It may be Erikson’s livelihood, his job, his identity, but health has to come above everything else, and when you put yourself in his position now, I’d personally have to say he has to surely be hanging up his boots now. It will be a shame for such a talented player, but at 34, he still has a massive part of his life in front of him, and so now I’m sure he’ll be thinking about prioritising his wife, kids and family.

It did make me think about my own stresses this season, though. For some reason, this has felt the most stressful season I can ever remember. I don’t know whether that is because when we won the league last time, I was just 21 and at Uni. I’d started supporting Arsenal around 1990, and so my childhood had been a League title in 91, a double in 93, the Cup Winners Cup in 94, the Premier League title in 98, 02, an FA Cup in 03, followed by that historic Invincibles season. So from the age of eight until 21, I’d pretty much seen us win everything domestically, including one European trophy. When you’re that young, you don’t think about time, about history, you just…well…live it. That’s what I did, and so I never really got that stressed because I always thought that there would be another trophy around the corner soon enough. And yeah, we won those FA Cups in 2014, 2015 and then 2017, but by then it felt like it was merely a light relief for the itch that needed to be scratched. As I got older, as I became more obsessive, writing and podcasting about The Arsenal, my emotional attachment has grown, but running in parallel with that, so has my anxious nature as a fan.

For a few years now, I’d started to think things like “Will I EVER see Arsenal win the Premier League again?” or in the Champions League case, “EVER?” – and that seeps into your footballing experience as a fan. The result of which is that the worry and anxiety build up – especially when you get so close three times in a row – which feels like, from a stress point of view, you’ve kind of built up a bit of a pressure valve in your mind. Well, that’s my experience, anyway. And as a result of this, this season has made it even more stressful. That pressure valve was at maximum, so for it to be released this season in the way it was, felt like a massive weight had been lifted.

The wife tells me it is not healthy for me to live like I had been living; worrying over the results of not just my team, but others too. I have a Fitbit, and it tracks my heart rate – I literally burn more calories when Arsenal are on and during the normal season. All of a sudden now, with the Premier League over, my average heart rate has dropped. I feel at ease. This weekend has even felt like it was a longer one than it was – because I wasn’t worried about The Arsenal.

I think social media has had its part to play in this too. The benefits are that I have basically met all of my Arsenal mates through the likes of Twitter. I have several different people I see at games. I was at a conference a few weeks ago and bumped into one of them, which was amazing to chat and catch up in a non-Arsenal work setting. But equally, for all the good it has done for work connections, it has also increased exposure to fans of rival clubs, as well as a generation of people who video themselves ‘hate watching’ other clubs just to get clicks and hits and monetise other people’s misery. It’s a pretty shameless existence if you’re doing that to weaponise ‘banter’ as they do. And as much as I personally try to avoid it, it always pops up on my social feeds somehow. And because this approach does generate clicks and hits, it bleeds into mainstream media, and platforms idiots like Agbonlahor, Cundy and O’Hara. And because you get exposed to it, because you get tired of having to see it, you (I) end up becoming emotionally invested in it. As soon as we won the Premier League, I looked up all of the ‘banter’ I’d been sent by rival fans over the last year and started ‘cashing in the receipts’. It was fun, I enjoyed sticking it to people who have stuck it to me or us, but in reality, why did I feel the need to do it? I was almost as happy to be sticking two fingers up to people as I was that we’d won the Premier League. And so the next day I said to myself, “focus on the joy, rather than the one-upmanship” – and I’ve been trying to do it ever since (not always succeeding, mind). When you focus on the joy in life, the stress easily melts away.

When people say “It’s only a game”, you think to yourself “, yeah, ok, but you don’t really get it” – and of course, they don’t. But when you hear the news about Erikson, when I think about my own relationship with football as a fan, and when I reflect on what stress it puts me through, I do think to myself that perhaps it would be healthier if I did say that phrase to myself a little more once in a while.

Doesn’t mean I’ll stop – I can’t, because Arsenal is my drug – but at least recognising and being mindful once in a while could be a bit more useful to my overall stress levels.

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.

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.

Last night was one of them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phew.

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow.

So I think I’ll unload a little more of my concern with that impending two Premier League games on the horizon that, I think, might have a massive say in how we’re going to see the remainder of this season unfold. There’s a few reasons why I think this:

Building momentum back up again

We talked about this last night on the Same Old Arsenal pod, but my concern from the Brentford game didn’t come from that game in isolation. Instead, it comes from our 2026 form so far, which has been patchy. Draws to Liverpool and Forest, a defeat to Man United, and some sluggish football at times until we scored the first goals against Leeds and Sunderland. We haven’t looked as imperious as we did around November time. The defensive lapses, the lack of a creative spark, the injuries – all seem to be compounding themselves. So if we can go to Wolves and put on a good display, then follow that by any kind of victory – good or otherwise against the Scum, then I think that will be a massive adrenaline shot in the arm for this team. Declan Rice sounded kind of okay after that Brentford draw, and Mikel Arteta seemed calm, too, but those players must surely know that now is the time to go on the run. And unlike in 2023/24 when we all saw things sort of clicking in front of our eyes around this time, I’m not really getting that vibe right now. That has to change.

More away games knocked down

By the time we’ve played the Scum, we’ll have 10 games left, with six home games and four away. That feels good. That those games include a North London Derby and a Brighton side that are always decent against us feels less splendid, which is why I think these next two away games feel massive for us. We have been good at home, you’d hope that we could win all of those home games. I think with 12 games to go, we probably need to win 10 of the 12 to pretty much secure it. Maybe we could get away with nine. If we win our six home games (fingers crossed), then you’re talking about three away wins needed. If we beat Wolves, then go to the Toilet Bowl and also somehow pick up a win there, I will be in a much better place than where my nerves are at the moment, because it will feel like we’re back on track and getting there. Win the next two Premier League away games, then you would say that West Ham away should be winnable and then you have to go to Brighton and get something. IF we do that, then even a defeat at the Etihad is fine if we keep up our good home form. I get it, lots of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, but at a time like this, I am trying to sanitise the emotional side by thinking about the practical elements of what we need to do and where we need to get our points.

Marker in a big game (NLD)

If City’s win at Anfield was the shot in the arm they needed to kick-start the run, the North London Derby could be the same for us. Don’t let The Scum’s terrible home form fool you, they will not play like the team who have been a shambles in front of their own fans all season. I am going to be super nervous ahead of this one, because this game feels like it has more riding on it than ever before at that horrendous Toilet Bowl of a stadium. They have a new guy in charge in Igor Tudor and when you look at what he’s tended to be pretty good at in Italy, it is breathing life into teams at this stage in the season. He can’t manage for any prolonged period of time, he falls out with owners and staff, he gets binned after he’s done an escape job when he first comes in, but he has been able to inject a bit of something into any team he’s joined. For the Scum, that ‘New Manager Bounce’ is needed more than anything and I really fear that. And I don’t think that will go away as we get closer to that match.

Their fans simply won’t stand for performances like Newcastle a few days ago. Those players know they basically need to leave everything out there next Sunday. We need to be ready for it.

If I’m thinking about a positive upside, it is that they are decimated with injuries right now. There’s no Romero because of his sending off, but they are also expected to be missing Odobert, Maddison, Kulusevski, Bentancur, Kudus, Davies, Bergvall, Udogie, Danso, plus they are sweating on the fitness of Richarlison and Porro. If both of those players are confirmed to be out…well…if they weren’t the Scum you’d sort of feel sorry for them. We’ve had our fair share of injuries this season, but that’s a decimation. One just hopes that we do actually step up with all of those injuries and we don’t get the old Neil Mellor syndrome that haunted us all those years ago.

Right, I think I’ll leave it there for today. Still got more work to do, so will get back on with my chores before I treat the missus to the football tomorrow.

Catch you then for a match preview.

So to see one of their castaways, a guy who we all love and has become so integral to our squad, bag the winner to send us through to the League Cup Final, felt poetic to me. It felt like vindication. It was a visual manifestation of our superiority and having missed out on a few semi-finals in recent years, it felt like what we deserve for what this season has been so far.

We haven’t ‘won’ anything. We’ve got to a cup final. That’s it. But for some years now this team has been knocking down milestones. The final one has been to start winning trophies. And to do it against a team that really are quite odious and reprehensible as an entity – that was lovely.

There’s also nothing more lovely than a last second goal. Chelsea were pushing, they were probing, they left the back door open and Kai Havertz walked through it by rounding Sanchez. Oh, and Kai, the touching of the badge? “Chefs Kiss” my friend. Chef’s Kiss indeed.

I kind of predicted how this game was going to unfold yesterday morning, but I didn’t think it would be the level of cagey from Chelsea that essentially meant nothing. They offered basically nothing. We didn’t need to go and win this game. We had the goal advantage. We had the home advantage. We have the best defence in the country. So the onus wasn’t on us to go and force anything. Was I surprised that Chelsea were just happy to stay in their shape and offer little in that first half? Not really. We, of all fans, are aware from Anfield in 89 what you can do in a second half when the clock is ticking down. Rosenior had, I think, tried to invoke a little of that George Graham spirit; keeping it tight, make the first half a bit dull, let Arsenal force it, then pick them off on the counter.

The only problem with that, is that Arsenal were happy not to force it, we didn’t need to. So why turn this into an emotional game? Screw the neutrals. Screw people switching on to ITV and wanting to see a basketball match of end-to-end stuff. That’s not Arsenal – have you not been watching? We can – and do – have the ability to shut games down. Arteta has been trying to master this for some years now. Control, dominance, possession, minimise jeopardy. Sure, Enzo taking a shot from 30 yards produced a bit of something for Kepa to do, but if you’re relying on outside-of-the-box efforts from the likes of Marc Cucurella as your source of attempted joy, you’re going to be in a bit of trouble playing this Arsenal side.

We had our chances (Hincapie’s early effort was decent and maybe Martinelli could have made more of being put in behind in that first half), but this was a professional display that, personally, I loved. That’s because it felt like – and I put the Leeds game into this bracket when I say this – the Arsenal from earlier in the season. You know the one that just shut teams down and bagged themselves a clean sheet. Of late, we’ve seen us concede a few too many sloppy goals. Sure, there’s been some golazo‘s in there with the two United scored, or the second one from Kroupie at Bournemouth, but we’d let complacency creep in, and now it feels like those kinks have been ironed out. Arteta spoke about doing a bit of a reset a few weeks back. He talked about how some bad habits had started to emerge. But clearly this team has decided that our defensive identity, which has been such a feature of this season, needs to be restored, rather than the slightly helter-skelter results that we saw in parts in January.

It’s been a really testing period for these players, but they’ve come out of it with a cup final to look forward to. Declan Rice said in an interview afterwards that he’s ‘knackered’ and given Arteta went pretty strong with his starting XI yesterday, I can understand why. But I think we probably need to be mindful of that in the coming weeks and Arteta probably needs to be thinking about a bit of rotation. We now have four days until we play again on Saturday at home to Sunderland, so I think there is enough space there between matches for those players to refresh themselves. But after that it starts to pick back up again, because we play Brentford on Thursday, before Wigan on Sunday, which will 100% be the opportunity to sit some players down again. The good news thereafter is that we’ll have a solid week until we have to go to the Toilet Bowl to play the Scum, so I think that will be on Arteta’s mind as he and his staff start to plot the approach for the next block of games we have.

