1. I predicted the line-up spot on
2. Max Dowman

Perhaps you could also point to the impact Viktor Gyokeres made from the bench, following up his goals for Sweden with a smartly taken finish to draw us level in that second half at St Mary’s Stadium, but the rest of the evening was pretty disastrous, if we’re all honest with ourselves.

There were some proper stinkers of performances. I mean, some really bad ones, that could effectively crystallise in Arteta’s mind who he will rely more and more on for the remainder of this season. For example, Gabriel Jesus, who was utterly anonymous on a day in which I had held some faint hope that he would seize this moment to have his manager ask questions. But the only questions anyone should be asking of Jesus right now are:

How on earth are you STILL earning that much money?

He and Martinelli stunk the place out from an attacking point of view. It was one of those Martinelli performances for which those who advocate that he’s a super sub and that’s about it, are people you can hardly argue with, because he made it quite obvious that he doesn’t deserve a start against Sporting on Tuesday.

But weirdly, unacceptably, whilst the misfiring attack (Dowman aside) is something we have seen a fair bit of, of late, what we haven’t seen is a shaky defence. Mistimed passes (Mosquera’s horizontal one in the second half that led to a chance springs to mind), unforced errors (Myles Lewis-Skelly massively overhitting another horizontal pass to the full back on the other side), and mistimed headers (Gabriel, then Ben White for their first goal) were rife in yesterday’s performance. That is very out of character.

I’ve taken a few pelters for a message I put on social media at the time of their first goal, but I will stick by it again this morning, because Alan Shearer had said Southampton deserved to be ahead. The numbers told a different story. It was their second shot, and first on target, when they scored. We’d had 11 shots and their keeper had made good saves. We were the better team up until that point. The only difference was that they took their opportunity, and you have to say that’s what it is all about, so fair play to them.

Arsenal’s response was not what we had wanted, and Southampton troubled us with long balls that we didn’t deal with. I thought that we were sloppy, half-hearted in the duels, and that is something that Arteta will be infuriated with this morning. You have to give Southampton credit, because their game plan was pretty spot on; get ahead, then tuck in and see if we could break them down. Even after we equalised, they were content to play on the break and that worked for them. They deserve to go to Wembley. We do not.

And we are left to lick our wounds again. For the second match in a row. I’m torn between being really worried about this performance, coupled with the one against City, and recognising the specifics behind it. No doubt we were poor against City in the League Cup, but some of our absences forced us to do something that City were able to counter. Last night, because of some of the absences, we were again forced to do something different, because I don’t think Arteta wanted to risk this competition, as he had his eyes on Sporting Lisbon on Tuesday.

One thing for certain, there are a few players out there who will only be used if there is injury or extreme fatigue now, I think. Kepa, White, MLS, Norgaard, Martinelli, Jesus – all of those players will, I think, be spending a fair bit of time on the bench now. We have two games left to play this season, and I think Arteta will obviously ring the changes for Tuesday and Bournemouth at home in the Premier League.

And that needs to bring about a change in performance, too. We can’t have that many errors from an Arsenal team going for big trophies. Yesterday showed us that when you do make that volume of mistakes, you get punished. It is even more acute in the Champions League and Premier League. Arsenal need to change a few things.

The Gabriel injury is a worry, too. I am crossing everything this morning that it is a “if you feel anything, just come off” situation, and he was rubbing that knee that has caused him some problems. Arteta invariably said afterwards, “I don’t know” when asked about the severity of it. If Gabriel is out for the season now, all our faith goes into Mosquera. He wasn’t amazing yesterday, but he’s shown how good he can be. The only worry is that with Hincapie also potentially injured for a while, we’re getting to a point where we’re going to have to rely on those understudies. Yesterday, they showed plenty of flaws for players who hadn’t played much.

Either side of the international break I had thoughts about how these few weeks could define our season. We’re 0/2 on season-defining results now. That has to change.

I feel sad that we are out of this competition. But I am going to feel a lot sadder if we put in another performance like that against Sporting, then follow that up again against Bournemouth next weekend. If I heard that some of the absent players yesterday were rested and will be back to 100% by Tuesday I’d probably start to feel a little easier about this result, because the Premier League is everything and the Champions League is the second jewel that we want to try to snaffle. But at this stage, there are still a lot of question marks over who will be available. Let’s hope that tomorrow, when Arteta talks to the press, he can provide some crumbs of comfort.

I’m going to try to end on a more positive note. Max Dowman. Wowsers. I know we need to temper our superlatives and let the boy grow in to this team, but he once again showed he’s ready to make an impact. He can play in that wide right position. He is ready. Southampton look like a Premier League team in waiting and he was great against them. Like he’s been great in all of the performances he’s had this season. He showed somebody like Martinelli what you should be doing as a wide forward. I think he needs to be considered as a ‘next one up’ if Arteta wants to change things in attack now. What a talent we have. Let’s hope we use him to more effect for the remainder of the season – it could be our ‘ace in the hole’, as they say in cards.

Catch you all tomorrow as we try to forget yesterday’s mess, and look towards Sporting Lisbon.

What it means for us, as we suspected, is that the team news is sketchy at best. We know that Noni and Ebs are out, but we all pretty much knew that already, so that’s no surprise. The fact that Mikel confirmed that Madueke was ‘days’ is a boost, though; he’ll surely be available for Bournemouth, and that means our attacking pains are short-term in terms of options. Eze was a little sketchy on, and I just hope it is because he didn’t want to give too much away, and the player is not fit for the next week or so. The rumours have been Man City at best, which I think is what we have to hope for, but if it is Sporting at home, I think that takes us to around a month, which was the original prognosis, so we have to say that timeline played out as expected.

The other news in which there was definitely more clarity was Timber and Odegaard, which Arteta confirmed are ‘in contention’ to be in the squad today. That is the closest you’ll ever get to an Arteta press conference answer of ‘they’re fine’, so I hope we can see at least one of them tonight.

And that one is Martin Odegaard. Timber is somebody we need for Sporting and Bournemouth, and so giving White the minutes this evening, having made two appearances for England last week, helps to continue his return to form, so I think (and hope) that makes sense for Arteta to do so.

With that in mind, and having already stated some initial thoughts on social media yesterday on what lineup I think he might do, I think I’m flip-flopping a little on what the starting XI might be. I do think he’ll stick with Kepa (there was a bit of fun on naming his ‘keeper yesterday that I enjoyed from the manager), plus I think one of Gabriel or Saliba might play. My thinking on those two is predicated on the fact that Calafiori got 120 minutes for Italy in midweek, and Hincapie’s update from the manager was not good. All he gave us on the Ecuadorian was that it was a ‘serious’ one, and suddenly you start to think his season might be over. Hopefully not, but you hear things like that from the manager, and you wonder if we’ll see him again this season. And if that’s the case, we’ve once again had ourselves an international break in which a player comes back broken. It feels like every break for the last two years has been like that, going back to last season with Odegaard for Norway in the autumn internationals. And I find myself saying, once again, that international football can go f*ck itself.

With that update from Arteta in mind, I think he’ll give MLS a run out, and suddenly, you’re looking at a player who had found game time limited, to be a guy who may well suddenly get a lot more minutes this season. Calafiori can’t play two 90-minute games in a row, I don’t think, so that means you need to start looking at Myles as the de facto understudy again. Imagine if he finds himself playing regularly, as a late shout for England? Highly unlikely, I suspect, but still, he might well think that a door has opened up for him, and a game like today could be a perfect opportunity.

I think Arteta will surely give Norgaard a chance in the starting XI. The Dane can replace Zubi to give him extra time to recover for Sporting, but because Norgaard has been decent enough for us when he’s given the opportunity, this needs to be one that we get him in to continue his stable place in the team.

He will have a look at Odegaard for at least half, maybe 60 minutes, I would have thought. I also think that Gabriel Jesus will get the nod, given Big Vik played twice for Sweden and Kai still hasn’t completed 90 minutes for us. But the rest of the team will be, I think, up for grabs. So here’s my stab at a starting XI for tonight:

Kepa

White   –   Mosquera   –   Gabriel   –   MLS

Norgaard

Odegaard   –   Havertz

Dowman   –   Jesus   –   Martinelli

There are a few in there I’m not sure on, if I’m honest with you, especially in those attacking positions. Havertz and Odegaard together as attacking ‘eights’ could be a little too much of a gamble for a manager who is inherently more conservative in certain instances. Whilst Dowman on from the start, I think it is a big question mark too, given his age. I’d like to see it, and I don’t think many Arsenal fans would disagree with me. He’s exciting, he’s expressive, and he will have a go at a Southampton defence that, as I mentioned yesterday, has had challenges defensively this season. There may be space for him to operate, and I think that he could be a real ‘x-factor’ player with his dribbling ability if he’s given the space to do so by the Saints’ back line. Martinelli, on the other side, is one I’m not sure on either; Trossard is very likely to also be selected, given that Gabby Martinelli did a fair bit of travelling in midweek, getting back from Orlando on Thursday at some stage I’d imagine.

As I mentioned yesterday in the blog, I have the feeling that Southampton will come out and have a go at us tonight, because a) they have nothing to lose as the underdog, b) they still have plenty to play for at this stage of the season, and c) it’s a night game and their fans will have had a few beers and will be well up for it. We need to be ready for that, and Arteta will have told his players accordingly to treat this one like a Premier League game, I think. Next season, it could very well be one.

Amanda and I will be podding tomorrow, I think, so I will be back tomorrow with the blog and maybe some pod thoughts on what might transpire ahead. See you then.

So, given that I’ve watched very few Championship games this season, what’s in store for The Arsenal tomorrow night then, eh?

Well, it’s a side that I think I’ve already mentioned in recent days, which comes into this game in pretty good form. Unbeaten since January, have taken a scalp in the FA Cup, will be buoyed by their form, and will feel like this one tomorrow is a proper ‘free hit’. Their manager will not play it as I suspect, but i’m sure they are all feeling it.

A quick Google AI-search tells me that they are a possession-based side who will build from the back, and who have suffered a bit this season through silly goals, as a result of their build-up. That’s somewhat evidenced by their goals against tally; they are ninth in the Championship for goals conceded. Their xG against also puts them 14th in the table, so this is a side that has its defensive challenges. Where they make up for it is in goals scored, with only Coventry and Ipswich having scored more. Their xG puts them second in the table too; this isn’t a side who are going to low block us tomorrow.

And that gives me some comfort. On the Same Old Arsenal pod this season, I’ve said a few times that the Premier League has felt like it is a real grind. Teams come up against us and they play the deepest of low blocks, which has been shown in numerous graphs and charts that you and search for on social media. Put simply, Arsenal face the lowest of blocks compared to any other side. But the numbers suggest Southampton won’t do that. Perhaps more importantly, the numbers suggest they can’t do that. So let’s have a proper slugfest between two teams, eh?

Adam Armstrong was their main guy in the attacking equation, but he left for Wolves in the January transfer window, so they’ve been relying on Larin up top, who hasn’t proved to be too prolific. Instead, a lot of their recent goals have been coming from the three men behind them in a 4-2-3-1 formation, with Finn Azaz and Kuryu Matsuki getting on the scoresheet a few times in recent weeks. Again, a quick check on playing style for those guys tells me Azaz is their key playmaker, number ten who takes plenty of shots. He’s described as a ‘high-volume shooter’, so tomorrow evening I suspect he’ll be taking opportunities from outside of the box to make a name for himself. Matsuki is a high-energy box-to-boxer who is a relentless presser. I remember Wenger saying years ago that he was shocked at the relentless effort and running of the Japanese footballers, so it appears Matsuki is another one of those in that similar national mould.

So for Arteta today, as he preps his team, he will no doubt have a few dossiers on where they can do us damage, but from a very quick and dirty look from me today, it tells me that, providing we can control the space in front of our back four, we should/could be ok. Nothing is certain in football; that’s why we love the game so much, but even with what we expect to be a relatively heavily rotated squad, you have to be looking at our chances as being high.

That may well also depend on whether we can get our misfiring attack to work. Gabriel Jesus has failed to impress of late, and I think he must surely be in with a shout of starting, so if Southampton are a side that is going to press us and leave space, he will have room to work. He might need rapid wide-forwards around him, so it will be interesting to see what happens about who is available tomorrow. You’d have to think this could be a game for Gabriel Martinelli, but we’ll need to see if the manager thinks his fitness is ok. He scored against Croatia in stoppage time, but he only got on the pitch on 68 minutes, so hopefully that means he’s fine and is as refreshed and ready as possible.

I’ll leave the full review of who I think might play / who I want to play to tomorrow’s blog, because I think a lot will depend on how much information Arteta gives us. I’m not expecting him to give much, but even confirming players are definitely out would be even a little informative.

Have a great Friday boys and girls – catch you all tomorrow.

And double kudos for them this morning, after they beat Chelsea, for which we remind ourselves that in any walk of life, Chelsea are the bad guys/girls.

It is ALWAYS good when Chelsea and their fans are sad. Let us remind ourselves of this.

In the men’s game, they are also the side who have posted the biggest loss, as well as paying out the most on agent fees. If Todd Boehly were playing Moneyball, I think he didn’t get the purpose of Brad Pitt’s movie. Because that ain’t it, mate.

Why am I bothering to talk about them on an Arsenal blog? Well, partly, because I think it means something for their next Premier League game. Because they play Man City at home on the weekend that we have Bournemouth at home, and we really need Chelsea not to be sh*t. And Todd and his CFO need them not to be sh*t too, because if they miss out on Champions League money, posting up the biggest loss in Premier League history is going to be very problematic for them. As a reminder, going deep in the Champions League is worth three times more than the Europa League.

Chelsea are currently one point behind Liverpool in the Premier League, in sixth. I believe that the likelihood is that fifth place will be enough for a spot this season, so Chelsea needs to keep on Liverpool’s coat-tails. On Saturday, Liverpool are at home to Fulham, which I think most of us expect them to win, so if Chelsea don’t get something against City on Sunday, then with six matches to play, they might be four points off Liverpool, and qualification is looking bleak.

That is good for us. It means Chelsea will not be a side that is starting to check out next weekend. They simply cannot afford to: Literally. I know the players will not be thinking about the financial ramifications of non-qualification for Europe’s premier competition, but they will be aware of the club’s financial needs, as well as their own sporting desires.

So my hope is that, providing we can overcome Bournemouth (not an easy task), we can really ramp the pressure up.

But here I am, already looking at the Premier League when, in fact, we have a certain in-form Southampton team that stands between us and another trip to Wembley. And having looked at their form, they have every right to feel quite bullish going into this one. For one thing, it’s a sort of ‘free hit’ for them. They have an important game in midweek next week against Wrexham that could cement their place in the playoffs with six games to go for a win, so they can’t really afford not to be giving 100% in that one, especially as it is away. So I will be really interested to see what Tonda Eckert has to say about the game. Is he going to give hints of a bit of rotation that is needed as the season draws towards a climax? Or is he going to see this as an ideal opportunity for a very big scalp and a proving ground for why Southampton can qualify for Premier League admission and hold their own by playing their best team?

We’ll have to wait to see when he does his press conference tomorrow, but today I decided to have an early look at how their fans are feeling. Here are a couple of select quotes from one of their forum ahead of the game:

I’d rather lose in regulation time than win in over time. Our priority has to be returning to the Premier soccer ball league

And:

I want us to go strong for this, as surely we do have a chance, albeit a slim one. We arent some League One/Two team who are just here for a fun day out and play teams like this once every 100 years. We were in the same division as them (and have been most seasons) until last summer. Only 10 months ago we drew 0-0 at home to Man City and lost narrowly (1-2 to an 89th min Odegaard goal) to Arsenal themselves.

I think Southampton fans are realistic, but depending on how the news comes out about our players who withdrew from international football, that might turn their heads a little bit and give them a bit of a confidence boost. We won’t get anything from Arteta, but I bet there are some back-channel comments on social media from reliable sources like HandOfArsenal or the likes. So I suspect we’ll get something either Friday night or during the day on Saturday.

Whatever the situation, though, this squad has been built for games like this, so some of those players who have had less game time will need to be ready and prepped to deliver. I’m talking the likes of Lewis-Skelly, Mosquera, Norgaard, Gabriel Jesus, et al. They need to prove that the manager can call upon them, and with a week to prepare for this one (mentally, I mean – I know MLS, Mosquera, and Norgaard have been away with their respective national teams), knowing that they will probably start, I expect them to be ready.

