitch to carry those vibes and channel them into their boots.

There has to be a fast start. And for me, that means:

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

Rice

Odegaard – Eze

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

I debated a bit about Gyokeres, and I’d be more than happy to see that too, but I just worry a little bit about a possible low block. Gyokeres is a tidy finisher, but this season in tight spaces, I just haven’t seen as much as I’d like when in those small spaces, and so for me, I think Havertz just edges it. But this isn’t to say that I’m going to be shouting on the internet if Big Vik plays. His 2026 record and goals scored are there for all to see, and if we’re going to be getting plenty of shots in this game, there are worse people to be having those shots. The challenge for him has been getting the space in these tight games, whereas Kai certainly is better at finding that space and is better with the ball at his feet.

The talk has been about who plays right-back, and it was lovely to see pictures of Timber as he arrived for training, but I can’t see him starting tonight. It surely has to be Mosquera. If we’re going to give Calafiori licence to drift forward more and find pockets of space, then having that guy who can operate as a third centre half feels like it could work well. Imagine Calafiori bombing forward, Gabriel shifting across to cover the space, Saliba shifting centrally, then Mosquera occupying a hybrid right-back/right-centre-half position. Just feels like it works, right?

In the middle of the park, I’ve gone with Rice as the lone six mainly because I want to find a way to get both Eze and Odegaard on the pitch. Martin to try to pick the moments in which it is tight and congested at the back, with Eze the ‘shoot on sight’ player – feels like, given the above context of Burnley, that has the right dynamics on it. It’s slightly harsh on MLS, but when we come to Palace next weekend, I would be thinking more about that game for him than today. Today demands specific skill sets, and I just think the captain and Ebs fit the bill better. The two guys on either side of the forward kind of pick themselves right now. It means that for me, this side has seven of your outfield players who are all quite attack-minded (I count Calafiori in that), which is absolutely what we need.

Burnley will get chances. The fact they have 37 goals this season shows that. But we just need to have 100% concentration at the back and be ruthless in attack.

Fast start. That is everything. Start with the intensity of a side laser-focused on a Premier League title. Game faces on, from the first kick, be at the Burnley players, make it happen. The time for talking is done. Now it is time to deliver.

I’ll be there, a nervous wreck, sure to be singing my heart out and losing my voice by full time. Let’s hope when that final whistle comes, we’re celebrating another victory and just one more cup final to go.

Catch you all tomorrow.

How is this becoming MORE stressful each week?

How on earth are we STILL being put through the wringer?

Honestly, my nerves are shot to pieces. My heart rate has been getting up to cardio-load levels during games. Then, when you have an ending like that yesterday, it goes up a notch even further.

Those last 15 minutes or so (including stoppage time) were the worst/best that I can remember. And when it finished, I was trying to put out social media messages, but my hands were shaking. I was an absolute mess.

But we did it. Somehow, we did it, getting over the line, albeit in somewhat controversial fashion, against a West Ham team fighting for their lives.

I have my family connections to West Ham, so I am not happy that, to all intents and purposes, they are probably going down. And to get what you think could be a vital point in the dying seconds against a team at the top of the Premier League, only to have that taken away, is a gut punch.

But it was a foul. If David Raya doesn’t have an arm across the front of his shoulders, he’s catching that ball that was put into the box. If he isn’t having his shirt pulled behind him, he is catching that ball. And as Trossard said afterwards when interviewed, Raya himself was very calm when the decision was being reviewed. Because he knew it was a foul.

And in that moment, you have to say, it feels like we got some kind of football god-intervention happening for us. Because I’ll be honest, I thought exactly the opposite when Wilson struck that ball. And I wonder what the players would have felt like, too? You’re leading, you know that if you win this tough away game, you are just two victories away from the first league title in 20+ years, and it is taken from you right at the death in stoppage time. It would have been a mental hammer blow (pun intended) that would have given Man City players just as much of a boost as it would have been a blow for our players. The psychological toll that it would have taken could have been huge. The title would have still been in our hands, a big win against Burnley would still put Arsenal in the driving seat to do it on goal difference, but you just feel like City would have used this result as a fuel to go on and absolutely smash Palace in midweek to call the goal difference into question, too.

And now, with Arsenal having got over the line, the pressure for City is massively ratcheted up. They know they basically have to beat Palace, AND beat Bournemouth in the middle of next week. It isn’t done, we still have to win against Burnley and Palace, and despite what anyone says, those two teams are still Premier League sides with decent players, but the momentum has swung back with The Arsenal, and that is huge.

It has come at a cost, though. The Ben White injury is such a shame. He hobbled off; it was a problem with his knee, and if we see him this season, I will be surprised. It’s compounded all the more by the fact that Jurrien Timber might not play again this season, meaning our young centre-half Mosquera, becomes the de facto fullback for the foreseeable future. He’s an able deputy, but he isn’t as good as White or Timber, and it’s a problem for us when you start to think about the Champions League final, for example.

It’s also a shame because with Ben in position, we absolutely dominated the opening 15-20 minutes of the game. Sky Sports showed some stats saying that we’d had nine attempts on goal in the first 15 or so minutes. Calafiori (also apparently injured – no surprises there, though) was linking well with Trossard, we were getting in behind, we hit the post and bar and had one off the line from Calafiori that could have made the complexion of this game look very different. But the White injury changed everything, because Arteta decided to go a bit left-of-field with his subs for the White injury. I think in the cold light of day, when he re-watches this game, he’ll hold his hands up to say sticking White in at right back just wasn’t the right choice. It meant we not only lost our right back, but the control in the centre of the park, and West Ham found themselves with a little more space. Arteta did, of course, course-correct his decision at halftime, but that second half felt stodgy and disjointed overall anyway. Zubimendi suffered the ignomy of being a sub that was subbed off, but he’d hardly had a blinder of a game, plus Arsenal needed to change it because, from a tactical perspective, it wasn’t working. We weren’t finding space in between the lines for those passing lanes, and Havertz felt like a natural choice because he’s going to stand in between the West Ham defence and midfield, rather than where Zubi stands as a deeper lying midfielder. You feel for the Spaniard, but needs must at a time like that.

And those needs were rewarded by Leandro Trossard, who has – quite handily – decided to find some form in recent weeks. I thought he was good again yesterday; lively, looked good in partnership with Calafiori, and whilst his finish had a touch of fortune about it with the deflection, I think on balance we’d deserved that little bit of luck given the chances we created earlier in the game. We also need to tip our caps to Martin Odegaard, whose introduction in the second half as a sub was massively significant. He gets the assist for the goal, his Platoon-style celebration I particularly enjoyed after it went in, but he was central to a lot of the progressive stuff we did when he came on. At a real crunch point in the season, we needed a captain’s performance from the bench, and I think we got one.

And points, well, we got all three. With 20 minutes to go, I didn’t think that would happen. At 96 minutes, I didn’t think that would happen. But here we are. It’s still in our hands. And we have two more wins needed to achieve something magical.

Amanda and I will be discussing all of that and more on the Same Old Arsenal pod later on this evening at 5.45 pm if you fancy joining us – here.

Arsenal need to do their job, though. It is still in our hands. A win today and it will feel like we are nearly there. But this one will by far and away be the most difficult one, I suspect, because West Ham are fighting for their lives, and when you look at their recent home form, it’s actually pretty good. They have two wins and three draws, with their last outing being that late 2-1 win over Everton. Before that, they beat Wolves at home 4-0, and before that, they drew 1-1 with City, 0-0 with Bournemouth, and 1-1 with Manchester United. So this is a West Ham team that gets up for these big games on their own patch, and they will certainly be up for it today.