But for now it is job done, Kai the hero, Chelsea vanquished and another impressive Arsenal victory in what has – up until this point – been a great season so far for us. Let’s just hope it continues all the way to May.

I’ll be back with some more thoughts tomorrow as we prepare for the visit of the Mackems. Speak then.

I watched the first part of the Villa v Brentford game before heading off for some dinner, so I didn’t see Villa stumble in the second half, then when I got back I saw that the Scum were rolling over and having their bellies tickled by Man City. I commented on social media that there’s no way in hell they’ll be as bad as that when we play them in a couple of weeks’ time, but I guess City must have felt that in the game as a whole. Because imagine my surprise to see that, once again, we’ve gained ground on those closest to us with both City and Villa dropping points.

Six points clear. Feels good, eh?

And yet, this morning as I was doing my run, I couldn’t help but think about how glorious this could all be if we hadn’t wobbled a little bit in previous weeks. I know, I know, that kind of thinking can send a football fan mad. But I just replayed that 0-0 with Forest and the 3-2 with United in my head again and again and started to dream about the parallel universe in which we’re now 11 points clear with 14 games to go.

But we’re in this one, we’re still six points clear, we’ve restored a bit more distance compared to last weekend, and when next weekend comes around, we play before City to make it nine points. They have a hard game away at Liverpool, so the hope for next weekend will be that the Scousers can at least do something, because I would Kevin Keegan-esque “love it” if we can get a little further ahead again.

We’re going to do it with Merino, though, who the club confirmed yesterday had gone through surgery and will be out for ‘an extended period’. They said that he’d be back to training before the end of the season, but that statement says to me he’d probably be done until at least April, by which time even getting back to full fitness means he’ll most likely only be a bit-part player for us between now and May.

That’s a real blow. He is a scorer of big goals. He scored to equalise against United last weekend. He scored to equalise against Newcastle at St James’ Park, plus the equaliser at Stamford Bridge. He is an aerial presence. He is a guy who is a dual winner, and I think in the fullness of time we’ll look back at him as one of those real unsung players of the Arsenal squad under Arteta. He kind of reminds me a bit of Ray Parlour under Wenger. Ray was never what you’d call a regular; if you think about that XI that was the Invincibles starting XI, we can all reel off the names. But Ray isn’t one of those names. And yet he was a guy who always played plenty of football (he made 37 appearances in 2003/4), always got goals (think the FA Cup final against Chelsea in 2002) – and often big goals too – and we all loved him. Merino feels like that kind of guy who can always be relied upon, and if we win trophies this season, he will absolutely have earned his medals. Mikel Merino has made 33 appearances, scored six goals, and made three assists. He’s a vital cog in Mikel Arteta’s squad, and the manager will be frustrated at yet another injury for us, just when the full bill of health was there for him. There have even been calls to get him playing up top with our other forwards misfiring, such is the value that we, as Arsenal fans, have all started to realise he has. He’s a difficult one to read because he doesn’t fit into a specific ‘style’ (traditional striker, duel-winner, technical passer, etc) but instead kind of does a little bit of everything well. He even filled in at six recently, so you can tell why Arteta absolutely loves him – he’s a ‘plug-and-play’ footballer.

Speedy recovery, Mikel.

The other question we’ll be waiting on – which I’d imagine we’ll find out today when Mikel has his press conference ahead of tomorrow night’s League Cup Semi Final- is the fitness of Bukayo Saka. Arteta described it as a ‘little niggle‘ after the game, and I would hope that ifthat’s still the case, we resist the temptation to play him tomorrow night. He’s not a player – despite his lack of goals of late – who we can afford to have out for too long. Madueke was good on Saturday, it’s great that he has been credited with his goal from a corner, but we’ve all seen his lack of consistency and so I just worry that whilst he will be good over short bursts of matches, to rely on him for any prolonged period of time might cause us issues.

Martinelli could be an option on the right too and he did well with the assist for Big Vik’s goal on Saturday. But he’s flattered to deceive over previous attempts on the right so, again, I’m not sure it’s a viable solution. Hopefully, they were just taking precautions for Saka and he’s good for at least Sunderland next weekend. We need him.

I’ll leave it there for today. I’m on holiday in the Maldives for this week, so I’m going to get out to that beach and cook myself for a bit. Have yourselves a good one, whatever you’re doing, guys and gals.

Arsenal go into this one with a real opportunity to lay down another marker because, despite some of their challenges this season, this is still Manchester United. It is still an old foe. It is still a side with players who can be difference-makers. So Arteta and his charges need to make sure that those players are quietened, whilst our match winners are emboldened.

I cannot see United going for us with this one. Think the FA Cup game last season at home. Yes, we had a man advantage for big chunks of it, but even before then, United scored with a counter and basically their first shot, if I remember rightly. They will want to draw on that today, and Carrick will be setting his side up to box in that space centrally in and around the penalty box, then hit us with rapid counters using the likes of Amad, Mbuembo, etc, with Bruno Fernanez as the distributor. Think their first goal against City; that’s what they want to do with us – catch us with man-on-man and see if they can take their chances. We have to be ready.

I do wonder if Arteta will do more of what worked versus Inter, i.e. leave some individuals to win the duels, thereby leaving it a bit more of an open game…

…Who am I kidding? Domestically, Arteta favours caution over anything else; he will in no way, shape, or form be happy with United transitioning on us and will instead look to control the ball and pace. I’d love us to start quickly and press down on United’s neck early, but I just don’t see it. I think we will do what we’ve done with a number of these ‘bigger’ games this season; feel our way into the game, lots of possession for our back line, plenty of probing, but the first half being one in which we ‘feel’ out United, without committing ourselves.

Of course, an early goal for us changes everything, which is what I think every Arsenal fan right now is praying for. We get an early goal, then there is no United deep-block, compact, containment game. They have to come out and a football match may well just break out.

Key men for us today are, I think, in that midfield. I suspect we revert back to the first choice, three of Zubi, Rice and Odegaard, but I’d be tempted to go Eze instead of Odegaard. Mainly for those probing, incisive, central vertical balls like we saw for the first goal against Inter. That’s the sort of stuff I feel might be able to unlock what I think will be a stubborn United defence today. I don’t think he will go for Eze instead of Odegaard, but perhaps the England international has a role to play at some stage today?

Up top, I favour trickery over speed, which is why I’m just not starting Martinelli over Trossard. Saka and Trossard need to be the first choice, but who goes up top, now that’s the more interesting conversation. For me, I think Gabriel Jesus should get the nod. He showed great form in midweek; he looked sharp, plus I do think we need to try something different. Maybe Gyokeres is an impact player for the last 20 minutes to use his running power against tired defences? I wouldn’t be against that.

Of course, Arteta could go really left of field and play Havertz from the start. It feels massively unlikely, given that he hasn’t even played of late, other than the cameo against Chelsea and Portsmouth. But I wouldn’t put it past Arteta to have been training Kai hard so he can be as close to match fit for this one, because Kai Havertz up against those two Man United central defenders would be the best iteration of Arsenal, if fit, in my opinion. I suspect he will go with Big Vik, though. Let’s just hope that the great goal he scored in midweek can spark something within the Swede.

Other than that, the only final question is at left back, for which I suspect he’ll just go with Timber on the left and White at right back. It’s a risk, because Ben has been playing more games and we know what happened when he played three in a row – we lost him for a month. We can’t have that again. If Hincapie or Calafiori are fit, that’s great, but both have spent a bit of time out, and it feels like this is not really the game you can ease them into.

I want this. So much. Man United dealt me so much pain in my formative years of supporting Arsenal. They have even won games post-Ferguson in which they were, frankly, a bit shit. So this one always feels like it has that little bit of extra edge. Those players need to use that, feed off the crowd, and get the job done. If you want to win league titles, these are the sort of matches in which you need to step up.

So go do it, Arsenal.

Right, i’ll leave it there. Let’s hope for three points and a bunch of happy Gooners tomorrow.

Catch you then.

James and I spoke about that on the Same Old Arsenal podcast yesterday. We were both a little down, a little frustrated, both feeling that we were seeing worrying signs from an attacking perspective. And I think we’re right to have concerns, as many of us Arsenal fans have already voiced, across multiple different platforms – both online and offline. We’ve had three seasons of finishing second. We’ve been one of the best teams for a while now, but the reasoning has always been that we’re still a young team, we’re still a little too emotional, and the squad may not be as deep, which means we can’t handle an injury crisis. Yet this season, most of those…well, let’s call them for what they are…’excuses’ have been wiped away. This isn’t a ‘young’ team anymore. It’sa ‘prime’ one. Trossard, Norgaard, Kepa are all 31. Raya is 30. Merino is 29. Big Gabi and Gabby Jesus are 28. Bik Vik, Eze, Odegaard and Rice are all 27. Zubimendi and Havertz are 26. This is a group of players who are all in the place where they have played enough football, they are experienced enough, they need to be winning – just ask William Saliba after his post-match Chelsea comments.

The emotional aspects have been wiped away, and this season has been some of the most emotionally free from a game perspective. Just look at how we win games. We usually go ahead. We usually ‘shut down’ games by not allowing teams any goal attempts. We’re all emotional in the stands, for sure, but the actual games that Arsenal play have the extreme moments taken out in the large part. You can’t do that all the time, but the margins are very much managed by Arteta and his team, so as an ‘excuse’ on the pitch, the emotional side of it has been taken out. Compare that to somebody like Chelsea, who have a young team that picks up red cards like they are going out of fashion.

The injuries have been countered by making this squad deep. Very deep. We had no room for talented players like Nwaneri or Norgaard. These guys were left at home on Saturday.

So imagine my surprise to watch the second half of the Villa game and see Everton overcome a Villa side with their own few injuries, followed by a visibly perturbed Unai Emery absolutely lose his sh*t in the post-match interview by declaring Villa aren’t even top-five contenders. Maybe that got lost in translation a bit (although he’s been in this country long enough, I think, for that to be less the case these days), but that assertion from the Spaniard seems mad to me when they’re third and level on points with City. But what that result did do, madly, is mean that our disappointing draw away at Forest, was suddenly a point gained. Heck, even Liverpool in fourth only picked up a point, which means we’re still 14 points clear of them!

I think it’s situations like this that, as an Arsenal fanbase, are why we are all getting very antsy. Because if you’re looking at this Premier League title race and you’re not an Arsenal fan, you’re seeing things open up like we saw things open up for Liverpool last season. I remember blogging about it on multiple occasions; Liverpool were having all the luck with injuries, they were seeing rivals fall down with injuries, then poor form, just at the moments in which they would slip up. In December 2024 they had back-to-back draws against Newcastle and then Fulham. At the same time, Arsenal had back-to-back draws with Fulham and Everton. In January Liverpool drew to Man United and Forest for matchweeks 20 and 21. We beat the Scum in one of those matches, but the other? A 1-1 draw with Brighton. We made up ground, but only by two points, whilst losing at other points in which Liverpool won.