Right, that’s it from me today. Back tomorrow as I start to look at what some of the pundits, commentators, and ex-pro’s are predicting ahead of this one. Catch you then.

It won’t be easy, of course, but when you think about the balance of probabilities, it’s a more favourable tie. As I went for my run yesterday, I was thinking about this: there are seven sides we could have been drawn against. That means 14 permutations (seven home, seven away). If I think about what would be the topfour or five permutations, it would have been Port Vale at home, then Port Vale away, then Southampton at home, then Southampton away. We got the fourth-best option out of 14 options, so that’s pretty good.

Of course, as is the way this season, the narratives already started to drop, with an article on Sky that I read last night saying that we haven’t played a Premier League side so far in the FA Cup. Of course, nobody is mentioning that neither have Chelsea, and they got the best possible draw to get into the semi-finals with their home tie to Port Vale. But there you go. They aren’t the story so far this season, we are.

Still, it could have been worse. We could have got the draw that City got – Liverpool, albeit at home for them. But that represents a really tough match-up that Pep is not exactly going to be able to rest players for. Liverpool will be looking at this as a competition in which they can win a trophy, despite a difficult season, so they will go strong. City will need to match that, which means their April is suddenly looking like quite the douzy of a month. They play Liverpool in the FA Cup, the Champions League quarter final probably against Bayern, Chelsea away (who will no doubt have rotated for Port Vale at home) in the Premier League, then the second leg of their quarter final in the Champions League, before they play us. Their last game is away to Burnley, which is the banker for them.

Now, none of us should be counting our chickens, of course, but our games at least on paper don’t look as scary. We have Southampton away, then the quarter final if we can overcome Leverkusen to either Sporting or Bodo/Glimt, before playing Bournemouth at home in the Premier League, then it’s the second leg of that Sporting/Bodo quarter final at home (again, if we make it), before we play them. Our last game is a tricky one at home to a Newcastle side that I am really hoping will have nothing to play for, but equally will give us a tough match-up.

Once again, we have to put a big asterisk against all of these matches, but you’d rather have our run of games than theirs. It means April may well turn out to be a pivotal one in the season; I really hope we rise to the occasion in our games, with City hopefully dropping points and not being knocked out. For example, I kind of want to see City win their games against Real Madrid. We want them to be playing quarter finals just before they play us in the League. If they’ve been knocked out to Real Madrid, they have a week off before they play us, whilst we’ll have played a home match if we beat Leverkusen. That’s the kind of marginal gain that could have a big swing in a match like that at the Emptihad.

But we still have to respect and do our jobs against Leverkusen. Arteta will be up in front of the press today to talk about that game, but tomorrow evening’s early kick-off is one that we will have to see Arsenal step up against a patchy Leverkusen side this season. Their last five matches in all competitions have been:

1. 3-3 draw away to Freiburg
2. 1-0 win away to Hamburg
3. 1-1 draw at home to Mainz
4. 0-0 home draw against Olympiacos
5. 1-0 defeat to Union Berlin

Like I say – patchy.

They still have players who can hurt us in the shape of Schick and Grimaldo, but I think the Czech centre-forward is currently injured for this one, so that might be a big advantage for us. That means they’ll likely turn to the pacey Christian Kofane as their attacking outlet, who has seven goals to his name this season, and I suspect the Cameroonian will make life difficult for our centre halves tomorrow night. They’re also missing Loic Bade, Arthur, Flekken and Lucas Vasquez – the latter being at Real Madrid last season and sucking on some sour grapes after the game by saying we did “almost nothing” in the game at the Bernabeu. It would have been nice to see if Martinelli can skin him again tomorrow night, but I guess it just isn’t meant to be.

For us, all eyes will be on those players who were rested from the weekend, plus whether Trossard and Calafiori’s knocks are longer-term than just a precaution, although I suspect we won’t really know, given how much we know Arteta likes to tell us almost nothing in his press conferences. Despite that, though, I am still hoping that he at least confirms that the two that came off at the weekend are fine for Everton on Saturday. We may not need them for tonight, but we do need to start rotating this team and not over-relying on players, given how quickly the matches are coming right now.

We’ll find out more later, I’m gutted I couldn’t get a ticket as I’d have flown over tonight, but let’s hope that The Arsenal are in good shapes for this one, because keeping the impossible dream alive of a quadruple would be mighty nice with a win tomorrow. I’ll catch you then, when we have a look at how we might line up.

First up, let’s give some credit to Mansfield, because they played the occasion well, they gave it their all against clearly superior opponents, whilst managing 18 attempts and five shots on target. And they got their moment of happiness through Evans’ equaliser on 50 minutes. It was a mistake by an otherwise decent 16-year-old Marli Salmon that led to the goal, perhaps Mosquera could have done better by reading the pass and not being flat-footed, but the finish was tidy, and for at least 16 minutes, it made for awkward watching as Mansfield held us at bay whilst also creating one or two chances.

We weren’t great at all as a collective, it has to be said, but we should also acknowledge the mitigating circumstances. The pitch was an absolute bog. There was grass in the corners, and that was about it. The argument of “both teams have to play on it though” doesn’t hold up for me; one team plays it every odd week (and probably more like it in League One), whereas the other essentially never plays on a pitch like that, and the fact we had two players come off with injury should probably give a bit of an indication on the state of it anyway. Thankfully, it sounds like both Trossard and Calafiori’s injuries are minor, with Mikel describing them as ‘little niggles’ afterwards.

That’s just as well, particularly in the case of Trossard, because based on Martinelli’s performance yesterday, he ain’t seeing his name on the team sheet on Wednesday night in Leverkusen, that’s for sure. There were some positive performances that I will get to, but Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus were absolutely shocking. I’ve already mentioned the issues with the pitch, but both of those players should have done more when they got the ball. Both were wasteful, both were hiding in plain sight at times, and in particular, I thought Jesus’ performance was an absolute shocker. We can all bemoan Gyokeres’ lack of involvement in games, but when the other option is a performance like that from a former Brazilian international footballer, you have to ask serious questions about the front line.

The attack, in general, just didn’t really click yesterday. Madueke got a fine goal, but he also lost a few balls in the car park, and it felt at times as if he was just coasting along in the game. His control was weak at times, which again could be the pitch. But he should have done more. Especially so when you have a 16-year-old kid in midfield who looked like he was running the show.

I thought Dowman was excellent. It’s a shame he didn’t score that early chance he got from the Mansfield keeper’s poor kick out, because I think if he had, this game might have ended up being a bit of a cricket score match. Often, you get these Sliding Doors moments, in which games shift, and after we didn’t score that early chance, Mansfield fashioned one or two of their own. Our setup – with three at the back – left far too much space for direct long balls in behind, and once or twice our back three were caught out by that direct long ball from deep when a transition happened. The injury that Trossard picked up – which sounded precautionary from what Arteta said – actually helped us I think, because it forced the change and shift to a back four, and you could tell straight away that the team were more comfortable with it. So much so that just three minutes after the change, we were ahead through Madueke, whose finish was very smart I thought. He’s such a frustrating player, is Madueke, because he spent half the game shanking balls into car parks, whilst the other half was spent beating his man (as James mentioned on the Same Old Arsenal pod we recorded this morning, sometimes too often, to be honest) and looking like he’s having a worldie. He was the brightest of the three forward players by some distance, so it was good for him to get on the score sheet, I thought.

At that point, I don’t know about you, but I was thinking we’d start to rack up the goals. But to their credit, Mansfield didn’t let their heads go down, and the goal they scored five minutes after the restart was a decent finish. Salmon won’t be too happy with his pass, Mosquesra was too hesitant, and Kepa will probably feel he could have kept that ball out of the net, but Evans struck it pure enough, and for 16 minutes those Mansfield fans had something to shout about.

Inevitably, Arteta had to make changes, which he did on 62, and just four minutes later, it had an impact. I was pleased that Havertz got 60 minutes under his belt, and we must be getting close to the moment in which he will start in a crunch game up top, but his replacement, Eze, showed that this is why people say it is this part of the season in which he comes alive. His finish was a rocket from the position you always want Eze to be when you think about how he can influence a game. James and I looked at some of the attackers and some of their goal contributions this season, and Eze isn’t actually performing that bad. He had eight goals and six assists now, and you’d probably say if he racks up 20+ Gs and As by the time the season finishes, then he’s had a good season. Alright, most of them are against the Scum, but they all count and you can’t deny he knows where the goal is. We need to see more of that between now and the end of the season, methinks, especially given Odegaard appears to be out for at least another week or two.

So we’re through into the next round, it’s another win, it’s goals 100 and 101 for the team this season and although it wasn’t an amazing performance, we were able to rest and rotate some players, as well as giving game time to others. It won’t be remembered as a classic, but we don’t need classics right now, we need results. We got that. On to Leverkusen in midweek.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Indeed, if the training pictures and video are anything to go by, we’re definitely going to get that, because there was no sign of Gabriel, Saliba, White, Timber, Zubimendi, Rice or Odegaard. All of which I don’t think you’ll find a single Arsenal fan unhappy about their possible absence today. We simply have to give some of those players a rest. And I guess there are two types of ‘rest’, really:

1. Rest from the matchday squad and playing, and going through the usual warm-up
2. Complete rest from everything – including training

I hope those players have all been given the latter. It will have meant a tiny little ‘Spring break’ for them, and if it helps them for the Leverkusen game and the Everton game next week, then happy days. I want them rested, reset and ready to go. Of course, some of them are possibly injured, with White and Odegaard sure to tick that box, but there’s a question mark over Saliba (which Arteta confirmed in his press conference), and there’s no way you want to risk him with this kind of game.

Especially with the rumoured state of the Mansfield pitch, which some of the journalists commented on in the press conference as having “not a lot of grass”. Arteta isn’t outfoxed for a soundbite to clip upin these types of moments, however, so of course he played a perfectly straight bat with his response. As you’d expect. We’re going to get a ‘good ol’ fashioned cup tie’ this lunchtime, and I’m expecting the footballing cliches to be busted out left, right, and centre by TNT Sports today. So Arsenal’s modus operandi is to be professional, control possession, not allow the game to get bogged down (excuse the pun) in a slog fest, demonstrating their quality to the Mansfield team – even with such a rotated squad.

The good thing so far this season is that even when Arteta has rotated his team, we’ve still seen plenty of professionalism on display, so I am expecting nothing less this lunchtime. But who will take their place in the Arsenal starting XI and on the bench?

Here’s my stab at a starting XI for Mansfield away:

Kepa

Salmon   –   Mosquera   –   Calafiori   –   Hincapie

Norgaard

Dowman   –   Havertz

Madueke   –   Jesus   –   Martinelli

My thinking here is that Hincapie has played the least of all the ‘regulars’ this season, so he might be the freshest, and with Myles suspended, it makes sense. It’s a shame because if Myles were able to start, then you could rotate almost the entire team, ready for Leverkusen. But his suspension as a result of yellow card accumulation means that Arteta has a little bit of thinking to do. I think Havertz in from the start makes sense, as the club tries to build his fitness back up, but I’d be tempted to give it just the 45 minutes, and when he gets through that, have him off regardless of the score. I think Madueke and Jesus therefore pick themselves, although I see that Harriman-Annous was training with the first team, so perhaps he can do a bit of a job share with Gabby J? Alternatively, Arteta could look at this match as an opportunity for Big Vik to bag a goal or two, although I’d be surprised if he started. Then I think you have to give Martinelli a chance to overcome his poor performance away at Brighton by getting in and amongst the action today. That’s certainly what my hope is.

The bench will, I hope, be littered with youngsters. Let’s have Josh Nicholas, let’s give Evan Mooney a place, let him sit alongside Brando Bailey-Joseph – I want to be scratching my head when I see that Arsenal bench.

Of course, I suspect there will be a few more established players ready to come on if the situation dictates, but with all due respect to Mansfield, this should be a game in which Arsenal take the opportunity to catch a breath at a point in the season in which every moment feels ultra-intense. Even last night, I woke up at 3 am and was thinking about what the psychological impact would be of another horrible home game against Everton like last season, so it shows you just how much this end of the season is hitting the average Joe fan like me.

As for Mansfield, well, even Nigel Clough (that’s a blast from my Panini sticker album past!) knows it is an uphill battle, as well as admitting that their league form is more important than this right now. Of course, their players will be up for it, and the chance to test themselves against a Premier League team is massive, but the manager has hardly sounded a rally cry for his team. He’s said he’s not looking forward to playing against Arteta, that there’s not a lot they can do other than focus on themselves, as well as the fact our squad will “frighten the life out of our lads” – so he’s hardly sounding optimistic. We have to use that. We have to make sure there are no upsets. I was nine when we lost to Wrexham – that pain of going into school on the Monday has never left me – I don’t want that again on Monday for work as an adult!

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about them tactically, but if Adrian Clarke’s words of wisdom are anything to go by, it sounds to me like another low-block afternoon might be on the cards. Who knows – they might surprise us and come out a little, but I would be very surprised if that happens, because they don’t want to be on the end of an absolute slap down.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today. James and I will do a post-match review tomorrow on the Same Old Arsenal pod, so join us then if you want a little more Arsenal in your life.

Much obliged.

My brother is a West Ham fan. On my Dad’s side of the family, they are all Hammers. He’s been pretty down of late. But I messaged him when they beat The Scum and said:

The dream scenario. We win the league. Your mob stay up. The Scum go down.

He wasn’t very expectant of that:

I’ll take winning the FA Cup too while we’re at it. But it won’t happen.

I still think Tottenham will, unfortunately, avoid the drop. But it is fun to see them flailing. I also have a Spurs mate I went to school with who, upon them winning the Europa League last season by being the least-sh*t side in the competition, sent me a video of himself swaggering around the Tottenham stadium. That video is being brought out if they go down and we win the league.

But….there is STILL loads of football to play. We can’t count our chickens-on-basketballs just yet. We are in a fabulous position, and we have a little respite from the relentlessness of the Premier League this weekend, but that win at Brighton and the subsequent City draw will have been a huge shot of confidence and adrenaline into the arms of those Arsenal players. Whatever about us playing poorly for the performance, the win and the grind of three points was all that mattered. We leave the bitching and moaning to the pundits, media, and rival fans.

And there’s been a fair bit of it of late. I see Pardew has said this Premier League season will have an ‘asterisk’ next to it because of gamesmanship and time-wasting. But you don’t have to look far to see that it’s a self-fulfilling media narrative that is driving that kind of nonsense statement:

Hurzeler will never be a winner. He will always remain that manager who likes to be an underdog and crib about everything. Always salty and insecure who will never appreciate his colleagues. pic.twitter.com/mO116AC7vN

— Sir Jenkinson (@theEpicGooner) March 5, 2026

You can put asterisks against any title win if you like:

• Liverpool 2024/25* = Injuries to rivals and favourable refereeing helped them
• Man City 2023/24* = 115 Charges
• Man City 2022/23* = 115 Charges

I mean, I could go on and on with the City charges stuff…

Thankfully, despite some of the hollow and, frankly, factually incorrect nonsense that we have seen from some corners of the online world (here’s another one if you fancy it), we are starting to see some counter-punches being thrown in the media, including this one from Sam Dean in the Telegraph which I quite liked. It’s behind a paywall, but the jist is that we tried playing better football in 2022/23 and we got lambasted for not having the guile or experience of the City side. We are not here to make friends, we have to use this outside noise to create a siege mentality, and we must continue to grind out results between now and May if we want to win this thing. We don’t know whether Everton, in just over a week, will end up being the opposite of what we are feeling right now with our jubilation (remember the 0-0 with Dyche’s Everton last season at The Emirates, anyone?), but as it stands we can be pleased with where the team is at and letr’s keep our feet on the ground and our hopes in the sky.

Arteta will be up in front of the microphones today to talk Mansfield, which I suspect the team will then immediately hop on a coach up to Yorkshire for the game tomorrow lunchtime. It’s a press conference in which I sincerely hope he admits that there will be some players who will just not even be on the coach to head up. The likes of Zubi and Rice I want at home. Maybe Saka, Saliba and Gabriel too, although I suspect you can’t ground too many of your first teamers in case things go a little Pete Tong at Field Mill. It will be a hopefully very well-rotated side, because it’s up against a Mansfield team who currently sit 16th in League One and whose only win in their last 10 games came away at Burnley in the previous round.