Mikel Arteta has several decisions to make, specifically on the line-up and tactical approach. I have to say, the ‘finding’ of Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield feels to me like an approach that we should probably be continuing today. The adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes into play in my opinion; the system has been set up to enable us to find players in between the lines and when you are going to have to break down a probable Nuno low-block West Ham side, you need to be able to have that ability to find players in tight spaces who can wriggle out of danger. Myles certainly has that, and so I would be picking him today.

So my starting XI for this afternoon’s game at The London Stadium is:

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS – Rice

Odegaard

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

My thinking on the selections are:

1. Mosquera for White – because I think there’s a question on how much we can play Ben White before he breaks down. With Arteta confirming that he’s not sure if Timber will play again this season, we do need to make sure we’re not overplaying White. I also think Mosquera has proved himself more than capable, and as such, it makes sense to use these players to keep squad harmony too.
2. Calafiori instead of Hincapie – I think the fact that West Ham will sit deeper in a lower block means we need a little more chaos than Hincapie offers. Calafiori stepping into those zones in which West Ham players aren’t sure whether to track or not gives us another option in the attacking third, which I think we will need today.
3. Odegaard instead of Eze – this is the one I wasn’t sure of the most, if I’m honest, because Eze has been playing well of late. He wasn’t amazing against Atletico, and Odegaard did eventually come on, but I just wonder whether Arteta will want a player who has a bit more ball dominance and control. I could happily see it the other way, however, with Arteta favouring that kind of player who will pull out a finish from nowhere, a la Newcastle at home a few weeks back.
4. Havertz for Gyokeres – again, this move for me is based on the fact that we are facing a team who will sit a little deeper and I don’t think they’ll be looking at giving us much green grass to run in behind, so I want my striker to be a bit more of an ‘on the ball’ guy, because I think today will be more of an ‘on the ball’ game for The Arsenal, rather than one that will find us with lots of space.
5. Trossard and Saka stay – Saka has been nursed back into this team and played just 58 minutes against Atletico. You’d hope that means he’s good for at least 70 today, and with Trossard also looking like he’s found a little bit of form, I think you have to start him. You could argue that Eze could play there, but I don’t think Martinelli gets the nod, for the same reason that I wouldn’t play Big Vik.

The nerves are starting to kick in now. Finding out about West Ham’s home form has me a little nervous now, and I’ve just had a look at when they last tasted defeat on their own soil – it was on 6th January against Forest. They’ve been knocked out on penalties against Leeds, but that game in itself was a draw, so teams are finding it difficult to beat West Ham in East London. We are going to have to go and do something that only one team has done in 2026 so far.

It’s going to be edgy, it’s going to be tense, there are moments that none of us are going to like, but I have hope that we’ll get over the line on this one. We need to. A draw still leaves us with the ability to win it on goal difference with a big score against Burnley, and then a win against a hopefully rotated Palace team preparing for the Europa Conference League final, but sending a message by winning this game could be absolutely massive.

Let’s hope the boys are up for it.

I think we’re podding straight after the game on the Same Old Arsenal podcast today, so if you are around and want to dive into it – with delight or disdain depending on the result, subscribe to the pod channel here and you’ll get a notification when we go live.

Otherwise, I’ll catch you all tomorrow, with a debrief on what went down.

So, what of West Ham then, eh?

Well, there are plenty of Arsenal fans who don’t like West Ham, on account of a section of their online fans who, frankly, were a bit weird about the whole Declan Rice stuff. They have a long history of booing/hating some of their ex-players, like Paul Ince back in the 90s, but I sort of get that one. Ince was still a West Ham player officially when he was pictured wearing a Man United shirt, as Sir Alex tapped up the former England international in a move that, these days, would earn United a certain hefty fine. But Arsenal’s situation is different. Everyone knew Rice was off. He had one year left on his deal, and Arsenal came in with a mammoth fee that smashed our own transfer record for Pepe into smithereens. We sing and joke about getting Rice “half price”, but the reality is that it was, and still is, fair market value.

I personally have a bit of love for West Ham. Half my family is from East London on my dad’s side (if you’re a regular reader, you’ll already know that), and I have been holding out hope upon hope that they would get out of this slump. That amplified more when we all saw that it was The Scum they were fighting against, but it looks like the Scum are going to just limp over the line. With Leeds now safe, they might be a bit on the beach on Monday night at the Scum, so I suspect they might win that to secure their safety.

Annoyingly for us, we will have to play a part if we are going to win the league, because I think we HAVE to beat West Ham on Sunday. We are going to need to pick up maximum points in our remaining games because I think when Brentford lose tomorrow, and the gap is two points with three to play for us, we can’t really afford to give them any leeway. I had previously joked with my brother that I was hoping City would drop points and we could field a team of kids against them to give them the best possible chance of them staying up whilst we win the Premier League this weekend, but I think deep down we both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

My brother is pessimistic. He thinks we will all but relegate West Ham this weekend, which makes me sad, but I can see why he’s saying that. And he’s not alone amongst their fanbase; you don’t have to go far online to see how unhappy they all are. Here’s one I found within seconds:

I have followed this club over 5 decades and seen many ‘typical West Ham’ wins against all odds.

Sunday will not be any such thing.

It is a mismatch.

And:

I hope we give them a fight maybe even get a draw and scupper their chances.

But if we go a goal down I fear either it’ll get toxic (especially if there’s Arsenal fans in the home end) or there’ll be a mass walk out.

And:

No point messing about:

West Ham 0 – 4 Arsenal
Tottenham 3 – 0 Leeds

All done and dusted.

And:

we are down and the players know it or certainly will after this latest pumpoing by arsenal at the bowl. championship here we come !

a lot of the players will start thinking of the WC and transfers away.

hopefully sullivan has a lively afternoon ! should be a good protest on 16 mins ! the highlight of the match for hammer fans !

There is a smattering of fans who are hopeful of getting something, but the majority think this will be a pumping. I’m not so sure. We are buoyed by the result in midweek and an excellent performance against Fulham, but this is a West Ham team fighting for its life. Their players won’t go down without trying to lay a few jabs and swipes at us, and with the likes of Bowen available and having scored against us plenty of times over the years, as well as Summerville, who looks a very good and tricky player on that left-hand side. I liked the look of Dioud earlier in the season on the left of their defence, but my question is whether or not we’ll be able to get at that West Ham back line. If WhoScored are right with their probable line-ups, you have to be hoping that Mavropanos and Disasi can be got at, as well as Walker-Peters at right back.

From a numbers point of view, it doesn’t look amazing for West Ham. They’ve conceded 61 goals this season (third-worst). They have an xG against of 55.14; they’ve had the second most shots of all teams against them this season, with the same number of shots on target. On average, West Ham concede nearly two goals a game, 15 shots, with at least five on target.

They also have the second-highest concession of goals from set pieces, with 17 this season in 35 matches. That’s an average of a goal conceded every two games. With a team down there, you’d expect the number of tackles they’d be making to be high, but perhaps that shows some of the deficiencies, because for the number of tackles made this season, West Ham are seventh in the Premier League; it’s hardly Sean Dyche “Backs to the wall, lads, Ben Mee on the line” stuff, is it?

On the attacking front, they fare a little better, in at 15th in the league for goals scored. Their xG puts them 14th, with their total number of shots they have at 16th. So, whilst as Arsenal fans we can look at their defensive problems as a cause for optimism, the attacking threat they have can’t be dismissed. Last season, we may have scored five at their ground, but they bagged two, so Arteta needs to be reminding his players today and tomorrow that they need to have their heads screwed on. In that regard, Man City’s 1-1 draw there can be a cautionary tale; I had a look at the stats from that game and it was a proper battering in all but the scoreline. City had 21 shots, six on target, 71% possession, 670 passes to West Ham’s 294, 15 corners and yet mustered just the one Bernardo Silva goal on 31 minutes, countered just four minutes later by a Mavropanos header from a corner. West Ham, by the way, sit comfortably mid-table when it comes to set pieces, and we all remember Mavropanos doing us a dirty at the Emirates a couple of seasons back.

