This is what happens when The Arsenal play – and play well – in midweek. The weekend comes around, and you’re like, “blimey, that hit us quick, eh?” I guess we’re also at the stage in the season where it isn’t a grind. The season is still fresh, young, in its infancy, so having three games in a week (or thereabouts) is kind of novel and exciting. IT’s just a shame that after tomorrow, they take it all away from us again, with a horrendous international break that I think lasts until 2038. I do feel like they probably should have let the proper football get a little more into the season before doing this; why not have this window in mid-November, for example? But her we are.

And tomorrow there we are, because it’s another away day – the fourth in a row for The Arsenal – as we visit Brighton at the Amex. As a little aside, I used to have a Sega Mega Drive II and played FIFA on it. I remember having FIFA 95 and one season when I was Arsenal, there must have been a glitch in the way the console set up the fixtures, because I played the first half of the season completely away from home, before playing the second half of the season at home. Kind of how it feels right now, eh?

Anyway, back to more relevant and current affairs, and it’s that trip to the Amex that looms on the horizon. And it’s definitely the toughest one we’ll face this season I think. I know I know, that sounds a little Wthe next one is the toughest” cliched bullshit you get from football managers, but I do think this one will be a lot harder, because:

• Coventry were newly promoted
• Villa were still unsettled, having been decimated
• Chelsea at home gave us an advantage, and I think we all suspected that their ‘title-winning form’ might just be a bit of a misnomer
• Sunderland were good, but they are not as good a side as Brighton are

That’s me showing my workings, but what do the pundits think on this one, eh? Lewis Jones has us at a 1-1, which I could very much see, although Chris Sutton thinks we’ll edge it 2-1. Sports Mole go for a 2-0 Arsenal and given that Huerzler hasn’t tasted victory against us, you could see why you’d say that as a neutral party. Of course, from our perspective, we can never even think about it. There’s also this analysis that I thought was particularly detailed and quite liked how they broke it down via some numbers. Again, I could see a draw for sure tomorrow.

What of the Seagulls fans though? Given their start to the season, their performances (I thought they were unlucky against Chelsea, even though they started terribly) have their fans a little more excited and one thing they are talking about is the depth of their squad, given that they’re currently missing Evan Ferguson, Mats Wieffer, Jack Hinselwood, Karou Mitoma and Tankuba Mintah. That’s a fairly lengthy list, but until we hear from Mikel on ours with the likes of Mosquera, White and Timber all uncertain, we can hardly get too excited. And they have the impressive Malick Yalcouye who has looked really good so far. They keep busting out these good players, do Brighton.

But they also have some returning heroes too, and I watched a Brighton fan channel called Seagulls Social in which they were extolling the virtues of Pascal Gross, who is having a bit of an Indian Summer at 35. Will he be able to keep up the momentum tomorrow, having played against United in midweek? They’re saying things like “bite yer hand off for a draw” and that YouTube contributors there were saying that they fancy a 1-1. An interesting thing that one of them said was that they would have preferred this to be a game late at night, as the atmosphere could have an impact. I can kind of understand that, and hopefully the fact we’ve got it as a 3pm kick off on a Saturday can help us out, if not the ability to actually watch the game.

I would like to see what Huerzeler says about Arsenal in his press conference though. I thought his antics for the game there last season were really weird. He spent the pre-match talking it up, clearly trying to get the home fans riled and booing every time we had a dead-ball situation, then he doubled down on time-wasting afterwards, which is ironic because I wouldn’t have to look too far to see how he has his players time-waste too. In fact, just to prove it, how about this from midweek, in which one of his players was booked for…*checks notes*…. time-wasting. Funny that, eh?

That’s pretty much it for now until we get to the game tomorrow, in which I’ll do a bit more of a deep dive on how Brighton play and what the game could look like, having also been armed with information from both managers. The only other thing I’ve seen that is worthy of mention is that Jurgen Klopp is apparently only calling Kai up for two out of the four matches over the international break. That’s great news. If he can stay fit for the start of it, then come back for some rest, I’m sure all Arsenal fans will be more than happy with that outcome. Let’s hope Tommy T is as accomodating for some of our England boys too.

Back tomorrow with another match preview. See you then.

“ProRef”….ha! If that isn’t the most ironic rebrand you’ve ever seen…

That decision by the VAR yesterday was as bad as the “forgot to draw the lines” nonsense we had to deal with at home to Brentford in 2022/23. It was a shambolic ‘process,’ and whilst United fans might be spitting feathers, we also have cause for grievance. If this season goes down to the last point and there’s one point in it between City and us, you can legitimately say that it is undermined by a clear helping hand that 115 Charges FC has been given. Forget the fact that Haaland looked to the whole world to be offside anyway, but Enzo Fernandez NOT interfering with play? Farcical.

We all like ot look for our conspiracies, and once again it’s Michael Oliver who was officiating in favour of City, but to be fair to him, in this instance, I think it’s not on him. The VAR needs to help him out here; he has no real control over whether to give this or not. He’s relying on his lino and the VAR, and whilst the lino gave the offside call, the VAR got involved, and I’m afraid it failed in its duty. Once again. So this weekend we’ve had VAR deliver a shocking decision against us for the penalty on Konsa, then our main title rivals benefit from a horrendous call that should never have stood in a million years.

Aside from that, because I could rant about it all day, I reckon what we did learn is that it is looking likely that City and Arsenal will be the two teams duking it out once again for the Premier League. Of course there’s a lot of football still left to play, we are only 10% through the season, but with Chelsea already five points off us and looking like they couldn’t keep a clean sheet if their lives depended on it, with Liverpool on six points and looking like they might have a ‘Draw FC’ season like we did when they won it two seasons back, and with Man United looking as sluggish and bereft of any kind of tactical identity unless their sitting and countering on teams, it’s already looking like some of the pre season predictions of title chases being ripped up for the tried and tested forumla of the last four years.

As for The Arsenal, it’s straight back into action tomorrow night, as Mikel Arteta heads into Suffolk to face Ipswich in the third round of the EFL Cup, and I think every single Arsenal fan on the planet knows that he’ll undertake some mass rotation. He has to. We have ourselves an opportunity to get some minutes into the legs of players who haven’t played as much football, so when Mikel Arteta does his press conference at some stage today, I suspect we’ll get hints that he plans to shuffle his deck. I’ll do a little more of a match preview tomorrow, but my initial thought about this one is that I’d love us to win it and go deeper in this competition, but only because of the size of our squad. Keeping players happy and fine-tuned when you have the squad we have feels like it is important, so playing these games as well as the others gives Mikel a chance to tune up players he would like to call on if there is an injury. So for me that means the likes of Kepa, Salmon, Hincapie, Zubimendi, Eze, Merino, maybe even Bruno given he’s only made substitute appearances, Max Dowman, Madueke, Big Vik – there’s plenty of players who need to shake off the rust, and so this is what I’m hoping Arteta hints at today.

I’d also like to know how the likes of Mosquera and White are doing, because with Timber playing a half against Sunderland, we have ourselves a fine right back returning, but we really could be easing him back into the side right now. Not for Ipswich, of course (which is why I have suggested Salmon starting tomorrow), but for Brighton next week. We can’t just wheel Timber out to play every week now after he’s only just recovered from such a lengthy injury; we could do without White being injured for weeks/months now that we have him back. They need to be sharing minutes to preserve both of them. I saw somebody suggest that they’ve never met each other, and it certainly feels like it at the moment, doesn’t it? Like Clark Kent and Superman, or something…

That will all soon become a ‘little’ clearer when he does his presser, but I’m not expecting that much clarity, given who Arteta is and how much he gives away in these things. I’ll be interested to see what questions he gets asked by the journalists about refereeing decisions this weekend. He’s not an idiot; he won’t give anyone any fuel for the fire, but I bet inside he’s seething. Especially given they’ve now released the transcript from Saturday’s game, in which the ref says, “He’s all over him at the near post facing the wrong way.” Err, no, Mr Brooks, he was looking for the ball until he had his shirt pulled by Ballard, then the VAR: “I’m happy that it’s a holding offence. The foul is confirmed. Confirming the on-field decision of penalty.” Something has to give here, surely, because now we’ve got two incidents that are so clearly wrong. I do agree with what somebody on social media said, however, which is that we all collectively need to pull tribalism out of this debate and start calling out wrong decisions when they have nothing to do with us. Obviously, the Sunderland penalty had a direct consequence for Arsenal, with the City goal an indirect consequence, but as Arsenal fans we also need to be looking at games in which we aren’t partisan, and lending our voice to wrong calls. When fan sentiment is unified and loud enough, only then will we probably see change.

I’ll leave it there for this one today, I think, and instead leave you with some bonus content if you fancy checking out Amanda, James and Scarlett on the Same Old Arsenal pod yesterday, as they did a debrief on the Sunderland win. Check it out here.

It’s a trip up to the Stadium of Light to play Sunderland, who last season, when we played them, were certainly in a rich vein of form, specifically on their own patch. I think we remember it all very well; long ball, not dealt with, Ballard slams it home to put them one up. We respond with a Saka goal and a superb Leo finish on 74 minutes, before they score with basically the last kick of the game. A real gut-punch because when you look at the numbers, we really did batter them that day.

But it is a new season, a new opportunity, and an Arsenal team with four wins out of four so far in all competitions will go into tomorrow night’s encounter full of confidence. Is that how the pundits will see it though?

Pretty much, although a few are predicting this to be a tight one, which I could totally see. Sunderland are a tough team at home; they have Xhaka back in that midfield and have a 1-1-1 record in the Premier League so far, with their home win at Fulham the only data point we have for whether their home form will once again make the Stadium of Light a bit of a fortress. But Chris Sutton on the BBC website reckons we’ll do them with a 1-0, as does Lewis Jones on Sky Sports. Sports Mole have been a little more bullish with a 3-1, but if I was to pick the more likely of the two results in Arsenal’s favour, I’d probably opt for that tight one-goal result.

That makes for nervy prep, because whilst we’ve looked imperious so far this season, as we saw with Brobbey’s goal in injury time last November, it only takes one slip-up for an opponent to capitalise in the Premier League. Last season, just before we kicked off against Sunderland we’d not conceded in our previous eight matches in all competitions. It was that period of the season where we were joking that it was annoying when teams even had a shot against us. We go into this game in a similar situation to back then; this time we have recently conceded – against Chelsea – but it’s the xG stats that we’re all looking at, as the Napoli game was another one in which we reduced our opponent to pot shots and speculative efforts from distance. Where that happens, you play the percentages and most of the time teams don’t open you up and don’t score worldies from 25 yards. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Sunderland certainly have players who have the ability to do that tomorrow night, so whilst I would be happy to take my chances and see them have 25-30 yard efforts, I don’t think that we should be too complacent about how we defend in our clusters and recover the ball.

Team news-wise, we’ll find out more from Arteta today, and I’m particularly interested in hearing about Jurrien Timber, because he’s a guy who we really miss, and Ben White can only play so many minutes, you fear. I hope that we get a good update today from the boss on that one.

In terms of how our opponents’ fans are feeling, it’s a mixed bag and clearly their fans are recognising the form we are in. There’s the usual comments about a stoppage time penalty to win it 1-0, one guy suggested they play six at the back against us, but what is nice to see is none of those weird comments from fans of whom we have no natural rivalry with, saying things like “I hate Arsenal more than any other team”. We all know when you’re the champions, when you’re the best team (or have been based on last season) that you’re there to be hated and shot at, but Newcastle, Villa, weirdly Forest fans, etc, have all said some pretty ‘out there’ things in the last year or so that I’ve been snooping on opponent fan forums.

In many ways it is a shame that they are playing their game against AZ ALkmaar on Wednesday next week; it would have been good to see how they fare after a big European night for them next week, then us having to play them, but as the guys oin Sports Mole suggested, Arteta’s rotation of some players, and the depth of the squad, should mean that we can still go into this game relatively fresh. Tzolis can come in for Eze, Kai for Havertz, Calafiori didn’t start in Naples, Saka came off for Noni so he’s hopefully ok, plus there’s one of Myles, Bruno or Zubi who could all play against the Mackems in the engine room of the team. So from a freshness perspective, I’m less worried about that.

We do need to make sure that the profligacy in Naples isn’t carried over in the North East tomorrow though. As I said on the Same Old Arsenal midweek pod we did last night, I do think we should be looking at giving Bruno his first start, given his background as ex-Newcastle captain. It feels like this is the kind of game he would love to be in the trenches for. But team line-ups and tactical thoughts on how this plays out need to be saved for tomorrow, I reckon, when we’ve heard both managers speak.