I remember reading the odd Liverpool fan forum at the time and seeing the odd fan show – they were the same last season. “Still a long way to go” was also followed by “we’ve seen us slip up before”. They were feeling the same as we were this season, but from afar, I think all of us Arsenal fans knew it was their season from January/February time. But when you’re in the position we’re in, you are not allowed to utter those words, for fear of some kind of Footballing Gods-style lightning bolt hitting us. We saw an Arsenal team in 2007/8 fall apart after the Eduardo leg break. We saw Arsena; beat Leicester at home on 14th January 2016 to go a couple of points clear to them, only to lose our next two and also draw to the Scum to open it up for Leicester to leapfrog us. We were all there in 2022/3 where we led up until we ran out of gas in March. We’re all feeling those pains right now and it is intensifying this fear in us all. What we all want is for Arsenal beat Liverpool at home and lay down a marker, then go to a struggling Forest side and do the same again, which we’re all now sat here on a Monday morning thinking about how we could have an 11-point lead and really start to feel like we can start to ice the champagne. But the quality of all of the teams in this league – evidenced by the fact that Wolves, West Ham, Forest, Burnley and Leeds all picked up points – shows that you just aren’t going to get that. Very rarely does a Premier League season become a procession for any team. I think maybe in the 33 years that the Premier League has existed, there’s probably been five or six times – max – that it has happened like that. And when that has happened, it has been from about February/March time, not in January.

All of this spiel probably sounds as though I’m giving you some sage counsel, to ‘chill out’ a bit, that I’m ‘calma’ and am thinking that ‘we got this’. But in truth, this is a letter to myself, to remind myself that we’re in a battle for a title. Nothing is won. Everything can be lost. But what you want at times like this is to be in our position.

We’re seven points clear. There’s more work to do. Let’s go do it.

Back tomorrow as we look at the game away at Inter in the Champions League. Catch you then.

This is a Forest side who currently sit 17th in the table, who have lost 12 of their 21 games this season (one being a 3-0 to us at the Emirates during the disastrous Postecoglou reign), who – as I pointed out yesterday – are in patchy form overall of late, and given our current form (Liverpool draw aside), you’d hope this is one in which Arsenal could win and win comfortably.

But you and I both know that is not how we roll. I am absolutely convinced that this will not be comfortable today – Sean Dyche wouldn’t allow it – and so Arsenal are really going to work hard if they want those three points this evening.

By a weird quirk of fate, we also have a pretty poor recent head-to-head versus Forest at the City ground, too. Last season was a draw 0-0, lumped in with about a billion other draws we picked up. The season before that we did win 2-1 around the same time as now, with goals from Gabby Jesus and Bukayo Saka in the last 20 minutes. But before that we played them in May as our title run essentially came to an end with a 1-0 defeat there, then the year before that I was up at the game as we lost 1-0 in the FA Cup, with the time before that being in 2018 in which we lost 4-2 with a rotated Arsenal side that was pretty terrible defensively on the day I seem to recall. So that’s one win in five, which means there might be some Forest fans on their way to the game tonight thinking that maybe they could give us a bit of a chinning this evening.

Hey, it’s the Premier League, so it’s not outside the realms of reality that it could happen. City went there, relied on a late goal, should have had a man sent off and really, were a little fortunate to get the win overall. So we can’t be too arrogant to think that form and the league table set us up for a nice evening. As I mentioned yesterday, Forest will go direct, they will attack our defensive final third, they will be aggressive, and we need to be ready for it.

That’s why I think Arteta will keep the same side as he did for Chelsea. He would have expected the aggression from Chelsea in the same way he will be expecting it from Forest, so for me that means you have to go with Timber left back, White right back. Arteta hinted at a return for one of Dowman, Mosquera or Calafiori, for which I think it might be Mosquera today. I don’t know why, but I just get that feeling that perhaps he’s back. If that happens, it is good news indeed; we’re playing both of our right backs if we go with what I have suggested, and Mosquera can fill in there, so if it means we can get one of them off – or maybe even both if the scoreline is favourable for us with 20 minutes to go – then that’s what we have to do. We have INter in midweek and I think Arteta simply has to rotate one or both of White/Timber for that one, because we don’t want to risk both of them, which means a return of Mosquera could result in him able to fill in there for INter, as well as MLS on the left, which allows for that rotation and rest we would need ahead of a big game at home to United.

Which is why I think he’ll go strong in the back four today.

I don’t think he changes midfield either for this one. Zubi-Rice-Odegaard feels like it’s a must for a midfield battle that I think will include Andersen and Sangaré, fresh from AFCON, so we need those first-choice players to be ready and willing to go for this one. I hope that Yates doesn’t get on, because every time I’ve seen him, he’s a clobbermeister who would happily leave one in on a player to pick up a yellow, so hopefully, if he plays, it is for the dying embers of this one.

Up top, again, I think the only question mark might be left wing, because I believe Saka is obviously locked in for this, with Gyokeres up top, having scored in midweek. Hopefully, Big Vik is given a little more space, too. He’s up against some burly defenders in Murrilo and six-foot-five Milenkovic. He’s not the quickest in the world, whilst Murillo is a little bit more of the muscle and apparently does have occasional lapses in concentration, so if Viktor can find a way to get some space against those two, who knows, maybe he can drop back-to-back goals?

So, who plays in that left-wing spot? You could argue the toss over some players, I think, so it’s tough to call. Do you go with the trickery and form this season of Trossard? Maybe. But he hasn’t been sparkling in the last couple of matches. He hasn’t been poor by any stretch of the imagination, but I just haven’t seen him in the same scintillating form he showed a couple of weeks back during the Christmas period. Martinelli is fresh off a hat-trick last weekend, so he might be a good option, but if Forest sit in a compact shape when we have the ball, Martinelli might be reduced to that kind of game we all dread for him: hugging the touchline, no space to run in behind, touch-touch-touch-byline-cross to nowhere. I think that space on the pitch will be taken up by Ola Aina, who is quick and good at ball recoveries, so it feels like you might need somebody good at beating the man today. I wouldn’t mind seeing Madueke in that regard, because he’s probably the best at beating a man in the whole club. Trossard, too, has the trickery more than Martinelli, so that’s another option. An outside bet might be Eze, but I just think Arteta is going off the idea of using him there, with the last time we saw that for any length of time being in the Villa loss at the beginning of December. So there are at least two options for Arteta, depending on how he thinks Forest will line up, which is a real positive in an attacking sense.

I do think this one is going to be a bit of a slog, though. The Forest fans will be raucous; they’ll have had a few beers, so it’ll be a lively atmosphere, which means we need to get on the ball and impose ourselves early. WE tend to start games slowly and control the ball, and given we played in midweek, I bet we try to slow this first half down with possession, whilst Forest might be more of aggressive at the start to try and get ahead and get the crowd on side. If that happens, we have to find solutions to just keep control of those first 30 minutes. Do that, then build on our game, and hopefully we can get the win.

We’ll need to, because City will have beaten a ragged United side who have only had a few days with Carrick in charge. I might watch the start of that one, until City score at least, but I’m not holding out much hope. So we need to do our job a few hours after that has finished.

Back tomorrow for a pod with James and Amanda, as well as the usual blog on here. Catch you then.

What great news this is to finish a working week!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow for a match preview.

• The Scum lost to a last-gasp winner (and the manager tries everything, including being given an Arsenal cup and told to drink from it because they’ve ’bottled’ some of Mikel Arteta’s tactical ju-ju in there
• Man United can’t hold off Burnley
• Chelsea lost a West London Derby
• Villa held by Palace
• City surprisingly held by Brighton

And that last one really was a surprise, because I never thought for a second Brighton would get anything. I didn’t watch the first half, but caught a big chunk of the second, I have to say, City looked so open and ragged. I’d heard people say that a couple of times this season, but this is the first time I saw it on full display. And it reminded me of us nin 2007/8 after the Eduardo leg break. After that, 2-2 against Birmingham is where we lost the title that year, as we drew to Villa, Middlesbrough, then Wigan, and those additional dropped points basically ended our chances.

I don’t think City’s draw does that, because our dropped points back then were in March, not January. So there’s still lots of football to be played.

Including tonight.

And tonight’s one feels like the significance has just been ratcheted up, too. Liverpool comes to town, and there are so many narratives at play, I don’t really know if I’ll be able to do them all justice in one blog today.

There’s the revenge narrative, which I’m sure Arteta will be drawing on tonight. If he isn’t using phrases like “we owe them one” after the cagey game earlier in the season, then I’d be really surprised – we all saw the All or Nothing documentary, and we all saw how he used Ivan Toney’s “Nice kid around with the boys” tweet. Arteta will be using all he can to pump these boys up for this evening. The home crowd will do their part too; there’s a fan display, it’s under the lights, there will no doubt be some beverages drunk, and a raucous home crowd, further buoyed by last night’s results.

And those results last night segue nicely into the Incentive narrative, because City and Villa’s draws mean that Arsenal have an opportunity this evening to move eight points clear at the top. That’s a decent chunk of a gap with 17 games to go. It’s not big enough to really claim we’re getting close to it being done, because there is so much more football to play, but it would go a big way to giving this team the confidence and even more belief that, if they keep up this form and they continue to push and remain focused, then good things could await at the end. 

Which leads me nicely to the Champions narrative. Dominik Szobozlai has done an interview this week, and I think it got a few people’s backs up because of the headlines, but ultimately, all he does is state facts: Arsenal are not champions. We haven’t won anything. Liverpool are champions; they won it last year, so there’s an opportunity for Arsenal to make a statement against the reigning champions that they are ready to (hopefully) take over that mantle by winning tonight and sending a message to the rest of the Premier League.

That won’t be easy, though, as I talked about yesterday, because this is still Liverpool. They are still a very good team, with very good players, who still have the firepower to hurt us and have scored against us with alarming regularity over the last five to ten years or so. I think they will again tonight, and despite Slot trying to play the Arteta card with Ekitike, there’s absolutely no chance he doesn’t play tonight, I don’t think, or at least make the bench for impact in the second half. They need to show the world that last season’s Liverpool is still there. They need to show that their recent unbeaten run is sustainable and they need to prove a point, so what better way to do it than the team who are clear at the top right now.

What I am praying for is that this Arsenal team takes its opportunity tonight. Last season was characterized by Arsenal not capitalising almost every time Liverpool dropped points. What we’ve seen over the Christmas period is that Arsenal – this season so far at least – have – taken advantage when our rivals have dropped points. We need to do the same tonight, and I think for all of us – fans especially – we’re all waiting for those mega ‘statements’ that make us all believe this could potentially be our year. Beating the current champions, at home, to go eight points clear, is a perfect way of doing that. A draw just ‘saves par’ this evening, but can you, as Arsenal players, go one better at such an important and busy time in the season?

I really hope so.