I’ll talk more about the team news and what the pundits are saying tomorrow, as we get a little more intel from the managers, but this is going to be a tighter game than I think a lot of people (who aren’t Arsenal fans) might envisage. More on thoughts about that, then, but for now, have a great Friday, and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

Last night was one of them.

In anyone’s life, there are lots and lots of things that change. School, job, friends, where you live, your health, your money situation – loads. But some things are constant. For me, my family is obviously the biggest thing in my life, but a constant that I have also had since I was eight years old was The Arsenal.

And, as such, when big milestones happen for The Arsenal, I tend to mentally ‘bookmark’ them. I remember those big moments years after they have passed. Winning the League in 91. In 98 and, Tony Adams was against Everton. 2002. My first FA Cup final in 2003. The Invincibles in 2004. Plus, of course, the Champions League final of 2006. I was one year into my professional working career. I was at a local newspaper, and I remember the joys of getting to the final, as well as the low I felt the next day. There was a Spurs fan who worked in the office who came down first thing just to laugh and gloat. That is etched into my memory like it was yesterday. But as I am older now (not sure how much wiser), I recognise the feat just to get to the final is huge for the club, the manager, and the players.

That shows through not just in the response on the final whistle from the players, or the reaction of the Arsenal fans, but also in the history that Arsenal have in this competition.

Only twice in our history have we got to a final.

That is the most important context this morning. We know that Arsenal have won nothing yet. We all know that this weekend, unless we beat West Ham, we still could come away with nothing. And if that happens, we will need to ask some serious questions. But after a night like last night, now is not the time for ‘yeah but’s. Now is the time to celebrate and recognise what this Arsenal team has achieved by getting to a final.

This is a 71-year-old competition, and this is the second time Arsenal have reached it. Those Arsenal players deserve so much credit. They have bettered their efforts by one from last year, and they have done it with easily the best defence in the competition so far. The 1-0 victory last night, against a decent, albeit slightly limited, I thought, Atletico Madrid side, was done based on a strong defensive foundation. Now, that’s not to say there weren’t moments in the game that had us worried, and the Saliba mistake header that allowed Simeone junior to round Raya for what I thought was the equaliser. But, as if to underline the defensive prowess of this Arsenal team, Saliba was bailed out by some superb work from Gabriel to save his bacon.

Phew.

But that chance aside, as well as a little more territory and ball from Atletico in the second half (which was always going to happen given the fact their season was on the line in that second half), I thought Arsenal pretty much snuffed out anything the Spanish side had to offer. I’ve just had a look at the stats from last night; we out-shot them 13 to five, we had more possession (54% to 46%), we had more passes (443 to 388), and we had a greater xG (1.58 to 0.58). By all accounts this was a close game, but it was one that Arsenal were very much in control of from start to finish.

Now, scratch that, because Arsenal were in control from about two hours before kick-off. Because the fans who went yesterday absolutely smashed the brief for being the 12th man. I was there, I saw it with my own eyes, my mouth is scratchy this morning through so much singing and shouting, but we made the start of this game electric through the fans welcoming the team buses, the early entrance and packed concourse with 30-minutes to play before kick off, as well as the opening tifo and then way in which North London Forever rang out just before kick off. The players have subsequently said they could see and feel it in the ground, and afterwards Arteta referenced the impact it had on him and the players. Football is sometimes a sport in which the perfect symbiosis happens between fans, and that’s what it felt like last night. We were there for them, then those players were there for us.

And of course, the ‘franchise’ player would be the one to be the eventual match winner, wouldn’t he? Bukayo Saka will score many more visually impressive on the eyes goals in his career; he certainly has already done so, but that one will be long remembered by him. He was a mere child when we got to the Champions League final the first time – he’s just done his part in history to put us through last night. I don’t know about you, however, but I thought the chance had gone. It was one of several superb runs into the channels that Gyokeres did on the night, his chipped cross finding Leo’s feet (who was also very good, I thought), before Leo seemed to want an age to set himself for the shot. Oblak managed a decent save, to be fair, but when Bukayo crept in front of his man to tap home from inside the six-yard box, the limbs in block five were everywhere.

And then it felt like it would be a case of holding on to see what Atleti would throw at us. But here’s the thing, and I am clearly saying this in hindsight, but the team set up and performance of those players to a man was absolutely spot on. Arteta had named an unchanged team, which was a surprise, but it was absolutely the right call. Ben White was good, I thought Calafiori played well, the inclusion of MLS was a surprise master stroke and I thought his performance was really great, too. He strikes me as a kid who is so unfazed by this kind of occasion (in fact, given how he was interacting with the crowd, I’d wager he might be one of those ‘big game’ players), which was perfect on a night like this, and alongside Declan Rice they absolutely bossed that midfield. It was a quieter one for Eze, but today is not a time for picking holes, so let’s move on and talk about Big Vik, who followed up his good display against Fulham with another impressive outing. He had his defender pinned all night and never stopped running. He emptied the tank out there and the home fans recognised this and showed their appreciation. He was also unlucky not to score after a great cross from Hincapie. It would have been a goal that his performance merited and although he won’t get the numbers on any official charts or tallies today, there won’t be many Arsenal fans who aren’t saying very positive things about the Swede this morning.

I think Amanda and James are going to do a post-match pod this evening (I’ll be at work) so look out for that one later. But for now, have a great day Gooners, and enjoy this one.

Catch you all tomorrow.

But here we are this morning, on the eve of a Champions League semi final, and our Premier League fate is back in our hands.

I always liked David Moyes.

Those mini celebrations for that draw last night have now been superseded by the small matter of Atletico Madrid at The Emirates at 8pm this evening.

Mikel Arteta had his press conference last night and he gave us the further good news that both Kai Havertz and Martin Ødegaard are with the squad this evening, which is also a massive boost. We’re still missing Timber, but I think we’re all getting used to that, so there’s a decision to be made in a few positions tonight.

I do think he will rotate a little bit from the weekend. Simeone basically gave his whole team the weekend off by playing a completely rotated side, so they will be back and fresh and we need to be ready for that. Arteta will shuffle his pack a little too, so my gut feel on the starting XI for this one is:

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Hincapie

Zubimendi

Eze – Rice

Saka – Gyokeres – Martinelli

I personally wouldn’t be starting Martinelli, but I think Arteta will lean in to the ‘vibes’ of how the Brazilian likes this competition, so I think that’s what Mikel will plump for. I also think he’ll be wary of White having played a lot of football and got a fair few minutes in on Saturday against Fulham, so I think the Spaniard gets the nod. It’s the same with Calafiori; we can’t be having him break down by playing back-to-back games in such a short period of time, so I think the Ecuadorian comes in to stabilise and battle whoever plays right wing for Atleti tonight.

I think Kai has a role to play tonight, but not from the start, so there will be a job-share with Gyokeres this evening I’ll bet. That situation will also be mirrored for Eze and Odegaard too, I suspect, although Arteta will need to be mindful of Saka’s minutes. He got 45 against Fulham and at halftime we had the luxury of being able to bring him off. I suspect tonight the manager will be looking at an hour for our Starboy, so there will need to be some minutes for Madueke too.

But the good news is that we have options all over the pitch. If the team I’ve selected above does indeed start, we’ve got White, Calafiori, Odegaard, Trossard, Lewis-Skelly, Havertz, Madueke – all able to come on and impact the game. That’s a luxury Arteta hasn’t been able to call on too much this season, but I’m glad he’s able to do it in one of our biggest match ups.