And so until then, I shall bid you all a fine Friday, and I will catch you all tomorrow ahead of the evening’s big kick off. Enjoy your Friday.

Laters kids.

10 months ago we went to Stamford Bridge, and we saw Cucurella go in on Saka time and time again. We saw Fofana leave one or two in on Arsenal players. We saw Enzo and Cucrella going in hard on Madueke and then screaming in his face. We saw Caicedo behaving like a man possessed and eventually getting himself sent off for a reckless challenge on Merino. And yet here we are, less than a year later, and I’ve read:

The fact that they’re celebrating this dirty play that led to their goal should tell you everything about them. They’ve gotten so used to cheating & referees favouring them that they all laugh thinking this is normal.

and

Last time I checked closing mouth in an argument with opponent is a red card offence.

and

I thought this decision was crazy added to Gabriel booting Martinez in the face And Arsenal seem to repeatedly get away with it

and

Not only that Pedro got hugged while chasing the ball, Rogers got body slammed, Martinez got kicked in the eye… that game was so dirty.

If you ever wanted an example of the myopia of football fans, you have it there in a very small sample size. And I don’t think I want to single out Chelsea fans, because fans of every team will do it. What’s happening with us right now, a little bit like what was happening last season at times, is that because we are so good, we are the target. The dominant United team of the 90s was the same; Chelsea under Mourinho in the 2000s was the same; City under Pep was the same. Everyone thought they got all the decisions, or they didn’t like the style of football, or there was just something wrong with the club for some reason. It is just the way football fans are programmed.

So I take it as a compliment. What it means when you get ickle Chelsea fans bleating on with comments like “everyone in the league hates them for a reason” is that you have a team that looks to be the dominant force this season. And nobody – Arsenal fans aside – wants that to happen. Heck, I said the same about City when they were in the middle of their dominance under Pep, winning the title five times in a row. I think it was probably the 2020/21 season when I bet I could go back through the SuburbanGooner archives and find a few blogs I’d written where I say comments like “this league is boring and I’m not even paying attention to the top of the table”. City won the league by 12 points that season, and there was never really any competition. I don’t think we will do the same this season, but if we do, I will expect very similar comments from fans, maybe the odd pundit who has a leaning (in support) away from The Arsenal. Yesterday afternoon I spent a bit of time playing catch-up with what the media are saying and they are all saying things like “unbeatable” and “could they go unbeaten?” and “Is this the most complete side?” etc, etc., blah, blah. Before the Chelsea game, we had Gary Neville telling us that Arteta would gladly swap the Arsenal front three for the Chelsea front three, which of course, is complete nonsense.

Of course last season Liverpool had the same stuff from the media at the beginning of the season. They were five wins in a row at the start of the season and all we heard was whether they were ‘inevitable’. We had some Liverpool fans chirping, although the reall hard-core ones knew that everything was not rosy in the garden. And I guess we all know that everything isn’t perfect, either. Just look at the Villa game. We weren’t sparkling on the day, but we did manage to do what was needed and keep Villa at bay. I guess my hope for our situation being more sustainable than Liverpool’s last season, is that old footballing cliche:

Goals win you games. Defences win you titles.

You can’t argue that we don’t have the defence to mount a good…erm…defence of our title. But as always, people are questioning the attack. They can do that if they like, but having seen Saka start the season in sparkling form, Havertz playing well and looking fit, as well as Odegaard flying and Tzolis impressing, I think we’re in a good place from a creative point of view. That’s without mentioning Merino, Eze, Gyokeres and Madueke, either. Oh, and we’ve got Dowman, too…

So we’re in good shape, but the key to succees will be avoiding injury as much as possible. And with Napoli on the horizon tomorrow night, rotation is something I think Mikel needs to think about even now in the early stage of the season. Personally, and I said this on the post-match review show on the Same Old Arsenal last night – I would be thinking about two or three coming in to protect those who had long spells on the sideline. Maybe we could give Eze and Gyokeres a start, for example? Or bring Bruno in for Rice, or Zubi for MLS? These are all options I think Mikel might consider. You don’t want to mass-rotate your team, but one or two changes tomorrow, then perhaps one or two again on Saturday evening? We have a great squad, we need to start getting minutes into legs, and with the midweek games now popping into the diary, it feels like finding the right rotational balance would be important as we set ourselves up for a long season.

Right, that’s for today – there’ll be a press conference later no doubt as the Champions League kicks off, so let’s see what Mikel thinks about our opponents tomorrow evening. Catch you all in the morrow.

Of course, that only lasted 77 seconds once the game kicked off, with Chelsea’s fast start rewarding them with what I’m still trying to work out whether their goal was preventable from our perspective, and if so, how. Firstly, I don’t think that the Konsa foul was a foul. It looked like he won the ball to me, but that’s a moot point because even when the decision is made, there is still a few actions for which we can avoid conceding. I think, perhaps, Gabriel will be slightly frustrated with himself for his part in not winning the initial header, as the ball was floated into the box, then the second header away and into the air wasn’t quite far enough or wide enough to alleviate the danger completely. Even so, the ball kind of drops into a fortunate position and in the ground and in real time I was frustrated that nobody closed Rogers down on the edge of the box, but when you watch the replay, you see that White actually does close the space, sticks a boot out, but Rogers catches it and Raya can’t quite get there. Maybe David Raya might think he could have got down a little quicker, but it was the kind of low-xG finish we came to see of Rogers last season, as well as why Aston Villa were such high xG over-performers. I actually looked at my phone about two minutes before we’d scored and saw that up until that point, that chance that Villa had created was worth 0.02xG, so it shows you just how much of a ‘everything goes right’ finish it was for the Chelsea player.

His celebration annoyed me. Right in front of us by the corner flag n’all, doing the Thierry Henry celebration, smiling and laughing at us, goading us. Up until that point there’s been no animosity between Arsenal fans and Rogers, so why he felt he needed to point at The Arsenal flag on the corner, do a little Henry mocking, cocky, so early in the game, I am not really sure. But sometimes these kinds of games need a pantomime villain and he set his stall out to be that from that moment onwards. There was the Konsa tackle that we all roared with delight at in the second half, the handbags with Declan Rice (who I see a lot of people – Arsenal fans as well – saying that it was a cynical trip by him but I’m still not 100% sure – maybe red and white-tinted specs n’all that jazz), then as he was taken off in the second half the “you should have signed for a big club” chants as he trudged off towards the Chelsea bench with us winning and time running down.

But back to that first half, and the early goal and whilst it’s really annoying to score so early, it does give you enough time to turn around any deficit. Which is exactly what we eventually did. And we really did from the second we kicked off again after two minutes. We were supertb straight away, and as I’ve already half-mentioned with the xG, by halftime we were well value for not only being level with the World’s Most Reprehensible Football Club, but perhaps being ahead. I mean, technically we’d had the ball in the net twice, so if you’re doing a Jose Mourinho, you could argue that. It was a great boost to be level just 12 minutes after they’d scored, but Konsa was clearly offside and the second that it came up that VAR were checking for a possible offside, you kind of knew that it would be ruled out. Anything other than offside has a degree of subjectivity about it when it comes to VAR, but offsides are usually quite black and white.

But we had already shown in that time that we were going to get on top of Chelsea and whilst I’ve seen some laughable comments from Chelsea fans about how a draw might have been a fair result, the reality is that this was the performance of a side who know they are Champions, know they are the best team in the Premier League, know they are the ones that are there to beat and know that they have the capacity to turn big games around.

And that’s exactly what we did.

Havertz first in the first half on 25 minutes, and whilst I was properly nervous about how the day would unfold when they got their goal so early, the fact we scored on 25 should have made me realise that actually, this Arsenal team were going to do the businss on the day. Havertz’s goal wasn’t the cleanest – I thought he didn’t strike it with the most venom I’ve seen and Emi Martinez probably shouldn’t get beaten at his near post – but the fact that it was him who scored was the most delicious. They laughed at us when we paid what we paid for him. They mocked him and couldn’t believe they’d managed to offload a player who they thought was a bit of a dud. But in The Arsenal he’s found a home, he contributes, he’s a key part of our team and he has fans who love him. And he repays us, and punishes those who formerly supported him. It’s poetic justice.

And then to Martin Odegaard’s goal early in the second half, which was another open play beauty, which is all the more delicious given that rival fans are calling us boring to watch because we “OnLy GeT sEt PiEcE gOaLs”. Have some of that, doubters. The little shimmy run from Tzolis and then pass was good, the dummy from Havertz was superb, then the finish from Odegaard was of a man full of confidence right now. It was brilliant. Just like his overall game on the day and he rightly got the man-of-the-match award on the day. He was imperious, ensuring that he dictated the play and our patterns on the ball, playing an early part in his own goal, as well as ensuring that he covered the ground and pressed as hard as he usually does. He’s already showing that this season he wants to prove a point, and for us as fans, that’s perfection.

I need to wrap up today’s thinkings, as I have a fair bit to do today, but I could probably drop another 500 – 1,000 words on other players if I had time. Tzolis was great, Konsa put in a good defensive home debut, the Gabriel/Martinez ‘kick to the head’, etc – but I will leave it there, be back tomorrow as we prep for Napoli, and hope that you and yours have a great day. We’ll be doing a Same Old Arsenal pod a little later if you fancy joining us. It’ll be from 5.45pm UK time, over on the YouTube channel here. Otherwise, I’ll be back tomorrow, so see you all then.

Let’s get it straight – Chelsea have been a basket case, and last season they were a bit of a joke. How they got to any cup final is a minor miracle, but they have looked a rag-tag bunch of assorted footballers accumulated because Clearlake watched Moneyball too many times and thought it was easy.

This season may be in its infancy, but already they have shown what they are going to be all about: Blistering attack. They have a litany of creative players, and in Rogers, Palmer and Joao Pedro they have a rapid forward line who feel like they are set up for swift counterattacks when out of possession. Which you have to think is the way they’ll play today. Whether Alonso wants to play that kind of football long-term remains to be seen, but in many ways the first two games of the season have probably provided him with a decent enough blueprint for how to line up against us today, i.e. hit Arsenal in transition when the ball turns over and get the ball forward as quickly as possible. Emi Martinez basically went full-Jordan Pickford on his debut and went long time and time again, and it’s hard not to see him do that again today. Playing out from the back, with their defensive challenges, against an Arsenal team who wants to win the ball high up the pitch, would be suicide. So I think Chelsea are going long, and they’ll want to contest duels over the halfway line up against our defence.

That’s where I start to look at who might be the best pairing for Gabriel: Konsa or Mosquera?

Initially, I would have thought it would be Konsa, but having looked at his numbers from last season, he’s in the 59th percentile for aerial duels won, which isn’t exactly amazing. Where he excels is in ground duels, in which he’s one of the best in the Premier League, but in the air, less so, according to those numbers in the link. Gabriel, when I look at it, ranks at around the 20th best in the Premier League (which includes attackers too), so I wonder if we will almost certainly see the same approach to what Brighton faced last weekend.

So Chelsea will let us have the ball; they will want to hit rapid back-to-front counters; they will go long out from their ‘keeper. How do we win this game then?

It sounds a little redundant, but the first goal matters here more than usual, I think. If Chelsea score early, I do worry about our need to get back into it and leaving space in places we don’t want to leave space. Those pockets out wide when our fullbacks have pressed up higher in the pitch; think of the goal City scored early at the Emirates last season when Calafiori got drawn out. That’s what I worry about. And then, just like that day, Chelsea tucking in and trying to make it difficult for us by compacting into a lower block, leaving one or two rapid players up top so that we have something to worry about on the counter.

We have to be prepared for this. I think Arteta will certainly have been thinking long and hard about this, as well as those game state scenarios in which we are behind and how we respond.

Team news-wise, Alonso said he wasn’t sure about Caicedo, but I think he will be playing today. They have Leeds in midweek, then they play Hull – both at home – and if he can push Caicedo to get 60 – 70 minutes today, those are games he could probably leave him out to rest for. And if he plays, then it’s a player who can cover a lot of defensive ground, which enables their attackers to effectively be given a little less restriction on sitting deep in a defensive shape. That worries me. If Caicedo doesn’t play, I think I’m feeling a little more confident about this one, for sure.