From a team news perspective, given that we have had five days since our last match, I think Arteta won’t make too many changes from the Bournemouth game last weekend. I think Saka and Trossard will come back in, but suspect the rest of the team picks itself. And that means a super strong bench to call upon, which I really do think will need to be used tonight. A Liverpool fan commented on the blog yesterday that they think this could be a battering, but I can’t see that for two reasons:

1. Liverpool will be defensively resolute to make sure that doesn’t happen – even if it means sacrificing some of their attacking impetus
2. Arsenal is not a high-scoring team

On that second point, you can of course point to seven goals in our last two Premier League games, but I think when you look at us over the course of the whole season, there’s a reason why the bookies give shorter odds for Arsenal games with under 2.5 goals – our matches are usually low-scoring affairs.

So I think this will be tight, it will be cagey, we will concede chances and probably a goal, but the big question is whether we can take advantages of any lapses by the Lverpool team. Which to me means our wide forwards, once again, need to be on it. Saka and Trossard are doing the business, and then perhaps a job-swap for fresh legs to keep the Liverpool fullbacks on their toes. And then it’s probably about dominating the midfield. Those Liverpool fans haven’t been impressed with their midfield this season, whereas ours looks like it is starting to purr. We need to show that tonight and, if we do, then I think we’ve got a great chance of taking all three points.

I’ll be there tonight, in the cold, wind, and rain, hoping that by the end we all have nice feelings to take us into the weekend.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief.

To be fair to them, though, they have already done their part earlier in the season by beating City at the beginning of the season in August with an 89th-minute winner. So you have to give ‘thanks’ for that.

In the other games that have semi-relevance, we can hope to have a laugh at The Scum’s expense as they go to Bournemouth, and my hope is that the Cherries can have some end product before Semenyo departs for City. It’s a curious one, though, because whilst I always want the Tiny Totts to lose, we do want them to keep Frank in the job as long as possible, because it’s making them all so miserable. So they probably need to win some games. At some stage. Just maybe not today. Villa travel to Palace ad it goes without saying that we want Palace to try to do a number on Villa, whilst Chelsea’s new manager has the small matter of a West London derby against Fulham. I actually think Chelsea is a lucky team, with their derby, because let’s be honest it’s so low-key that the intensity just doesn’t really exist. It doesn’t matter how sh*t The Scum might be, those two fixtures in every season often have so much build-up, so much intensity, that there’s a lot of jeopardy with them even when they are playing pants. Yet Chelsea has none of that. Ahh, well, “it is what it i,s” as the saying goes.

Looking ahead of our game, we’ll have a press conference today at some stage, and the big thing we’ll probably want confirmed is that: a) we have no fresh injury concerns from Bournemouth, and b) maybe there could be a return for Havertz and/or Calafiori?

We’ll get a press conference from Slot this morning too, apparently at 9.45 am, so if you’re reading this later on in the day, you’ll know what he’s said with his update and whether Ekitike is fit or not. I’ve listened to a couple of podcasts over the last couple of days, and the talk has been about how Slot has spoken about Ekitike not playing against Fulham because of a hamstring issue. As the pods I have listened to have pointed out, no hamstring issue in the world recovers in a matter of days, so we’ll find out if he was just essentially lying to save him for this match. That’s my hunch, anyway.

So, about Liverpool then, what are their fans feeling ahead of this one? Well, I read one blog article this morning essentially saying that whilst they are on an impressive nine-game unbeaten run, it “feels like the worst nine-game unbeaten streak of all time“. Ouch. That article also highlights how they’re not too happy with the form, they think the team buckles under pressure, and they’re not as free-flowing as they were at the beginning of the season. I think that last comment is probably the most telling of what we’ll see tomorrow. I don’t think Liverpool will be open at all. I think they will set out to be solid defensively and offer us very little. This is a Liverpool side whose priorities have shifted this season, and they’re now just firmly in points accumulation for a top four/five place this season. If you are looking at it through that lens, then you’re probably thinking as a Liverpool fan, “yeah, we would love a scalp away at Arsenal, it would be a massive confidence boost, but a draw and then get back to winning ways after that is fine too”. For us, because we are in title-chasing mode, the margins aren’t as fine, and so my hope for tomorrow is that we have more desperation to lay down a marker than Liverpool.

I find it interesting that the above article talks about how Liverpool’s pressing is ‘non-existent at times’, which feels very uncharacteristic of Klopp’s team, or the team that won the title last season. A confidence thing? Maybe, which is why this game tomorrow needs to be treated by all of us with a little caution, because as the article points out, it would be very Liverpool to turn up and look great tomorrow. But we do ‘owe them’ a few, actually. At the beginning of the season, it was a nothing game, and they edged it with one moment in that free kick they scored. At The Emirates last season, we were by far the better team, yet we got done on a counter, with Liverpool exiting our gaff with a point they didn’t really deserve in a 2-2 draw. So I hope Arteta is using that today in training and the team talk as motivation ahead of this massive game.

How about the pundits then? What are they saying? Well, first up is Merse, who is predictably going for an Arsenal win and saying that we’ll win 3-1. I like the optimism, Merse, but I think it might be closer than that and went for a 2-1 when we did the post-Bournemouth show last weekend. Chris Sutton is predicting a 2-0 Arsenal, which again I can’t see, but interestingly, the BBC’s AI engine is going for 2-2. I can see that – this fixture had two of them last season and Liverpool have gone something crazy like 20 matches against us scoring. So I expect them to do that tomorrow too. Sports Mole has also gone for a 2-0, and you can read a little more about that preview here; I always find them valuable and interesting.

I’ll leave it there for today and be back tomorrow with a closer look at what we might do, but for now, have yourselves a great day.

All this preamble is to say that, from an Arsenal perspective, thankfully, there isn’t a ton of stuff going on. We’ve got the game on Thursday, for which the build-up probably really only starts tomorrow in the media, but the club and players will have been preparing for that since yesterday I suspect. Light training, followed by video sessions and a look at how Liverpool have been playing, but also how they played against us earlier in the season. I remember watching a video of interviewers outside the ground in the aftermath of that match, and it was Liverpool fans explaining how easy it was, how it was typical negative Arsenal, that they got what they deserved, etc, etc, blah, blah.

The reality was that on that day, both teams really spent a fair bit of time shadow-boxing one another. Liverpool were mindful of our threat and strengths, but we were equally mindful of both our poor record at Anfield, as well as the quality of the opponent. It was so early in the season, too, that nobody could really look at the result and say in what direction the season would unfold. It was still match week three, but that didn’t stop Liverpool fans parroting things like “same old negative and defensive Arsenal”; when in fact their team had been just as defensive. Now, half of them seem to want Slot gone, whereas we’re in a good space – albeit a precarious one with City still on our tails ahead of another set of midweek fixtures.

I guess that’s the thing about this time of the season; larger points leads might feel lovely, but when you are at a stage of the season in which they can be quickly eroded because of the frequency of matches, it can be a bit of a misnomer. We could quite easily drop points to what is still a very good Liverpool side, whilst City will probably still win against a Brighton side who have won just one game (against Burnley) in their last seven. If we lose to Liverpool at home, they beat Brighton at home, suddenly the online and media discourse flips all over again, and City are ‘chasing Arsenal down’ having had two matchweeks in which we’ve gathered a bit of distance whilst they have dropped points. City also plays 24 hours earlier too, so whilst we’ve been able to strike the earlier psychological blow with our wins, the boot will be on the other foot by the time we kick off on Thursday, I suspect.

I’ll start doing the usual stuff ahead of the game on Thursday from tomorrow, but for no,w a quick scan on what else is happening in the Arsenal world doesn’t really bring up too much. I saw that HandOfArsenal has said we’re after some lad from Blackburn, but for me personally, that’s not piquing too much interest because of: 1) his age and ability to impact the first team right now (one for the future), and 2) the depth of the squad we already have. It’s so interesting because I think this is the first ever window – January or summer – in which I’ve genuinely not wanted us to sign a single player. It’s a weird – but good – feeling not to be saying “we’re just short in these one or two areas”, which has felt like something Arsenal fans have been saying since…well…the whole concept of transfer windows was introduced over 20 years ago. Man, that makes me feel old, because I remember when clubs could just sign players whenever they wanted to…

But it’s a nice feeling to know that this squad is stocked with such good talent and with the news of the return of Havertz meaning that I think we might only just have Mosquera and Dowman injured in the squad if Calafiori is back fit, then you look at our strength at the busiest time of the year and it feels one’s heart with glee.

Imagine being able to field a second string against Portsmouth that includes Kepa, White, Hincapie, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Norgaard, Merino, Eze, Madueke, Jesus and Martinelli and STILL be scratching your head about how to fit in a returning Havertz and young prodigy Nwaneri into it. Yes. Please.

And this is all whilst City appear to be having mounting injuries to their team, with Gvardiol confirmed to have had a fractured tibia in his leg, as well as Ruben Dias out too. I’m sure when we were facing the injury crisis that saw us go to Villa without Gabriel or Saliba, the City fans had plenty of sympathy for us (not), so you’ll permit me to hold on to mine, given they will just probably go and spunk £0 – £40million on Guehi to alleviate their problems at the back. When that happens, as I saw somebody suggest, it will mean City will have spent more than £500million in a calendar year on players. I seem to recall plenty of online City fans crowing a year ago about how much Arsenal had spent with Mikel Arteta during his tenure, whereas they’d won their titles having hardly spent a bean in recent years. Arteta has spent £900million+, but he’s done it in six years – an average of £150million per year. Where are you online City fans now, eh? Because your chequebook manager has been flexing his financial muscles, so don’t come to me with your chirping about ‘net spend’ now if City go and drop a wedge of cash for Palace’s captain. I won’t hear any sob stories from 115 FC, that’s for sure.

Ok I think that’ll do it from me for today. I need to get cracking for another day of desk jockeying, so I’ll catch you all tomorrow as we start to look ahead to that big Liverpool game on the horizon. See you then.

I’ll be honest with you, at the beginning of the festive period when we had the late kick off against Everton, I never thought I’d be sitting here talking to you about how we’re now six points clear of our nearest rivals going into the busy January period. I thought we’d be looking at a tight two-point gap at best. But thanks to yesterday’s results, we’ve had a great ol’ time this weekend, kicking off with our hard-fought victory on Saturday, then being finished off by City’s surprise draw in stoppage time to managerless Chelsea.

I decided to switch on the game yesterday as I was cooking. I didn’t hold out too much hope for a Chelsea team that seems to be in a bit of limbo at the moment and has just sacked their manager. Man City, away from home, without your manager, with a record up there which is almost as bad as ours is. But stranger things have happened, so I figured I’d watch as much of it until City scored and then I’d switch it off. So when Reijnders hit the back of the net on 42 minutes, I decided that enough was enough, I was going to have my last Sunday roast for a while (diet starts today, unfortunately) and then watch some David Attenborough instead.

So as I made my way up to bed in the evening a few hours later, you can imagine my pleasant surprise to see that Chelsea had made something of a fightback in the second half, that they’d got that late equaliser, that we were now a bit more of a solid gap ahead of City and six whole points separated us, them and Villa respectively.