The prize is there for all to see. It’s a Champions League final in Budapest. It’s the psychological boost of knowing that’s in your back pocket as you try to then win your first Premier League in 22 years.

The atmosphere tonight should be rocking. The home fans, buoyed by the weekend win and City also dropping points, will be well up for this. We’ll get the usual histrionics from the likes of Simeone, but after the outrageous performance of the Atleti manager in re-refereeing the game, I think the home fans are going to bring the noise and howl for absolutely everything this evening. Every foul. Every tackle. Every decision against Arsenal. Everything needs to be treated as an injustice and should be met with howls of derision. I know I will be where I stand.

From a tactical perspective, it feels like we probably need to start fast again like we did in Madrid last week. Simeone made reference to the fact that they speculated that Arsenal would tire in the second half, and inevitably they would get chances. They will get opportunities – with players like Alvarez, Griezmann and Lookman, there’s no way they wouldn’t – but we have to assert an early control on the game. That has often manifested itself this season as Arsenal slowing the game down and keeping it at the back. I don’t think we can afford to do that this time. We need to move the ball quicker, with poise, and get the ballers in our team on it. Feed Eze in between the lines, get the ball to Saka quickly to isolate his man, then look to the channels for the early runs of Gyokeres. That’s how we overcome a formidable opponent in the shape of Atletico Madrid.

They might try to replicate their three man defence and pushing their fullbacks high, but I’d be surprised if they do that from the off, because it will leave a fair bit of space. In the first leg they were one down at halftime, on their own patch, and needed to chase the game. Tonight they can probably afford for the game to start off a little more cagey. The more the sting is taken out of this match, the more it suits the away team, and the more the crowd might start to get nervous and antsy.

I’m making my way back from Portugal this morning, so will be spending the early part of the day on a flight with nothing more to do than worry about what’s going to go down tonight.

I hope it’s an Arsenal win. That would be massive.

Catch you tomorrow for some post match thoughts on how it all played out.

I’m in Portugal and, to try to completely forget about the stress of football, I asked the parents and The Management if we could go out and have a lovely lunchtime meal in Tavira, where my parents’ place is. They obliged. Two bottles of white and a couple of large Super Bocks later, and I’m heading back to their house to watch what was to transpire in N5 yesterday evening. The stress was such that the need for alcohol to dumb the senses went too strong, and I ended up drinking well into the night. Before the game, it was nerves, during the game it was nerves, after the game, it was drinking in celebration.

Because Arsenal were superb yesterday. This was easily the best performance of 2026 so far I think, and I include the win at the Toilet Bowl against The Scum, because they are terrible. Fulham are not. Marco Silva is an astute tactician, and I don’t think there would have been many Arsenal fans putting their pennies at the bookies on a 3-0 victory before the game yesterday. But here we are, the day after, and we get to talk about an Arsenal performance that will have every Arsenal fan merrily skipping their way through today as they go about their business.

Arteta rang some changes, as we expected, but I think the inclusion of Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield was not one that any of us thought we’d see. The absence of Odegaard clearly meant that Arteta needed somebody who had the technical ability to keep the ball, so he turned to Myles, and boy did our young Hale Ender deliver. I thought he was superb yesterday. He was able to wriggle his way through the Fulham midfield; he rotated with Rice superbly, he was controlled and calm in possession, and he fully deserved the big hug he got from his manager at the final whistle. We’re at a crunch point in the season, and at these times, sometimes you get performances from players you didn’t expect, and this was certainly one of those from MLS, for which I think we’re all very grateful.

But it wasn’t just Myles who stepped up against a Fulham side who had an outside chance of qualifying for Europe. Many players stepped up, I thought. As I talked about with James on the Same Old Arsenal pod this morning, Trossard was really good yesterday, getting an assist for the third goal and as James reminded me, he could have had more if Gyokeres had’ve scored when in on goal when Leno saved his effort. Calafiori was back and unlucky not to score to make it 2-0, and Rice was his usual imperious self. But the two goal scorers will take most of the headlines at the top end of the pitch today.

At the beginning of the season, I always said that if Gyokeres gets 20 goals in all competitions, then he’s done his job. For £55million you aren’t going to get a Thierry Henry regen these days. It just doesn’t happen. So for that kind of money, you need a guy who will put the ball in the back of the net against a mid-table team, which is something we just didn’t do enough of last season, so his goal that set us on our way was exactly what the doctor ordered. It was a fine ball in from Saka, and what you want from your striker is to get in front of his man and into those spaces. The pass from Saka did all the heavy-lifting, but Gyokeres was there to profit, and boy, weren’t we all glad.

When the two combined for the second goal, I did sense this would be a good afternoon, so to have Gyokeres be the one assisting Saka felt right to me. There’s been a bit of talk about how these two players don’t seem to pass enough to each other, maybe that Saka doesn’t trust Gyokeres, but yesterday it felt like their combination together was enough to dispel any such rumours. Saka’s finish felt very ‘on brand’ for the forward. He’s a guy who sometimes makes the very difficult look so easy. When Gyokeres reversed-passed the ball into him, he still had plenty to do, but his finish to Leno’s near post was cool, calm and collected. And needed.

And although Saka wasn’t involved in the third goal – from Leo to Big Vik for the header – there was something in the commentary that Alan Smith said that has stayed with me: “he’s had such better service today”. Both Trossard and Saka put chances on a plate for the Swede, and he reacted exactly as you want your centre forward to – with goals. That’s 21 goals this season, with a few games still to play, and if he gets himself to 25 goals, you have to say this has been an excellent season. There are times in which he looks a little rough around the edges, his control sometimes lets him down, but when he’s put in the penalty box with opportunities to score, he does it. Last season, we missed that and our title challenge never really materialised. This season, we’re going to take it to the wire, and ultimately, you have to say that Gyokeres has done his part.

Three goals in the first half meant Arteta could rotate out some key players, which will have been music to his ears to see those players all doing the business early, so we could bring the likes of Saka and Rice off to preserve their legs for Tuesday night. On a weekend in which Diego Simeone has basically given his players the time off, Arsenal couldn’t afford that, but the fact they could afford to bring guys off with 30 minutes still to play is huge. And I think we’re all relieved ahead of Tuesday’s semi-final.

There’s still more work to do. We all know this. But waking up this Sunday morning to a comprehensive Arsenal win feels good. Real good.

I’ll be back tomorrow as we start to look ahead to another big one in just 48 hours.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, boys and girls.

I read comments like “Fulham have never won at The Emirates,” and that only makes it worse. Because you just know there is a first time for everything. And unlike our situation at City, in which we basically NEVER win up there, today could very easily end up with Arsenal dropping points and opening the door to City having a clear path to the Premier League title.

Arsenal, Arteta, and all of those Arsenal players simply MUST be ready for today. Fulham have had a week off, we have been in Madrid on Wednesday, then have a huge game on Tuesday night, but if one single eye is on that midweek match-up against Atleti, you worry that it will be enough for Fulham to get something from today.

They are not in what I call “Charlton territory,” unfortunately. Back in the 90s, I think there were about four or five seasons in which Charlton, under Alan Curbishley, would get to a set number of points, then the foot would come off the gas, and they’d coast their way to the end of the season, losing pretty much most of the games they played. That is not the case this season for a side that sits in 10th with four games to go. The concertina’d nature of this division means that Fulham very much have everything to play for and, having beaten Villa last weekend to give them a sniff of Europe, they have a little bit of confidence going into this game. They will be up for it. They will be looking for a scalp.