I make no excuses for my little knowledge about them, but a quick look at WhoScored can give a wee overview of the type of game we might get. Their strengths are in defending set pieces, which will hopefully be tested tomorrow, whilst their weaknesses show a side that isn’t ball-dominant, isn’t great at aerial duels, and isn’t good at defending against through-balls. They are also described as a ‘non-aggressive’ side, which amuses me when you think about some of the aforementioned characteristics, because we are described as a side who are powerful, strong, a dominating presence, which isn’t too good to watch. Normally, when you think about these kinds of games, you think that a tight ground, lower-league opposition, will make it a tough and physical battle. But the way Mansfield are described by WhoScored, it feels like we’re the ones who might bring more of that to the table tomorrow!

We’ll have to see what Arteta says in his press conference today, but I’m looking forward to seeing what some of the rotated players can do in this one tomorrow, because there are a few players that do need minutes, but we might also get to see the likes of Dowman play too. I’ll do more of an in-depth look at us and what we might do tomorrow as the match preview.

But until then, I shall bid you adieu, and hope you have a fab Friday.

Laters kids.

When you get to that part of the season you’re looking for ways in which you can involve the whole squad, so this opportunity will, I think, afford Mikel Arteta the chance to rest and rotate some of those key players who have been playing all the minutes. I think it also feels like some sort of football karma; we’ve had a fair few years of playing all Premier League opposition, so to be able to play teams with whom we rarely come up against feels quite nice, I would say.

City go away to Newcastel and you’d hope that means Pep has some thinking to do around that time about how he lines up his team for that one. They too will have it sandwiched in between Premier League and Champions League games, so if it helps to contribute towards their fatigue as he’s forced to field a stronger side, then I think we’re all good with that, as Arsenal fans.

But for now, attention moves to Wolves away tomorrow night, for which I do wonder how tempted Arteta might be to play some of the faces that played against Wigan, in some of the positions they play in as well. For example, could we see Saka and Madueke both in the starting line-up? It felt good to me; both seemed to have a good connection, good passing combinations and good rapport between them, with Madueke and Saka combining for the own goal that was scored. My hope is that Arteta is asked about it today and that he doesn’t dismiss it. In fact, if we get a little smile and a vanilla response that you can’t quite work out what he’s saying, I think that means he’s got it seriously in contention as an option tomorrow. With Odegaard potentially not fit, it does feel like it could be worth a try. Alternatively, maybe Eze in the 10 is the choice, with Rice and Zubi slotting into more of a double pivot? Eze’s performance will be such that Arteta must be thinking about ways in which he can unlock him and against a Wolves side sure to sit back into a low block, having the guy who is willing to take those pot shots to try to unlock something might be worth consideration.

As for Wolves, having looked like they might be on the comeback trail over the turn of the new year with a draw away at United and a 3-0 home win against West Ham, they’ve slipped back into defeat mode, so my hope for tomorrow is that the initial confidence that looked like it was sweeping through following the arrival of Rob Edwards, is now extinguished for tomorrow. They’ve picked up a point away at Forest in their last game, but before that it was a 3-1 defeat at home to Chelsea, which came before a 2-0 home defeat to Bournemouth. Before that it was a 2-0 away defeat at Man City, with the game before that being a 0-0 at home to a Newcastle side who have struggled a bit on the road this season (victory at the Scum aside). So it’s not exactly a massive swing in form and we have to use that to press down on the necks of them tomorrow evening. In their last game against Forest I think it is fair to say they got away with one a bit; Forest had 34 attempts at goal! There’s no Strand Larsson in their team any more, replacing him with Armstrong from Southampton, whilst they’ll have no Hwang through injury either.

Their fans are hardly optimistic either. I’ve just had a quick look on a Wolves Forum and not a single fan even predicted their team to score a goal, let alone win the match. The scorelines ranged from 0-2 to 0-4 and that tells you a lot about how they are feeling. You can understand why; they’ve scored 16 goals in 26 games, they have one win and six draws with 19 defeats, they’ve conceded 48 goals (nearly two per game on average) and they are looking like they will be going down within the coming weeks.

But all of that was true when we played them at The Emirates, and it didn’t stop us needing a stoppage-time winner to save our blushes. This is a difficult league, it is an unpredictable league; you never quite know what is going to happen once the first ball is kicked. Arteta should be stressing that to his players. I hope he is also stressing the importance of not wasting up a whole half. I’ll expand on it a little bit more tomorrow, but we need to be going for the jugular from the first minute tomorrow evening. No more walking pace first-half football, please, Arsenal. I don’t want to see Big Gabi and Big Bill Saliba exchanging passes whilst we rest defence our way through a first half. Get the job done early like you did against Wigan. Then you can start thinking about that nausea-inducing North London Derby on Saturday.

We’ll have some press conferences today, which we can have a look at tomorrow, but for now, I’ll leave you all be and be back tomorrow with more of a match preview once we know the team news. Catch you all then.

Arsenal still needed to do the job, though. There was still a need for professionalism from those Arsenal players. And that was as professional a display as you are going to get. There was no slaughter of Wigan, just a first half that ensured this tie was dead by the time the first Asahi hit the punters’ lips, with a couple of half-chances in the second to extend the score without really extending ourselves. In many ways, Arteta would have been delighted. Sure, as fans, when you race to a four-goal halftime lead you want to see eight’s, nine’s, or ten’s, but let’s be realistic; there’s no need to over-stretch for a ball that could mean you are out for a few weeks at a crucial time in the season.

Arteta named a slightly stronger squad than I thought he would, although Calafiori was once again injured in the warm-up, which meant Saka had to come in, and the MLS as a midfielder test-run was deferred. It’s a shame, because with Merino out, Dowman still very young and Nwaneri on loan, there may well be an argument to see Myles there as an option in case one of our existing guys goes down. Zubimendi and Rice play A LOT of football and I think most of us do harbour concerns over what happens if one picks up a knock. That’s why you could see Arteta keeping both out of the starting XI, although Zubi did get on for 10 minutes at the end, which I wasn’t 100% happy about. Saka, thankfully, only got 45 minutes; save him for other matches, Mikel, so happy that you pulled him after he’d completed a pretty solid 45 as a centralised number 10.

It was the turn of the rotated squad to show they can do the business and yesterday it was just too much to ask a Wigan team low on confidence to compete with an Arsenal side stocked full of internationals. Kepa, White, Saliba (again, wasn’t too sure about that one, but he appears to have got through it all ok), MLS, Norgaard, Eze, Madueke, Saka, Martinelli and Jesus – all have been capped at full international level – and you could see the gulf in class immediately.

A lot of it was, I am pleased to say (and we were all pleased to see), marshalled by the excellent Eberechi Eze. Yesterday morning, I had said that this game feels like one in which he has to take control, and that he certainly did with two great assists. The first no-look pass to give Madueke his goal was perfectly weighted. The second ball in behind for Martinelli meant that the Brazilian still had a little more to do, but he took his goal well and now has 11 goals and three assists to his name this season. If he gets to 20 goal contributions for the season, he has 100% done his job on the attacking side of the pitch.

Back to Eze, though, who I think we can all agree needed this, with all of the noise around him and a couple of his recent performances. He needed to play yesterday to give his confidence a boost, but then he needed to play well to show he belongs here. And he certainly did that. I thought he was lively, he was getting on the ball, he was taking shots – it was like the Eze from last season and the one that showed flashes of it towards the beginning of this season. With Odegaard out injured, this was exactly the tonic. If I were Arteta now, I’d even be tempted to start him against Wolves. Let’s see if a little run of games can unlock a player we will need on top form before the end of the season.

There was also time for our old friend ‘Own Goal’ to step up and add to their tally, as well as a really well-taken Gabriel Jesus dink over the ‘keeper that was the kind of nonchalant finish that makes you scratch your head when he misses chances with the increased volume that he does. He’s another one with whom I think most of us thought might just be relegated to token minutes this season, but for Gabby, that’s now five goals and one assist this season. If he gets to 10 G+As this season, he’s also done his part for this season’s campaign.

As already mentioned, that was basically that at halftime, with the second half feeling like two teams just playing out the remaining 45 because of the rules. If there was an opportunity to ‘throw in the towel’ and simply say “we’ve had enough, let’s head home”, I suspect Wigan would have done. Arteta wouldn’t have minded it either, I suspect, but the football formalities must be obeyed, so we got a second half in the rain that was pretty uneventful. Gyokeres hit the post, Eze hit the side netting, but that was about it, really. We headed home knowing our name was in the hat for round five, whilst those Wigan fans trudged back up north knowing that they still have a league season they have to rescue somehow.

The draw takes place this evening at 6.35 p,m and I think from an Arsenal perspective, there are a few ways of looking at it:

1. A lower-league side at home that we can rotate (Wrexham, Mansfield, Norwich, Port Vale/Bristol City)
2. An away game with a big allocation, so a few of us can go

The games are played around the weekend of 7th/8th March, in which we play Brighton in the midweek, then Everton the following weekend, but we’ll also have a Champions League first leg away before we play Everton at home, so I think I’m leaning more towards the first option above, ahead of the second option. We need to be able to rotate in between those games, and I think a home match against lower-league opposition would be good. Maybe we finally arrest the demons of 92 by beating Wrexham on our own patch this time?

I’ll save any of those thoughts until we know what the actual draw is. Until then, have a great Monday. I’ll catch you tomorrow as we prepare for the trip to Wolves. See you then.

And i’m going for a roast in a couple of hours. Not exact the best pre-match prep needed. But that probably gives you an insight into this game which, if the Arsenal players were as unprofessional as me with my pre-match prep, we’ll be out of this cup quicker than you can say “Mickey Thomas scores for Wrexham”.

Thankfully, Mikel Arteta is a man who takes his job seriously, so I am expecting an Arsenal side to turn up today and do the business against a Wigan side out of form, in the relegation zone in League One and – big day out aside – probably seeing this competition as something they could do without.

For us, it’s one we obviously want to win, being the leading side to have one it the mosyt times, but as Arteta said in the build up to this, our recent form since winning it simply hasn’t been good enough. We don’t get knocked out to minnows like back in 1992, but we haven’t ventured far beyond this round since we won it during the COVID era. That win gave Arteta the goodwill to keep his job during the dark times, so I suspect it’s one he holds with particular affection, thereby wanting to see us go deep/win it this time around.

The good news is that because of the opponents, we could – and should – see plenty of rotation today. I don’t want to see Saliba, Big Gabi, Zubi, Rice, Saka, Odegaard, Timber, Calafioir. I do want to see Kepa, White, Mosquera, MLS, Norgaard and a few other players who have been a bit ‘bit part’ of late.

So here’s how I’d line us up today:

Kepa

White   –   Mosquera   –   Hincapie   –   MLS

Norgaard

Eze   –   Academy Player X

Madueke   –   Gabriel Jesus   –   Martinelli

My lovely mother was a maths teacher. She always taught me to “show your workings”, so here’s my thinking:

• Not a single one of those players could play against Wolves, so we could go to Molineux with a first XI having almost a complete rest
• Players getting minutes who haven’t got them lately
• We might ‘find’ somebody who Arteta thinks has a bigger role to play in the upcoming Premier League games
• Eze needs a confidence-booster game. Hopefully, this can be it.
• Martinelli and Gabby J have a connection that is well-documented.

If Arteta goes with this team, he also has the option for some players to come on. For example, I might have Trossard and Gyokeres on the bench. I wouldn’t have Saka there. I think having certain players even go through the pre-match routine and warm-up is something we should just avoid. Sit Gabriel down. Sit Declan down. Sit Saliba and Zubimendi down. Odegaard is probably injured so rest him. And given Saka didn’t look fit and Timber looked gassed on Thursday, just tell them to stay at home and play FIFA. We should have enough at home to overcome this Wigan side. So let’s use this opportunity to reset ourselves ahead of what I talked about yesterday as two massive away Premier League games next week.

As for Wigan, well, they’ve got a new man in charge having let Ryan Lowe go and they aren’t in a good place. This blog talks about what’s going on here and whilst this competition has delivered the highest high in Wigan’s history, I’ll bet there are some fans travelling today who are just pleased to not be talking about the league, because as the blog I’ve linked to shows they are a club who are drifting. They’ve accepted their domestic League One fate, so today is just a day out I’d imagine.

We can’t treat it like that though. I may be taking the Management out for a lovely roast dinner lunch, but as soon as kick off comes, game faces on guys and gals. We need to dispatch this Wigan side and not do it like City did with Salford yesterday. We probably need a big win and for some of the aforementioned players to step up and show some of their quality. The manager needs to be telling some of them (Eze, I’m looking at you) that a big performance puts them in contention for the North London Derby. I want to see some magic in some of those Arsenal players’ boots.

And again, I think we have to look at Eze as a guy who needs to step up. We all want the highest highs for him; he’s a boyhood Gooner, we all love him, but we need to see some of the early-season magic and that we saw in games like The Scum or Bayern. I want it so badly for him and it feels like a game like today could really help. Come on Ebs, show us your magic.

Right, I’m going to leave it there. It may be pissing it down, I may still be pissed, but I need to blow away the cobwebs by going for a run before me ‘n the missus make our way to The Arsenal.

Catch you tomorrow for the usual pre-match debrief. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have dried off from what promises to be a very wet day!

Laters.

The first was that gawd-awful FA Cup semi-final in 2014. Going into it we were the favourites, we were easily the better team on paper, but it was a game in which the team felt the weight of expectation I think. We hadn’t won anything in years, everyone in the media had kept reminding us that, so the team put in a bit of a shocker, relying on now Head of Academy (albeit not for much longer) Big Per Mertesacker to head home for us on 81 minutes to bring the game to extra time. We scraped through on penalties and, as we all know, won the final having gone behind 2-0 to Hull. Whilst the season as a whole ended in silverware and joy, that particular game should be forgotten forever. We weren’t great, that’s for sure.

The next Wigan game that pops into my head is that one in which Emmanuel Ebour put in one of the biggest stinkers of all time, ending up being subbed off, having come on for Nasri in the first half. We won the game 1-0, but the home crowd booed Eboue off. While that wasn’t exactly the home fans’ finest moment, he indeed had one of the worst performances of all time. Even Wenger referenced it afterwards, saying, “Eboue played for longer than I wanted him to. His concentration dropped a little bit”.

For this final trip down memory lane, I’ll recall the wonder strike that Denny Landzaat scored at The Emirates in 2007. I was there and in the Clock End Upper that day (although I don’ think it was called that then) and was right in line with what was a pretty special finish. It was looking like Wigan would do a bit of a smash and grab that day, as we huffed and puffed, but couldn’t get any joy. But our old friend Own Goal got us level on 81, before Rosicky won it for us on 85, to ultimately send me happy.

I’ve recounted three uncomfortable games there, but our record against Wigan is pretty good, to be fair, with the Latics only ever having beaten us three times home and away in the head-to-head records. So you look at that game now and it very much feels as though it’s one that Arsenal should be getting a win from. Wigan are currently 15th in League One, having won seven, lost eight and drawn nine of their league matches so far this season. They sit level on points with Exeter – who have just lost 10-1 to 115 Charges FC – and one point above Barnsley, who lost last night to Liverpool. So this very much has to be a game that Arteta will look at as an opportunity for large-scale rotation I would have thought.

It will be played on 14th or 15th February, which will be sandwiched in between Brentford away and The Scum at home eight days later, which will – I’m sure – mean that Arteta can move his playing pieces around a bit and shuffle his pack slightly (sorry for the mixed metaphors!) in between what will be two tough away trips in the Premier League.

I think from a rotation perspective, it is good. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded going on a bit of an away day, but the deeper you go in this competition, the increased likelihood is that you will get that, so perhaps given the volume of games we have in the next four-to-six weeks, that will be beneficial to have this home game against an opponent that will afford rotation more like what we’ve just seen this weekend gone against Portsmouth.

The other bit of news from yesterday was that our old friend Big Per Mertesacker was announced to be leaving the club at the end of the season. The club put a statement up last night and I thought it was really interesting to see the response online. I assumed that this would be met with almost universal disappointment for a guy who was such a good player for us, who had been in the back office for the last eight years, for who so many speak so highly of as being a nice guy, bringing a ‘human’ side to the academy. Yet I did see a fair few voices saying that we could do better. Perhaps that’s true. I don’t think anyone would say that our approach to the loan system has been particularly well executed, with other clubs like City, Liverpool and Chelsea using it and then flipping players for tidy sums. We haven’t really done that from the academy yet, so perhaps the next person coming in will have the remit of turning the academy into a little more of a cash cow, but I’m still going to remember Big Per as a guy who represented Arsenal well and was a good servant to the club.