Happy days.

Paul Merson spoke in the aftermath of our win and said that he felt that the psychological pressure of having to win at home might have an impact on City, but I didn’t believe it. I had assumed that this would be a routine win and as always, had they held on for the 1-0 victory, the narrative would have been that they are grinding out our victories to keep pace with Arsenal. But the problem with results-based analysis is that it doesn’t do enough to tell you what is going on. Perhaps the reason why City didn’t do what I think most people would have expected them to do in that second half and go on to win by two or three goals is that they were feeling the psychological pressure a bit, and that led them to be a little bit more off the pace in that second half? Again, I can’t say for sure because a) I’m not in the dressing room, and b) I didn’t watch the second half. But given in December we had several games in which we retreated towards our own box whilst holding on to something (Villa = draw, Wolves = one-goal lead, Brighton = one goal lead having been two-nil up), that we as Arsenal fans and the media said that the team was already feeling the pressure of a title race, perhaps the same can be said for City and their players?

Some will point to the fact that City have ‘been there, done it before’ and of course Pep has, but his whole team haven’t. Having a look at his title-winning side of two seasons ago, the following players were pretty much ever-present (I’m calling that as somebody who has played more than 30 out of the 38 games) that season:

• Alvarez
• Foden
• Rodri
• Ederson
• Silva
• Walker
• Haaland
• Dias
• Kovacic
• Akanji

Those highlighted have left the team. But they also had Grealish and De Bruyne in there too. This season, new faces include Reijnders, O’Reilly, Gonzalez, Donnarumma and Chekri. Whilst some of those have admittedly won trophies before in other leagues, it is not the Premier League. Could it be that they are feeling the pinch of pressure just as much as we think our players have at times?

Maybe. Maybe I’m just putting two-and-two together and making 928. But one thing is for sure, based on 20 games played, this doesn’t feel like a City team that just bashed down the league. The City teams of two or three seasons ago ended up going on relentless 15-game winning streaks, and nobody would keep up. This City team don’t feel like that, and I think there will be more dropped points for everybody. Because I think we don’t feel like a relentless machine either. We have the strongest squad, for sure, but some of our attacking struggles prior to the Villa game cannot be ignored. We aren’t quite the clinical team that will blow this league away. Sure, we’re six clear at the moment, but I’m not naive enough to think that gap will just grow and grow to nine, 12 or 15 points as we make our way through the first half of 2026. I think we will have weekends where we’ll be pegged back; there will be times when the narratives spun will not make great reading for us as Arsenal fans, and we’re going to have to collectively take some deep breaths. I think we also need to appreciate and savour these moments in a season; the squeaky-bum weekends will come on the horizon, so take the time at periods like this to metaphorically sit back, smile and have yourselves a cigar.

The first one might be Liverpool on Thursday. It may be nice to see Liverpool sit in fourth, 14 points away from us, having drawn to a late equaliser away to Fulham yesterday. But they are still Liverpool, they will still carry lots of threat for us on Thursday and Arteta and his team still have to get the preparation right ahead of this important match-up. In much the same way that we would look at Liverpool v City as one in which it could be a banana skin for City, they will look at that in the same light this Thursday. So we have to find a way to overcome the Scousers.

Back tomorrow with some more thoughts as the extended build-up to that Liverpool game looms on the horizon.

Firstly, a lot has been made of their overperformance of their xG. And for sure, they absolutely have when you look at games like the one this weekend that they just played against Chelsea. The Blues had 2.1xG according to Fbref, whereas Villa scored two goals from their 1.2 xG. But if you look at the actual shots on target, it points to a wasteful Chelsea who only got three of their 14 shots on target, versus Villa’s eight on target from 11 shots.

Villa are clearly a prolific team.

So I started to have a little look at how they perform, numbers-wise, and blimey they are not one for the data nerds.

In terms of xG in the league this season, they are 15th. For xG allowed, they are 14th. For goals scored, they are sixth. For goals against, they are fourth. For progressive carrying of the ball they are 14th and for progressive passing of the ball they are 10th.

They are just a weird side to try and work out.

They have the second-highest save percentage of shots they face, which points to their annoying but obviously quality keeper, they have in Martinez, and are roughly mid-table when it comes to the total number of shots they have faced.

In terms of attacking threat, they have taken the 12th most shots in the Premier League, but they’re sixth in the league for total number of shots on target. But I think herein lies the secret to their success this season: Villa have the highest shots on target percentage of any team in the league.

This is an Aston Villa side that takes quality shots. They are not a high-volume shooting machine; they simply take shots and take them from decent distances too, which explains their low xG compared to their position, I think. If you’re taking pot shots and getting them on target from 30 yards, there ain’t a lot of xG you’re hoovering up.

They also sit in the lower half of the table for total number of passes completed, which tells me they want to get the ball from back to front as quickly as is humanly possible to create chances. That’s what we’re going to have to contend with tomorrow night:

• Quick transitional counters from back to front
• Shots from distance
• Probable sh*thousery and time-wasting from Martinez

Perhaps that shouldn’t really surprise us though. Last season at home we were two-up on 60 minutes having got one in the second and one on 55 minutes one what was a game we were in total control of, before Villa hit back with two relatively quick goals from a counter on 60 and 68 minutes. The season before that we lost 2-0 at home in one of the games that cost us the title; again that was with two counter-attacking goals in the last 10 minutes of the game. Villa have played rope-a-dope on us for two season’s now; it is time we learned from it and dealt with what they will be coming to us with.

A lot of that will depend on the team news too, which we’ll get from Arteta and the defensively solidity with the return of Big Gabi will be massive for us. Who plays at full back will also be important and I’ve got everything crossed that Calafiori and Timber are back. Who knows, maybe even a cheeky “Ben White is training too” wouldn’t go amiss.

Other than that there isn’t really a lot going on at the moment. I was toying with the idea on what some of the Villa forums might be saying, but I suspect it will be full of some of their fans doing a fair bit of crowing and expectation of victory after their really good run they’re on at the moment, so I’m not sure I can be arsed with looking at a few pages of comments.

Instead, I’ll simply take my leave for today and be back to you tomorrow when we’re got a bit more team news and an idea of how we might line up.

See you then.

Thierry Henry – you are a true legend.

Back in today’s world of Arsenal now and last night we got some news filtering through that despite Kai Havertz being rumoured to have been targeting a return to first team football before the year is out in the next few games, he has apparently had another setback which will see him out until mid-January. At this point you just have to laugh at this. It is crazy the level of injuries we’ve had to deal with and then when you see details like this emerging from Sky Sports about the volume of injuries since the beginning of last season, you have to wonder if our ‘injury curse’ has basically just carried on from last year. Last season I called it The Cursed Season but you look at that chart and realised that you might even call this one that same situation too. In that same time Man City have had 18 fewer injuries, whilst Liverpool have had 33 fewer injuries and so it is actually a remarkable feat that we’re still in there fighting for the title, let alone leading the table going in to match week 15.

Havertz’s setback means that he’ll essentially have missed half the season through injury; it’s a bitter blow for a player who hardly ever got injured before last season and who Arteta described as a ‘machine’ just before he picked up his knock. And given his injury last season, as well as his injury this season, I am starting to wonder if we will ever get back the same Havertz. He might come back fully fit, for sure, but we have all heard stories about the psychology of players being out for so longer and never really fully recovering mentally for it. Robert Pires famously always seemed to run a little differently after his injury, I’m pretty sure Rosicky has talked about the impact of these injuries that kept him out for a long time, so what sort of player will Havertz be when he gets back?

Hopefully he can find his old form from when he was fit, because at the start of the season I seem to recall saying on one of the Same Old Arsenal pods that he was on course for a 20-goal season in the early stages of the season. He played 36 games in 2,800+ minutes last season and had racked up 15 goals in all competitions. I’m pretty sure he’d have got to 20 with another 15 games that season to do it. So it was a real shame when and how we loist him and it’s been a massive shame how we haven’t seen him since the opening day against United.

What his extended absence does do is give Gabriel Jesus a chance though. I think for sure he’ll get some more sub minutes against Everton tomorrow, but then I also think that he’ll get a start against Palace. If he can come through 60 or 70 minutes against the Eagles, then I’m 100% convinced that he’ll be making a start in one of the Christmas fixtures, which is not something I think any of us thought at the beginning of the season. His return to the team means we have cover and options to rotate in the absence of Havertz providing the Brazilian doesn’t have an impact, which feels massive, given the context of these next few weeks, as well as the calibre of opponents.

And that run of tough games starts tomorrow away to Everton, which as I mentioned yesterday, isn’t a place that we’ve had such a great time of inj recent years (one win in our last seven). We then play two games over Christmas that we drew at home last season in Brighton and Villa. Let’s also not forget that this time of the year hasn’t always been a happy one for us; two season’s ago we lost at home to West Ham and then away at Fulham. Admittedly we then went on a mega-run of winning game-after-game, but the Christmas period has always felt like a slog for The Arsenal and I’d be lying if I said to you that I don’t have any apprehension. Man City have an easy time of it; a pretty shoddy West Ham team tomorrow who they will batter, followed by a Forest Team who are currently in 16th and have lost eight games, not exactly looking anywhere near the same side as last season, followed by a Sunderland team who despite being in eighth right now, aren’t exactly flying when it comes to underlying metrics. It feels to me like they’re running out of momentum a bit (even though they won the derby last weekend) and by the time they play City on New Year’s Day, I suspect the momentum and vibes they’ve been channelling will probably be running low.

So what all of this means is that at a period in which our rivals will most likely get an easy ride, we’ll have to conquer some demons. And do it with one of our star strikers missing when we thought we’d be getting him back. The hope is that we have ourselves some better news over the festive period at the back, with Big Gabby rumoured to be looking at one of the games over Christmas as a possible return date. If he’s back for Villa, that will be massive because it will mean we hopefully get that main central defensive pairing back up and running for the new year and with Bournemouth away and Liverpool at home on the horizon in January, having him return to the heart of our defence gives not only confidence amongst the fanbase, but also amongst the players as well I suspect. We’ve been able to cover so far, I think Hincapie has come in and done great and hopefully will continue to do so, but there is no substitute for Big Gabby and his return will be very eagerly anticipated for all associated with Arsenal.

I’ll do a bit on team news, Everton, what we might see tomorrow and more in tomorrow’s preview, but for now I’ll bid you farewell for another day and hope your Friday goes great.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I watched a few bits of the City versus Palace game (although I mainly watched the Tyne-Wear Derby) and from the 20 – 30 minutes that I saw, I didn’t see a City side that ‘blew away’ Palace. In the cold light of day and looking only at the result you’ll see that 3-0 victory and say they are looking imperious, but I saw a Palace side who couldn’t finish their dinner, perhaps because they’d played in Dublin on Thursday night. I didn’t watch any of the West Ham v Villa game, but I looked at the data and it looked to me like Unai Emery doing ‘Unai things’ and we’ve all seen that before as Arsenal fans; the 22-game unbeaten run in his first season was littered with alarm bells and whilst Villa have been on a superb run and you have to give them credit for it, you cannot sustain your form with scoring three goings from your four shots in a match. Football just doesn’t work like that.