For us, I do think Arteta starts Konsa, particularly given we’re expected to have the ball and he has a very good passing range. I also think that Bruno might start too, because of his cameo and forward passing range he’s already shown in coming on against Villa. He was impressive; he can sit in that six role, be up for that battle when Chelsea go long, but he’ll also look to set Arsenal players in behind against a Chelsea back line that has looked a little shaky at times already this season. However, as mentioned, game state has played a big part in this, and I don’t see Chelsea being as open against us as they were against Fulham and Brighton. In those two games, they were the big dog; they were the ones that were expected to go forward more; they were the team that would perhaps have switched off and left a bit more space because they know that they can hit those teams hard when the ball turns over. They don’t know that as much against us, so I wonder if they will actually be much tighter and more compact against an Arsenal side that they know is drilled to within an inch of its life about shape.

The rest of the team selection I think is faily self explanatory, so I’m opting for:

Raya

White – Konsa – Gabriel – Calafiori

Bruno

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Eze

Actually, maybe Eze needs a little more of an explanation. I think these kinds of games need some kind of end product magic to them, which Eze has, and if Chelsea do move into a deeper block without possession, he might find himself in pockets where his close control and long-range finishing might be useful for us. Havertz clearly starts against his old club, and has got a couple of goals against them, so let’s hope for some more.

At this early stage of the season, nothing is really terminal; it’s just about bragging rights and statements. Which is why I am thinking that actually I think this one might play out like the City game last season, and end with the points shared. Earlier in the week on the Same Old Arsenal pod, I predicted an Arsenal 2-1 win, but the more I’ve thought about this, the more I think that this kind of game feels ripe for one of those “Sky Sports builds up, ends up a cagey 1-1 draw”. So I’m changing my mind. I hope I’m wrong.

I’m there for my first game of the season today, so I’m hoping for a good one, and all three points. Back tomorrow for a post-match debrief. See you then.

I enjoy change. I work in marketing and ‘doing new stuff’ is something I always try to adhere to as a work principle.

Not when it comes to football, guys, not when it comes to football. Give me a good ol’fashioned 3pm kick-off any day of the week. But we are where we are, and it’ll be Chelsea tomorrow at 4.30pm that we’ll all be either in the ground or tuning in to see if we can overcome what I think is quite an unknown quantity in Chelsea. I mean, we all know what they are – the most reprehensible football club in the history of the world (The Scum are Scum, City are cheats, but Chelsea are just despicable) – but under Xabi Alonso they have done a full 180 (based on two games) in terms of playing style and approach. I don’t know if it was just game state, but in their first two games they’ve basically just not wanted the ball, which was the opposite of what Maresca was teaching them. Under Xabi Alonso, they don’t want it, happy to let their opponents have it, and want to win games in transition with rapid counters. I’ll do more of an analysis on them tomorrow in the match preview, but that as a teaser sets us up nicely for today’s focus – Mikel Arteta’s press conference and what fans/pundits are saying.

First up, Mikel, and the not-so-surprising news from Mikel’s press conference is that we’ll have to wait until after training to know exactly who is available for Chelsea, with Bruno assessed after his knock against Villa, while Timber is back in full training and sounds to be in a really good place – although he wouldn’t be drawn on whether he’ll make the squad. Mikel did what he always does with opponents: complimentary about the job Xabi Alonso is doing, admitting that signing Emi Martinez was a “really smart decision”, but he also pointed out that their fast starts in the opening two games have heavily influenced how those matches have played out (kind of why I say they’re a bit of an ‘unknown quantity), so he’s expecting a side capable of adapting depending on the game state. There was plenty of chat about our own squad too, with Mikel making it pretty clear that he’s very happy with the attacking options we have, insisting that the club “100% ticked” the boxes it wanted to tick in the transfer window and that he’d rather focus on the players we do have than the winger we didn’t sign. He also backed the academy, praised the different midfield combinations available to him and described Monday’s win at Villa as a genuine squad victory. In other words, the window is closed, the excuses are over, and Mikel’s message is pretty simple: this is the squad we have, he likes it, and now it’s time to get on with the football.

Whether all of that is true remains to be seen; after the Champions League Final, we all know what Mikel said about acting fast, and I think the actions in the attacking spots suggest that perhaps that wasn’t the case. Let’s not re-litigate the situation, as everyone has spoken about it already, but Mikel has to put on a brave face and smile for the cameras – I think we all know that. I do believe him when he says he is happy overall with the squad depth, and it’s something I’ve also been talking about this last week – we’re well-prepared for every eventuality, and when you see quality players not even making the matchday squad, you know you’ve got a great team.

But we need to show it on the pitch tomorrow. The pundits, unsurprisingly, are going for us. We’re the Champions; we’re there to be shot at, we’re the ones wearing the crown, and this will happen for most of these opening months of the season, I suspect. The only way it starts to turn is if we start to blip, like in games tomorrow. Personally, I feel like this could easily be a score draw. Still, Lewis Jones on Sky Sports is calling it a 2-0, Shearer says ‘Arsenal win’, Sutton goes 3-1 to The Arsenal, and the guys at Sports Mole have us at 2-1, saying that “if ever there was a match that screamed ‘defence versus attack’, Arsenal vs Chelsea is the dictionary definition”. They also say our current shut-out of two clean sheets will end this weekend. I make them right, to be fair, but although they’re calling us ‘defence’ versus them ‘attack’, they still think we’re outscoring them and winning. Work that one out, eh?

I do think we will score; I also think this could easily be a draw – as I already mentioned – but this is going to be really tough. It’s funny because as good a time as it was to face Villa last weekend, it’s probably not the best time to face them this weekend; they’ll be bullish, buoyant and will no doubt fancy an upset. We have an amazing record against them – 16 games undefeated I believe – and that will come to an end. Could easily be this weekend given their firepower, so to work out how they’re feeling, I did my usual behind-enemy-lines stuff and had a look at a couple of fans’ forums. The first ten comments on one thread of match predictions read:

• Arsenal win = 3
• Chelsea win = 6
• draw = 1

Another site had a voting buttons thing going on, which had 19 calling Arsenal, eight calling a draw, and seven calling a Chelsea win. I gotta be honest, I thought they’d be more bullish than what I’ve read, but they’re really worried about their defensive issues. I think they sorted one out by signing Martinez, but they still conceded three against Brighton last weekend, and even though a couple have said they fancy themselves to score, they also think they’re 100% conceding. One person even said if we don’t score two or three, we should be automatically relegated! They’re saying things like “too early (in the season) for us” or “I hope we give them a good game,” which really surprised me. Maybe it can give us a little bit of confidence in a good game and a victory tomorrow, but let’s not forget just how good their attack has looked so far.

More on that tomorrow, as I try to do a “what Chelsea might actually see” preview, having looked at a few numbers on them so far. Until then, we sit back, watch the games, hope that Forest make it three defeats in a row for the Scum, and wait patiently for our turn tomorrow.

Catch you then.

And we all knew that he possibly wasn’t going to be part of the team this season, too. His output domestically had fallen off a cliff; many people – me included – had questioned his longer-term future, some had lamented why he was still here during last season, and I think all of us thought at the start of the season he would make way for a star left-wing signing if we could get a good deal. As we all now know, that ‘big signing’ never happened, but what has happened is that Arsenal have got a club-record transfer fee for a guy who has been at the club for seven years man and boy, joining for £6million and leaving for £60million. It is, as they say, “pure profit”.

But it isn’t pure satisfaction for his exit, from my point of view. Yes, it was probably time to move on, and yes, it was right for all parties. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt a bit. This was a guy who burst onto the scene as a kid, scored a couple of goals early on in the Europa League, at one point we thought he might evolve into a striker, but beyond his sparkling form in the first title charge of 2022/23, in which he nabbed 15 goals and six assists in a brilliant season, it never really materialised the way we thought. Regardless of that, he still proved his worth. Energy, effort, pace, and a willingness to adapt to Arteta’s style of play is what has seen him become one of the last survivors of Mikel Arteta’s original side that he took control over back in 2019. That, in itself, is testimony to the player, but also his willingness and ability to adapt.

I loved the farewell video the club posted here. Had me a wee bit choked, if I’m honest, because he’s grown up so much and it really is sad to see him go. He’s always maintained he never wanted to leave the club, he loves the club, the club and the fans love him.

But it was the right thing to do. We needed to move on from Martinelli and Trossard and I think, if you asked every Arsenal fan at the end of last season what the one position was we really needed to go to the next level on, 90% of them would have said ‘left wing’. The only problem is that we haven’t really done the incomings that we expected. Indeed, I even said 11 or so days ago that I’d be fine with keeping Martinelli if we couldn’t find a replacement. But I don’t think it’s right that you essentially tell a player his future lies elsewhere, he prepares himself mentally for an exit, he gets on a plane to Saudi, then gets called back because Arsenal haven’t brought in cover. Martinelli would deserve more than that, he doesn’t want to be the dad that is still at home just because the parents are paying the mortgage and doesn’t want to upset the kids.

So the move had to be made, and whilst I do agree with those who suggest we are now short there, I do think Arteta will need to lean into Eze on the left. What it also means is that those Sky Sports and Football365 articles talking about ‘net spend’ and having us as the fourth or fifth biggest spenders, actually need to drop us down to around about the middle of the table now. And yet we’re STILL favourites for the title, and we’re STILL looking good right now in terms of our squad depth and strength. That also should mean that the ‘PSR headroom’ (or whatever they call it these days) that we have gives us room either in January, or to go big in next summer’s transfer window.

So whilst we can be sad that we’ve loved a guy who has been with us so long, whilst we can have fond memories whilst at the same time realising it was best for everyone for him to move on, we still need to be mindful of making sure we address this issue in the medium or the long term. For now though, we have to wish Martinelli well on his new adventure. Personally, I think he should have gone to a more competitive league than the Saudi Pro League, and I think he’d have smashed it in Italy or Spain, but I guess those clubs probably don’t have the cash funds to pay what Arsenal wanted – which also includes his not insignificant wages too, which are rumoured to be close to the £180k-per-week, which we also have to factor in to any accounting situations. Last summer I wondered on here how Arsenal have stockpiled and got so many players in, but I wonder now if some of the knock-on effects have been felt this summer? If that’s the case, the balance has been re-addressed, so let’s just see how the football shakes out in the coming months.

Right, I think I’ll leave it there, because we have a Chelsea game coming up, but there’s always tomorrow for us to do the match preview for that one, as well as Sunday morning too. So I will take my leave for today. Wish you and yours the best, then catch you on the socials and on here tomorrow.

It’s funny because I’ve spent many a summer transfer window over the years feeling frustrated with our business – or lack thereof – and have written about that on many a post-Transfer Deadline Day lament. “We always leave ourselves one player short” I feel was the mantra every season. And whilst I think all of us can appreciate that the left-wing spot that we all wanted feels like it is just one player short again this summer, I really can’t get myself worked up at all.

As a bit of an aside – I really like this “Who won the summer 2026 transfer window?” piece on the Cannon Stats site. Adam, who wrote the piece, is a very level-headed Arsenal fan from the States and I echo his sentiments exactly.

It’s the reason why, for this summer right now anyway, I’m kind of happy with where we are at. It was perfect, of course. But you can’t say we aren’t well-equipped to have a proper go at both the Premier League and Champions League. Look at all of our domestic rivals; they have all had quite a bit of upheaval, and you can’t tell me that every single player they have signed is going to absolutely ‘bang’ – it just doesn’t happen. In fact, to assess that, I had a quick look at the transfers from Man City, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Man United, Chelsea and The Scum from last season, to see which ones were successful. I’ve decided to – completely subjectively, I’ll admit – group them into ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in my opinion:

Apart from United, who didn’t make many deals, you can hardly say that’s been a glowing rap sheet from any of the so-called ‘big clubs’. So getting worked up over the volume of signings is just not something I can get behind. Would I have liked us to get that winger in? Sure, but not any old blagger; we are not in that space right now.

I certainly think Berta has some questions to answer, however, but that is more about his ‘plate-spinning’ style that I think a few of us are a little concerned with. And I think that is right; there’s a very real argument to be had that the reason we lost out on Morgan Rogers was that we didn’t strike super-quick. The noises that I heard were that Arsenal were led to believe that £80million gets him. If they’d have acted sharpish and gone for him before the Anderson deal became the yardstick by which every club measured their big players, I think we’d have seen him in an Arsenal shirt. But we waited, and the result was that Rogers now rocks up at that reprehensible club, Chelsea. Anderson signed for City on 23rd July – that is more than enough time to move for the player. But Berta’s approach has always been more measured, and perhaps that has had an impact.