On to the ‘now, and it’ll be Mikel Arteta who will have his press conference today and having seen Liam Rosenior do his yesterday, it’ll be interesting to see how Arteta speaks up this one. In my head, I was thinking that Arteta would undertake more rotation tomorrow night, but looking at the way Rosenior was talking, I suspect not. He talked of the fact that they can’t play Caicedo because of suspension (Mikel Merino’s ankles are grateful), but then also how they’d make a call on James and Cole Palmer and I think that gives you an idea on what kind of team is lining up tomorrow – it will be a strong one. Will Mikel go equally as strong? That’s what I think we’re all eager to find out.

I think at this stage you probably have to, but I’ll save my musings on possible team selection until tomorrow, when we’ve heard from the manager.

Until then, I think I’ll leave you for today, and catch you all tomorrow for a match preview.

Nevertheless, I caught up with the goings on at Fratton Park yesterday, and with Arteta ringing the changes for this one, it felt as though there was a real opportunity for some of those rotational players, as well as a chance to see a returning face in Havertz. I don’t think anyone was too disappointed with the starting lineup, with perhaps a question over whether Gabriel should have started. However, given that we still have a few players out, including Hincapie and Calafiori for the game, I wasn’t surprised to see either Gabriel or Saliba. Big Gabi it was, which I think makes sense, because he’s the one who has played fewer minutes than Saliba due to his injury. I wonder if for Wednesday night’s game Saliba might come in?

But for this one, he went with our big Brazilian, and other than that, we pretty much changed the whole team, including a start for Nwaneri, which certainly had myself as well as a lot of you guys also happy that the kid would be given his chance. We’ve got a lot of minutes to be played in January, we need every member of the squad active and having had some run-outs, so I was really pleased that Ethan was able to get a start and managed to rack up a solid 70 minutes. I thought he also played well; he moved the ball around, he looked comfortable on it, if not spectacular. But the way the game kicked off, there wasn’t a lot of spectacular stuff to talk about, including an early goal for Portsmouth that put us on the back foot. That sort of stuff can always happen, I guess, because you’ve got a home crowd who are super excited to have a Premier League team back on their patch, as well as an Arsenal team that has made a lot of changes, which means cohesion is going to be an issue. And for that goal, Portsmouth scored, Kepa will probably think he might have done better with his parry, perhaps. But he was important thereafter and had a good game overall; he made four saves in total, and although he conceded, I think he can consider this a good day’s work.

The upside of an early goal is that it gives you enough time to respond (the most perfect FA Cup example of that is the Hull Cup final back in 2014), and I think the fact we responded so quickly plays a big part in the game state too. If a game like this wears on, the opposition gets more and more emboldened defensively, which turns into the deepest and most difficult of low blocks. But we were behind for just a few minutes before our old friend Own Goal stepped up to bring us level. Had the defender not got a touch, however, I think Norgaard puts it in, so although on paper this was another OG, in reality, the pressure of Norgaard did enough. And it was another set piece, for which the numbers we have racked up this season are absurd. I saw a stat from Orbinho that said something like 17 goals we’ve scored from set pieces this season. We can all talk about the striker situation at the moment, but set pieces are a massive part of this team’s success this season, and when we are up against those aforementioned low blocks, set pieces and corners are an important weapon in unlocking stubborn defences with many players in the box. So it was the case for our second goal too – the first of the Martinelli hat-trick – and we got a reminder of the fact that Martinelli is actually very good in the air. I remember when he first broke in to the team under Emery all those years ago; Martinelli scored a couple of good headed goals in Europe, I remember, and it’s what led several Arsenal fans to say that perhaps he’s a guy who could be playing centre forward in future.

Obviously, that evolution to number nine never happened, but if we are getting back the Martinelli who had his best-ever goal haul in 2022/23 with 15 goals in all comps, then I think we’ll all be more than satisfied with his output this season from the wide positions. In fact, with this hat-trick, he now has nine in all comps – well on track for his best ever season at The Arsenal. I have spoken with mates about how I wonder if that Martinelli from 2022/23 was the outlier, as opposed to the player he really is, but if he can continue to bag important goals for us between now and the end of the season, I might need to update my priors on that one.

Before his second Set-Piece Again Ole Ole goal to put us 4-1 up, there was a pretty terrible open-goal miss at the back post, but I’m not minded to bag on him too much given he’s scored a hat-trick and won the game for us. And although that final goal from the set piece was the cherry on the cake for us yesterday, for me, Martinelli’s second goal and our third on the day were the best of the lot. There was just something so smooth and silky, the way Gabriel Jesus slid the ball across the goal and in behind all the Portsmouth defenders for Martinelli to slide in at the back post. We’ve all talked amongst our WhatsApp groups, in the pub and online about the Gabby Jesus and Martinelli relationship, but this was it here on full display, and aesthetically it was the best goal of the lot.

His hat-trick goal was another testament to good set-piece delivery from our team (Madueke in particular), although I don’t think it looked like a particularly spectacularly ‘worked’ goal. Martinelli got in front of his man, flicked the ball goalwards, and the game has a gloss on it that suggests this was a little easier than it was.

Job done, into the next round, plenty of rotation completed, an eventful game (I haven’t even mentioned Noni’s penalty, which was a pretty poor effort but won through his own trickery), but it wasn’t a flawless performance. Portsmouth got off more shots on target than us, Kepa made more saves, and we didn’t control the game as much as the scoreline suggests. But it doesn’t matter. We got through, and tonight’s draw will have our names in it, as opposed to the last two seasons, so that’s good. It wasn’t vintage, free-flowing Arsenal, but we did enough.

Because I wasn’t around James and Amanda did a post-game review on the Same Old Arsenal pod yesterday, which you can watch here, if you’re that way inclined. Otherwise, I’ll be back tomorrow as we count down to the Chelsea League Cup semi-final. See you then.

We’ve all spoken this season about how impressive our squad is, how it hopefully will set us up for success, but so far this season the only way in which it’s really been able to be used is via the League Cup, and even then I think Arteta has prefered to go with a strong team given we’ve faced Premier League opposition most of the time. So today is another chance to see some of those rotational options get on the pitch and I think – with all due respect to Portsmouth – it should be one in which large-scale rotation is on the cards.

So for me, the team I’m lining up with today, if I was Arteta is:

1. Kepa
2. Salmon
3. Lewis -Skelly
4. White
5. Gabriel
6. Norgaard – DM
7. Eze – Left eight
8. Nwaneri – right eight
9. Gabriel Jesus
10. Madueke – right wing
11. Martinelli – left wing

I don’t think Arteta will do that, because I think he’ll play Merino, but I’ve left out Merino purely on the basis that he has played a lot of minutes this season compared to the others, and I think this game, of all of the upcoming ones, offers the most opportunity for large-scale rotation. It’s also why I’ve stuck in Salmon at right back, but again, I doubt Arteta will do that. If I go with what I ‘think’ will happen, it will be White at right back, Saliba and Gabriel at centre-half, Eze at right eight and Merino at left eight. There is an opportunity to surprise me though; we can also use the midweek League Cup game away to Chelsea as an opportunity for a fair bit of rotation too and I suspect Chelsea will go quite strong in that one, because it will allow Rosenior to very quickly get fans on side if they beat us over two legs and then also get to a final with a chance of winning a cup.

So if anything, that game in midweek probably needs a stronger XI, which means I hope Arteta goes a little harder on rotation today. I spoke yesterday about how Portsmouth is doing, having reviewed some of the available statistics, and it is a team that will likely play a long game, sitting compact and looking to counterattack on the break. In an ideal world, you need players who can probably operate in small spaces and I think Eze can definitely do that, I think Ethan has tight enough ball control and dribbling ability to do that, so given this game at Pompey might need a few more lock-pickers on the pitch, why not go with two creative eights, rather than Merino who is more of a physical, duel-winning, box-threat eight?

There’s probably also an element of protectionism of Ethan too, because I’ve seen a lot of fans online, on pods, videos, etc, all talking about Ethan and how we get him minutes. We all have a lot of affection for the boy, and we want to see him, hence why I think I – maybe like you – am desparate for him to be slotted in to this team today. Let’s see if it happens.

Let’s also see if we get some Havertz airtime too. That would be brilliant. By the sounds of it in Arteta’s pre-match press conference, the signs are good, so if I was a betting man, I’d probably say that there’s a job share opportunity with Jesus and Havertz today. If Jesus gets 70 minutes and we’re winning, let’s see if Kai can do 20 minutes up top. Much like Jesus’ minutes have been managed so far, we need to do the same with Kai, and so I’m looking at this game as the perfect introduction. It sounds like Arteta is judging by his comments. It will be so good to see him back, although I think most of us are reasonable in our expectations; this guy has basically been out for over a year, and expecting him to have any major impact in the coming weeks is probably a little too far-fetched. I’m looking at February-time for him probably being able to start a match, and by Marc,h he might start to look a little like the Kai of old. But for now, what we need is glimmers of the old Ka,i and with Big Vik looking more and more confidence-shorn, having another option from the bench feels like it’s a big plus for our aspirations this season.

For Gabby Jesus, this represents an opportunity to say to the manager, “Remember – I was THE guy at nine. So here’s my re-audition to be a starter,” and, given that Big Vik has looked anything but lethal in recent games, if he performs today, I think the clamour from the fanbase to start him will only grow. I’m getting there too. That Liverpool game feels like a bit of a watershed moment for Gyokeres; he wasn’t great, he didn’t offer a lot, and when Gabby Jesus came on, you saw a guy so much more involved. Yes, he also wasn’t great, but I think the challenge Big Vik has is that people can’t ‘see’ him. Everyone can ‘see’ Jesus because it’s the kind of wasp-like character he is across the pitch.

I want us to win this game. In previous seasons, our squad hasn’t been big enough to cope on multiple fronts, but given I’ve just been able to name an almost completely rotated XI that still looks very good and doesn’t even include Merino in it, that is evidence of the fact that we have the squad that should be able to challenge. And we’ve been knocked out in the third round of this competition too many times recently. Last season to United (which was a joke), the season before to Liverpool, two seasons before that it was Forest. In fact, since we won it in 2020, we haven’t progressed beyond the fourth round of this competition. It’s time to change that. And this team has the depth and quality to do it. Now go and prove it, Arsenal.

I’ll be back tomorrow as usual to do a bit of a de-brief, but for now, I’ll leave you with the rest of your Sunday and let’s hope we can do the business this afternoon.

Laters kids.

What great news this is to finish a working week!

It was announced yesterday via David Ornstein and a few others that pen had been put to paper on a new deal and that means we’ll get our Staboy – on paper at least – until he is 29-years-old, which will mean he is committing the best part of his career – his peak years – to our club. We know he loves the club, supported the club as a kid, has given everything for the club and is our best player, but this commitment shows a few things which we can all be really pleased about:

1. Saka feels like his ambitions can be met at The Arsenal
2. Arsenal know they have a generational player and will not make the mistakes of the past (Cashley Cole, RVP, etc)

This Arsenal is very different from the one I grew up with. There is ambition, there has been clear evolution, there is a unity from top to bottom and an alignment in the fanbase (mostly – take what the online factions argue about with a pinch of salt, because when I go to games, I do not see the same discourse and vitriol that I do on social media). Arsenal has been a good environment to be in for some years now, and whilst Mikel Arteta is the driving force behind that, players like Bukayo Saka help him massively, because they set the ‘foggin estandards’.

And our standards and the desire this season is high. This team is in a ‘win now’ mode, and Saka knows this, senses this, which is probably why getting this deal done has felt a little easier than the previous one. He’s ready to be, as Sam Dean in the Telegraph says, the ‘franchise player‘ at The Arsenal. Sure, there are the trappings of being the best-paid player at the club, but he’s of an age where he also wants – and needs – to take some of the biggest burdens too. And I think we need him to for sure. Especially in the short term.

That means stepping up on the end-product, too. I spoke about this in the general context of the team a week or so ago, but the team spreading the goals has been great n’a ll, however, I think on an individual basis some players in there will expect more for their second half of the season, and I think Saka is defo one of them. He’s played 27 times in all competitions this season, 1,800+ minutes and has seven goals and six assists. I think somebody with the talent he has in his boots, with the ability we know he’s got for finishing and assisting, as well as his previous outputs in the last couple of seasons, would probably have set himself the target of 35+ goals and assists as a minimum. We’re over halfway, and he’s on seven goals and six assists. I think if we are going to win the league, his output needs to certainly be upped significantly in the second half of the season.

And I back him to do it, by the way, because he’s so supremely talented, as well as being a guy who has already proved it over several seasons previously. Heck, last season he spent a third of the season out injured and still got 12 goals and 14 assists, so him getting to…say…18 goals, plus 17 assists in circa 30 games (if he stays fit) feels like something that could certainly be achievable this season. He probably needs to get his shooting boots back on (has anybody else noticed that his radar has been a little off of late? He seems to have been ballooning a few of those trademark ‘cut inside and curl it’ finishes – or is that just me?), but if there’s one player in this Arsenal team you’d back to do that, it is Bukayo Saka.

As a quick aside, I do find it amusing that the club are always so late in announcing these things, in comparison to when the news breaks. I’m sure there’s not a lot they can do to control that. I’m sure what they wanted to do is do a nice video and announce it to make everyone feel warma nd fuzzy inside, but it always feels a little ‘after the Lord Mayor’s party’ vibe when they do these videos because a journo has leaked the announcement first. But there you go. That’s modern football, I guess.

Will Saka play tomorrow? I doubt it. I’d be really surprised if he starts, anyway. There might be a place for him on the bench if things start to go a little tit’s-up, but looking ahead to that Portsmouth game, it really feels like the manager needs to be flexing the squad muscles a little more. Portsmouth are currently in a relly scrap at the bottom of the Cham,pionship, lost their last game 5-0 away to Bristol City and whilst they have picked up a couple wins at home recently against Charlton and Blackburn and are unbeaten at home since a 1-0 defeat to Bristol City in November, you’d have to think that a rotated Arsenal team has enough to overcome them. I had a little look on Fbref to see what sort of side Portsmouth are and this is what the data told me:

• Second-lowest xG in the Championship
• Mid-table for xG allowed
• Mid-table for shots against them and shots on target against them
• Third-highest number of launched balls in the Championship from their keeper
• Second-highest number of long passes over 40 yards in the league

So I look at those ‘top line’ metrics and think this is a team that will a) go long at every opportunity, b) let Arsenal have the ball, and c) try to maintain compact and defensive in their shape. But, interestingly, they are in the top five teams in the Championship who have won the most tackles in the attacking third. So clearly they adopt an aggressive ‘defend from the front’ approach, but that doesn’t strike me as a side that just sits in a low block. They also don’t have a high number of blocks either, which is what you tend to see from a team that sits in a low block with plenty of bodies in midfield. So I do think this will be an interesting encounter and certainly the home crowd will be up for it, but will we see Portsmouth forced into a low block by the sheer weight of possession and territory we are likely to try to command? We’ll have to wait and see.

I’ll leave it there for today ,I think. I’ve got a mountain of Saturday chores to do, so I should probably get out of me PJs and on with it.

Catch you all tomorrow for a match preview.

Arsenal are looking a little leggy right now, but I always remember Paul Mersin saying that he and his teammates never felt tired when they were winning. So today is Srteta’s approach to trot out his best team again, even though in the space of the next week we play three times against United, The Scum and Villa? Or does he rotate some of his team to balance the loading on players?

I don’t really personally know the answer on that one today. The Scum play bloody Tamworth today and so they will be like United are today – free to have a week off before they play us. We will have no such fortune and I suspect Arteta will go strong again, with perhaps one or two switches like Neto in for Raya. Neto hasn’t played a minute all season because of the fact he was cup tied again the League Cup, so I suspect Arteta might give him some minutes. I also think Arteta might play Calafiori instead of MLS. But other than that I think we get the same team wheeled out that played on Tuesday night. They’ve had five days between matches so hopefully that means we’re in a better shape from a fatigue perspective, plus those players who had illnesses are now hopefully recovered. So if this is a full strength side out there today (The above plus Saliba, Gabriel, Timber, Rice, Partey, Ødegaard, Havertz, Martinelli and probably Jesus) then there really can be no excuses.