That’s the problem I think I have with in particular some sections of the football media – the results-based analysis that exists these days. People look at the results on paper and make sweeping statements. I haven’t had a look at the media narratives this morning (and I probably won’t) but I suspect there will be some corners of the press who will now have them as favourites. But against Fulham, against Leeds, then again yesterday against Palace, this City side were hanging on. Conversely this weekend, Arsenal delivered their worst performance of the year against a terrible Wolves side and that has led to a little bit of fretting amongst some of us Gooners. For me though, I’ve been a little more sanguine yesterday evening as I reflected, because I don’t believe that what we saw on Saturday night is reflective of this Arsenal team.

Heck, the data tells us otherwise, as well as the eye test on how we have been through over 20+ games so far this season and given it is that time of year, why note quote a bit of Marley from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

My senses tell me that Saturday was a terrible day at the office. It tells me that although we’ve had back-to-back of those if you include Villa in the league, this isn’t the Arsenal that I usually expect, whilst also telling me that we have been patching this team together for the best part of a month – maybe even two – now as we try to get over a perpetual injury crisis. I alluded to that ‘bad day at the office’ vibe on our early morning Same Old Arsenal pod yesterday morning when we were talking about why it went wrong and although I saw a few articles (including one from Football365 which suggested it was certainly NOT hallmark of champions with what we did this weekend) that were chastising us, I am prepared to let this slide because I think we have seen a more accurate representation of The Arsenal this season and it doesn’t look like Saturday’s hot mess.

A ‘hot mess’, by the way, that resulted in us still winning and still sitting top of the league by two points.

I also think that the manner of the results this weekend have impacted some of the psyche of the Arsenal fanbase. Hypothetically speaking, imagine if we’d have scored our two goals early, dominated the game against Wolves, then conceded in the last second to make it closer than it was. I think most Arsenals would shrug, say “meh, three points is all that matter” and then even with the City result yesterday, it would be ‘move on’ and away we go. But because of the manner of how the game unfolded, coupled with the fact we came a-cropper late against Villa, I think there’s some results-based analysis (as well as timing of goals-based analysis) that is going on with some of us, forgetting how controlled we’ve been and forgetting that sometimes these types of results just happen. I remember a 0-0 draw at home to Fulham during the Invincibles season that was a bit like that. And we didn’t have the level of injuries we had that day.

Let’s remind ourselves here about who we have been missing from the weekend:

1. Gabriel
2. Mosquera
3. Havertz

We had Calafiori suspended and Arteta said that Saliba probably shouldn’t have done the 90. We lost Ben White who was clearly not fit to play but was wheeled out in the absence of others. That’s a waaaay better injury list than we’ve had, but it is still key players out. City meanwhile this weekend missed Rodri (big blow), Kovacic (squad player) and the perpetually injured (although again admittedly very god player) John Stones. They have had some injuries but are over them, we are just getting to the tail end of ours and Arteta has even spoken about how the lack of ability to rotate has caused us more problems.

A lot of what we have seen in recent weeks can possibly be put down to some of that I believe.

Villa were missing Martinez in goal yesterday, but aside from Mings and Barkley (another squad player) they’re in pretty decent health. They also played a pretty terrible West Ham away (I know, I know, Wolves, etc, etc – but I think Wolves away this weekend would have been easier than at home because they ain’t parking the bus against us on their own ground) and only just scraped by too.

I realise that so far this might all sound like an Arsenal fan clutching at straws and doing the whole “I’m not nervous, you’re nervous!” thing, but honestly I promise you, I don’t feel like that this morning. Now, if we are pants against Everton next weekend, or drop points at home to Brighton or Villa, then I will 100% start to probably have a little wobble. But as it stands, knowing that Arsenal and Arteta have a solid few days on the training ground from tomorrow to address some of the issues we’ve had, I am feeling pretty chipper and hopeful that we can tackle this Christmas period with Gusto and come out the other side of it in good shape. If we pick up three wins in a row in the Premier League, I think a lot of what a few people are feeling right now goes away.

So I’m calm, we have a week now to hopefully start having some drip-fed information about potential return of players, so let’s keep our fingers crossed for some of that before the build up to Everton away.

Catch you all tomorrow.

He’s such a colossus, isn’t he, eh? I remember when we signed him in September of 2020. I, like you I’m sure, Googled and YouTubed a bit of this young lad we were just bringing in for something around the £23million mark plus add-ons. I don’t scour the French league, I don’t watch any matches, so this had to be a bit of a punt on a guy who himself had only been in Lille for a couple of season’s and before that spent time on a number of loans in France and Croatia. One of the things I read about him at the time that I absolutely loved was that he wins a lot of ground duels. The prevailing narrative was that he doesn’t go to ground too often and prefers to stay on his feet, but he wins a lot of ground duels standing up, which was what we needed in a recent era of Mustafi and David Luiz’s.

In fact, Luiz acted as a bit of a mentor for him in that first season, with the two often playing together and having a fellow Brazilian at the back must have been beneficial for him in those early months. He played 32 times in that first season and racked up 2,807 minutes in a decent opening season, although I remember him not being 100% the rock he is today. In fact, I seem to recall a couple of iffy moments and a red card in the Premier League there somewhere, such was a slightly erratic, but younger version of Big Gabi that had the inevitable young defender mistake in him.

But for every season he’s been at The Arsenal, he’s been every bit the ‘monster’ David Luiz described him as back then. He has grown in stature year-on-year and when Saliba broke through, Big Gabi was already established. I’ve read a few things from Arsenal fans, listened to a few pods, talking about how he has probably even surpassed Saliba in terms of his importance and as much as I absolutely adore Big Bill, I have to agree to that. When Saliba broke on to the scene he was flavour of the month. His following season he was seen as the cool, calm and collected cultured centre half, whereas Big Gabi was the roaring lion. Fire and Ice, if you will. But particularly this season and I’d probably say for the end of last season when he was out injured for so long, his presence has been felt more keenly than anyone else I think. He’s a defender first and foremost and we all love his chest-thumping tackles or gee’ing up the crowd at times at The Emirates, but his prowess in the box is crazy now. Every time we get a corner the cameras pan to where he is. He’s become an unstoppable force and his reputation is becoming such that people think he scores every game. But he’s only (HA! ‘ONLY!) got two goals so far this season. That’s in 17 games and 1,300+minutes. So it’s not as if he’s always on the scoresheet.

But that doesn’t matter. If the reputation that surrounds him means that more attention is placed on him more than the other players for set pieces, then it gives other players the opportunity to make an impact, whether that’s Big Vik, Saliba or Calafiori. It doesn’t matter to him who scores, it doesn’t matter to us who scores, as long as we keep getting those corner goals and clean sheets (minus last weekend, obviously). It’s kind of the same with Saka too. Teams double up on him in that right wing spot, so that means that’s one less player on another part of the pitch and it frees up more space for our other attackers which, if we move the ball quickly enough then it can be another way in which we can fashion chances by occupying left backs and central midfielders in our right wing position. If Big Gabi can take a couple of defenders with him on a corner, there’s other spaces for other players to hopefully profit from.

We just need him to stay fit all season and I do wonder if that means Arteta needs to think about a little more rotation with him over the coming months. There are some players he just does not rotate much at all – Raya, Saka, Odegaard (when fit) and Big Gabi. We do need to think of a solution in that regard and I do wonder whether we need to see more of Hincapie and Calafiori there. Both have played in that central position before – albeit nominally as left centre-backs in a three – and even yesterday against Canada Hincapie started as a left back. I do think they’ll both be fighting for spots in that left back slot, but we do need to also protect Big Gabi by managing his minutes I think. He had a pretty big injury last season that kept him out for a long time, we don’t want that happening again this season. I’m not sure whether we can afford it to be honest.

But that sounds like I’m tiptoeing into ‘worry’ territory, whereas today is about giving our Number six and King of Brazil some flowers.

Keep at it Big Gabi. Have a good game on your own pitch tonight – but stay fresh and don’t get injured.

Back tomorrow with some more musings.

It wasn’t all plain sailing yesterday and for the opening skirmishes of last night’s away win Slavia Prague were well worth the title of being on top for the first 15 minutes or so. Their home fans were loud, they were determined to ‘get at’ Arsenal and I wondered if it might be a long night for Mikel Arteta’s men when they forced one or two minor errors in our passing. But this Arsenal team has been built on such strong and solid defensive foundations, that in reality, the minor moments of which I speak of never really amounted to anything concrete anyway. Indeed, it wasn’t until the latter stages of the game that even a shot on target was registered and such is the strength of our back line right now, that I personally was a little affronted that the home team even managed that. I was hoping that for the second game in a row we could go a whole game without conceding one on target and I even got nervous about conceding a shot on target as the game neared its end and David Raya hadn’t been forced in to one.

Such is the dominance of this back line, that even when the penalty that Prague got was awarded, I thought to myself that it was a travesty that a clean sheet could be sullied by such a thing as a penalty against us. Then, when it was ruled out as a penalty by Ben White, the wave of relief that swept over me was just not normal.

We’re supposed to just look for wins in football matches. We Arsenal fans are getting so used to how good this team is, that we now want cherries on top of cakes. Lots of cherries. Glace ones in abundance.

The game had of course already been won at that stage, but records are there to be broken and Arsenal’s eight games in a row without conceding being a new club record is something to be rightly applauded and lauded. These guys just don’t want anything to faulter and in a competition in which has elite athletes and so many variables (a slip here, an odd-bounce there, a fluke mis-kicked cross heading goalward, etc) in it, the fact that this Arsenal team has control of all of those variables is nothing short of staggering.

It builds the platform on which victories can be forged. And when Arsenal were given a helping hand by one of the Slavia Prague defenders from a corner, Saka duly dispatched the penalty to keep his numbers ticking over. He had a good game, created some good chances and got five out of six shots on target, but to me this felt like one of those games where he did ‘just enough’. Hey, I’m absolutely fine with that and if that’s his floor then he can do that all day long as far as us Gooners are concerned.

On the other flank I thought Trossard had another superb game and he really has developed in to the unsung hero of this season so far. His cross to Merino was inch-perfect and he now has seven goal contributions this season already. I said a few weeks back that we need output from across this Arsenal team and he’s on course to get easily close to 20 G+As in all comps at this rate. Given we now hear that Big Vik is likely to be out this weekend, that end product is very much needed and welcome from the Belgium.

But that also applies to makeshift centre forward Mikel Merino, who has scored what I read somewhere is his 19th goal in 2025. 19 goals! That’s insane. This guy is seen as a rotational centre midfielder for us and yet he pops up with vital goals for both club and country. He got us off the mark away to Newcastle and last night he effectively confirmed the victory with that deft touch to take the ball behind the Slavia ‘keeper. It was exactly the sort of position you expect Gyokeres to take up and whilst Merino doesn’t offer the same running power as the Swede, he does offer goal threat and he proved it last night with his brace. That is important in the context of the Champions League, but I also think it is important in the context of this coming weekend too; we are going to need him to get in to the right positions as a centre forward and these two goals will give him the confidence that he can do the job and do it well whilst we suffer a minor crisis in our lack of attacking options.