But I’m nitpicking here, because you can’t argue that our squad isn’t deep and strong. Even in that left-wing position, we’ve lost two players, but we still have Eze and Madueke as well as the new boy Tzolis. Plus, with a September extended international break which goes on for three weeks, then by the time the season starts going you’re in to October/November anyway. The January transfer window then becomes a few short weeks away and if the need is really that pressing by then, you can pull the trigger. I know it sounds very ‘The Neverending Story’, and it used to wind me up when Wenger would give us the ‘Judge me in May’, then we’d finish fourth, and repeat the cycle in that summer, but I do feel like this team were judged last May, as Champions, and they are now stronger in the areas of our team that really made the biggest contributons to our title defence – at the back and in midfield.

As a reminder, our signings last summer were:

• Zubimendi – success (despite the end, he was brilliant for 75% of the season – so that counts for me)
• Eze – success (just – he got important goals and contributed to some big games, including the two NLDs)
• Gyokeres – success (just – we all know he’s a bit of a wardrobe, but still bagged 21 goals, even if he probably should have had more)
• Madueke – success (just – I think the jury is still out)
• Mosquera – success
• Norgaard – failure
• Kepa – failure (based on the League Cup final
• HIncapie – success

So I think our recruitment was pretty spot on, and I think this summer’s additions will only demonstrate that further, which will ultimately mean we are in a stronger position than we were last season – where we finished as Champions.

Honestly guys and gals, I’m not drinking the company Kool-Aid here; I think we’re in a great position, a great squad, we’re set up for success and now it is about delivering it on the pitch. So let’s all get back to focusing on that.

Catch you all tomorrow as we start to look ahead to Chelsea and the weekend’s fixtures.

It’s fair to say that so far, there are a few nice surprises that have popped up, whilst equally there are a few not-so-nice consistencies we’re having to deal with, like the fact that Man City appear to be doing alright. After we gave them a bit of a humbling in the Community Shield, they’ve popped up with two wins from two, although by the looks of the Bournemouth game at home, they weren’t exactly sparkling, were they? Against Palace I think they played a team that I think might be an outside bet to be one of the relegation candidates, so perhaps we don’t need to think too hard about it, but usually Friday night under the lights brings a big atmosphere at Selhurst Park; it doesn’t seem like that has happened this time around.

The fun stuff, however, has to be Liverpool and The Scum, with the latter finding themselves rooted to the bottom of the table after two games, and some of those Spurs fans who tried to argue that they had an outside chance of competing for the Premier League now find themselves wondering how they could have spent over £300million and still be in the mud. De Zerbi saying about mentality too is funny; it’s like he’s already warming his vocal cords for a Conte-style rant further down the line. I love it.

Equally, Liverpool about to sign Barcola, without realising that defending is an important part of football, is funny too. The more points those two teams drop, the better.

Today, with us still not playing until Monday night, we’ll probably see Chelsea beat Brighton today, but it will still be interesting to watch them play, I think, because despite their goals and attacking threat against Fulham, they still looked a little dodgy at the back in match week one. So whilst I am expecting them to be much better than they were last season, and I expect them to win today too, if we can get some signs of them being a bit sh*t defensively, then that’s definitely a positive we can take from the weekend.

From our perspective, what we’re interested in is whether Arsenal sign anyone by deadline day, with Andrea Berta apparently working on multiple options. We’ve also heard that Martinelli won’t be allowed to leave until Arsenal have found a replacement. If that replacement is Julian Alvarez, then fine, although I think like many of you, I’m a bit reluctant. There’s not a desire on his part of clamour all the way to The Arsenal; he hasn’t played wide left much in his career, plus I think we’re already stocked. So even if we lose Martinelli, we should still be giving Eze more time there. I think he can play it. I don’t think we need a touchline winger who will just hug the white lines; I think his version – which would be drifting inside to central spaces – would work well, especially in games where central spaces are compact and we have teams who want us to get the ball into wide positions and whip it in. Eze can get a shot off in small spaces, and I could see him drifting in as a good option for us, as well as Tzolis.

So I’m pretty chilled ahead of the transfer window closing on Tuesday evening. If we end up signing nobody and Martinelli leaves, I think no doubt we’re probably a little weaker, but maybe the clarity over roles in the team and the question mark over who gets those midfield minutes becomes a little clearer, because you can give Eze a shot wide left, then let the others fight it out for those midfield positions.

Tomorrow’s game will be interesting though, for sure, because we’ve got a Villa side that are at home and under the lights in a boisterous atmosphere, but equally it is a side quite unrecognisable from the ones we played last season. Let me read out the team lineup from this exact fixture last season, then put a note as to their current status:

1. Emi Martinez – currently finalising a deal to Chelsea (an annoyingly good deal for them, actually)
2. Ian Maatsen – still there and will probably play tomorrow
3. Pau Torres – same as Maatsen
4. Matty Cash – as above
5. Boubacar Kamara – as above
6. Ezri Konsa – an Arsenal boy now – and I’d probably play him tomorrow night
7. Amadou Onana – injured in the World Cup
8. John McGinn – captain – will play tomorrow
9. Tielemens – gone to United
10. Rogers – gone to Chelsea
11. Watkins – off to Saudi Arabia

In the return leg at the Emirates there was also Digne and Sancho playing, neither of whom are at the club anymore,

So basically, six of that starting XI definitely won’t be there tomorrow night. In their place, there will probably be Suzuki in goal instead of Bizot, Lindelöf, Ross Barkley, Bogarde (or maybe new signing Wan Bissaka), Buendia and Nicholas Jackson – who can, to be fair to him – blow a little hot and cold, but he will play. But it’ll be a debut and whilst I don’t expect Villa to be as bad as they were on the opening day against Brighton away, the home backing behind them and a couple of new signings on show, might spark a bit of a reaction. We have to be ready.

I’m going to save any more match previews for tomorrow, I think. Suffice to say, however, that their fans are not usually as buoyant as I’ve seen before, like in the Villa fans’ forums I had a look at last year. This year they’re all pretty universal in thinking we’ll win – with a smattering of the usual fans who will always predict a home win for their side, whichi is fair enough I guess. An interesting side note I’ve just read about – they have one stand – the North Stand – which will be empty for the whole of this season, as they renovate it to bring it up to a 50,000-seater capacity, from the 43,000 it was previously. That means they’ll have a 37,000 capacity this season, as that stand took up 5,000 seats. Will that impact the atmosphere? I think we have to hope so.

Back tomorrow with some pre match musings. Catch you all then.

Back in the 90s, there was a programme called Hangin’ with Mr Cooper that I used to watch as a kid. Loved it. There was one episode in which the main character, Mr Cooper, got a chance to play at the top level of the NBA, and there’s a bit in it in which Charles Barkley dunks and knocks over Mr Cooper and drops the line:

Welcome to the NBA

That’s what Arsenal did to Coventry yesterday, because it was pretty much a schooling that happened on the Emirates turf last night. From minute one until the end, Arsenal were in complete control, and Frank Lampard’s lads must have known they were in for a long night the second that Kai Havertz swept home the first goal on 15 minutes. It was a silky finish in which, having rewatched it a few times, I’m still wondering how it went in, because it seemed so effortless to sweep the ball in from around the penalty spot. But I guess that’s what the best players do – they make the difficult seem easy – and last night Arsenal did exactly what was required with them.

There is, it has to be true, an element of “yeah but what about the opposition” yesterday. We all have to admit that. But if you need to lay down a marker, you do it with whatever is in front of you, and I thought Arsenal did that with aplomb against a Coventry side who were all too happy to oblige. I saw a stat doing the rounds that Coventry were the first side in god knows when to have an opening season game in which they didn’t have a touch in the opposition box. Maybe it is just the calibre of opposition, but that sort of stat is very familiar to us by now; Arsenal make it very difficult to create chances against their defence.

But the attack was purring too last night. I thought Tzolis was excellent throughout, and I really hope that in him we have found ourselves the bargain of the summer, like Liverpool did when Salah rocked up all those years ago. Imagine if he can continue his pre-season and last night’s form throughout the season…we’ll all be chanting “Vini Jr who??”!! He had a couple of shots, he was impressive all game, plus afterwards he was compared to Alexis Sanchez to Arteta, who clearly was pleased, but keeping grounded, repeating what he’s said previously about how Tzolis has been so impressive in his actions when it comes to being within 30 metres of the goal. Loved it.

I’m hoping he is credited with the assist for Saka’s goal, as he deserved that, but let’s also give some flowers to Ben White for his assist on Martin Odegaard’s mis-hit third on 49 minutes. Four years ago this was a staple of what we were feeding on as Arsenal fans: Saka on the ball, Ben White overlap, cut back, GOAL! It was rolling back the years and a little like how I mentioned in pre-season, it’s kind of nice that we’re seeing Ben White strut his stuff on the turf, because when he limped off with an injury at The London Stadium, many (including me) wondered if we’d ever see him in an Arsenal shirt again. He’s answered that in the way that all of us have loved, and personally, I hope he stays fit and stays in the team for at least the next couple of months. We all know Jurrien will eventually take his place, but it’s nice seeing Ben show us just what he offers to this Arsenal team.

This Arsenal team, who, with almost an entire half left yesterday, were essentially in a set of training drills. It’s the perfect way to kick off a new season and, whilst there will be tougher days to come for sure, it showed that they are up for this title defence.

Also, let’s have a word about open-play goals, eh? Rival fans will be choking down their Frosties this morning, because there will be nothing about that performance they can pick holes in, and it is delicious.

It was a one-sided affair in all manner of speaking. I’ve just looked at the stats:

• 19 attempts on target ot their four
• 65% possession to their 35%
• 590 passes to their 343
• 93% passing accuracy to their 79%

I could go on and on, but you get the picture, because this was domination.

On the 13th of August five years ago, we had a Friday night game in which we lost away at Brentford, and Carragher and Neville were dancing on the touchline with the home fans. I was on a stag do in Edinburgh that weekend, and it made the weekend a little bit of a drag, as I constantly found myself thinking about the game, whilst watching as all the other big sides went about their business and won over the course of the weekend. Not so this time around. Now we can all just watch our rivals play out their games, safe in the knowledge we’ve got three points tucked under our arms, have seen Arsenal look good, scored open-play goals and delivered on our part of the weekend’s action. It was delicious.

There’s now over a week until we play again, which will be away to Villa, in which new signing Ezri Konsa will find himself back on an old stomping ground. That’ll be interesting for sure. But for now, from me in sunny Portugal, I hope you have a great day, and I will see you all tomorrow.

The Champions – that’s us, by the way – kick off the Premier League season tonight with a home game against newly promoted Coventry City, and whilst I am looking forward to it, I’m also gutted that I booked a holiday to Portugal, where my plane leaves at 4pm this afternoon. Thankfully, I will get to watch the match, as we’ll be touching down by 7pm, but I’m still going to miss the atmosphere, the noise, the euphoria, as well as seeing the Premier League trophy being proudly displayed. The ground is going to be rocking, because for many, it will be the first time we’ve seen the trophy in our own stadium, given that the title lift was actually at Selhurst Park, which was something we talked about on yesterday evening’s pre-match Same Old Arsenal preview show.

All of that, of course, pales into insignificance in comparison to what goes on on the pitch this evening. It goes without saying that tonight’s game is an absolute ‘must-win ‘. If Arsenal want to win this Premier League title for the second time in a row, for the first time back-to-back since the 1930s, these are the types of games you simply have to win. And whilst we’d all love to get an absolute hammering under our belts this evening, with players still feeling their way into the domestic season, any kind of win would be fine.

We saw last season that grinding out games was just the way we were built; that Wolves home match stands out as one in which we played a pretty terrible team at home, but really made quite a meal of what should have been low-hanging fruit, so we can’t take anyone for granted. And in Coventry City, we have a bit of an unknown quantity; they’ve come up as Champions of the Championship under Frank Lampard, they scored the most goals, they conceded the fewest, they were easy victors, and they did it with a playing style that was aggressive and vertical, rather than being possession-obsessed. Which I think makes for an interesting side note for this game, because the question is whether Lampard is going to stick to those principles of pressing higher, having fullbacks higher up the pitch, getting players close to his striker, and trying to have a go at us today? Or is he going to be more pragmatic, realise that you can’t out-gun the Gunners on home turf, and therefore revert to what we see a lot of at the Emirates: The dreaded low block?

Obviously, from our perspective, we hope he comes and has a go. We hope that because it’s the first game of the season. They have nothing to lose, because they know that they have a whole season to make it up if they get beat today; he pushes forward and leaves more space. If that happens, then you’d hope that we have enough quality to see off Coventry under the lights on our own turf.