Man United will come to us with little to lose, I suspect, their form this season has been shoddy, but that draw at Anfield will have given them a new lease of life. That’s because it wasn’t a scabby one born out of skanking goals with their only two attempts, but by creating chances and troubling Liverpool. What we have to do today is realise how good we are defensively and not look shaky at the back like we did against Newcastle. Isak is on monster form, but United’s main man Since Amorim arrived – Amad – will cause problems on our left hand side with his trickery. They’ll most likely also go for one of Hojland, Garnacho, Fernandes or Zirkzee in their front line up, with a back three which will include Yoro and Martinez, so they won’t look as makeshift as they did when they came to us in the league. The hope we need to have is that they remain open like in their previous four games before they played Liverpool, in which they lost all four, but I suspect Amorim will try to repeat the approach against us that he did when he’d just taken over. On that day it was for United to sit tight and compact, to try to flood the middle of the park and offer a bit of a mid-to-low block. He and the United analysts will have seen that we can be frustrated that way and so I think he’ll look at that as an opportunity to catch us out like Newcastle did.

With that in mind, we need to be quicker with our movement on the ball, because if the game pans out as I’m suspecting, I have a worry that we’re going to feel a little frustrated with United getting in their shape and wanting us to have the ball at walking pace in our half or the middle of the pitch. We have to be better in the final third and we have to take our big chances when they arise. We can’t afford 50p heads like we had in midweek from the likes of Timber and Havertz. They have to hit the target.

How ‘up for this’ are The Arsenal? I’m talking about everyone here, not just the players, because it feels like there might need to be times today that the home crowd make their fair share of noise. In the FA Cup, because of the away allocation, there will always be an element of a louder away crowd and United have 8,000 fans who have tickets today, so they’ll be boisterous from the off. That means we need to start quickly and quieten them down. If they get early encourage, be that through a goal, playing well, having more of the ball, etc, then the home fans need to respond by being louder. The League Cup game in midweek felt like a weird one and sometimes it is like that; many of the usual season ticket holders don’t go and it always feels a little more restrained. But in the Champions League and in the FA Cup in the past it has not felt like that, so I’m hoping there’s a bit more of a fervent atmosphere than there was in midweek. The players might just need that little bit extra.

It’s my last day in South Africa today having avoided work for three weeks, so I’ll be watching today in Johannesburg, before heading back and being in the ground for the visit of The Scum. My hope is that might flight back isn’t me feeling grumpy about back-to-back defeats. And there will be an answer to that at some point today, because as well as there being no VAR for this round, there is also no replays. The first of those facts is scary because the referees and their assistants are terrible enough as it is, but the second means that the possibility of extra time is the last thing we need ahead of going in to two really tough home games.

So win it in normal time, please, Arsenal.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief.

That’s our game tomorrow afternoon and yesterday Arteta was in front of the press dolled up in the No More Red white kit campaign attire, to talk about what lies ahead for us in this tricky home tie.

There was the usual plaudits for the opposition manager, designed to give no opportunity for sticking his comments up on the away team changing room walls, as well as the usual “we’ve won this competition 14 times so we have a great affinity with it” type stuff. Nothing really to write home about.

Neither too, unfortunately (but not unexpectedly), was there anything particularly ground breaking about what he said when asked about transfers. You wouldn’t expect anything concrete, but in recent weeks he’s subtly suggested that we do need to re-enforce our squad and so for me personally, when I read his comments or watch his videos, what I’m hoping to get a hint of is more subtle undertones on buying this January. There wasn’t really any of that yesterday and he stuck to a well-trodden Premier League manager path of talking about how difficult it is to sign players in January, how we need quality not quantity, as well as how we have to get more from existing players.

And we certainly do, because there’s no doubt that the form of some – particularly in attack – has been patchy. But even defensively we have looked the tiniest bit less imperious this season I think. Perhaps I’m suffering from recency bias off the back of the Newcastle defeat, but we looked shaky, although given we were so blunt in attack I don’t think defence is the biggest of our concerns when it comes to recruiting. Mikel was asked outright if an attacker was on the shopping list and he kind of just waved it away, saying “No, the circumstances change because we have certain injuries for some big players, so it’s always a possibility but always it’s about somebody that is really going to make us much better.”

I get that, I suspect he just didn’t want to answer the question, but if you read that in isolation it makes you wonder whether he thinks another left back might be the solution!

I’m jesting of course, because there’s no way he’s looking at some of the profligate performances of our forward players and not wondering if a freshen up is needed. It’s just whether they can pull the trigger on an opportunity this January, or whether it has to wait until the summer. He did drop a stat about goalscoring not being a problem for us because we’ve scored the most goals in the Premier League in the 2024 calendar year, but he’ll know as well as we do that it is a statistic that can – and is – misleading. It’s better to win ten games 1-0 than two games 5-0 and lose the rest. We’ve had plenty of games in 2024 where we’ve battered teams and that’s because the football match has been opened up. Unlocking stubborn low block defences is still a big problem for us and the internal solutions we’ve got haven’t been able to do it as much as a team fighting for the title should be able to. Hence why the focus is on the attacking output and freshening it up. But he knows that.

He was also asked about Ødegaard’s form and him missing Saka, which is something we’ve all obviously spotted because of the great connection those two players have, but I think a little more is being made of Ødegaard’s form that is necessary, personally, because in the last week or so he’s a) had a kid and that might have impacted him a little with some initial sleepless nights, and b) had an illness that Arteta referenced in his press conference has kept him out for a week. In the midweek he was really poor, but that’s probably because he was getting over that illness and by now hopefully he’s recovered, with my bet that we’ll see a different Martin tomorrow and certainly in the North London Derby in midweek next week.

We need to. There needs to be more from the likes of him and there needs to be greater goal output from across the team with Saka. That means Jesus, Havertz, Trossard, Martinelli, Ødegaard, Merino, Rice, Partey – as well as our defenders like Gabriel and Saliba – all need to be upping their game now and, more than ever with Saka missing, the output needs to be upped. We can’t keep affording the types of misses from Havertz and Timber from midweek. We have to be more clinical – from players all over the pitch.

There’s not really a ton of other stuff from the press conference worth talking about really, so I’ll put a pin in today’s ramblings and be back tomorrow with some thoughts on how the game might pan out from a tactical perspective, particularly given United’s impressive performance at Anfield last weekend and how differently the match might be since we played Amorim’s United a couple of months back at the start of his tenure.

Catch you wonderful humans tomorrow.

In the Premier League, for example, Villa and the Scum dropping points was good, because it puts more distance between us and them. I know it sounds crazy given that all the talk is how we can overcome City and Liverpool, but I still bear the battle scars of many years as an Arsenal fan and so I’m conditioned a little bit to look at those below us and make sure we’ve hit milestones. With both Liverpool and City in FA Cup action, the Premier League milestones I was looking for were gaining – or at least not losing – ground on the consolidation to ensure that we are a Champions League side next season. The Scum losing comprehensively to Fulham ticked the first box, then Villa being held by West Ham sort of did another. Villa have now played a game more than us and are eight points away from us. That’s a lead that could easily be eroded away if we going on a bit of a bad run of form, but if we win our game in hand, it’d mean that we’d be 11 clear of them with nine matches to play. That’d mean they’d need to win four and us lose four from our final nine matches. That’s also the situation we have with The Scum in fifth place; they have played the same number of games as us and we’re 11 points clear. Man United are 17 off us in sixth place on 47 points, which means there would need to be a six game swing for us to drop down in to sixth. If the European coefficients work in the favour of the Premier League then it’s top five for the Champions League next season and so if you’re talking about ‘mini objectives’ that are, as Arteta would say a ‘non-negotiable’, you’d think qualifying for the Champions League for the second consecutive season would be it. Based on looking at the table with 10 games to go you’d think that we might be close to achieving that already.

There’s a bunch of really hard games left though. Like, super hard, if I think about it, with the North London Derby, two away days in Manchester, a trip to Brighton (who will be tough despite their form – they are still a good side), games against Villa at home and an organised and well-drilled Wolves away. You’ve also got the bag of Revels that is Chelsea and you never know which side of that team will show its face on the day. So for us despite the fact I’m looking at where we are at and thinking another two or three wins should secure Champions League football for next season, there are a plethora of banana skins that are waiting for us.

That’s kind of also why I wanted City and Liverpool to progress in the FA Cup this weekend. That competition is one that a Liverpool v City final would have been fine by me; it would have meant extra games and would have seen their fixture list to continue to pile up. But given Coventry got through against Wolves this weekend, it also means that whoever won from Liverpool and United would have a relatively easy semi final leg that you could imagine would have been a fairly easy one to rotate. As we all know it wasn’t to be for Liverpool and Klopp and the only annoying thing about the fact that it went to extra time and 120 minutes, is that there aren’t any Premier League games for Liverpool to slip up in for a couple of weeks. I mean yeah, the players will go away with their respective national teams, but those national team managers will probably be very understanding of the amount of minutes in those Liverpool players legs, so they probably won’t all play tonnes of football whilst on an international friendly weekend.

So not an ideal for us, where we want City and Liverpool to have as many games as possible, but at least they will still have the Europa League to occupy them and in Atlanta they probably don’t have a team that they can do mass resting and rotation. At least I hope not. They’ll play a strong side much like we will have to against Bayern. And who knows, maybe them going out of the FA Cup in the way they did will also impact their confidence? We can but hope.

Apologies, there’s not really been a lot of Arsenal chatter today, but that’s just because we’ve played no football and I think Arteta has even given the players this weekend off. That will hopefully stand them in good stead ahead of going away on International duty, whilst Arteta and his coaching staff can start to work out how the devil we’re going to win all of our remaining games this season. There was one slightly Arsenal-related bit, which was Ten Haag referencing us in his press conference yesterday. He seemed to suggest that it was that game in which we won in stoppage time that had an impact on their season and that they were unlucky to lose, which is amusing, because if you re-watch that game as we all know we absolutely battered them. But hey, if he wants to make those kind of excuses for the fact that they’re 17 points off top at this stage of the season, then that’s his prerogative. If it means he keeps on doing what he’s doing and United keep on playing like they’ve played all season, that’s a-ok with me.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today. Enjoy your Monday and I’ll be back tomorrow with some more Arsenal musings of some kind.

“If only we could have taken one of the MANY chances we’ve had so far” I said to myself.

Oh how that is a familiar feeling about Arsenal right now. Because as we all know, what transpired in that second half was yet another sucker-punch ending, yet another missed opportunity, yet another defeat and yet another match day in which we go home scratching our heads about what is happening for The Arsenal in front of goal.

We have a serious finishing problem now guys.

At West Ham on 28th December people were suggesting that the result was one of those freak ones that happen every season. I think I even said post game that you get matches like that; my brother and I always called them ‘Championship Manager’ games, where the computer’s game engine has just decided that no matter how much better you are than the opponent, no matter how many shots you have, you aren’t winning this one. But whilst many were quick to suggest that game against the Hammers a fluke, there was a nagging thought building in the back of my mind and that was that we had been seeing this for large parts of the season and particularly in December, this had an air of familiarity about it.

Fast forward to right now and this now officially feels like a goal drought and a confidence issue within the forwards of this Arsenal team. I don’t believe that these players aren’t good enough. I don’t believe that last season’s goal tally was a ‘one off’ or a ‘one season wonder’. I think these players are very good, but right now their confidence looks shot to pieces. Nothing is going for them and that is manifesting itself with things like too many touches, wanting the ball to sit up perfectly before a shot, or just a plain ol’ miscue. For evidence of the ‘too many touches’ approach, see one particular Havertz shot in the first half when he controlled the ball when he could have first time shot, then took a touch, then a second touch, before shooting, by which time Konate had got in front of him and had managed to get a deflection which slowed down the shot for Allison to get down easily and save. For the ‘miscue’ example, see the second half where the ball came to Saka at the back post and all he had to do was hit the target and we would have scored, yet he shinned it high and in to the air.

Nothing is falling for these Arsenal players and I don’t think it is just bad luck. I think they are all thinking too much about it. Arteta was asked about it after the game (whether there was a psychological issue) and he said that it was a possibility. I have to admit that I even thought it (and said it) prior to this game; he was asked if the team had lost confidence in front of goal and whilst he said it was ‘momentum’ that had been lost instead of confidence, in that press conference there was enough of hesitation before he answered for me to play amateur psychologist and think “he thinks there IS a confidence problem, he just doesn’t want to say it out loud”.

Well he doesn’t have to now, because it is there for the whole world to see, so the next 10 – 12 days will be pivotal in how this season is going to finish for us. We’re out of the League Cup, we’re out of the FA Cup, there is no way we’re getting near the Champions League with the way we’re playing at the moment and it feels like an assault on the title is slowly disappearing too. Unless those forwards can find some sort of magic scoring elixir or potion, we are staring down the barrel of a top four challenge, rather than a league title one.

And it’s really disheartening too, because this team is doing so much right. We made Liverpool look average in the first half and in the second half they were better, they created chances, but we did too, so it was a bit more of an even game. But as every minute ticked on, you just knew there would be something that would go against us. Such is the luck right now, you just knew that we’d get sucker-punched, which was exactly what happened. Kiwior’s header was mistimed, Ramsdale flapped a little, the ball ended up in the back of the net. Standard. Liverpool had been somewhat dangerous up until that point, but it was more calamitous defending that cost us. Just like at Fulham for their winner, just like against West Ham with both of their goals, our defence was the master of it’s own downfall and suddenly, annoyingly, we can’t seem to defend set pieces.

It feels like we’re being given maximum punishment for any defensive lapses right now, because every team makes mistakes, but it seems to be us that is being constantly punished.

This is a competition that realistically we should have been thinking about as one that we have a good chance of winning in. I’ve already said above I don’t think we’ll get the Champions League and the Premier League title is the hardest to win of the lot, which we aren’t going to get close to in my opinion, because of our attacking issues. We don’t score enough goals and now we’re opening the back door so that our opponents can score with the one or two chances they get every game.

This was a really tough one to swallow yesterday, because there were plenty of positives to take, but the problem is that we can’t just look at this as an isolated game. It’s happening with an alarming frequency and unless something happens in the next 10 days that magically changes the mindset and the confidence of the team in front of goal, this season is going to fizzle out. Arteta said to stick behind these players, because they are really good and last season showed that they have something about them, but based on what we’ve seen for the vast bulk of this season so far you wonder if last season was just a ‘one off’. We haven’t really seen that side from last season at all and it annoys me when I read other fans or journalists suggest that. It hurts. But we have no evidence right now to suggest that suddenly this team will burst in to life.

The players need a reset, the manager needs a reset and heck, it feels like we as fans need a reset too. We all need some time away because what’s happening now is not fun in the slightest.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Oh and p.s. – I love the idea, I love the club doing it’s bit for an amazing cause, but that white kit can get in the bin.

I don’t know why, but whilst I do have the normal butterflies ahead of a big game, I’m not feeling the usual stresses that I would a normal knockout tie. I would also go as far to suggest that I might be feeling more nervous about the league game against the Scousers than I do today. I’ll let you know if that rings true at the beginning of February when we play them. But…I dunno…I just don’t feel the same. I don’t feel it’s as much of a ‘free hit’ game as the League Cup is, because those are fun and just an opportunity to see rotation and just be a bit ‘meh’ when you get knocked out, but this game feels just a couple of notches up the nerves ladder for me. It isn’t dialled up to ten or anything. I guess that’s probably because we’ve won it in recent memory (four year’s ago) and because we’ve done it so many times, but probably because it’s the third round of the competition and before I get my away day out at Wembley for a semi final, there would still be another three rounds to get to. It’s sort of like when you have an amazing holiday planned for about six months time; you know it’s happening, you’ll be super excited when it draws nearer, but right now you’ve just got to get on with school/work and wait for the day to come.

Of course this isn’t the mindset any of us want Arteta and his team to have and I absolutely don’t think they will do. They’ll want to win this and set us up for a warm weather winter training session in which the players are bouncing. And that is the up side of such a tie as this one; if the players manage to get over the line and beat Liverpool, then the Christmas malaise that set in after two back-to-back defeats will feel a little less dramatic than it did on New Year’s Day. In his press conference Arteta spoke not of confidence being lost, but of momentum, so now he must know that a big way of building that back up, is by getting a big win and a scalp like Liverpool.