And as I talked about yesterday in the blog, Marco Silva will be looking to use every tactical and emotional advantage he can get his hands on. He’s said as much in his pre-match preview, alluding to the potential worry of the home crowd and how he will be hoping they can draw on that tonight. I think that means his approach today is about keeping things tight for the first 45. He’s done this in other games, but Silva is not against a tight back five with his central midfielders tucking in to a lower block, then relying on diagonal directness to spring forward. His ‘utopia’ football game today is Arsenal dominating possession and territory, which creates space as we look to penetrate a stubborn back line, for his players to spring traps when the ball turns over.

My hope is that Arteta has an idea for that. My hope is also that this idea finally involves dropping the Madueke-Gyokeres-Martinelli approach. Don’t do it, Mikel. You need technical security on the ball in attack. This ain’t gonna be no ‘green grass and space’ game. This will be tight, cagey, and will require ballers who work in small spaces.

So for me, my ‘hoping for’ lineup is:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Rice

Odegaard   –   Eze

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

That team has an attacking line-up of players who are all good with the ball at their feet. They are not runners in behind; they are more suited to quick interplay. I’ve gone with Ben White, despite the fact he played in midweek, because I look at that right-hand side with Saka back in (I think given he’s now been in training over a week, played a part against Newcastle, as well as Atletico Madrid, he should be able to do a solid 60 minutes) and I am hoping for a “We’re getting the band back together” automatism or two between White, Saka and Odegaard. White overlaps to create space for Bukayo, with Martin gravitating towards him.

I’ve suggested Rice as the six because he was really good there in midweek, so why not lean in to it more, whilst allowing Eze to float into those left-hand spaces, where Trossard and Gyokeres overlap? You have yourself a right-hand side ‘pod’ that is familiar, but how about stocking a left-hand side one too?

And then, for good measure, get Calafiori in there to cause a little bit of chaos in those pockets on the left-hand side? Yes, please, ma’am.

I also think that lineup helps Gyokeres. He can’t trap the ball. He won’t be able to run in behind of a deep-lying defence. But if he’s got players who have the eye for a pass and the ability to thread the needle with their distribution, maybe he can find pockets to get some shots off. The alternative would be Gabriel Jesus, which would be interesting, but we just don’t get enough from him these days for me to think he’s anything other than a 20-minute cameo player.

Do I think Arteta will go for that? Possibly not really. You could potentially see Mosquera instead of White, as Arteta looks to split the minutes between some of his fatigued players, plus he’s played Zubimendi basically every time he’s fit. So my gut tells me that he’s going to play the Spaniard once more. I also wonder whether Trossard is on the naughty step and Eze might play again on the left-hand side. I think it’s more likely that Eze starts and Odegaard is rested, given he started in midweek and Arteta will want to be careful with his captain’s minutes. So the likelihood of me getting my wish today is probably slim.

But it would make for an exciting opportunity to see if we can recapture some more technical control, ball dominance and chance creation, plus trying something a little different, wouldn’t it? And given some of the performances we’ve had at home, maybe leaning into something different could just be the ‘unlock’ that sees Arsenal ‘click’ at the perfect moment in the season.

G’wan Mikel, give it a go. I dares ya.

Let’s see. I’m in Portugal today visiting the parental units, so it’ll be a watching brief from the sofa for me this evening. I just hope I’m smiling by the end of today.

Back tomorrow with a blog and pod first thing. Let’s hope it’s a happy one.

Until then.

I don’t really feel massively nervous about tonight.

It almost feels like a League Cup game.

I suspect it is because I’ve been battered and bruised by the Premier League campaign that the Premier League is the ‘one I want’ the most, coupled with the fact that our beloved football club has an absolutely shocking European pedigree, given how long we’ve been competing for European honours. The years of Arsene Wenger and the ‘get top four for Champions League and the revenues that accompany it’ have conditioned my brain to think like an accountant with this competition. It is not one to be won by The Arsenal, but merely to get as far as possible, so the bank balance and potential funding of superstars can be enhanced for the following season.

That is utterly mental. The Champions League is, arguably, for some, the biggest prize in football. It is evidence that your club has overcome all of Europe to be at the top of the tree. It has massive revenue gains for winning it, of course, but the kudos far outweigh it for so many.

And we’ve only ever been to the final once in my lifetime.

This should be a competition I revere. A competition I want more than anything. I’ve seen us win the Premier League multiple times. The Champions League is one we have never really ever had a sniff at. The final in 2006 may have seen us go a goal up, but we were already backs-to-the-wall and likely to fall short, given the opponent, but also the sending off of Jens in that first half. This Arsenal team – by getting to the semi-final two seasons in a row – has shown that they have the consistency to be one of the best in Europe. We are here because we won every game in the group stages. This isn’t a ‘plucky’ Wenger side who had some amazing results, but were never really going into games with massive expectations of victory.

But this Arsenal side has the capability.

Standing in front of us, however, is an Atletico Madrid side who want to come out swinging like a heavyweight boxer tonight. This is an Atleti team who will not dance around the ring with us; they aren’t going to spar and trade tactical jabs looking to ‘unlock’ us, like Simeone teams of old. They are coming to us tonight to land a knockout blow in the first round, and Arteta and the Arsenal players need to be ready for that.

Atleti will start with Alvaraz and Griezmann, who will rotate a lot and cause us problems with the pockets of space they take, but I wonder if Lookman is also free? He’s apparently been a bit of a revelation since signing for them and if he’s missing then that sounds like a big positive for us. They are also missing Pablo Barrios, who is a good player in the middle of that team, but other than that they’ve been coasting in La Liga; they’re pretty much secured for top four and it means they can put all eyes on this competition.

That makes them even more dangerous, because we’ve had to go from game-to-game with massive emotional effort in our matches; we are still fighting on the domestic front and there has been plenty of comments in the press about how we look ‘fatigued’. It’s easy to see why when key players like Rice and Zubimendi have played so many games, whilst other players like Calafiori and Timber have struggled for fitness.

The team news on that front is a little bit more positive, but not completely, because Timber was once again confirmed to be out. And at this stage, I’m wondering whether or not we’ll see him again this season. every week goes by and we keep getting a ‘not ready’ and now we’re at the six week stage in which he hasn’t played. Even if he’s fit for Fulham, he’s not going to be able to play much part in it, if he hasn’t trained much for over a month.

Calafiori is back, and I wonder if today is the game for him or not, given how Atleti will play. On the one hand, he will pop up in spaces that will make the Atleti players think, but on the other, given their cleare propensity to attack this evening, it leaves a defender out of position at times tonight. That could play into their hands.

That’s why I’d be thinking about Calafiori as an impact sub this evening, with a view to him being deployed from the start against Fulham on Saturday. On the other side, I’d go with Mosquera. Back in his home country, he’ll be keen to impress, and with Ben White playing a lot of football at the moment, I do worry that we’re going to get close to the point in which he breaks down again.

That back four (Saliba and big Gabi are implied) plus Raya makes up a hard-working, strong-in-the-tackle, not massively expansive, but defensively sturdy, back line. And I think that’s the right call for this match. Keep it tight, try to deny space, avoid any kind of slugfest like we saw last night. Because it is a game we would stand no chance in.

The midfield I think, is fairly obvious in two of the three, but I think Arteta might go with Eze instead of Odegaard. Martin played the full 90 against Newcastle, and he faded in the second half, so to me, this feels like a job-share situation between Eze and the captain.

Which means the left and right wings need to be reviewed too, because if Odegaard isn’t starting and Eze is positioned centrally, then there will definitely be a change from Saturday. I’d go for full change, personally, with Saka and Trossard on from the start. If Saka was a ‘maybe’ for the City game, I think Arteta and his coaching staff had him earmarked for a few minutes against Newcastle, with this game as the return date. And with him and Trossard either side of Gyokeres, it feels like we have more ballers around the Swede, than runners. Martinelli and Madueke are – as we all know by now – the wrong foil for our number 14. Hopefully Saka and Trossard can start and show that he can be useful in a game like this.