The question we all have is what the starting XI will look like. Mikel had his pre-match press conference yesterday and the only real question mark around this appears to be Bruno G, who Mikel said “Let’s see how he is. He’s evolving really well, but let’s see for tomorrow”, but some rumours were circulating last night that he’d picked up a hamstring injury in the Community Shield. It would be the absolute most Arsenal thing ever that our new signing has picked up a knock, though; Welcome to The Arsenal…here’s the medical department…

James suggested last night on the pod that he thought he’d be fine, and if he is, then there are some real questions over who starts in that midfield, because we are absolutely stocked with players, and there’s gonna be some unhappy campers in that team tonight, because some aren’t even making the bench. If I had to guess, though, with the Community Shield still fresh in Mikel’s mind, I wonder if he’ll go with the same XI from that game? Myles at the base, Bruno left, Martin right, perhaps? We’ve all talked about ‘easing’ Rice back in, and this feels like the type of game where you could do that. Alternatively, if you think we’re going to get chances against Coventry (which you’d hope we would), then why not try Eze and Odegaard in the two eights, with Myles anchoring the midfield?

Alternatively, you could even give Zubi the nod, after Mikel publicly said yesterday that he’s an important part of his plans. He also said the same for Myles, though, too, so either starting is a-ok with me.

So, let’s pick a lineup then, shall we? For last season, it felt impossible at times; such was the plethora of options Mikel had across his whole squad. It feels even more difficult today, but I’ll give it a go not based on who I think Mikel might go with, but rather who I would like to see. So for me, I think a fun team to line up against Coventry could be:

Raya

White – Mosquera – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Eze

Saka – Havertz – Tzolis

I’d be interested to see if Martinelli makes the team squad for the night. If not, you’d have to think something is going on there, because with eight subs allowed plus a ‘keeper, you’re probably going with Hincapié, then Zubimendi and Rice (who I’ve only left out because of the ‘easing’ that I mentioned), you need Gyokeres as your striker, Madueke will most certainly be there, then you’d think Merino for end product. Max Dowman has been in the squad, which is six, then you have probably another defender, which would be Marli Salmon I’d expect. So there’s a spot for Martinelli, but not for Ethan. If both are supposedly being touted out, then maybe neither makes the squad? So it’ll be interesting to see the subs bench more than anything else.

Whatever side he picks, they will – and should – be heavy favourites to win this. The pundits think so. Sutton’s going for a 3-0, the BBC AI has gone for 3-0, their guest has gone for a 3-0, Lewis Jones on Sky Sports is going for a 3-0, and Sports Mole goes for 2-0. I said 3-0 last night the pod, so I think there’s a universal acceptance that we’re favourites for a reason. But I go back to the first game of the 1995/96 season after we’d signed Dennis Bergkamp, thinking we’d absolutely smash newly promoted Villa and he’d have a field day, but it ended up 1-1. So you never can tell!

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for today. I have some packing to do!

Catch you all tomorrow for a review blog.

I don’t know about you, but I immediately put two and two together and made myself four. That sounds to me like Arsenal are gearing up for an exit of either Ethan or Myles, and after Myles’ performance in the Community Shield on Sunday, coupled with the fact he broke into the side in midfield and played in the Champions League final, I have a bad feeling we’re losing Ethan Nwaneri this summer.

That would make for sad times for me, because I think we’re missing a trick. I listened to the Arsecast Extra this morning on my run, and James and Andrew were talking about the situation with these two players. James’ point about Myles kind of forcing the hand and making him kind of unsellable by the way he’s played. Hey, that’s how all of us want Arsenal players to play, because if they’re all doing it, it makes for an amazing headache for Arteta, and it will almost invariably mean we’re winning football matches. But what is frustrating, I think, is how we seem to be prioritising the financial side over the football side. James and Andrew talked about the fact that both Zubimendi and Madueke, as examples, would not actually bank much cash in terms of the financial regulations, because their amortised values are still so high (i.e., the book value hasn’t been spread out over several years because they only signed last year). If that’s true, that the club is thinking about how they have to make this kind of ‘pure profit’ sale so they can give themselves headroom for other signings, it just makes me more frustrated about the Madueke deal last summer. He got eight goals and four assists from 43 appearances and 2,200+ minutes. In 2024/25, Ethan bagged – from the same position – nine goals and two assists in 37 appearances and 1,300+ minutes. Nearly 900 minutes less for Ethan, and he delivered one fewer goal/assist.

There’s nothing you can do about the past, this is all hindsight, but I’m just looking at the data, the two players, where they are at, and the fact that we wouldn’t bank much regulatory headroom for new signings because we decided that Ethan wasn’t a right winger (which I still don’t understand) and that Noni was a better output and outlay at £50million. I think Noni did alright for us last season; my issue isn’t personal to him. I just think we made what is perhaps not the right move there – to my very untrained eyes.

I guess we are where we are. But for me, if somebody gives me the option of not signing another player this summer, which means we keep Ethan but send him on loan next summer, I think I’d be ok with that. There are probably a few people who would choke at that, but I’m looking at what all of the pundits are saying with their predictions, and most are saying we should be favourites for the Premier League title by a mile. Now, last season, because Liverpool spent the GDP of a small island on players, everyone had them down to walk the league. And for the first five games, they won all of them (including against us) and Liverpool fans in particular were already booking days off after the season had ended for a blinder of a bender in Liverpool. But it didn’t pan out like that. So I understand that you can’t hang your hat on pundits’ predictions, but I think pundits got too hung up on the transfer business, and not enough on some of the other factors that impacted Liverpool’s position as defending champions. Slot had ridden the crest of the Salah and Van Dijk wave; at their ages, the age curve was always going to hit. They also picked up injuries – like everyone else did last season – and found out that Slot’s “injuries are excuses for losers” chuntering on from the season before was suddenly a crutch they wanted to lean on. Plus, and I remember saying this multiple times in his first season, I just don’t think Slot was really that great from a tactical and man-management perspective. Why bring all of this up? Well, think about where Arsenal are now compared to where Liverpool were:

• Where are our ageing players who just had a blinding ‘season for all seasons’?
• Where is our litany of mega signings that are going to over-index our ability to walk this league?
• Where was our season of having barely any injuries last season?

None of the above applies to us going into this season. On top of that, there are a host of new managers who are unknown quantities. One or two might end up being the second coming of Fergie or Wenger, but as of right now, there’s a lot more uncertainty on that front. We have the continuity manager, the settled squad, the team that everyone thinks is going to win the league. It doesn’t mean we will; things might conspire against us, but we’ve got a squad that is already championship-winning, plus we’ve added one of the best midfielders in the league and a Greek lad that many think might be the surprise package for the season. So yeah, when I think about it like that, I don’t want to roll the dice by exiting Ethan and using that money to fund a random left winger that could just end up being the left-side version of Madueke (i.e., good, but hardly massively needle-moving).

We’re in good shape. Let’s not blow it up by exiting one of our most promising youngsters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back tomorrow.

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

Step forward our guy HandOfArsenal:

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

— HandofArsenal (@HandofArsenal) July 31, 2026

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

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

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

How else would you get such scoops?

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

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

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

We got the Ornbomb last Saturday – shock.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, here we are again. Nothing. There’s no Bruno Guimaraes news – no bid, no “talks progressing”, not even a lazily-sourced “Arsenal are monitoring the situation” to chew on over a coffee. And then yesterday Sky went and confirmed the thing a few of us had already quietly braced ourselves for: Vinicius Junior is staying at Real Madrid. New deal, silly money, Mourinho wants him, Perez wants him. That’s that, then.

Three days ago I was making the case for him and recalibrating the dream XI like everyone else. Now the window’s gone flat again. So rather than bash out my four hundredth blog of the summer about how we need to spend some faaaakin’ money, I thought I’d do something a bit different today.

My mate Darren Berry has written a book – Arsenal – Champions Again Olé Olé, out through Legends Publishing – and he asked me to review it. I’ve read the lot. Here’s what I made of it.

He nearly didn’t write it at all

The best thing about this book is the reason it almost didn’t exist.

Back in November, with us top of the league and the North London Derby coming up, Darren’s publisher messaged asking if he fancied writing something about “the season you may actually win something”. His reaction was pure football supporter: absolutely not, because writing a book about the season would jinx it.

His rule, in capital letters, was: DO NOT WRITE A BOOK ABOUT THE FOOTBALL SEASON.

I loved that he opened with this, because it made me feel completely seen. We all do it. The lucky pants, the same pub, the same seat, the same walk from the tube. We know it’s nonsense. We do it anyway. As Darren puts it, logic and football supporters don’t exactly go hand in hand.

What he did instead is clever. He wrote it in what he calls “going all Netflix on you” – starting at the end, flashing back to August, then jumping forward to a present day that was actually last November. It shouldn’t work. It absolutely does, because you’re reading a bloke who doesn’t know how it ends, right up until the point where he does.

That’s the whole trick of the book. It isn’t a history written by someone who already knows we won it. It’s the nine months, in real time, with all the terror still in them.

The anxiety chapter is the best thing in it

There’s a section called “Moments” that I’d recommend to anyone, whether they support Arsenal or not.

Darren writes very openly about anxiety – the medication, the meditation, the lot – and how it taught him to stop and take a moment. Then he applies that to being an Arsenal fan in a title race. Football is supposed to be the escape from the real world, and somewhere along the way, for a lot of us, it stopped being one.

I liked where Darren talked about learning to appreciate the moments – Raya’s save against Brighton, the injury-time winner against Wolves, Rice chasing Harry Kane down and the whole ground going up – because it made me feel less mad about how much of last season I spent worrying instead of enjoying. He’s right. If we hadn’t won it, none of those moments would have counted. Because we did, every one of them was part of it.

His line about the Premier League trophy being a massive pair of noise-cancelling headphones is one I’ll be nicking, by the way.

The bit that got me

I wasn’t expecting a football book to knock me sideways, but there’s a chapter about his mate Gary Read – Gaz – who died last year at 46, before he got to see us do it.

Darren’s own tribute is lovely, but what makes it is that he hands the page over to Gaz’s mates and lets them all have a go. Some of it’s heartbreaking. Some of it’s exactly what you’d say about a bloke who’d taken the mickey out of you for a decade. One of them calls him the friendliest, most caring, funny, miserable so-and-so you’d ever meet, and you can hear him saying it.

I liked where Darren wrote about watching the 2014 FA Cup final with Gaz – every emotion a supporter feels in a lifetime, crammed into 120 minutes – because it made me think about the people I sit near in Block 5 and the ones I’ve shared this with over the years. That’s the actual thing, isn’t it? The football’s the excuse. The people are the point.

And then, because football is football, Eze gets paraded on the pitch on the very day Gaz’s family were there – and Gaz had a soft spot for Palace. You couldn’t write it.

The good, silly stuff

It’s not all heavy. It’s very funny.

Max Dowman is never just Max Dowman – he’s 15-YEAR-OLD MAX DOWMAN, then 16-YEAR-OLD MAX DOWMAN, always in capitals, and it gets funnier every time. There’s “Thursday’s Best Team in the World”. There’s a bit where he considers doing a North London Derby without a drink and concludes it’s like cutting your hands off to see how you cope brushing your teeth.

Best of all is the “Receipts Kept” box at the end of every month, where he simply prints what the pundits said and lets them hang themselves. Jamie O’Hara reckoning we invented the long throw. Joe Hart openly wanting City to win it. Martin Samuel crowning Liverpool in September. No commentary needed.

The chapter I didn’t expect

Darren worked as a stadium tour host at the Emirates for three years, and he writes about his last shift.

I liked where he talked about the fella from the States who sat in the dugout and burst into tears because visiting the Emirates was his lifelong dream, and about giving a terminally ill man called George the full VIP treatment – because it made me feel guilty about how easily I take it for granted. I moan about the queue for the tube. Some people save for years just to stand in an empty stadium.

Perry Groves – who also writes the foreword, drawing a neat parallel between what George Graham did in 1986 and what Arteta has done – tells him at the end of that last shift: “Don’t look back, Daz. No tears.”

Worth your money?

Yes. Easily.

If you want tactical breakdowns and xG charts, this isn’t it, and Darren tells you so up front. What you get instead is what it actually felt like to be an Arsenal supporter through those nine months. The fear, the pettiness, the daft superstitions, the hatred coming at us from every direction, the mates who weren’t there to see it, and then that Tuesday night in May when City drew at Bournemouth and 22 years just… stopped.