Team news wise I think we’re all still sweating on what happens with Zinchenko. We know there won’t be any other changes to the injury or absentee list and with Tomiyasu out at the Asia Cup the option will Be Kiwior or the Ukrainian. I actually think that Kiwior would be better than he was against Fulham if he played though; he’s clearly a better defender than Zinny and against Fulham it was our ponderous build up and attack that was the issue. But against Liverpool we’ll almost certainly have to be better defensively to keep them out and so my hope is that if Zinchenko isn’t fit, then we get a fine performance from Kiwior. He kinda needs it.

The rest of the team will almost certainly be ‘as is’ I would have thought. Perhaps we might see Ramsdale come in and I think Arteta probably should do that given the lack of games that Rammers has had, but if Raya starts then it’s just another example of how Arteta’s “I have two number ones” was clearly hollow words. I’ve accepted it’s Raya and whilst I haven’t quite moved on, I’m not going to be mega frustrated as I was at the start of the season. As for the rest, like I say, I think it’ll be ‘as you were’. The players have had a whole week since the last game, we have a week off after this game at least, so it is an opportunity to go strong, see if you can win it, then jet off to Dubai. So for me that means Rice, Havertz, Odegaard, Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Martinelli. I’ve seen some suggest that Jorginho might be an option in the base of the midfield and I’d probably have no issue with that if we’re talking about most other teams, but Liverpool are a back to front team in transition and they want to break on you in numbers. If Jorginho is broken against, then it’ll be a car crash, as we all know he doesn’t have the pace, so for me I’d stick with the same side that played against Fulham. Plus, Arteta can tell them to prove they deserve to start given such a shocking performance against the Cottagers.

As for Liverpool, they have their absentees – Salah, Endo, Szoboszlai through injury – to add to the existing absentees of Thiago, Matip, Robertson and Tsimikas, but from the sounds of it Klopp won’t be rotating much this afternoon against us. He even said in his presser that now is not the time for it, so I expect them to be very strong and their squad is certainly good enough even with all of those absentees. I’ve read a few of the Liverpool fan site expectations and their mood is fairly even from what I can see. One guy I watched predicted a 1-1- with a ‘I’ll take a draw’. I guess you’d say that when you’re away from home. They reckon they’ll do a fair bit of rotation and the guy I saw a video of was even suggesting no Alexander-Arnold, which I can’t see happening at all. He’s the guy that makes them tick, is their quarter back from deep and if we go as strong as we all think Arteta will, it’ll leave a younger player up against Martinelli.

The other wing will be interesting because Joe Gomez had a good game against Saka and I suspect Saka will want to correct that today. I feel like he hasn’t always faired well against centre backs playing as full backs; I remember thinking last season that he’d roast Dan Burn when we played Newcastle and it never really happened, plus we had the games against City away in the league and cup where Ake seemed to keep him quiet all game. Perhaps it’s just me extrapolating based on some very small sample sizes, but I do think we need to see a game in which Saka has a blinder against a makeshift fullback/centre half.

We are going to need to be on it in defence though. They have an array of options including Darwin, Gakpo, Luis Diaz and then of course, that curse that is Diogo Jota. The man has six goals in his last seven appearances against us and I am in no doubt that Klopp will be getting him on and wanting him to be front and centre against us today. Saliba and Gabriel need to keep him quiet, but also be mindful of their two other forwards as well. Any of those guys are capable of bagging goals and last season Nunez did, so whilst some Arsenal fans chuckle at how many chances Darwin Nunez does miss, you can bet your bottom dollar he won’t miss if being given the chance today.

We could do without a draw, Liverpool could do without a draw, so I’m hoping that we don’t get that because it’ll cut the mini winter break down and we could do without that. Plus the chances of us winning at Anfield are always slim. So for me I am hoping that Arsenal go hard at this and try to regain some of that lost momentum Arteta talks about it. It kind of feels like we need it more than Liverpool right now.

I’ll be doing a Same Old Arsenal show with Amanda this evening at around 8pm I reckon, but if you fancy a little more listening ahead of today’s game, the two James’ did the preview show midweek which you can hear here. So I’ll catch you all then. Have a good one.

It’s a shame really, because the third round weekend used to be one of the more fun weekends. You used to get yourself a home or away tie against another team you usually don’t play against, there would be tonnes of football on all the time (well, compared to most week’s of the season before the TV companies starting upping the number of matches), it’d be a bit of a novelty. I remember going to watch us play Farnborough at Highbury. Or going with the wife and Dave to Preston away on a foggy Saturday evening. It was different, it was fun, it was a switch up to the norm.

I love that football is more available if you’re not in the ground – I really do – but one of the consequences of that is that when there’s a game on the terrestrial channels like last night, I just wasn’t that fussed about watching it. 25 year’s ago I’d have even stomached 90 minutes of The Scum. But not now. It’s a bit like that song “Oh I wish it could be Christmas everyday” by Wizzard. If it was Christmas every day then it would feel as magical time of the year, you know?

So the fact that we’ve got Liverpool tomorrow at 4pm is a bit ‘meh’ to me. It doesn’t help that it’s one of the hardest ties we could have got and as Arteta admitted in his press conference yesterday and I got the feeling he probably felt the same, because when he was asked about it, he sounded a bit ‘meh’ when he said that we don’t really have a choice and both teams would have expected (and although he didn’t say it out loud, ‘hoped’) for something a little different.

He was asked about fitness updates and as usual we got nothing, but on Zinchenko he did say that there is another training session and the player is ‘progressing well’. I suspect he’ll be back in tomorrow. Then after that game it’ll be off to some warm weather training and then they can work out what to do when Zinny eventually breaks down again. It won’t be to play Tomiyasu as he’s off to the Asia Cup, it won’t be Timber, as he’s still miles away from being fit, but it might be Kiwior, even if that didn’t quite look as sound against Fulham last weekend. My thinking on that, however, is that he has hardly played and I don’t think he’s as bad in a left back role as some make out. He probably just needs game time and although that won’t come this weekend unless Zinchenko doesn’t make it, perhaps there might be some opportunities with Palace and Forest the next two league games after that. Of course I think if Zinchenko is fit then he starts, but as we’ve seen a few times since he joined us, he can’t really be relied on to string together 10 – 15 matches back-to-back, so we need to be ready to have Kiwior able to play and for me that means a fair bit of work on the training ground when the team fly off to Dubai after this weekend.

There have been a few noises on social media about the fact we’re looking for a left back, which I find weird unless Timber is 100% out until May, because it’ll mean when all are fit we have like six options there, but Arteta didn’t really say either way what sort of areas we’re looking at. He said it’s as much a possibility as it is us not signing anybody at all is a possibility. You get the feeling that the club are in a bit of a bind on the transfer front because of the FFP stuff; if it was a case of throwing money at the problem I think we might see some short term options like a Jorginho or a Trossard from last season, but the club can’t do that this time so I’d be interested to see what they come up with. Hopefully something because it feels like there isn’t some returning solutions that will suddenly stock our team up. He didn’t really go in to detail about Partey but I suspect the club are keeping that quite, so having him join up with training in Dubai might be the only boost we can hope for in the coming weeks.

Then, inevitably, came the chatter about the supposed complaint to the PGMOL about the treatment that Saka gets. This is an interesting one I think, because who found out about this and how did they get that info? There’s no way Arsenal would want that released, because they’d know the backlash that it’d get from the “yer da’s” of this world. So I can only assume the PGMOL or somebody that side might have released something – which in itself shouldn’t surprise us at all. It feels like we’re being held up as the bad boys and a high profile test case for them to spin a “look! see! Here’s a moaning club for you against poor, battered, PGMOL. We’re just trying to do our jobs…” campaign. Arteta basically dismissed that we’ve specifically spoken about Saka and I guess even if we did it’s a good move, because effectively whoever leaked that info now needs to front up with evidence of these conversations, otherwise it’s a case of just media waffle and hopefully just gets batted away.

The reality, as we all know, is that Saka certainly does get targeted, gets fouled on a rotational basis and is told by referees to ‘get up’ a lot. There is a narrative that has started to build around him and although it is wrong, Arteta and Arsenal – and Saka himself to be fair – when speaking in the press have just talked about how it’s part of the game. But when the Euro’s come around in the summer and he gets kicked by players in an England shirt, I wonder how many of those opposition fans talking up ‘moaning Arsenal’ will be on the side-lines exasperated at how many times he’s been brought down, eh? Let’s wait and see on that one…

The only other thing I’ll touch on before I toodle off, is when Arteta was asked about whether confidence has been dented after back-to-back defeats. He hesitated before saying that it was ‘momentum’ rather than confidence. That hesitation says to me that I think he was trying to find an alternate word, so I think our confidence has taken a knock. Hopefully a big performance and (fingers crossed) a win tomorrow helps to restore that, because you just worry what another defeat might do for this young team.

Right, I’m done for today – you enjoy your Saturday and I’ll be back tomorrow for a match preview.

Laters peeps.

And let’s be honest here, it is a slump in form in front of goal. We can all look at underlying metrics, we can all console ourselves in the fact that we have been creating loads of chances, but the reality is that in our last five matches we’ve scored four goals – not even remotely good enough for an attempt on the title. I had a little look at how many we’d scored at 20 games last season and it was 45 goals scored. This season we have 37. So we’re seven goals worse off than last season and if you add those to this season’s tally, I’d bet we’d certainly be about six points better off at least. I know that the beginning of last season we were as good as we were probably going to be and that we were ‘running hot’ in the first half of the season, but it feels like we’ve swung the other way of the mean average this season. Of course we can swing it back, of course we can get back to winning ways and this team has shown us that it is good, but my worry is confidence; we all know how difficult it is to get back and so Mikel Arteta’s job for this week is to remind his players of how good they have been and how they know where the net is.

I guess ideally we could have done without arguably one of the toughest FA Cup third round ties you could get this weekend. Liverpool or City away would have been that, but at home is a close second behind them and whereas the Scum have a home game against second from bottom Burnley, Chelsea have a home tie against Preston, City host Huddersfield and United go to Wigan, Arteta has a more difficult task on his hand and one that threatens to turn this ‘Christmas blip’ in to something resembling a rough patch of form. Defeat to Liverpool means that’s four without a win and we then have two week’s in which there is a break, meaning that by the time we line up at home to Crystal Palace on 20th January it will have been just under 50 days since those players tasted a win. That’s a slightly nervy prospect and so this game at the weekend probably has a little more significance about it had we have won our games over the festive period.

Can Arteta afford for his team to have a ‘negative spiral’ by losing on Sunday? Can he therefore even rotate at a time in which we’re all reading noises across various social media channels that the likes of Saka and White are all carrying knocks? I’m not sure when Tomiyasu has to report to Japan for the competition, but I would suggest the Japanese national team might be thinking that it is cutting it a little too fine for him to play on Sunday, then be ready the following Sunday for their game against Vietnam. If you think about it, he would play on Sunday, then he’d probably not leave for Japan until Monday, maybe Tuesday if they want to give him a rest. Then he has to get on a plane, for which he’d probably need a days rest the other side, so he’s probably not linking up with his teammates until Thursday at the earliest and they play on Sunday.

I suppose the good news is that it is in Qatar. If it was in Japan it would be an even longer flight time, even more hours ahead and therefore more recovery time for the player needed, which would almost certainly rule out the chance he plays this weekend. But if Arsenal can charm the Japanese FA enough, maybe there’s an outside bet we have him playing. And if Zinchenko remains out this weekend, it feels like he’s almost certain to start.

And with complications like these players out injured or travelling to competitions in other corners of the world, it does feel as though we are really having to do a bit of a “once more unto the breach” for the players before they can head off to Dubai for their warm weather training. It’s going to have to be a strong side that plays and that means that Arteta is going to have to patch up some of those players before he can tell them to take a rest ahead of the next Premier League game. Again, you can see why playing a Huddersfield or Wigan might be a good opportunity to fast track that, but it’s the cards we have been dealt and we have to deal with that.

The other news that is bubbling under the surface is that Aaron Ramsdale wants out because he doesn’t want to miss the Euro 2024 squad this summer. I get that, but I can’t see how any move is sanctioned in January. Somebody would have to slap mega money down for him because Arsenal’s number three is Karl Hein and they won’t promote him; they’d have to go for a replacement in the market. Even if a club came in and wanted a loan the same situation would occur; we’d have to find a backup replacement and whilst that would be easier than – say, our striker search – it’d still be something that is a bit of a pain for the club. I can’t see anything happening but you never know based on whether the player pushes for it to get game time. I don’t really want to delve in to the why’s and wherefores of that situation as we’ve already gone over it, but it is all still a bit of a mess and it doesn’t really help anyone the way it has panned out.

And so we might still be playing the waiting game on that situation, as I expect we will on a few of the other holes in the team, because I don’t think Arsenal will move at all until the end of the window if anything and that means the month of January might be a tough one if we lose any more players to injury. I suppose the good news is that after this weekend we only have two games – home to Palace and away to Forest – but with the treatment table being a bit of a revolving door, Arsenal must still be keeping their eyes on the market. It would be wrong not to.

Catch up tomorrow.

I suppose I could talk about the Conti Cup and the Arsenal Women and the fact they overcame the Scum on penalties, with Viv Miedema making her first start in about a year. Fantastic news for Arsenal, the depth of the squad is starting to show through and off the back of the win last weekend against Chelsea, I think those ladies are in a pretty good place mentally and momentum-wise right now. It’s funny you know, the last couple of year’s I’ve started to pay more and more attention to the Women’s game. If you’d have asked me about it five year’s ago I’d have given a bit of a ‘meh’ response. Some of it is probably that there is much more coverage and the TV channels have – for a change – done a really good thing in making the game more accessible for the average armchair fan. But I also think that the quality has improved massively. Maybe that is because of the investment in the game, the fact that after that World Cup in France all those years ago we have younger kids suddenly wanting to play football a bit more, or maybe it’s a combination of everything, but when I’ve watched games now compared to six or seven years ago it does feel as though the standard has been raised.

And I also mean the standard of the competition. I suspect the regular Arsenal Women watchers might tell me that five year’s ago Arsenal’s quality was always good, but was the quality of those they were up against always that good? I don’t know, because I didn’t watch, but the few times I did watch I did think that the standard wasn’t that great. But now I watch it and recognise it has come a long way – and that is fantastic for football as a whole. Ultimately it is a sport that can be played by everyone, so should be positioned as that.

And any Arsenal fan who can’t celebrate a win against The Scum ain’t a real Arsenal fan – that’s for darn sure.

There’s some rumblings about a guy from Santos that we’re supposedly interested in and I was about to say “the transfer window is miles away” but then I realised it opens in 18 days – so in just over two weeks time – and suddenly it feels like we should be thinking about how this squad can be supplemented. You only have to look at the fact that we couldn’t heavily rotate our team against PSV to realise that we probably need to add to the team in January, but quite where that is remains to be seen. We have a fair few injuries right now, but they’re not injuries that mean you absolutely must go in to the market. It’s a tough one because we’re hearing good noises about Timber, Tomiyasu is rumoured to be out for most of January and when he does come back he’ll probably be asked to head off to the Asia Cup. Japan’s first game is on 14th January and if he’s expected to be back around 20th January, I suspect Japan will want him with them so they can assess him. The final is on 10th February so realistically we probably aren’t seeing Tomiyasu in an Arsenal shirt until March as he’ll probably need a week off.

The Timber injury is the unknown quantity because Arteta had glowing things to say about him earlier in the week, saying “he’s flying” and it gets you excited that we might see him soon. But He did follow that up by saying that he won’t be back with the team any time soon. At best I’d be expecting him to be ready towards the back end of February, but there’s a big chunk of matches to be played there and with Tomiyasu also probably not around until March, do we need another option in defence? It feels strange to say that because at the start of the season you’d have said that we probably have enough cover:

• Left back options = Zinchenko, Tomiyasu, Timber and Kiwior as an auxiliary option
• Centre back options = Gabriel, Saliba, Kiwior, White, Tomiyasu and I think even Timber as an auxiliary option
• Right back options = White, Tomiyasu, Timber then Partey, then even Cedric as an auxiliary option (that we’d never really want to use)

So you look at it like that and it seems like that’s a pretty good collective. But in that one of the most versatile players we have is Tomiyasu and given his injury record that actually makes the list i’ve mapped out there look quite light. You take Tomiyasu out of the mix and we have two left backs, two right backs, four centre halves – without having to take in to account the ‘break glass in case of emergency’ guys. So perhaps this is part of Arteta’s thinking. The problem is, of course, that when you hit March and the crunch period of the season, if everyone suddenly becomes fit, you’re going to have unhappy players in the camp. That doesn’t make for great camaraderie if you have too many of them.