Nothing gets decided tonight, unless Arsenal fall apart, which hopefully isn’t going to happen. Let’s cross our fingers that we also see some green shoots of a good performance too. It would be timely given the remaining games this season and the importance of each one.

Back tomorrow with a post-match review. Catch you then.

@SamiMokbel_BBC has confirmed the below.

For clarity, City’s objective is to manipulate the fixtures and avoid playing Bournemouth on a few days rest when Bournemouth have 10+ days rest… just like Arsenal had to do the other week.

It would hurt Palace’s possible final
prep too https://t.co/qZZpHDsiHG pic.twitter.com/u79BFpYoek

— Magic hat (@themagic_tophat) April 28, 2026

I don’t think I want to spend too much time on this, but it does feel as though there should be little room for manoeuvre here. Arsenal had to suffer playing a very good Bournemouth team after they were not in the FA Cup, and we had both FA Cup and the Champions League games in between our Premier League matches. If City are playing a fresher Bournemouth too, then so be it. You can’t rearrange things just because of the hope from the TV companies (because you can bet your bottom dollar that Sky will want this re-arrangement, to take it to the last day of the season) that they get more drama on that last week.

They’re gonna get it anyway! Have you seen how nervy we look when playing!

Those nerves were heightened somewhat at the weekend, when we thought that we’d be losing both Eze and Havertz for a period of time, right when they were just coming back for us and able to play significant minutes. Thankfully, Eze dispelled that almost immediately by doing his media duties and being seen on the pitch afterwards on Saturday. Phew. One sigh of relief down.

Then we got a ‘sort of’ sigh of relief yesterday evening, as news emerged from the likes of The Athletic that Kai’s injury is not as bad as feared, which again is good stuff. Depending on what you read, there are variations on when he could potentially be back. I suspect we’ll get it confirmed from Arteta this evening that he’ll play no part tonight. I saw one report suggesting that Arsenal think he might be able to play some part in all of our remaining Premier League games. If that’s true, then happy days, because that means he’d at least be fit for the Fulham home game this coming weekend.

I suspect that might be a little more hope than reality, though.

What he brings is without question. We talked about it on Sunday, and Scarlet spoke the truth when she said that we looked very different after Kai came off. That’s very true indeed. I had a look at some of the stats up until the 34th minute, when he limped off, and we had:

• Better possession (just) – edging it 51% to 49% (we finished the game on
• More through balls (four to one)
• Level on shots (they ended up out-shooting us by the end of the game)

But the way we played just looked more fluid to the eye. Kai links players all around him, where Gyokeres seems to be a lot more isolated. A lot of that, I think, is that his technical quality is so low that the players don’t want to lose the ball, but rather than turn this into a Gyokeres-bashing piece, I want to lean in more into what Kai brings us.

We were much better against City. It ‘felt’ better against Newcastle until he came off. I also think the Everton game we played well, although Big Vik did his bit by coming on later in the game and making an impact. The prospect of not having Kai for anything longer than Fulham next weekend was very real, so having him potentially available thereafter is massive.

The next worry we have about this week is the volume of games within a week. Jamie Carragher pointed it out on Monday Night Football last night, but we play Wednesday-Saturday-Tuesday, at a point in the season in which we still have players not fully fit and back to form. It’s going to be quite some gruelling week, and when I look at tomorrow night’s game against Atletico Madrid, I can’t help but think it just needs to be one of those “just get through it” games. Get through it, try to keep it tight, then see how much you can rest up before playing a Fulham side who have had a week off, plus will be coming off the back of a morale-boosting 1-0 victory over Villa last weekend.

I didn’t watch the game Fulham played, but I’ve looked at the numbers, and it looks like a classic one in which one team (Villa) had all of the possession, but Fulham created more chances and ultimately like us had that one moment of magic. Before that win, they had just one win in six games, so their form was patchy, but as we know, so was Newcastle’s, and yet they made us look very leggy indeed at times on Saturday.

I don’t know how we overcome that, to be honest, because Arteta has very much just patched up players and sent them out of late. I doubt Saka can do many 90-minute games, and given he was only given around 20 minutes on Saturday, surely he can’t start in Madrid?

Odegaard and Eze will also need to be managed carefully, so despite our big squad, it’s all feeling a little paper-thin in certain positions right now.

We’ll know more later on who is likely to start, and wouldn’t it just be nice to get some positive news about Jurrien Timber, eh? Let’s see what the boss says later.

Otherwise, I’ll be back for a match preview tomorrow, so I’ll catch you then.

And at this stage in the season, when we’re all looking at how neck-and-neck this is, we’re looking at teams like Newcastle and saying things pre-match like “out of form, lost their last four matches, few players out injured, plus ours have had a week off – we should be having a go at them today.

But on what basis, and by what evidence, did we think that would be the case yesterday? It was always going to be a tough one, a grind, separated only by that moment of magic as Eze swept the ball home in 10 minutes. The timing of goals often impacts games, and I remember turning around to those around me in block five and saying things like “no, we need to go on and make this a big win”. But the stage of the season we are at, the fragile nature of some of the psychology, I believe, is in this Arsenal team, meant that this was always going to end up being a nervy one. These sorts of games always happen when you don’t get that second.

I hear there were some comments from Sky saying that the Arsenal fans were nervous, edgy, and that was impacting the atmosphere. Nope. Sorry, not for me, because what I saw and heard was a collective of Arsenal fans who were loud and vociferous and were behind the team from the first minute. Of course, when you get down to the last 10 minutes of a game, and there’s still only one goal in it, there will be some tension. That is natural. But this wasn’t a day in which the crowd supposedly played their part in Arsenal dropping off.

I think the drop off in performance in that second half had something to do with the fact that we had to once again endure Madueke, Martinelli, and Gyokeres as an attacking trio. And as we all know, we’ve all talked about, we’ve all listened to various Arsenal fan-focused media, and heard that trio doesn’t work. There are too many runners, not enough ballers, evidenced at the end too, when Gyokeres had the simplest of passes square to set Saka in on goal, to which he couldn’t even execute. The Sweded is somebody who is essentially a bit useless unless he’s able to get a shot off or is in the right space inside the penalty box. I tell you now, if that was Havertz in that position, or maybe even Gabriel Jesus, they’d have found Saka in on goal, and we’d be talking about a late goal to prop up the performance.

To give him some props, however, I thought Gyokeres did ok when he came on. He hassled, he harried, he chased, and he held the ball up well. He was fine. He didn’t get into the kind of positions you want your centre-forward to get into, but there was one moment where he’d peeled away on the left-hand side, and instead of slotting him in, Odegaard just squared the ball backwards to Zubimendi, who tried a little flick/dink that didn’t come off. Odegaard should have gone to the Swede the first time, but I think some of those Arsenal players just can’t work out where to get him the ball, probably because, unless it’s in the centre by the penalty spot, they know he can’t trap it.

But, like I say, he wasn’t too bad, unlike Madueke and Martinelli, who I thought both had poor games overall. But that’s par for the course this season. Madueke did show a little more to his opposing fullback Dan Burn in the first half, but I thought once he got him on a yellow, he should have had more of a run at him. He didn’t, and when Saka’s number came up to come on, I think we all couldn’t be happier. And he almost instantly made an impact, forcing a deflected shot out for a corner. He’s clearly not fit enough to start, but hopefully he gets more minutes in midweek against Atletico, then we can look to start him against Fulham for the home game next Saturday evening.

And hopefully both Kai and Eze are fine too. Both came off, Eze seemed to be ok afterwards and said it was just precautionary, but I’d be wondering whether or not he’s at risk in midweek now. Arteta gave his usual “we will have to see” commentary, but he didn’t seem too worried about either player. Kai would be the one I’d have more concerns with. I think a lot of us probably suspected that it might be Kai starting yesterday, with maybe Gyokeres in midweek against Atletico. I think you certainly have to think about that now.