The last third, where he opens it up to Gooners around the world – a 75-year-old dad in tears in a pub, a woman refreshing score apps in California, a lass in a Brooklyn bar with Spike Lee – is worth it on its own.

Get it bought. It’s a proper Arsenal book, written by a proper Arsenal fan.

Right – back to refreshing the transfer news tomorrow. Something’s got to give eventually.

All jokes aside, whilst I have no problem with them bringing in elder statesmen like Henderson, we all love a bit of Welbz. Seeing him in the shirt of that reprehensible football club might sting a bit.

What we need is a bit of that good ol’fashioned transfer dopamine, but it doesn’t sound like it’s on the immediate horizon. And when it does come – possibly in the shape of Bruno G – we’ll have all been so saturated by the news and how it has rumbled on, that it doesn’t really ‘hit’ when it actually happens. I’m pretty sure every summer for the last five, maybe even ten, years I’ve written a blog like this. But that’s because every summer at some point it just feels like it. That time is now, and it’s with the Bruno G transfer, although I suspect the Vini Junior stuff might be the same if we don’t get some kind of black-and-white answer soon.

Supposedly that will happen this week. I think Arsenal just ned a call which goes something like “oh, ok, so you’re signing a new deal. Cool, we’ll move on”, or a Real Madrid WhatsApp sent to Berta saying “let’s start talking, because Vini Jr ain’t to us” type thing. Yesterday the news was that Real Madrid are looking at getting an answer one way or another this week. We all know how this works with these Spanish clubs; they set a deadline, the deadline is missed, they end up getting what they want anyway. I’m pretty sure it’s happened with a few of the Barca transfers, which is why I suspect Alvarez will end up there. Atleti say “no”, Barca set deadlines, but come August 31st, they’ll go back in and pay the money. It’s what just tends to happen.

John Stones was another one speculated on as a possible makeshift incoming whilst Saliba is out injured, but it looks like he’s off to Inter Milan, which makes a fair bit of sense. Slower league, less intensity, plus he’ll be more of a first-choice option than he would have at The Arsenal. The pitch to him from our side would have basically been “you’ve got until October mate, then it’s dead rubber Champions League, League Cup, or early-stages FA Cup games” – so I kind of get it.

It probably would have been higher wages anyway than we’d want to pay for a veteran England international who spends half the time on the treatment table. No, as I’ve said all along, we should not be looking at taking minutes off Mosquera. It’s time to give him the keys.

I do hope they are properly stress-testing both Timber and White’s robustness too. If both of those players even give us two-thirds or three-quarters of a season each, as long as they both aren’t out injured for the same period, then we have enough to cover. And besides, why not think Marli Salmon for some of those dead-rubber games, or League Cup, etc? He’ll be a year older; we all heard last season how the club rate him highly, so let’s have him in there as the third-choice understudy. I’d be cool with that.

I did read one rumour this morning which left a bit of sick in my mouth. Step forward, The Metro, with this abomination of a link to Christian Romero. Can you imagine? A complete nutcase, who isn’t even a great defender, is a walking yellow card, plays for ‘The Bad Guys’ of international football in Argentina, plus he has a really shit nickname – “Cuti”. Bleugh. Last night’s linguine feels like it’s coming back up to say hello.

Please – Richard Garlick, Mikel, Stan, Josh, and anyone who has anything to do with transfers – I beg you to not even countenance such a move. I can’t think of one Arsenal fan who would want this – even if he’s a third-choice option. The Scum probably wouldn’t sell to us anyway, but for £42million+? Give over.

I need a palate-cleanser after that. How about this interview with Szczesny saying that he’s still an Arsenal fan and loves The Arsenal. I know it’s in Polish, but you still get the gist. Why can’t we buy him off Barca for a couple of mil? They can have Kepa, then we can bring Moj back home to understudy Raya? That would be a wholesome move that, in an inverse of the Romero links, would have the nostalgia gland activated for any Arsenal fan.

Look at me, 800 words in and all I can talk about it a reserve keeper at Barcelona saying he loves The Arsenal. Shows how slow the news is.

Tomorrow I might do a book review I’ve been sent. Will come back to you on that. Until then, stay awesome.

We all already knew, in reality, because we’ve been hearing the stories from the French press. But as an Arsenal fan, you still await to hear about it via the official site, which is as expected in its vagueness. I get it though; they’re hardly going to say “we have no real idea of an exact timeline, but we’re saying around three months”, because if it’s more than that then the club will just get a pasting for misleading people.

The frustrating thing above everything else is that back injuries are notoriously difficult to predict. We all remember how his injury derailed any hope we had of winning the league in 2022/23. That injury sustained at home to Sporting Lisbon had him out from 16th March 2023 until 20th June – a solid 97 days – and had him missing 15 games in total. Now, I guess the good news out of this is that surgery is not needed, because if it was, I would be guessing that we wouldn’t be seeing him until February next year. Heck, it could potentially derail his whole season, so we have to look at some small measures of positivity here. But it is still a massive blow. He’s one of the world’s best defenders, and there is no way to replace him. But, much like with Kai last season, the club has to find a way to augment the squad so we can mitigate that loss somehow. Last season the club moved quickly to switch their thoughts towards Eze and getting the job done, when it was clear Kai would be out for an extended period too, so if we can do the same again here that would be useful. If Saliba’s back injury is similar to 2022/23, circa 100 days puts us at 31st October from today. So we’ll be needing somebody for the first nine games of the season the Premier League, plus League Cup and Champions League games.

I’m still a fan of giving Mosquera a go. And, as I said on Tuesday, if Timber and White are fully fit then I still believe we have the numbers. I also think that for some games last season – admittedly only one or two – Norgaard was an able third-choice centre half. So we have numbers. But many Arsenal fans will ask about quality. Personally, I can’t be having a 28-year-old Ezri Konsa for circa £40million. That sort of money needs to be reserved for the big purchase if you ask me. But what I could get behind is a deal for free-transfer John Stones. James from Gunnerblog reported that Arsenal would be looking at somebody like that, and the Standard has backed that up with words Arteta has talked previously about the centre-back here. If Stones can be persuaded – and I say that only because he’ll know that he isn’t first choice here – to join us, I think it would make perfect sense.

For Stones, he joins the Champions, reunited with somebody he knows well, playing right at the top level having left Man City.

For The Arsenal, they get a Premier League-ready centre-half, good ball distribution, a very accomplished player with plenty of experience of winning things, who can provide decent cover.

The questions that stop this from being a ‘no-brainer’, however, are:

• Will Stones get more game time at somewhere like Chelsea, with whom he is also linked?
• What does that mean for Mosquera’s pathway?
• What sort of shape is his body in at 32, given that last season he missed 24 games through injury, the season before it was 34, and the season before that it was 14 again.

That final bullet is the big one for me. It’s all fine and dandy if Stones starts the season and is fit for the first 15 or so matches, because that takes us into around October/November and hopefully a returning Saliba, but if he plays two or three games at the start and breaks down, we’re lumbered with another player on the treatment table and the same situation we are in now.

It’s a tricky one for The Arsenal, but I’d still be tempted to do it. If it’s low wages, he plays backup to Mosquera or he’s used in the ‘smaller’ games, then I’m kind of ok with it.

The other news was the leaked image of Christos Tzolis from HandOfArsenal, so I expect we’ll get something either today or tomorrow, because he appears to have done his medical and pictures, so we just need the announcement now. Will be interesting to see what he says about joining the actual biggest club in London.

There’s some stuff from yesterday about Newcastle being ‘frustrated‘ with the Guimaraes situation, which I understand if Arsenal still haven’t opened talks, to be honest. Last summer we loved a bit of Berta plate-spinning, but we’re at the stage now where he has to pick a plate and grab it. It cheeses all parties off by the sounds of it, not just the Arsenal fans. If the deal’s there to be done at £75million, just do it I say. Then let’s focus on that wide-left forward position to complete our summer stuff (after the centre-half replacement.

Right, I’m going to leave it there for today, as I have a busy one in the City. I may or may not blog tomorrow, depending on how sore my head is – if you know what I mean…

So catch you either tomorrow or Saturday. Have a grand one, peeps.

Argentina – you should be pretty disappointed with your national team players. They let you down. However, after some of the pictures and videos I’ve seen of Argentinian fans, perhaps some of them are not?

I’ll be honest, though, I was definitely thinking “bad guys do often win” when the game went to extra time. Spain had dominated possession; they’d had all the chances (Argentina didn’t even muster a shot until extra time – pathetic), they’d had a perfectly good goal ruled out for an invisible foul on Mikel Merino, and after Enzo Fernandez was sent off for doing Enzo Fernandez things, you just knew it would make Argentina retreat even further into their own box. England and Tuchel rightly got pilloried for the tactical disasterclass in the second half of the second half of the semi final, but Scaloni and team should also receive the same treatment, because it was clear even before Enzo was sent off in stoppage time, that they had no intention of having a go at Spain. It was all about trying to fein injury, fall to the floor, kick players, then if touched, fall to the floor and try to buy free kicks. To be fair to the referee, I think ultimately he managed to keep a bit of a handle on the game, although he probably could have dished out a few yellows a little earlier.

This was meant to be Messi’s last hurrah. The Argentinians all thought it was destiny; they were pre-ordained to win this competition. But you have to actually play football to win, and they did nothing of the sort, with the whole world watching. And as a result of their antics, I think everyone was a Spain supporter for last night. They certainly were after the game had finished and the shameful scenes that unfolded. I’ll come to that in a second. Because first, we should talk about how Argentina have basically sh*thoused their way to this final, they’ve ridden the coat-tails of some VERY favourable decisions, and as I’ve already said on this blog, have a team of very unlikeable players – bar Messi.

But even Messi was at it yesterday. I think Cucurella is a little rat bag, but asking for him to be sent off because he put his hand to his mouth to explain to Messi where the Spanish player was hurt…man, Leo, that’s low mate.

But don’t worry, others could stoop lower in that team. Simeone Junior was his usual twattish self, Enzo was ridiculous with his foul for his second (deserved) yellow to send him for an early bath, then Paredes…wow…what a Class A wrong’un you showed yourself to be. Grabbing people’s throats, throwing punches, plus you should have been sent off during the game anyway! The Argentinians will have made no friends based on their World Cup showing, and I couldn’t have been happier to see their team crying. You thoroughly got what you deserved.

As for Spain, you have to say congrats, as they’ve shown they are clearly the best team in the tournament, and we even got to see a bit of Zubimendi get on the pitch too. I watched a little bit of the trophy celebrations afterwards, but didn’t get to the end of the lift, because giving Unai Simon the ‘best goalkeeper’ award, when he’s not even the best one in the Spanish team, was laughable. Still, there’s a nice picture of Raya, Zubi and Merino all together, which I had to steal for today’s blog image. Nice stuff.

Now it is time for rest, and time for transfer pre season stress to kick in, in earnest. Because once the dust settles after today, I think globally there will be plenty of consternation on the faces and in the minds of Arsenal fans. We find ourselves just under two weeks from the first pre-season game away to Girona, and there still isn’t a new signing in (Hincapie doesn’t count, neither does Meslier – not really). Tzolis will probably provide a little transfer window injection when he arrives this week, but having listened to a number of the regular Arsenal pods that are out there yesterday on my run, there’s a lot of concern about the Morgan Rogers stuff. I still stand by the fact that I’m pretty calm about it, but we do need to start hearing noises about names that we’ve looked to pivot towards. I saw Fabrizio Romano talk about Diomande at Leipzig, which sounds cool, but all the noises so far are that PSG wants him. And that is apparently true in return, which all makes it seem a little Julian Alvarez to Barca-like; if we’re playing second-fiddle to these teams by players, it hardly sends that great message about how we only pick players who are 100% hot on Arsenal and Arteta’s project. Players who view us as a second choice? That’s something we haven’t had since the Wenger ‘Top Four is a trophy’ days, and I think we all thought we were beyond that?

Let’s see what starts to shake out now. Players will all be on holiday, but I suspect they’ve all kept their phones on in case they get calls from agents, so I expect we’ll start to see a concentrated period of noise as the ITKs go into overdrive with the season about a month away.

Back tomorrow. Enjoy your Monday, whatever you’re doing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a good one.

Sure, he faltered in Norwich, but given that he was 19 when he moved to Norwich, you can hardly blame him for not quite hitting the mark. It happens. What I do have faith in, however, is that Arsenal and Arteta have done a fair bit of work to make sure that he’s going to be given the best chance to succeed. Sure, there have been a few that haven’t worked out, like Fabio Vieira, but even he had some moments. Hopefully, Christos can hit the ground running, and we start to see some positive sparks in pre-season.