So in many ways I sympathise with the January decisions that Arsenal need to make in the market. I do think that an attacking option is a slightly easier one to justify, because we have a clear need for aq rapid wide player who can cover for Saka and Martinelli. On Tuesday we had Trossard left, Nketiah up top and Nelson wide right. Nelson did alright, but I like Trossard centrally, so him moving centrally solves a few cover problems, but means a space in the flanks that I think we need to fill.

In midfield I think we’re ok, although that too has a question mark over it, because we are missing Partey until probably the West Ham game at the earliest, then the AFCON starts in January which means he’s gone from after the Liverpool FA Cup game until potentially mid-February. But it is what is is on that one – we’re getting used to life without him so I’ll not delve in to too much detail there.

Instead I shall wrap up today’s ramblings by saying I hope you have a great one and I’ll catch you all tomorrow. I’m thinking about doing a preview game ahead of Brighton tomorrow evening so will keep you posted on that.

Ciao amigos!

What is also odd, however, is that looking at my Twitter timeline, every other Arsenal fan feels the same. It appears we’re all aligned to this defeat and are ok with it. It almost feels like the FA Cup is a little more like the League Cup and we were all ok with not having to pack in more games in to an already crowded fixture schedule. Just look at United; they are of course delighted they are on the verge of a cup final and they will probably win the League Cup so that’s a trophy and nothing to be sniffed at, but I’ve seen a couple of United fans talk about the fixture congestion they have and bubbling under the surface they are concerned with the thought of injuries and fatigue. They play Reading tonight and if they overcome them – as expected – that’ll be another game in which they need to add to the schedule and means they are playing every three days between now and the middle of March I think.

That is a fate that now won’t befall The Arsenal and where we would have played the next round on Wednesday 1st March in between Leicester away and Bournemouth away, now we have a full week of recovery time to prepare for that Bournemouth game at home. Let’s all remind ourselves of the opportunity we potentially have here: we are in with a shout of a league title if we can maintain our form.

And that’s another positive I took from yesterday’s game, because the performance itself wasn’t actually that bad, especially given the fact Arteta rotated and Pep kinda didn’t. Arteta bought the deputy full backs in, he played Turner in goal, he played Holding at the back and brought in Trossard for Martinelli. And in that first half it was us who had the better of the chances, stinging the palms of Ortega with Tomiyasu and Trossard efforts, as well as volley from Fabio Vieira – in for Odegaard – which went wide. What I saw from that Arsenal performance yesterday was a team who was heavily rotated, up against a very strong City side at home who didn’t batter us.

What did we learn from City? That they know and respect us and they didn’t try to win this game by going gung-ho and putting us to the sword. But what did City learn about us? Not a lot because we rotated out half of our team and hopefully we have all of those players fit for the game against them in a couple of weeks time. And I use the word ‘hopefully’ because the biggest worry was Partey coming off at halftime. He was apparently feeling his ribs and had discomfort, so they took him off as a precautionary measure, but Arteta was asked about him afterwards and just said that they’ll have to give him an MRI scan either today or tomorrow to find out. If he’s bruised or cracked his ribs, then we’re looking at a race against time for him to be ready for that City game on the 15th February. That is two-and-a-half weeks away and if he’s cracked his rib then the diagnosis is at least three weeks apparently. We’ve said it all season and we’ve lamented our reliance on him staying fit, but Thomas Partey is a guy who when he comes out we look a very different side and exert nowhere near as much control in the base of our midfield. The injury to Gabriel Jesus was tough to take, but there was always the chance that Eddie steps forward and does what Eddie does – score goals. But we saw yesterday in the second half that Sambi just isn’t on the same level as Partey and if we are havingto rely on him in that City game, then we might be handing them a slight advantage.

That’s not to bag on Sambi though, because I think he’s a decent player, but he’s just not as aware as Partey, his ability to pressure spaces isn’t as great and he does tend to drift in and out of games when we are without the ball. That’s a big problem against a team like City and might be one small part of the reason as to why we lost yesterday.

But it wasn’t just Sambi, because there were one or two other players who didn’t exactly play splendidly on the night. Saka was marshalled really well by Ake and you can bet your bottom dollar that when we play them at the Emirates, Pep will charge Ake with replicating that good performance. This is what I mean by saying ‘what did City learn about us?’ though, because that game will be very different. Fabio Vieira did ok, but he’s no Odegaard and our captain takes up positions closer to Bukayo that will mean he has quicker and easier passing lanes to exchange with his teammates. I think the relationship and overlapping of White also helps to draw out defenders too and Tomi wasn’t doing that last night, which meant Saka was hardly afforded time to be one-on-one isolated with Ake and City very much doubled down on Saka at times. At the Emirates my hope is that Odegaard, White and Saka all closer together will give our starboy more time to shine.

I wonder what Pep is thinking about Arsenal this morning. The media narrative will be simple: “Arsenal never beat City”, “Round one to City”, “Advantage City in the psychological race”, as well as “how will big a blow will this be to Arsenal’s season?”. But what I saw yesterday was a team that could easily go toe-to-toe with a side who has dominated domestically for the last five years. I saw us instantly look better when Holding went off for Saliba and we started to get a little bit of control back when some of our first teamers came back on. So from where I was sitting, I don’t see there being any psychological victory for the current reigning champions.

I do see why Arsenal are looking to move fast for Caicedo though. It will be tough because Brighton appear to be very clear that they aren’t letting the player go and his statement may have left the door ajar for it to happen this January, but only if Chelsea or Arsenal pay up some pretty big bucks for the guy. I don’t see us dropping £80million-odd, but I could see Chelsea doing that, so I’m not paying too much attention to this situation until it really hots up.

Anyway, that’s all from me for today I think, so have a good one and if you’re like me don’t sweat the weekend. Because that was a defeat that was a lot easier to swallow.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Honestly, I really am!

I think it is because – as I’ve said all week – this is priority number three on our list and regardless of the result, I can stomach whatever happens this evening. Obviously I want Arsenal to win and obviously a victory tonight on Man City’s ground will be massive and could have a huge impact on the team in terms of psychological boost going in to the second half of the season, but if we are defeated this evening then you can spin a positive position on it. We all agree that perhaps competing on three fronts might be a little too much for this Arsenal team. This is the first time we’ve ever been in a position where we are in a title race for about 15 years, so the league has never represented a competition we could realistically get close to for a long time. The Europa League is a European competition and we don’t win those. The FA Cup we’ve done before and more times than anybody else. When the fifth round of the FA Cup is played it is slap bang in between two Premier League games and that will be matches 24 and 25, which – as I have already said – is the point at which I will either start to believe we could actually win the league, or re-calibrate my thoughts because City have inevitably caught us up.

So if we are knocked out tonight, there will be clear daylight between two games in which we’ll be able to rest first teamers and have them ready for the next Premier League game. So for me, as much as I love the FA Cup – and I really do because I get to be there at Wembley and win, lose or draw it is a fantastic day out – I can make a case for us no longer being in the competition.

That being said, what the worst situation is from tonight’s game, is a draw, because the fourth round of the competition is the last point in which there can be replays I believe. Neither Man City nor Arsenal want that given their respective schedules, which makes who plays for both sides rather intriguing tonight.

I have a sneaky suspicion that Arteta will go quite strong this evening, you know. I suspect he might give minutes to Turner, Tomiyasu, maybe Trossard, but I don’t think we’ll see the level of rotation that I would personally like to see. For me, I’d undertake mass rotation, and not because I want us to be knocked out. No, instead, I want to ensure that there are minutes in the legs of players who haven’t played as much. If it was me that would mean a side that looked like this:

Turner

Cedric   –   Holding   –   Tomiyasu   –   Tierney

Kiwior

Fabio Vieira   –   Lokonga

Marquinhos   –   ESR   –   Trossard

Now, the problem with this line up, however, is that a) Arteta would never fully rotate like this in a million years, b) Kiwior is thrown straight in to a position that he hasn’t played since last season, c) there are rumours that ESR hasn’t travelled and d) it involves a Cedric who has one foot out of the door and Arsenal risk him to injury.

So perhaps that might be the most redundant attempt at a starting XI I’ve ever done, but I just wanted to show you what I would do, as well as why.

What I ‘think’ Arteta will do, is put Partey in tonight. I don’t think he’ll start Kiwior in a game sure to have higher intensity, so I suspect that means Gabriel. I wonder if Zinchenko is so important to the way we play, that Arteta will pick him at left back, plus I suspect Nketiah will also start. There’s no way that Marquinhos plays and that means Saka gets a go this evening and I even wonder if Partey and Xhaka together will be a ‘thing’ for this evening. So all of a sudden you have a pretty strong first team and alarmingly for me, a first team susceptible to injury, perhaps?

I know, I know, you can’t think like that otherwise you’d never play any of your players. Plus there is the fact that this game is on a weekend and there is clear daylight between last week’s game and next week’s game, so you can afford to play players and know that there is recovery time before we play Everton next Saturday lunchtime. But I just feel like some of our players will benefit with a nice long rest ahead of a busy schedule, hence wanting to do some mass rotation, whilst also getting those minutes in to those players who haven’t been starting lately.

Anybody saying that we haven’t had many injuries though, I’ll point them to the fact that we are potentially missing Elneny, ESR and Gabriel Jesus for tonight. These are players that might very well have played and it means our squad already feels stretched. Am I overthinking and over worrying though? Perhaps. But it feels like with every game we now play the pressure and intensity is ratcheting up every time. So perhaps overthinking is going to be a trait from now on this season.

As for Man City, I feel sure Pep will rotate. But that won’t impact them too much. He’ll play Ortega in goal, probably play Alvarez instead of Haaland, then the likes of Kalvin Phillips and Phil Foden will probably start. The rest is a bit of a mystery as to who he plays but I wonder if De Bruyne will also be a man used from the bench like Haaland? Again, like us, City have over a week off until their next game and so it wouldn’t surprise me to see that he goes full strength tonight, but City’s squad is so good, so strong, that you can’t really tell if he’s rotated an entire team or not.

It will be tough, it will be a good test for us, it will very much feel like a dress rehearsal for the Premier League games, but for me the important thing is to try to avoid serious injury to any player and demonstrate to City that we are a match for them.

There will be plenty of Arsenal fans who are up for this one tonight and in the ground I think we have something like 8,000 of our lot there, so there will be a fair representation from those travelling away Arsenal supporters. So it’ll feel like a good atmosphere and I’m looking forward to seeing how we get on.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief on what has transpired.

But that’s all for tomorrow, because today it’s all about pouring over what Mikel said in his pre match presser yesterday ahead of the game, as well as the team news.

I guess the main update was the confirmation that Mo Elneny is out injured and that is something of a frustration for the club I’d expect. We all know his limitations, we all know he’s not exactly the best understudy for Thomas Partey, but with the games due to come thick and fast and the need to rotate Partey from time to time surely being something that Arteta will have in his mind, having him out injured again for a prolonged period of time is not ideal. The real issue, however, is if it’s a long term injury. All Arteta said is that “Mo never complains about anything” and so I guess the club need to get a proper detailed analysis on how bad his knee injury is, but the timing is rubbish. It’s rubbish because we’ve all heard about the rumours, about the possible pursuit of Rice in the summer and how the club are clearly earmarking the summer to try to get a deal done for a top class midfielder. Elneny’s contract is up in the summer and I suspect the club thought they might be able to get away with him as understudy for the remainder of the season. But if he’s out for a couple of months, that represents a big risk and we’ll be given an indication of his injury based on whether they move swiftly in the market by next Tuesday. I doubt they’ll be able to bring for a ‘big’ move like a deal for a player like Rice (assuming he IS in fact the target) to this January, plus we’ve seen how Sambi probably isn’t the player to play in that role Partey plays – not yet, anyway. So what do they do? Stick or twist? I guess it depends on Mo. But they need to make a decision fast and this weekend I reckon.

Cedric is the only other player there is a question on and it appears he’s joining Fulham on loan until the end of the season. If it’s true they’re covering his £100k-per-week deal then great, but the fact we’re paying him that money in the first place is an utter travesty. It’ll mean a good £1.8million saved off the wage bill so I guess that’s no small change and if he plays regularly then maybe we can get some money for him in the summer.

On to the game tomorrow and some of the other stuff he said in the presser, I thought it was an interesting comment he made about the Kiwior signing, because he made a point of saying we had three centre halves and this adds the fourth. Hmm…so that means he’s counting Tomi and White as right backs? I suspect he would have played White or Tomi if were needed, but perhaps it’s positive that in his mind he’s clearly thinking the ol’ “two for every position” and that doesn’t include having those versatile players counting double. Personally I thought we were pretty well covered before Kiwior’s arrival but this obviously just absolute guarantees that. Which I think is fair enough.

But will he play the new signings tomorrow night and rotate his team? That’s a difficult one to answer and reading his words on the official site and listening to what he said on the videos, it feels very difficult to predict. I have only a gut feel on this but to me it feels like he might sprinkle one or two in rotation. Players like Turner, Tierney and Tomiaysu probably deserve the game time and they’ve been on the verges of regular football. You can tell Arteta wants to keep them motivated because he brings them on as much as he can. But ultimately you can’t change a winning team and we’ve been winning. Like, a LOT.

So tomorrow will give an opportunity for a bit of rotation and I think he’ll do it. I don’t normally write off the Fa Cup but as I said yesterday, I’d rotate the heck out of the team based on the fact it’s an away game and we’re probably going to lose, but also when Arteta was asked about the impact a defeat might have he was semi dismissive about it. I think if he rotates most of the team tomorrow and loses, the squad as a whole will probably be able to quite easily brush this off. I worry that a completely full strength team getting beat might have a different effect, so there’s another reason to give it a bit of a rotation and potentially save yourselves some kind of psychological disadvantage for later on in the season.

Right, that’s about it from me today, so I’ll bid you all adieu for now and I’ll catch thee in the morrow.

You have a good one.

Can I let you in on a little secret? I’m actually not that worried about this game on Friday at the Etihad. That is not out of some misplaced arrogance that we’re going to get a result, but rather I am hoping that Arteta uses it as an opportunity to rotate some players and give other players an opportunity to get some minutes in their legs, ahead of what is going to be an intense second half of the season in which we will be playing every few days.

We’ve won the FA Cup more than anybody else. We’re away from home against what is being argued to be the best side in the country (behind ourselves of course) and we have been given the single most difficult tie of the round by playing them away from home. Pep will rotate on Friday, of course, but his rotation given the resources he has at his disposal, is very different to what we can do and so I’m almost looking at this game as a free hit. If we go through, then ‘great!’ and we’ve knocked out one of the most difficult teams in the division. But if we go out, then my hope is that the home game against Everton that was postponed earlier in the season, could potentially be moved to  when the fifth round matches are being played, which would be in between the Leicester and Bournemouth games. But it would mean less congestion for us and also mean that we aren’t playing a team in Everton who will have had time off, as they will have to play other Premier League fixtures when we play. I think the fact United played Palace in midweek last week gave us an extra 1 – 2% of energy over them in the latter stages of the game and in elite football that 1-2-% can be a massive advantage. So to have that cancelled out because we aren’t in the FA Cup could potentially have long-term benefits for our attempt at going for the league.

Listen to me, already talking like somebody who believes we can do it, and not like somebody who has spent the whole season saying “focus on getting top four, don’t think about the league, the disappointment when it doesn’t happen will only be more painful. But this is the problem; with every passing game, each time we overcome another hurdle, each time we win a football match, the feeling of “what could be?” grows bigger and bigger. I am fighting against myself right now to stop this tide from overcoming me. It is becoming harder and harder to ignore the fact that we are in at least with a shout of winning the league. I fight myself to stop thinking it, but it is becoming more and more difficult.