One other player that Arteta is going to have to think about in midweek is Martin Odegaard, as well, because I thought he faded in the second half. In the first half I thought he looked lively, I was pleased to see him getting on the ball and dictating play, but he was hardly mentioned amongst the gents in Block Five in that second half, which I think speaks to how he was probably feeling the fatigue of only just returning. He played the full 90. Can he go again in midweek? If we’re not going to risk Eze, he might not have a choice.

It’s similar to Zubimendi too, who came off on 81 minutes and who I read had been sick at halftime. If that’s a bug, then you wonder why he didn’t play, but it was interesting to see that Myles came on for him, although I suspect it is only because Norgaard hadn’t made the match-day squad.

And so we saw out what was a really nervy 1-0 victory. If we do four of those in the Premier League between now and the end of the season, we will all have aged quite significantly, I suspect, but for now it is good enough, and we move on to a big game in Madrid on Wednesday night.

I’ll be back tomorrow as we start to look ahead to that semi-final.

Quick P.S. on the Pope non-sending off. I know Arteta was insistent on it being a red card, but I’m not so sure. I think it probably is a little closer to a red than a yellow, but I can’t be saying that I 100% agree hand on heart – hence not really going in to much detail on it for today’s blog.

This could be the biggest game for Arsenal football club in over two decades.

In 2022/23, we had to go to the City and win. That was an Arsenal team that was a surprise challenger, who were up against a City team in their peak, that ended up winning a treble. Arsenal had lost William Saliba a few weeks earlier and had to go with Rob Holding at the back. It was always an outside bet.

Today, the situation is different. As usual, Arsenal have a load of injury questions to consider, but rather than “have to win”, this game still leaves things in the balance, regardless of the result.

But a result that sees Arsenal anything but it means that we are in the driving seat to win our first title in 22 years. Just typing that has me shaking with nerves this morning.

The problem we have is that rather than going into this game with swagger and confidence, we go into it having lost three of our last four games, with one of those being against 115 Charges FC at Wembley in a cup final. The momentum is with the financially doped football club, and Arsenal’s is patchy, to be generous.

My normal approach to talking about these matches pre-game is to do a bit of a data look at the situation, but that feels a little futile right now; we know that these games always throw up tactical nuances that change throughout the match. We know that Guardiola and Arteta are masters of tactical adaptability, so looking at the data for patterns of play, to my untrained eyes, feels a little spurious. So instead, today is more of a ‘feelings’ and ‘vibes’ blog, with some thoughts on which Arsenal players I want to see in the starting line-up today.

HandOfArsenal posted last night that Odegaard was with the travelling Arsenal squad, but a decision will be made tomorrow morning if he makes the match-day line-up. I doubt he will from the start, but if he can do 20-30 minutes, then that would be a huge welcome boost. He adds a layer of technical security on the ball, and with Saka already ruled out, it feels like every body we can get into that squad who can keep the ball and give us more security, is vital.

And with that in mind, if I’m picking a starting XI I am hoping will play today that has the right level of technical quality on and off the ball, here’s what I am going for:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Rice

Gabriel Jesus   –   Havertz   –   Trossard

Gabriel Jesus is the weirdest one out of that lot, but he is good on the ball, he has a massive incentive to up his game on a former home ground, he will chase, harry and defend as well as getting forward, plus he looked alright for his Sporting cameo in midweek. I think it is too much to ask Dowman to start. Madueke has been poor in his last couple of games, as has Martinelli, so throwing a little bit of a curveball could be something that surprises City. And if it doesn’t work, if he’s terrible, then you can decide to get Dowman, or Madueke, or even Martinelli, on the pitch at some stage.

If Odegaard is available, that’s where this is also interesting, because suddenly, for that second half, we have options. If we need to Hincapie can sure us up at the back, I doubt Timber (I’ve made a wild hoping gesture that he’s fit today) could do the full 90, so I’d have Mosquera ready, you have Odegaard in midfield, Martineli/Madueke/Dowman as your wide attacking options, plus, if you really need to go for it, you give Gyokeres 20 minutes and tell him to get into those box spaces and being ready. In theory, we could have a very strong bench.

But that’s not the problem today. The problem is Arsenal needing to stay mentally on it and up for it, because I don’t want to have to think about the fallout if we take a pasting today. And that could happen. We are TERRIBLE at that stadium:

• No win in 11 years
• Seven defeats in 10 games.
• 25 goals conceded.
• Eight goals scored.
• Five goals conceded in five of those games in the first 25 minutes.

We just don’t have any kind of historical backing behind us in this fixture since the oil money came in. That 2-0 win, in which Cazorla starred, is the lone island of green amongst a sea of red, dating back to 2010, since City received their ill-got gains. If you go back to 2010 for the numbers, it reads two wins in 25 years, with nine defeats and four draws, and it is a rather depressing tale of an Arsenal side that has never really been able to consistently deliver blows against the best team of the last decade.

Which is why I’m not super confident about today. How can I be? I have hope. I am praying that Arsenal show up. But form, history, injuries and the situation dictate that today, unfortunately, I fear the worst. I am hoping to see something different, I really am, but there’s a reason most people are predicting a City win, and it’s not just because so much of the footballing world seems to have a vendetta against The Arsenal. It’s because City are good. Very good at attack. Cherki, Doku, Haaland, Semenyo, Savinho, Foden, Marmoush, and Rejinders – all have goals in them. And we’ve struggled for that of late. I hope that we have more space than usual and that some of our out-of-form attackers realise who they are, but I am worried about how this game might unfold, especially if they score their customary early goal against us.

We need every player, to a man, for Arsenal to be 100% on their game today. We simply cannot afford any lapses in concentration on passing or a lack of tracking runners. It will result in disaster if we have even two or three passengers today. That’s why I am hoping Arteta goes with the full complement of technically gifted footballers. We can’t be having any eight-touch Gyokeres games, or 10-touch hugging the touchline Martinelli games. Nope, we need guys stepping up, showing for the ball, finding space, delivering in the right moments.

I’m absolutely sh*tting myself today. So I’m going to fill my morning and right up until kick off with jobs and other things, in an attempt to take my mind off of what is unfolding later.

Amanda, James and I will hopefully be doing a post-match reaction to the result on the Same Old Arsenal pod after kick off, so join us there at some stage – we’re still working out exact times.

Today the managers will give their press conferences. A week ago, Arteta tried the rousing speech to get the home fans to bring the noise. In midweek, he talked about ‘fire’. I have a feeling today he will lean in to the ‘enjoy the ride’ narrative. He can’t get the home fans on side as this is obviously an away one, so it has to be a message to his players via a public medium, so I think that message is going to be “look at what you have achieved so far, embrace the challenge, show everyone what you are capable of”.

And let’s be honest, everyone is basically calling this a City win. I don’t blame them. They have the momentum. They have the recent results. They have the home advantage. They have the attacking talent. Conversely, our form has been poor, our performances have been patchy, and we are away from home. I had a look at what the pundits are saying, and it is no surprise that they are all basically backing City to win this. Chris Sutton says 1-0 City on BBC Sport, Merse goes for a 1-0 City, Shearer says a City win, Paul Scholes (unsurprisingly) thinks City will win ‘easily’, DAZN have said 3-1 to City Sports Mole goes for a 41% chance City do it, 34% chance we do it, 24% chance it is a draw. The only person who seems to think we could get something is Gary Neville and Lewis Jones on Sky Sports, who say they are thinking it’ll be a 1-1 draw.

That would be a dream scenario, let’s be honest, because the way I feel right now, even I’m struggling to make a case for us getting a point, let alone a win. We’ve scored three goals in our last five football matches for crying out loud.