I think for him, too, having that pre-season with the team by virtue of the fact that he’s in through the door ‘relatively’ early, is a big plus point. He can get himself settled in, have a full Arsenal pre-season, then try to hit the ground running from day one of the proper kick-off to the season. I read somewhere that he’d already started his pre-season with Genk, so the fact that he’s maybe already into some form of training now can only stand him in good stead.

And if you believe what Fabrizio Romano says about Morgan Rogers, then Arsenal are going to chivvy that move along now too, with noises that Villa are lining up replacements for the England international as well. I guess that’s what needs to happen if this particular domino needs to fall, but I hope that if Villa do get their replacements in, that we can see Arsenal suddenly have a bit more of a position of strength in the bidding process. £130million – which is what I saw quoted as what Villa want a month or so ago – is ludicrous. If they’ve already made their signings and replacements, then Arsenal don’t have to pay that amount. They got a relatively modest fee for Tielemens, which won’t massively help their attempts at whatever they call PSR these days, if this article is to be believed, as well as this article too. Villa have apparently had an offer accepted (or will be) for £38million for Joao Gomes. They’re about to sign Manzanbi for £50million+, so if they do that and then they want to try and hardball Arsenal, they could just walk away and leave Villa with a conundrum to solve.

That won’t happen, I don’t think, but if we’re talking about a deal around the £100million mark, then Arsenal will probably do it. The transfers have gone crazy this summer, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all, and when Mikel Arteta is hot on a player, we know he usually gets him.

The questions will still remain where the hell he’ll play. He’s not a left winger. He played against Argentina as a right winger, but I haven’t seen that too often from him to suggest that wide forward is where he can take it to the next level. There’s no doubt he’s a quality addition to the squad, but I’m still doing a little bit of mental gymnastics on how this is going to work.

It feels to me like his arrival all but secures an exit from a central player. That ain’t gonna be the captain, I doubt it’ll be Eze after just one season, and Mikel Merino has shown this World Cup how he can be valued as a rotation option. All eyes are on Ethan then, unfortunately, and I suspect that when Rogers arrives, we all might have to face some hard facts about a player with whom we all had so many hopes would break into the first team.

I don’t know about you guys, but it does feel to me as though the wheels are now turning with regard to transfers. It was always going to be that case with the World Cup getting in the way, but all of a sudden the transfer window is springing to life and, with pre-season and friendlies still a few weeks’ away, that’s positive to hear. There was plenty of hand-wringing going on a week ago over our lack of signings, but personally, I always felt that we’d see movement once we get to this part of the summer. That’s how it’s played out and as long as we start rolling along in the next week or two, I suspect most Gooners will calm down a bit.

Right, that’s me done for the day – I’ve got a bunch of household chores and a weekend of golf to think about with the family, so better get myself prepped – I’ll be swinging like a rusty door when I pick those clubs up later.

Catch you all tomorrow.

So we have both Kai and newly confirmed Arsenal signing Pierro Hincapie both happy. Which is nice. On Hincapie, the club announced the deal for around £ 34.5 million. I think when you think about his impact last season, that sort of money is a real bargain. The reality is probably that we paid a chunky loan fee to Leverkusen first, so both parties will be happy; Arsenal get to (through back channels) parade this as a bit of a steal, but Leverkusen still get a decent fee and what they wanted for a player who helped them to win the Bundesliga two seasons ago.

The other games in the World Cup really haven’t piqued my interest enough to talk about in any great depth. But then again, that’s the problem with this expanded format. There are just too many ‘meh’ games, and the number of people that I’ve spoken to who have just said they aren’t bothering to watch until it gets to the knockouts really does show you just what a farce this competition has been. I’d love to think that it will force FIFA and that odious cretin Infantino to change their ways, but he/they have probably made so much money by ad breaks and more teams and games, that he really doesn’t care.

So instead, let’s turn our attention back to the Premier League, in which the big news was Elliot Anderson to Man City for £130million. Wow. That is just a mental figure. I bet Newcastle are kicking themselves, because two years ago Forest paid them around £35million, and they’ve just made a £95million profit. That weirdo Maranakis will be delighted.

As for the player, that’s a big move, a huge move in fact. And for mega money. And I have mixed feelings about it. That sort of money is Balon d’Or-level money; you should be getting a player who is going to completely change their world. When Rice signed for us, people questioned the deal, said the pressure was a lot, but Rice was a year older than Anderson when he signed, had been established in the West Ham team for about five years, had played multiple positions, was an England regular, and I think everybody knew what a leader he was. Anderson has some similarities; he’s seldom injured (picked up a big back injury for Newcastle in 2023/24, which kept him out for many months, but that’s it), but I’m not sure whether he’s as good as that price tag suggests. Sky Sports are running some articles showing how he was first in the Premier League last season for ball recoveries, duels won, fouls won, etc, but in a Nottingham Forest side who sit deeper and has to do a lot more defending than Arsenal, those numbers are obviously going to favour him a little more.

Man City have gone big, they’re clearly after a Rodri replacement, and he’s the best one out there to be fair. But that price is still a little mental to me. What it will do as well, which is the frustrating thing, is mean that every other deal this summer is going to be compared against this one. It wouldn’t surprise me if Morgan Rogers’ supposed circa £80million transfer now becomes Villa saying they want over £100million for the guy. There are also rumours about Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle, who don’t want to sell, so they’ll also want that sort of money too. One of the things that Arsenal have been good at in recent years is finding Premier League-proven talent and bringing them on in the team. Ben White, David Raya, Declan Rice, and Leandro Trossard – all have been bought from within the league and have done really well. But whilst Arsenal aren’t against forking out big cash on players if they think they are the right fit, I don’t think we will be ‘had’.

It’s why I wonder if this Anderson move might have a knock-on effect for getting in talent from overseas. There’s no doubt not going to be the same premium that is paid for a Premier League player, and an English-taxed one too, so I can understand why there is plenty of noise about Berta putting his fingers in lots of pies over land and sea right now.

The good news for us is that we are in the market from a position of strength. We have a deep squad, we have a quality squad, we are the champions. We aren’t in a position like some of the times over the years where we’ve felt like we had to get a move on with massive upgrades in the squad to compete; that’s what everyone else is saying about us. That’s comforting to know. It’s also comforting to have trust in the manager and the whole club to make the right choices. The title win has now meant they have officially earned it. I think most of us trusted them before, going back the last couple of summers, but now it has been rubber-stamped. And that’s nice.

Right, I’m done for now, so I’ll catch you tomorrow – let’s see what comes out of another day of heat in the UK.

Laters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And inevitably, things will now start to turn to “how do we go one better?” with regards to Europe, but also how we keep our rivals at arm’s length. It does feel like there is a massive opportunity for us next season, given the transitional state of so many clubs in the Premier League. I was asked to give my views for BBC Sport on what risks Arteta might need to take to ensure we remain at the summit next season. As I said in the piece, this doesn’t have to be a revolution. There will need to be some churn; we will need to lose some players that we all love, but we also need to have faith that those who come in could be even better.

What are the risks our rivals might be fearing, though?

Let’s go down the league by placement and have a look at where each team are, shall we?

Man City

New manager and uncertainty over whether or not key players will remain. Maresca is a guy who, I think, will do a good job at City, but will he be able to drive them as much as Guardiola? Will he instigate the same period of dominance that they had before? And will the players react to him the way they did with Pep? How does following arguably the greatest ever manager in the history of English football play out for Maresca? There’s no doubt he’s in the right mould; he was in Pep’s team for a few years and so clearly knows the infrastructure well enough, but IS that enough?

He’s also got players like Rodri – a key pillar in this team – talking about “Anything related to my future will wait until after the World Cup.” – that’s hardly a ringing endorsement that everything is tip-top, is it?

I haven’t even mentioned the 115…

Man United

A lot is being made about the resurgence of United under Carrick, but it is well documented that they played the least number of games a team could play in a season. They were knocked out in the third round of the FA Cup at the first attempt for them, and the same in the EFL Cup, meaning they effectively played on average one game per season for the whole season. That will surely not happen next season. Michael Carrick will have a whole season to deliver, not just the new manager bounce approach, and I know that there are some fans who are wondering whether this is a bit of Solskjaer going on. To be fair to him, I think he’s a little more tactically astute than the Norwegian, but let’s just wait to see what happens when the first couple of defeats pop up for United, after they’ve played in the Champions League and the Premier League and haven’t had any rest time. Luke Shaw played the most amount of games for them – can he stay fit? Will Bruno Fernandez have another stat-padding season at 31-years-old? Casemiro played 35 times, and he’s off. They have a fair few questions that need to be answered, methinks.

Aston Villa

Villa are a weird one, because they’re just as likely to have another storming season as they are to absolutely crash under Emery. Do they kick on from a Europa League win? Well, they’re in the Champions League now, and so the rotation of their squad will not be as easy as it is in Europe’s second competition. When they were in the Champions League last season, they finished sixth, although it was a final-day defeat to Man United away that stopped them from getting into the Champions League, as Newcastle took the top spot. But if the news of us sniffing around Morgan Rogers is true, then if they lose him, that is a big threat disappearing from their team. In all competitions this season, he got 14 goals and 12 assists from midfield. Replacing that could be hard, unless Villa can resist any team overtures (it won’t just be us interested). They reported healthy profits off the back of the Champions League last season, but the Europa League run won’t have given them as much (as this article points out). I don’t know enough about Villa’s financial position to know whether they will be able to resist one or two big names being picked up.

Liverpool

With Slot gone, they’ll pick up Iraola, who could turn out to be a really good move. I like him; I think he is a clever guy who has done wonders at Bournemouth, but does that translate to Liverpool? I actually think it is a better move than if they’d have gone for Alonso, because Iraola knows the league. But there is no Salah. Virgil van Dijk turns 35 in July and has played in every Premier League game. Time catches up with us all. Tony Adams retired at age 35. At 34-years old and in the 2000/01 season, he played 38 games in all competitions. In the 2001/02 season, he made 13 appearances in all competitions, as age and injuries caught him up. That might not happen to van Dijk, but I’m sure if I looked hard enough, I’d find plenty of examples to show that around that age, the pace, the injuries and other aspects catch up with players. Konate still has an uncertain future, Robertson is gone, Leoni had a long-term injury, Joe Gomez is injury-prone, as is Bradley, and Frimpong seems to be a guy the Liverpool fans don’t trust as much. Ekitike was a good buy. Isak may suddenly find himself not injured, but there are so many questions about Liverpool that Iraola is going to have to deal with.

I’m not going to go through the whole league, so I’ll leave it there for today, but Bournemouth have a new manager, Sunderland and Brighton have to contend with European football, Chelsea finished 10th for Christ’s sake! So when you look at where we are right now, you have to say it feels like we’re in a good place.

Let’s just hope the club makes the right moves this summer to put us in an even more commanding position.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I was genuinely blown away by the sheer volume of Arsenal fans who took to the streets of London.

From the moment The Management and I stepped onto the Met Line train at 10.40 am yesterday, the train was packed. Arsenal fans were everywhere. By the time we got to King’s Cross, the tube was standing room only. It was crazy.

Then, as we decided to walk from King’s Cross, we realised that everyone was making the same decisions. Arsenal fans were arriving from every side road, from every corner, more and more. I’ve never seen anything like it. All ages, races, colours and creeds took to the streets to celebrate that first Premier League trophy since 2004. It was something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

We went for a lovely pub lunch, we celebrated with champagne, and we made our way to Upper Street. It was a festival atmosphere with cheering and singing, and that was something so nice to behold.

The parade itself, from my perspective, was a shambles, though. People on the street we were on broke a tree. By the time the bus came along, I was 100 deep from Upper Street. And everyone got their phones out. I got a glimpse of the bus for about 10 seconds. It was a shambles, if I’m honest. Some of that was on me; we’d thought that it wouldn’t be as bad, but where we were located was some of the busiest roads, and in the end, it felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

We did meet one of The Management’s old school friends, though, as well as go to her cousin’s new flat on Islington Park Road, so that was lovely. And we chatted to a nice couple who were bringing their three kids along, which was also really nice to see, as the kids all had different iterations of the Arsenal jerseys over the years. The youngest had the 1998 shirt, the next one had the 1999 one that always reminds me of Emmanuel Petit and those long flowing locks of his. So whilst the experience of the bus part was actually the low point of the day, the fact that this was a celebration of the Arsenal community, and a reminder of the size of our football club, was a really great spectacle to behold.