And despite the fact we’ve made a couple of additions in the last week, which inevitably makes our squad stronger, deep down I think we all know that fighting on three fronts deep in to three competitions (League, FA Cup and Europa League) is probably a little too much for us right now. We need to think carefully about priorities and I think if I’m being honest with myself the priority order is:

1. Premier League
2. Europa League
3. FA Cup

Don’t get me wrong, I love the FA Cup. It has given me some of my best football memories. I live about 20 minutes on the tube from Wembley. Every day I go in to the office I go past it on the tube. Even now as I type I’m about 15 minutes away from Wembley Park tube station where one gets off to walk along Wembley Way. We’ve had some great memories of the FA CUp and we remain the most successful team in the competition. So yes, I LOVE the FA Cup and if there is some way we can fight for it as hard as we want to fight for the league, then fine. But I just wonder whether that, plus the league, plus the Europa, might be a step too far.

And I place the Europa League above the FA Cup because winning European trophies has been a difficulty for us as Arsenal fans. We’ve won the old Europa League back in 1970, then in 1994, then that’s it. The rest of the time has been cup final disappointment as recently as a few years back when Chelsea won it in Baku. That is why I want this Europa League; I want to be able to get myself to a European Cup final and I’ve been to Budapest before; it’s a great city.

So for me if we need to bow out of the FA Cup but it means we are fresher in the long run for the Premier League and the Europa League games, then so be it.

Elsewhere in the world of The Arsenal, let’s take a moment to tip our caps to Granit Xhaka, who won the Switzerland player of the year award on Monday evening. He flew out to grab it, flew back yesterday morning and is now back in training. What a revelation he’s been this season, eh? If you’re a regular reader of my nonsense then you’ll know I’ve always been a fan of Xhaka, but his form this season has surpassed every expectation and it would be wrong of anyone to dismiss just how big an impact he’s had on our form so far. He was even on the assist sheet on Sunday with his cross for Eddie for the first goal. He’s finding space and creativity on the pitch that I’ve always thought he had, but only now is he really showing it in full view of all the Arsenal fans. I think what I’ve heard quite a bit is things like “why can’t we get the Xhaka that plays for Switzerland in an Arsenal shirt?” but I think what we’re seeing this season is exactly that. Long may this good run of form continue.

And on that note of positivity for one of the leaders in our team, I’m going to take my leave for today. Catch you wonderful people all tomorrow.

Have a good one.

I wonder whether Emile Smith Rowe is fit enough to start this evening?

You can take the Gooner out of England, but you can’t take The Arsenal out of this Gooner. Or something like that.

Actually that’s not the only thing I’m left thinking today. I’m also working out whether I can stay awake until 2am to watch the game, because kick off is at that time here, so that’s going to be a dilly-of-a-pickle, as Ned Flanders would say.

But that’s a concern for later, because right now what I’m thinking about is how Mikel is going to line up his team tonight and what choices he’s going to make on his squad rotation. My immediate thought is mass rotation across the whole team, but I’m not sure if he’ll do that, you know. We’ve seen it before where you expect us to play lesser/weaker opponents in the Europa League this season and Mikel has sprinkled his starting XI with players like Gabriel Jesus or Bukayo Saka. But for today I really hope he doesn’t gamble on too many first teamers, especially in our attack, because we need to be very mindful of the fact we’ve got a massive game next Sunday against the Scum.

We also need to be mindful of the fact that this is Oxford’s big cup final. National TV, world watching, coming up against the team at top of the English football pyramid; this is their ‘big day out’ and so they are going to be throwing everything in to this. If there’s a 50/50 to launch in to, they’re probably doing it, so we need to ensure that we keep a number of our players wrapped up in the proverbial cotton wool this evening.

So my starting XI up against Oxford would be featuring as many rotated players as is humanly possible. I’d have Matt Turner in goal, start Cedric at right back if he isn’t on the verge of joining Fulham, give the centre half role to Tomiyasu and Holding, then finish off the back four with Tierney. It gives minutes in to the legs and that is a defence that has experience and should be able to hold their own against Oxford for sure.

In midfield I’d have Elneny in the holding midfield role that Partey usually occupies, with the two number eights as Lokonga and Vieira. Then, there are some decisions to be made in the front three, because I don’t think any of our main men should be seeing minutes tonight. The challenge we have, however, is that it is in attack where we are light and it is also where that injury to Reiss Nelson is somewhat problematic. Because if he was fit I think we’d have the bodies to cover. You could play Nelson wide left, Marquinhos right, then if we also had Gabriel Jesus fit you’d be expecting Eddie to start. But given we are missing those two players, Mikel is going to have to get his thinking cap on.

I’d still go with Marquinhos wide right tonight, but then the question remains over Smith Rowe, as I said right at the top of the blog. Is he fit enough to start?

If he is, get him in there, and it might also be a good idea to get him in there as a central striker. He’s only played there once in the Europa League two seasons ago and back then it didn’t really work, but I don’t think the experiment should die there. Arteta mentioned his versatility in his press conference on Saturday and so I think he’s thinking we could give ESR a shot in that position. If he’s not fit, however, who plays?

He could do worse than to look at some of the youth players that got some minutes in the second pre season we had in December whilst the World Cup was on. When he came on as a sub Cozier-Duberry looked lively, so why not start him at left wing? Or there are good things said about Kido Taylor-Hart, so maybe we give him a shot? the other option is to move Fabio Vieira in to the front three, shift Marquinhos to the left of that front three, then you have to find a midfielder to play in the Ødegaard role. Maybe somebody like Matt Smith?

I don’t know what Mikel might do this evening, but what I do know is that we should be avoiding playing players like Saka and Martinelli. They may be young, their legs may be able to cope with 90 minutes as it’s a solid six days before the NLD, but I just wouldn’t be taking any risks at all if I was in Mikel’s position. It just isn’t worth it.

All of this talk about The Arsenal and I haven’t said a word about our opponents this evening, Oxford United, but that’s because I know very little about them at all. They’re sitting in 15th in League One, they’ve averaged just over a goal a game in their division, but they’ve also averaged a concession of a goal a game too. They shouldn’t – in theory – be too much of a challenge for even a rotated Arsenal side, but you know how it is; magic of the Fa Cup, home crowd, etc, etc, blah, blah, there will be one player in the ranks who will be familiar to us: remember Marcus McGuane? Left our academy for the bright lights of Barca, but never made it and now plies his trade at Oxford. He’ll certainly want to make a name for himself and so I suspect he’ll have an extra zip about himself tonight. But regardless of that, my hope is we have enough and we get the job done.

There are those amongst our fanbase who say that we shouldn’t bother with competitions like this when we are where we are in the league, but I can’t subscribe to that thinking, not for a second. The FA Cup holds some fabulous memories for me personally and some of those days out will live long in my memory for sure. And if we overcome Oxford tonight? The small matter of an away tie against Man City, no less!

Right, I’m going to leave it there for today, I think. Got a bit of running to do before I eat and drink myself into a haze. Catch you all tomorrow for some kind of a match review.

Yep, it appears that our game against Man City at home finally has finally been given its own home in the domestic calendar, which will be on Wednesday 15th February at 7.30pm. That’ll be sandwiched in between a home game to Brentford and an away trip to Unai’s Villa for us, which isn’t ideal because Villa will have a full seven days to prepare for us having played City the weekend before. City themselves have that Villa game at home, then Forest away, which may or may not be an easier game depending on how low down the table Forest are. For them though the challenge is of course balance between all of the games they are playing in because in the following week they play in the Champions League to RB Leipzig. For us, it goes to show you just how important topping our group in the Europa League was, because it means that we aren’t in European competition until 9th March and then 16th March. And with us knocked out of the League Cup, we don’t have matches to be concerned with in January that will be added in.

That leads me to our second fixture announcement that happened yesterday, which was that we’ll play Oxford United in the third round of the FA Cup. It’s a shame that Oxford is such a small ground, as I’d have definitely gone to that game if the stadium was a little bigger, but I suspect tickets will be a little hard to come by. That match is due to be played on 7th January and the fourth round is 28th January. If we get past Oxford we’ll be talking about playing a team after the United game and before the Everton game on 4th January, but it will mean a full six days rest between United at home and the FA Cup, as well as a week before we then have to travel to Everton. The fact we’re playing Oxford of League One might also mean Mikel can afford some rotation in his side, which would be welcome given how tough our January is. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that it could have been a lot worse. Chelsea have to travel to City, West Ham travel to Brentford, Southampton travel to Crystal Palace and Everton and United are up against each other. Those are quite a few all Premier League ties and if you want to go deep in the FA Cup and you draw a Premier League side, then you’ve probably got to play a stronger team than you’d want. Of course the Scum get their usual easier home draw against Portsmouth to ensure they get safe passage, but at least from our perspective we have an interesting travelling day and an opportunity to play a different opponent. I’ll take an away day at a bigger ground at the end of January, thank you very much.

In the World Cup Granit Xhaka took on the Gabby’s in the Switzerland versus Brazil game and I can only conclude – having not been able to watch the match due to work commitments – that the reason it was only 1-0 to the Brazilians was because they didn’t give enough minutes to the Arsenal boys. I’ve just looked at a few of the player ratings on a few of the football sites and they’ve given Richarlison a five out of 10, which sounds about right, and maybe the nation of Brazil needs to accept that the diving Scummer that he is, he needs to be taken out of the team and never seen for the Selecao. Gabriel Jesus replaced him and although I didn’t watch the game, I know that he had more of an impact. That’s obvious. I don’t need to see any of the actual football, that’s all I’m willing to accept. We move on.

Thomas Partey was at least happy, even if Granit Xhaka wouldn’t have been, because his Ghanaian team overcame South Korea and whilst I bear no particular ill will towards the people of South Korea, seeing Son crying and Partey smiling is the best outcome anybody could – and should – be wishing for. I had that game on in the background and it was a great game to listen to, with the Ghanaian’s looking in control at halftime, the Koreans pulling it back to 2-2, before they Black Stars did the business one more time to secure the tears of the South Korean Tottenham forward. I’m surprised Son didn’t do more to help Korea win – like cheat, kick or generally be a nasty little sh*te. But kudos to the Ghanaian coach who tried to take a selfie with him whilst he was crying. The South Koreans still have an opportunity to go through I think, if Ghana lose to Uruguay and Korean can rack up a decent score against Portugal, so I’m not quite sure what all the tears were about. But again, maybe it’s because he hadn’t cheated his way to a penalty to help his team win the match.

Other than that I think there’s not too much to talk about. Today’s matches will see the first batch of final group games to decide things and we have the Group A games up first. This is the point I don’t like in the competition though, because there isn’t football on basically all of the time. They move the kick offs so you have to choose what you want to watch and so if I get the chance I’m most likely going to stick Ecuador versus Senegal on at 3pm. That game has something riding on it, because although the Netherlands versus Qatar also does in that the Dutch need to win to secure top spot, it’ll be a non-event given how poor Qatar are. Then in the evening game at 7pm UK time it’ll be England versus Wales and Iran versus the US. England need to just not get battered to go through but they have to go for the win to top the group because that will probably be the difference between playing the Netherlands and one of Ecuador/Senegal. Although having seen the Netherlands I do wonder if finishing second and having to play them might be a better idea. The quarter finals is then when it probably gets difficult as it’ll be one of France or Argentina, as I suspect they’ll get through their respective groups. But those permutations can probably wait until all of the third group matches are done.

And speaking of done, that’s me for the day – have a good one, enjoy your day, i’ll catch thee in the morrow.

I took the trip up to Nottingham in the car with my ol’ mate Dave Seager and as we drove up talking about how Arteta would set up his team, there was a clear acknowledgement from us both that rotation was the best approach on the day. Players who haven’t played very much needed to get minutes; we have relied on a pretty settled first XI for much of this season and whilst that has brought some very good performances and we are starting to see the fruits of that consistent labour, any injuries to key players would mean that we need to bring in other members of the squad and so having them coming in cold isn’t the best idea.

So when the team news came out I was kind of ok with it. Perhaps I’d have given Martinelli and Saka a rest but I’m not really sure who would fill the gaps, because we had Balogun off to Middlesbrough to complete his loan, Auba at the AFCON (although we know he is in the cold anyway so probably wouldn’t play even if he was there), Pepe at the AFCON, so the options for rotation seem light unless you dip in to the youth team who have never played for the first team before. You can’t do that in a hostile environment asway from home to a decent Championship outfit. If we were playing a League Two side at home then maybe Arteta could have given it a go, but not away to Forest, so I could see why that decision was taken. Added to that was the fact that ESR had picked up a knock and as Arteta had said on Friday, we had a number of problems in the side, with Xhaka also out with COVID.

But also as Arteta said, that doesn’t excuse the performance yesterday, because it was pretty bad. There were some real stinkers of performances from some of those Arsenal players. It was that bad that Arteta hooked Tavares on 30 minutes! He was having a shocker but that is one heck of a public statement by the manager; I suspect if he could he probably would have liked to hook half of his team yesterday to make that same statement. Cedric on the other flank was utterly awful. When he wasn’t swinging dead balls out for goal kicks, he was getting caught under the flight of the ball, getting overrun by basically anybody that attacked him and looking every bit the player that we would gladly send off to Spain if we could. Quite what Atletico have seen in him as a squad player is beyond me, because if we can see he is pants as a squad player for us, what does that say about their options??

Cedric was joined by Rob Holding in the ‘having a mare’ corner too, because the newly hairlined centre half stunk the place out just the same. It is an embarrassing state of affairs for a seasoned Premier League defender when your opponents from a division down basically don’t bother to press you or close you down when you’ve got the ball. Holding had all of the time in the world when the ball was at his feet and that is because Nottingham Forest knew he is terrible in that situation. And so it proved. Forest backed off him, Ben White as well and the England international wasn’t exactly great, but Holding’s shocker masked White’s performance a bit. But the whole back line was pretty bad and the goal Forest scored was inevitably by a mistake in midfield by Sambi, but the lack of tracking by Cedric of a 33-year-old Lewis Grabban sneaking in at the back post just shows how appalling we were.

And so to the midfield, which is where I think Arteta got it wrong, from a tactical perspective. We have seen this season where Arteta has opted for Partey in central midfield and two number eights playing in front of him as a single pivot and it hasn’t really clicked. Remember earlier in the season where Odegaard was told to sit deeper in that number eight role and a lot of us thought he was out of form and it didn’t work? Well this happened again yesterday. Arteta detailed Sambi to play as a single pivot in the middle and hold everything together, whilst asking teenage debutant Patino and Odegaard to play those number eight roles. And unsurprisingly it didn’t work. There was too much space between Lokonga and his other midfield partners and as a result our passing felt lacklustre in the middle of the park and we never looked like we were going to get a control of the game. Control the midfield and you control most of a football game and in this match we didn’t do that at all. You have to feel for Patino, who as a result of this instruction looked a little lost at times, but Odegaard was equally lost. But it can’t have done Sambi any good to play that role. Personally I think Patino and Sambi sitting in front of the back four in a double pivot may have offered at least a little more; keep the spaces between the two very close and so both always have an option to release the ball. So for me it was a tactical set up that was wrong and that played a bit part in us losing yesterday because of the lack of midfield control. Whether or not it was personnel related or not – in terms of injuries and absentees – I don’t know, but it didn’t work and Arteta needs to hold his hands up today.

But so do so many of those players. Saka and Martinelli weren’t great, although Saka was manhandled by Colback a couple of times with absolutely no repercussions by the left wing-back. But here’s the thing about those two: both have built up enough goodwill and fan credit in the bank that we can forgive a performance like that from them. One player who – to me at least – hasn’t built up that credit is Eddie Nketiah and he had a shocker yesterday. He offered nothing in terms of channel running, he didn’t hold the ball up at all (although to be fair I know that isn’t his game), plus he missed a header at the far post that was basic bread and butter stuff. Quite how he didn’t even hit the target from Saka’s cross is beyond me and just hit home once again how he is not the guy to take over from our ageing and exiting strikers. That miss, coupled with the shocking miss at the back post against Everton when the scores were 1-1, are examples as to why you need proper elite strikers in games like this because if you get one chance you need to put it away. Eddie was poor and if this was supposed to be a shop window game, he did himself no favours.

But very few Arsenal players or coaches did yesterday. It was a collective stinkfest and the result of which is that we now realistically have just one opportunity for a trophy this season. And if we play like that against Liverpool on Thursday, that hope will soon diminish too.

Catch you all tomorrow.