There was so much to be positive about last night and the winning margin we got to with 20 minutes to go meant that Arteta could rotate some players in and also break some more records. And so we must also congratulate Max Dowman on becoming the youngest player to ever play in the Champions League, as well as Harriman-Annous getting on the pitch too for his Champions League debut. What an amazing night for those two players and for Max in particular, he keeps knocking down those milestones. The thing that I find also mad is that this isn’t even a token gesture by the manager; Dowman came on last night and within two minutes he’d dribbled past his man and been hacked down. The Prague players – who for most of the evening had decided they were going to try to bully the Arsenal lads (naive) – were just there to try to take Dowman out on two or three occasions, but the young kid just got up, got the ball and went for his man again. What a special young talent we have.

And what a special group of players we have too. They will be absolutely brimming with confidence at the moment and they go into the weekend with an impressive 10-game winning run dating back to 21st September. We know it won’t last forever, it might even faulter this weekend, but for now we can just appreciate just how good these players and this squad is and hand out those flowers to Arteta, his coaching staff and those players.

Roll on the weekend.

Whether it’s been trotted out or not remains to be seen. But it interesting that Sky, TalkShite and other click-baity areas of the internet are leaning in to this narrative about us. James and I did a little section on it on the Same Old Arsenal pod last night. Why is this being talk about so much?

I think it is probably because more and more teams are taking the lead from Arsenal’s success. I find that in football there are certainly fashions that tend to sweep across the elite game. There’s the booting the ball into touch to gain territory, the go for the long throw and the emphasis on set pieces as a key component of the game that we’ve seen this season. But football’s fashions have been going on for years. When I was a kid everyone played 4-4-2 and that’s about it. There was a time around when Conte won the Premier League for Chelsea that everyone suddenly fancied going three at the back. Then latterly we’ve seen a lot of teams go for a 4-2-3-1, or a 4-3-3, with pacey wide forwards being all the rage, as opposed to your right midfielders like Ray Parlour.

What we’re seeing now is just the latest tactical evolution. The only problem is that football is steeped in its narratives and dinosaurs like Jeff Stelling, who have now presented on our screens and radio stations for 30 years, are still focused on ‘what it was like in the old days’. What they don’t realise is that in fact football has become far more technical, far more complex and far more data-driven across all teams in the elite levels, that teams are eradicating mistakes and therefore the concept of ‘Marginal gains’ becomes vital.

The problem Arsenal have – well, it’s a problem that everyone else has, not us – is that Arsenal have perfected their marginal gain speciality to such a point that you cannot stop it, regardless out much you practice it. Football has become so risk averse that you have to look at tactical situations as your opportunity to make the difference. What are the key ways in which a manager or his coaching staff can truly influence the game more than any other situation? It isn’t having a Messi dribble around ten players. It isn’t getting players to shoot from the halfway line, or telling them to score goals from open play, or hope for a mistake from open play. It is through those situations in which there is a stoppage in play and therefore positions can be set and those on the side-line can move their chess pieces around the board. That’s set pieces. Corners, free kicks, throw ins. People are talking about long throw in’s coming back in as if it’s some kind of harking back to the old Stoke days, but in reality clubs have just realised that if they practice them properly, they can effectively be like corners. That Brentford fella who whips his throw-ins low and hard is effectively like getting a corner on the side. And you get so many throw ins during a game. And when you think about how the probability increases of scoring when you get a corner (this is a couple of years old from Opta, but is still relevant I think), doesn’t it stand to reason that when you also treat throw ins like that, you’re just playing the numbers game, right?

The best counter I’ve seen to the Arsenal negativity from our fanbase has been this argument:

If you want open play goals, how about not coming to try to park the bus against us?

If you’re a Liverpool, City, United, Bournemouth, Sunderland, Chelsea fan and you’re making those kinds of comments (not sure how many Sunderland or Bournemouth fans are to be fair), then perhaps asked the question why so many teams are making the box congested. It’s difficult to score open play goals when there’s 18 players in a penalty box. The only other way then is taking long shots but the chances of scoring with 18 players in the box diminishes rapidly. So, Jeff Stelling, if you’re going to have a pop at Arsenal for the games not being expansive, perhaps have a pop at teams playing Arsenal too?

Leeds came to play us.

Lost 5-0.

Forest came to play us.

Lost 3-0.

If teams come and don’t park the bus, then there’s a football match to be had, but until that happens then your ire should be directed in other directions than Nicholas Jover et al.

Last season we were accused of parking the bus against City and were lambasted for not making it a football game. No such daggers thrust in Man City’s direction this season. Palace played a game that was designed to be compact and barely got in to our half until the second half when they had to go for it. But even then they didn’t register anything resembling a big chance from where I was sitting. Yet nobody has said anything about them.

It’s always The Arsenal.

We’re used to it by now.

Back tomorrow as we prep for Brighton at home in the League Cup.

The Arsenal Women are, as they got back to winning ways with a 2-0 away win in Benfica, so hopefully that is a sign of a glorious Arsenal weekend ahead of a trip to Fulham on Saturday evening for the men’s team. And as is my wont ahead of these games, I had a little tiptoe over to some Fulham fan sites to see how they are feeling ahead of this one, as well as how the pundits are thinking this one stacks up.

Firstly, those pundits, who I don’t think any of us will be surprised to hear that they are pretty much suggesting this is an Arsenal win. Ignoring the fact that we haven’t beaten Fulham in our last two visits, this is clearly one in which most are suspecting we keep up our success so far this season in keeping clean sheets and Merse is predicting a 2-0. To be fair to him though, he does say that this is a game that we have to win if we are going to take the title and that just last season he saw games like this and West Ham last weekend in which we slipped up in. Sports Mole are also going with a 2-0 and I do like their predictions and the detail they go in to it on. Chris Sutton just gets a soundbite on the BBC and he’s also gone with a 2-0, although in a break from the rest of the pundit pack, Ol’ Jones Knows on Sky is going for a 1-0 away win to The Arsenal. He shows his workings though and talks about how we are so resolute defensively, but that one-goal, as opposed to a two-goal margin like the others have gone for makes sense to me given the fact we’ll probably face a low block tomorrow.

The managers’ haven’t been in front of the press today obviously at the time of me writing this, but given the noises around some of the injuries around Marcos Silva’s side, you can understand why the pundits are favouring us and why Jones is going for a narrowly contested contest. Last season Fulham got an early goal with their first chance and then they essentially retreated into a low block, for which we got one but were unable to secure a late winner from Martinelli. A repeat of Fulham scoring first and early tomorrow will most likely end up in a little Deja Vu I suspect.

The Fulham fans aren’t as hopeful though. Silva will confirm this later, but their walking yellow card midfield enforcer Sasa Lukic is out for a number of weeks apparently and that is causing a bit of a stir in the online Fulham forums. The first comment I read said “Personally I can’t put up an argument for us to win, let alone possibly a point” to give you a bit of insight. Another talks of a potential long night, then there’s talk of not playing well after international breaks, as well as one guy suggesting a 5-1 win is on the cards. I thought it was really unusual to come on a message board like this and see so much resignation; usually regardless of the result there are fans saying things like “I hate Arsenal more than any other club” (for some bizarre reason), or “we’ll smash those cockneys” or the like. But here there seems to be a bit of an acceptance and I wasn’t sure why. But th vibes appear to be based on the injuries and potential that their only fit striker Jimenez has a question mark over his fitness. You could see how that could be an issue and in a recent Fulham blog I read, the author spoke about how Traore may be a menace, but his lack of finishing ability really hampers them and so they are all crossing everything that Jimenez is available to play. Let’s not forget it was he who scored against us last season. But he wasn’t able to play against Bournemouth and so whilst I think he will be fit tomorrow, he might be a little rusty, which is what we have to hope. He hasn’t played a ton of Premier League football so far, racking up just 143 minutes in the Premier League across six games, which averages out as 24 minutes per game. Hence the hope of a little rustiness against a guy who has bagged goals against us before.

Regardless of his availability though, those Fulham fans in the main aren’t feeling this one too much. The game isn’t played in the ether, it’s on the green stuff, Fulham have more than enough as a Premier League side to cause us a three-in-a-row upset, but as I said when kicking off today’s blog and talking about what Merse thinks, these are the sort of games that you really do have to win if you’re going to claim to have a shot at the title.

Let’s hope that’s the case tomorrow.

I’ll be back in the morrow to give some more thoughts when we have the detail from both managers, but until then, enjoy your Friday and I shall speak to you all when a proper football match day is finally upon us.

You’ve probably already read some of the articles and so you’ll be aware that the talk is about finding an additional 10,000 seats that will bring our capacity up to 70,000. It first broke by The Telegraph I believe and fair play to Sam Dean, who has also done a few spin off pieces on his exclusive, as he and the Telegraph eek out as much of their ‘scoop’ as possible (I might sound a little sarcastic there, but I actually think they did a good job on this one).

It’s an interesting one, this, because if you think about the current complaints that are circling the ether right now about how hard it is to get tickets, it makes sense that layering in another 10,000 tickets each week would help the burden. I do think that if they do this, however, they can’t be upping the amount of season tickets. The current problem is that fans get nowhere (or that’s the perception) in the current ballot process, so opening up to members who don’t go very often is the right thing to do, in my opinion. And I’m speaking as somebody from a position of privilege; I have a season ticket, have done for years, so whilst I love the idea of The Management getting fast tracked on her season ticket with these additional seats, I think the problem lies in the ballot and access to Red/Silver members.

Apparently the way in which the club can do this is through deeper seating, or by adding an extra layer of seats to get us closer to the pitch. I like how Andrew Allen at Arseblog has referenced what Benfica have done to add 5,000 seats to their stadium in the examples they’ve given here. In the Telegraph they talk about those steeper seats like the – ahem – Tottenham Hotspur stadium, but whatever they do, it would mean a temporary move to another stadium and Wembley has been mooted as an option. I’ve seen plenty of fans talk about how they’d hate it, but for that season we’d be talking 90,000 fans in the ground, plus it’d make my commute a hell of a lot easier from Uxbridge!

Whatever is decided, I doubt anything will happen within the next few seasons, as there will be consultations and more. But what I find interesting about that is that whatever Arsenal team step out on to the pitch when these changes finally happen (in whatever form), the team that does play at Wembley (if that is the case) will probably be totally different from this one. If I was to hazard an uneducated guess, I’d think this is a solid five year’s down the road from now, which means it’s probably only Max Dowman, Bukayo Saka, Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri who might be sure-fire bets to be part of the change. Heck, Mikel Arteta might not even be there.