If I could have my time again I would probably do things differently, but there you go.

I’ve decided to keep today’s blog relatively short, because I am going to watch plenty of footage from other people and live vicariously through their pictures rather than mine. But now the work for Mikel Arteta goes into trying to do that all over again domestically next year, whilst also going one better in the Champions League.

Back tomorrow with some more thoughts. Catch you then.

Last season I actually went into the semi-final in a pretty confident mood. We’d beaten PSG pretty well at home, we’d already managed to vanquish Real Madrid in the previous round, so “why not PSG?” I thought. Of course, they showed us that they are made of different stuff and dispatched us in both games, scoring some pretty decent goals, to be fair. At the time, Mikel Arteta said we were the better side over the two legs, and I think you can certainly make the case for it:

• Merino’s offside goal was tight
• Dembele shins one in off the post
• Donnarumma made several fantastic saves, particularly in the second leg, where we had nearly 3 xG versus PSG’s 1.7 – of which they scored two goals.

I also think that our injury problems didn’t help. In the first leg, we played Trossard as a centre forward because we had Havertz, Jesus, AND Merino out injured, so it’s fair to say we were quite significantly underpowered for that semi. I mean, when you look at the bench, you get that feeling even more – youth team players like Butler-Oyedeji, Henry-Francis, and Kabia all made the bench last season. We were beset by injuries, and it took its toll.

This season is different, and different for a variety of reasons, for sure. Let’s start with the options Arteta has at his disposal. I’ve just mentioned that we had a bench of youth team players in that semi-final. That won’t happen this evening. We did the Same Old Arsenal preview pod last night, and Amanda and I couldn’t agree on the starting line-up, but one thing we could agree on is that it is great that we have such strength in depth. For example, this would be my lineup tonight:

Raya

Timber – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

That would be my line-up, but think about who could still play a part from the bench:

• Mosquera
• Hincapie
• Zubimendi
• Eze
• Madueke
• Martinelli
• Gyokeres
• Dowman
• Merino

You can name ten players on the bench for the Champions League matches. That’s nine I’ve just mentioned there, let alone factoring in Norgaard and Gabriel Jesus. If you factor in that you have to name two goalkeepers, there are going to be three players from that list who can’t even make the bench. That’s strength in depth. It’s very different from last season.

What’s also different, too, is that I am not going into this one expecting us to win it. I said on the preview pod 1-0 to The Arsenal, that’s what my heart wants to go with, but PSG and their firepower in attack make them the bookies’ favourite. They are the ones that are expected to retain this trophy; they are the ones who took their chances against us last season, they are the ones the neutrals will expect to win. In some perverse sense, that makes me feel more at ease about the game. It takes the pressure off. I suspect part of that is because we’ve won the league. We are already champions and winners, and there will be a parade tomorrow regardless of what happens tonight.

And I hope that the fact that the players are already Premier League winners has also unlocked them, too. Rice and Saka spoke about the fact that they feel that the weight has been lifted. They can say they are winners now. They will feel a little taller. And that confidence going into this game is huge. I hope they can play with the freedom that will surprise PSG. I hope we get the best version of The Arsenal today. And I think we will.

I also think the fact that Arteta was able to rest players last week is huge. Saka, Rice, Odegaard, Eze, Raya, Gabriel, and Saliba – all have basically not played many minutes for nearly two weeks. Any potential fatigue we could be thinking about for the team, any emotional strain, was immediately lifted on 19th May after City dropped points at Bournemouth – 11 days ago. They’ve had 11 days to prepare and focus themselves, whilst also celebrating the Premier League win. They go into this game an inch or two taller.

So whilst PSG are the favourites, they probably do edge it in terms of quality, there’s enough there for these Arsenal players to suggest that we might be able to do something special tonight. And I have no idea how I would react if we did. The Premier League trophy celebration tomorrow was enough for me, so the fact that this could happen tonight, I’m not sure what I’ll do or how I’ll react. It’ll be crazy after the game if we do win. I’m going to the screening with The Management this evening at the Emirates, the party kicking off if we win will be immense. I’d love to be part of that. I pray I can.

That’s all that needs to be said for today. It’s going to be tough, it’s going to be nerve-biting, but it is a chance for those players to etch themselves into Arsenal’s long history, to be woven into the fabric of the club for eternity.

Go out there and Make it Happen, lads. We’re all behind you.

Up The Arsenal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a great day.

But having seen Arsenal win the Premier League and lift the trophy? I’m still going.

The Management asked me yesterday “How long is that Arsenal flag in the lounge window going to stay up there?”, to which my retort was “A little while longer, love. We still have the Champions League”. I think she thinks that after that, it’ll come down, but if we win the darn thing…well, let’s just say, it ain’t gonna be moving for some time after that for sure.

Regardless of the result, the fact that we have that and a parade to look forward to, means that this week can just be a continuation of the party, so in a sense, I’m kind of glad the club didn’t go early by doing something yesterday. It meant I could spend more time consuming ALL THE CONTENT, messaging more friends who are Gooners, watching more videos, listening to more podcasts, all whilst soaking up the glorious sunshine.

It’s made me really reflect on how much this title means. I knew it would mean a lot, I think we all did, but I didn’t realise it would have as big an impact as it has. I didn’t realise that a full week after we learned our fate and the victory was confirmed, I’d still be revelling in it. I spoke to my brother (West Ham fan) after they won the Europa Conference League, and he was happy, but I remember him saying, “After the high of seeing and experiencing it, it’s a bit of a come down to realise that it was just a moment of joy and tomorrow is just another day”. He tried to echo those sentiments after I spoke to him last Tuesday, after the Bournemouth/City game. I couldn’t see it that way. I still don’t. This victory is amazing. It is phenomenal. It shows just how massive the club is on a global scale. There have been parties everywhere. I’ve seen clips of a preacher spelling out an acronym at a sermon, in which the acronym spells ARSENAL as he preaches the word of God, whilst also nodding to his team. I’ve seen the parties in Africa, America, and Asia. Arsenal are a truly global entity and a cultural beacon for so many people to identify with all over the world.

And as for those Arsenal players, well, they have written themselves into history. They will meet up 20 years from now and instantly have a bond that they can share and talk about. Bonded for life through the unifying force that is the football club. There’s something beautiful in that. Regardless of players who maybe haven’t played as much, like Norgaard or Gabby Jesus, they still have that bond, and there is something magical and wonderful about that.

It must be so weird for them to go to work today, though. In many ways, they’ve done the hard work, but after the parties on Sunday afternoon/evening, then probably having a day off yesterday in the sun, today it is back to London Colney, and game faces on. And I have to say I’m really intrigued as to what Arteta will do this week. I doubt we’ll get much intel, but he has to bring those players back down to earth, as well as prepare them for a huge game in just four days. A game which could take them over and above any of their Arsenal title-winning predecessors. Arteta will be focused on how PSG set up, what Arsenal need to do to counter their obvious strengths, as well as amplifying our own strengths against them. Will he lean in to some ‘revenge’ narrative from last season’s semi-final defeat? Maybe. Maybe he’ll use that as fuel?

I think there will be an element of it, but I also think that having a solid two or three days to prepare for this big opponent will be big for him. The players and manager often talk about not really getting time to do much training. Well, they will this week. I suspect they’ll leave London for Budapest on Friday morning, which means Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday can be spent running through scenarios, working out team strategies, and getting the players in a fitness situation where they are good to go. The likes of Merino coming back for minutes on the pitch on Sunday would be welcome, but so too would be Timber in training. I suspect his ability to play a significant part will be limited, but just having them there will be great for the players and coaching staff.

And I guess we as fans will need to get our game faces on too. This is the biggest single club competition game in world football. I’ve been approaching it as a ‘nice-to-have’; a ‘free hit’ if you will. But come Friday and Saturday, I wonder if the usual nerves have started to kick in? They aren’t here now, it is weird to think that they might not be there at all, because of the Premier League win. But I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, there’s more basking in the sun to be done.

Catch you all tomorrow for some more thoughts.

And yet, in the cold light of day, when you look at the numbers, think about the chances, and consider the overall match, it was actually a comfortable performance from a team now just one win away from the Premier League title. Our first in 22 years.

I’m not sure my nerves will survive next weekend.

Arteta named what I’d predicted in the morning, with a lineup that screamed ‘I’m going for it’ by having Havertz up top, Trossard wide left, Saka on the right, Eze and Odegaard as the attacking eights, and Rice mopping up. Mosquera was there as the third-in-line-to-the-throne at right back (despite Timber being spotted on the team walk earlier in the day) and I was bullish (albeit nervous) before a ball was kicked. And when Trossard hit the post on 15 minutes, it did feel a little as if “this is fine – it’s only a matter of time” was the phrase going around the stadium in my corner of Block Five. It was a great effort, ricocheted off the post and straight to a Burnley player in the box, which felt a little unlucky. Perhaps it was, but Burnley had not come to be expansive, merely to limit the damage, and throughout the night, there were far more Burnley players inside their box than outside of it. Or at least that’s what it felt like to me.

And then not a lot happened until the 35th minute. We had plenty of the ball, Burnley were content to let us have it, and we once again struggled to break down a low block. Until a great ball into the box saw Saka fouled – and yes it was ABSOLUTELY a foul, having watched the replay – and VAR said no. I’m sorry, but Saka is behind his man; he is winding up to take a shot which would be a tap-in, and his foot gets clipped. It’s a penalty. If Saka isn’t fouled there, then he’s touching it in. He has been denied a goalscoring opportunity. It doesn’t matter how minimal the contact is; if the player impedes Saka inside the six-yard box, it is a foul and a penalty. That goes in, and who knows, maybe we take the extra 10 minutes before halftime to get that second. Thankfully, just two minutes later, we were in front, so perhaps the point is moot, but it’s still frustrating that it wasn’t called.

But perhaps we should be grateful for non-calls last night? After all, Kai Havertz should definitely have been sent off. His challenge on the Burnley defender in the second half yesterday was nasty. There’s plenty of bleating from City-biased media and fans on that, whilst ignoring Foden’s worse challenge on Bassey of Fulham earlier in the season, but let’s not try to cancel this out from a title race perspective. Let’s call it for what it was: A red card, and Havertz was taken off almost minutes after that ‘tackle’.

He’d done his work earlier in the game, though, with a superbly timed headed goal from a Saka cross. Cue the inevitable “Set Piece Again Ole Ole” raucous chants from the crowd, and it felt like we were on our way at halftime. The second half needed to be where we stamped our authority on the game and made this a bigger score line than it should have been.

Except this Arsenal team has a real habit of not doing that. We were up against a Burnley side behind, not really creating anything, not having too much by the way of ideas, and yet too often we squandered opportunities. Whether it was not beating the man, taking too many touches, or just overcooking that final ball. Eze had a shot off the top of the bar – saved by the ‘keeper but not given for a corner – but that felt the total of the big chances in that second half. Eze was really poor; he just didn’t affect the game – that chance aside – and we just felt really wasteful with the ball in the final third. Arteta rang the changes on 73 minutes which, for me, was too late. Ultimately, we got over the line, Burnley didn’t (in hindsight) threaten a ton, but it was clear from about 55 minutes that we should have made changes earlier than we did. Gyokeres came on and instantly caused that Burnley back line to think about more things. I thought Hincapie’s cameo was decent (even if it was a little x-rated with his arse out after a fall inside the box), whilst Myles looked assured when he came on. But it shouldn’t have been a game in which we were so nervous.

And that, in itself, has made me even more nervous now, annoyingly. The 1-0 win means that effectively, goal difference isn’t going to become a thing when City win tonight – which I think they will. It will mean that at the weekend, when they rack up a cricket score against a Villa side that just don’t give a shit with nothing to play for, a draw at Selhurst Park for The Arsenal just won’t be enough. It’s in our hands, it is ours to lose, but I just don’t see a world in which this coming Sunday isn’t excruciating for us. It feels pre-ordained. And if we do draw, we’ll have lost the Premier League title on the final day, having led it for practically the whole season. That would be the cruelest of jokes to play on us Arsenal fans. And the players. And Arteta.

Would I have taken where we are at right at the beginning of the season before a ball was kicked? Of course I would. But right now, as I type this, I have a nauseating feeling in my stomach even thinking about that game. And it’s only Tuesday.

Who knows – maybe Bournemouth can do something tonight. But I won’t be holding out much hope, and I certainly won’t be watching it.

Back tomorrow. Have a good one boys and girls.