I think we’re all just praying that some sort of good news on returning players is found out. I say “found out” rather than announced, because we all know Arteta will give us nothing, so we’ll be reliant on HandOfArsenal dropping some kind of news that certain players are back in training and have made the match-day squad for the weekend. Otherwise, we’re looking at probably Ben White against Doku and, like the cup final, that worries me.

What I am trying to find solace in is some of those interviews of the players, like Decaln Rice, who has said he and his teammates are ready for the ‘ultimate test‘ this weekend. I have no doubt he is. That man has prove time-and-time again that he is made for this type of match-up. But unfortunately, this season, our attackers have proved they are not. Just look at this goal return from the forwards on this chart:

• Bukayo Saka = 6 (26 Premier League appearances)
• Trossard = 5 (27 Premier League appearances)
• Madueke = 2 (21 Premier League appearances)
• Gabriel Jesus = 2 (12 Premier League appearances)
• Gabriel Martinelli = 1 (26 Premier League appearances)

Saka gets a bit of a pass because he’s been injured, but that’s pretty crappy across the whole team, it has to be said. I really want to dig in on Martinelli for that, but looking at his time on the pitch, he’s basically been a sub for most of the season. He’s played 900 minutes in total in the Premier League, coming on as a sub in 16 of those 26 appearances. But when you think about what he gave us away at Southampton and at home to Bournemouth, you can see why. It’s just not good enough at this stage of the season.

And it’s these stats that are the reason I am so worried about the weekend. These games always feel like a ‘first goal wins’ and when your attackers aren’t delivering the goals, it already feels like you are playing with one hand tied behind your back. I’m probably going to talk more about that over the weekend, I think, because it does feel like the first goal wins it and, annoyingly, more often than not it is City. I also feel like they seem to get that first goal really early, too. In the game in September, we started better, looked better, but Haaland scored within 10 minutes, and we were left chasing the game the whole afternoon. We did score very early in the 5-1 last season, with Odegaard bagging in two minutes, but in the 2-2 draw in September last year, it was Haaland again in nine minutes that put us on the back foot. When you look at games at the Etihad, other than the 2-2 just mentioned and the 0-0 from the season before, the wins City have had have had first goals scored:

• 2022/23 = 7 minutes – De Bruyne
• 2021/22 = 7 minutes – Gundogan
• 2020/21 = 23 minutes – Sterling
• 2019/20 = 45 minutes – Sterling
• 2018/19 = 1 minute – Aguero

That’s an appalling record in terms of early goal concession, pointing to a historic issue with keeping the temperature of a game down. And, once again, we’re going into this one in which those normally quiet City fans will be in full voice. You look at those numbers, and it doesn’t exactly feel like history won’t be repeating itself, eh?

If I’m going to try to find some positivity today, it is that if we score at their ground first (it hasn’t happened since 2015, guys and gals) then perhaps it opens the game up, or alternatively if we keep them out in the first half they might start to commit more bodies forward and leave even more space in behind, then maybe we can get something. But as of right now, looking ahead to this one, without any idea of player availability, I’m just not sure.

I’m really sorry, guys, I feel like I’ve been a proper neg this week, which doesn’t exactly make for fun reading. But let me assure you, I love this club as much as you, I want only the best for them, and I will spend the entire game in a praying position on Sunday. I am hoping for the football gods to smile down on us, but I’m a bit like Paul Ashworth in Fever Pitch; I tend to look at the glass half empty when it comes to The Arsenal, because I feel like any time I get a little too positive, something rocks me. The last time was when Villa defeat when we were on that amazing run in 2024.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for today, then be back tomorrow when we can have a look at what the managers said. See you then.

I think my biggest issue is that I am worried that nothing will change in a short period of time. As I said to somebody in the comments from yesterday’s blog, I was convinced – clearly misplaced – that we would see the likes of Timber, Calafiori, Odegaard, etc. But none were in attendance, and the result was the dross we got served up. My worry now is that, ahead of the Sporting Lisbon game, we’re not going to get from Arteta any difference in terms of the ability to change the team around much. We should, hopefully, have an Eze who can at least start, given that he got minutes on Saturday. But to me, it feels like that is not enough.

Hincapie being on the bench on Saturday would, I hope, mean that he can start tomorrow night. He hasn’t been out that long, so the ability to return to a better level of match sharpness should be there. That is good. Myles showed that whilst he’s still a good, young player who we all love, he still switches off where perhaps the Ecuadorian doesn’t.

I think the other thing that has me really worried about this week is that with every day that passes with certain players out, getting them back to a ‘best version’ of themselves takes longer. Odegaard was out for a while, came back against Sporting, and got injured again, which means his ability to be back up to match fitness has been diminished. If he’d have come back to Sporting and got 60 minutes, then played at least 30 minutes against Bournemouth, then you could be looking at the Sporting game tomorrow as another 60 – 70 minutes, to which the City game would be one that you’d hope he’d have enough minutes under his belt to be a better version of himself. But by picking up that knock against Sporting, then missing the Bournemouth game and having to find our information from that bloody Norway manager, it feels like it is two steps forward, one step back with him.

It’s worse with Saka. When he wasn’t featured against Southampton, having reported for England duty, I was thinking “that’s absolutely fine – he’ll get the rest and be a better version of himself for some of these massive matches coming up”. But by missing Sporting away, then Bournemouth at the weekend, it is nearly a month since he last played. That means his ability to be the Saka that we all NEED on Sunday is further diminished. Do you believe that if he’s in the squad, he’ll be able to have the impact we would need? I don’t. Not having just returned from injury, anyway.

It’s the same with Timber. He trudged off on 39 minutes against Everton on 14th March – exactly one month ago. With a month out, do we really believe that he can be back to full fitness for Sunday? To line up against a Doku who has just run Gusto ragged at Stamford Bridge? I don’t. If he’s ok to be in training, then Arteta can’t risk him tonight. Maybe he can give him 20 minutes, but then throw him in for the biggest domestic game of the season? That would worry me, if I’m honest with you.

And that’s why I’m so down right now, because the way this has all unfolded just feels like there is some kind of domestic curse that is enveloping us at this time of the season. The injuries, like last season, have been constant. The form has been pretty poor, but the performances have been dire, and when grouped all together, it just makes you feel a little weary, you know?

I guess you could say that City had the same problem in March. They drew to Forest, they lost to Real Madrid twice, and then also drew away at West Ham. But then they had that League Cup win and have been looking in great form ever since. One could argue that the very same could happen to us, and maybe a win tomorrow night against Sporting could help to boost those players ahead of Sunday. But it just doesn’t feel like it right now. As I’ve already said on the socials and in the blog yesterday, our record at City is utterly grim, so I don’t really hold up much hope for us.

Do you know what’s mental? Tomorrow night we play a Champions League quarter-final, at home, with a one-goal advantage, and I’ve spent most of today’s blog talking and thinking about that City game at the weekend. This is a Champions League quarter-final. We’ve got to the semi-final three times in our history so far, so a win or draw tomorrow means it’s only be the fourth time. Ever. But that Premier League title is the one that I’ve always wanted the most, and to see it slipping away as it has is, frankly, destroying. It’s one that I am going to feel the saddest about and, and even if by some miracle we were to then get ourselves into a Champions League final and win it, I STILL don’t think that will stop the feeling of the Premier League slipping away, if indeed that does happen.

Arteta will have his press conference this evening, and if I’m honest, all I want to hear from him is that some players are back and available for the squad. Even if not ready to start, I just want good news on Timber, Calafiori, Odegaard, Eze, and Saka. If we get some of that, then maybe tomorrow’s match preview blog will be a little lighter and airier one from me.

Catch you all tomorrow.