Which then makes you think about the football team as well. The clamour for tickets right now is because the team is looking amazing. But what happens when this current ‘Project’ has run it’s course? One of the hardest things to do in football is renewal. Wenger joined in 96 and inherited a superb back line. He sprinkled his magic and built on that foundation to forge a title winning side in 98. That evolved in 2002 and was completely changed into his image by 2004, which was his pinnacle. But by 2008 the team had gone again and we spent a number of years away from the top table, scrabbling around for Champions League Top Four. I’m not going to dredge up old stories and turn this into a history lesson, but there’s an argument to be had that Wenger never really managed to really renew his team effectively (we can all find reasons why that is that I won’t go over today).

We don’t know what this Arsenal team will look like in five years time and we don’t know whether we will be back to being a team fighting for top four, or worse, but I do still think the need is there to increase the stadium. The demand is there now, I just hope that if we fall away a bit, the demand will still be there. The waiting list suggests so, but I’ve got pictures of me turning up to a midweek game at The Emirates in the middle of winter against Man City, being able to lie flat across four seats because there was hardly anyone else around me. I will be there – god/higher power permitting – for as long as possible regardless of how the team are performing. I just hope that those who are infrequent visitors and are currently clamouring for tickets now, will also be there with me. As I say, the waiting list and the demand for tickets suggests we should be ok, so the club clearly feel there’s an opportunity there.

Whether that translates to loads more cash to the club remains to be seen. As the Telegraph article points out, Arsenal made a gamble on match day revenue at a time in which commercial and sponsorship deals sky-rocketed, making the percentage of revenue from match days a little less relevant, but if you’re charging an extra 10,000 people £40 on average, that’s £400k on ticket sales per match, let alone all the extra merch and so on. That’ll help I’m sure, certainly at a time in which it seems that football clubs are looking for every little marginal gain to draw out more profitability, but as Man united are finding out to their detriment, you have to have a competitive team on the pitch.

That’ll do for today I think. Back tomorrow as I desperately try to find a way not to talk about England or the internationals.

One of the most frustrating part of last season – injuries aside – was that it felt like every time an opportunity opened up for The Arsenal to claw points back on Liverpool, we didn’t take it, so they ended up creeping away from us until the lead they had was so unassailable that there was no real battle for the title that happened. I remember playing Everton at home and we drew 0-0 and I think Liverpool had dropped points against Fulham in the earlier match of the day. I remember heading to the stadium and saying to a few of the lads I’d been in the pub with that “you have to make it count on days like today”.

That day Everton at home was a little more of a winnable game than today’s away match at St James’ Park, but if you want to be Champions then you have to take advantage of any little chinks of light that open up, when they do. Yesterday as a day might have been a great fun one to have a ‘Hate Watch’ given that all of our so-called rivals dropped points other than Man City (who were never going to slip up at home to Burnley), but today has to be a response from The Arsenal that shows our title credentials. Newcastle away has been a hoodoo for us; we haven’t even scored a goal there on our last three visits and the last two 1-0 defeats in the league have felt eerily similar to me.

The first one two season’s ago was that dodgy Gordon goal that Willock admitted afterwards was probably out when he salvaged the ball. At this stage you have to ‘whatever’ about that, but the performance itself i remember being really lacklustre; we didn’t win duels, we looked stodgy up front and we never really troubled an organised and very disciplined Newcastle side who have already shown this season that they have that part of the game as locked down as we do.

Last season’s encounter was probably worse though. I thought we were so poor and it was a game in which Isak scored early, but if we were playing that match for a solid week thereafter we probably wouldn’t have scored. We were so ponderous in attack that day and what I want to see from today is that we create chances. We have to be able to give something for Gyokeres to feed off and we have to stretch Newcastle more than they have been in the last three meetings. In all of those games once we’ve gone behind they’ve sat compact in to their shape and Gandalf’d us for the rest of the 90 left to play.

It’s why I think if we get the first goal today, the game opens up a bit and the dynamic shifts. If Newcastle score we know what they are going to do; they will sit back in to shape and ask Arsenal “go on then, see if you can get through our barcoded wall” – think last week against City, only this time with home advantage. The home crowd will be roaring for the start of this game and if we do what City did against us and score early, that will have the same impact that the Haaland goal had on our home crowd. We were muted. We need to mute the Geordies today.

Arteta has spoken of a couple of things he thinks they will do differently, but I think most of us hope that our line up – if we are sans Odegaard from the start – needs to have a little more creativity in it. I personally have nothing against Merino, I believe there’s a time and a place for him, but I don’t think it is in the midfield with Rice and Zubi today. Sure, it gives us the control we need, but it handicaps us of a more creative outlet on the pitch and if you go a goal behind early on, it can make you look a little stodgy when your opponent reverts to a low/mid-block approach.

Go from Ethan or Eze early in the game.

On the left there might be a question whether it is Eze or Martinelli too and given the week he had last week and how his confidence might be high right now, I suspect Gabi might get the nod. I’ve said it before on social media and I’ll say it here too – Martinelli is a ‘streaky’ player. His goals and his form comes in patches and two in a week, as well as an assist in Bilbao, means he’ll be flying high and so my gut feel says to me that he gets the nod. Arteta loves his work rate too and I have a feeling Howe is going to go with Elanga on the right and Gordon on the left, which means rapid pace and a need for ‘Nelli to do his shuttle runs defensively as well as going forward.

If that happens and if Odegaard is fit, it could mean Eze doesn’t start which will be hard on him, but the reason he took this job at The Arsenal is not just because he is a fan of the club, but because he wants to get better, he wants to improve and he wants to be at a big club and when you are at a big club like The Arsenal, you know that the competition for places is more intense than anywhere in the Premier League. If Odegaard is fit then I have no problem with seeing Eze from the bench.

If Odegaard isn’t fit and Arteta does fancy getting a more creative outlet in the midfield, then I do wonder whether it will be Eze or Nwaneri. Eze normally occupies those left eight positions and that’s where he thrived (albeit more as a ten) for Palace last season, so I would be tempted to tell him to go left eight and then maybe you ask Rice or Zubi to fill in on the right. Alternatively, we do what we’ve been doing this season and have Rice and Zubi drop into a double pivot and tell eze to occupy both left and right half spaces, with Declan alternating those left and right spaces where Eze isn’t. Rice is an intelligent enough footballer to do that, so I don’t see why that wouldn’t work?

Whatever we go with, the prize is clear: Victory puts us to within two points of the Scousers. It puts us to within touching distance with them having gone through the hardest part of the season and it would set us up to have a real run at that top spot between now and November when it gets tricky again.

Go do the business, Arsenal.

Depending on how the game pans out Amanda and I might do a post match pod, but if not I’ll be back tomorrow, then we’ll do a catharsis pod on Monday night.

Laters kids.

In all seriousness though, this is quite a nicetie for all involved. I couldn’t remember the last time we went there, I had a feeling it was about 20 years ago and we won 3-0, so I had a little Google and I was waaaaay off. It was a 1-1 draw in the FA Cup in 1998. The team that day included Seaman, Bould, Dixon, Winterburn, Keown, Overmars, Wright, Bergkamp, Vieira, Parlour and even Stephen Hughes for good measure. We won it on penalties in what I’d assume was hardly an epic encounter for the ages.

This encounter week commencing 22nd September will be somewhat different I suspect. For one thing, I doubt you’ll see a full first team like we did that day in January 98; Arteta will use the opportunity to give games to some of the younger players, but mainly those squad rotation options that haven’t played as much recently and I suspect the expectations should be that even with that rotated team, we should have enough.

This is a different beast, of course, to the one that nearly got away with it last night against Grimsby. Honestly, how bad are that United? I get it, they rotated in a few players who have not played as much so far, but by the sounds of it nobody really played well in that united side and whereas some people were saying that a 1-0 win up there on opening day might look like a better result in the fullness of time, based on what they’ve produced in the last two games, you’d have to say “I don’t think so”. We’ll see.

We’ll also see today who we have as our fixtures in this Champions League format that we’re all used to. It’ll be eight games spread across September to February and when I looked at the options for us from the ‘tier one’ bracket that I saw, we’ve got a tough one because frustratingly Chelsea are in that ‘tier one’ as well as City and Liverpool. That narrows our chances and means we’ll be having one of PSG, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Dortmund or Bayern. We’ll get one home and one away from that and if I’m looking at the preferred options you’d probably say a Dortmund as one you’d like to have, then I’d like to have a revenge tie at home. So PSG, Barca or Bayern would be good. Real Madrid? We did that last season. We got no beef with them. But we need to come up against one of those other guys and get a scalp. It would be big if we did; it would show that we finished in the semi’s last season and we’re planning on going deep this season, with the best way of doing that being to pick up a win in the group stages and dealing a psychological blow to another team expected to go deep in the competition. Let’s see what a more well-stocked Arsenal squad can do against some of those big guns.

From ‘Pot two’ I’d like to play Leverkusen away and then maybe somebody like a Juventus at home. Leverkusen is near Cologne where I have family, plus I wouldn’t mind us having a crack at a Ten Haag side who have been stripped of it’s big parts already this summer, it looks like from the outside. In ‘Pot three’ you start to get to the ‘don’t mind who we play’ bracket, but in the interest of picking somebody to see how many I was right with when the draw is made, I’d like to see Ajax away and Bodo/Glimt at home. A trip to Amsterdam means an easy turnaround for the players and a Norwegian side that were beaten by the Scum last season at home would be one you’d have expectations we can do the business on. It’s also for that reason that the one you definitely DON’T want to be playing away against from ‘Pot four’ is Kairat from Kazakhstan. That would be a hella long trip and Arteta and his lads could really do without a mammoth journey like that wedged in between Premier League games. So I’d take a Union Saint-Gilloise from Belgium away from home, followed by a home tie against somebody like Pafos or Kairat at home. What you don’t want is both of the European teams from Pot four who at least have a bit of pedigree in Galatasary or Monaco. We’ve also done those games before, so something different wouldn’t go amiss when the draw is made later today. Selfishly, what I could also do without is a home game first, as I’m in Greece. An away game to Pafos might mean the wife misses out on some Santorini time though…

Let’s wait to see what unfolds. Then before you know it, we’ll have Mikel Arteta in front of the press tomorrow giving us an update ahead of an early season crunch game against Liverpool.

catch you tomorrow.

That’s the benefit of the kick off at the start of the season – the optimism of the unknown – where everyone has hopes that their team is going to have a good one and whilst everyone is on null pointe you can have that collective set of hopes. Your dreams haven’t been dashed by defeats and the form of your club isn’t on the Debbie Downer. Which is why I think it’s probably the worst time to be playing a team like United, especially away. If we were at home I’d be feeling quite bullish, but because it’s away at a ground in which we traditionally haven’t been great at, my apprehension is starting to build.

I heard somebody on the radio say that we’ve won four out of our last five games against them in the Premier League, with the other one that insipid draw towards the end of last season when we knew the title was done and we were starting to prioritise the Champions League, so on recent form you’d say we should be fancying our chances. And yes, we did win there two season’s ago with a 1-0 win on the way to a final day showdown for the title. But our record at Old Trafford over a longer period is pretty dire. And it’s a little depressing because they’ve been pretty dire themselves on plenty of occasions as a team, yet always seeed to get over the line against us. If we go back over the last 10 games in the Premier League at Old Trafford, our record reads:

• Four defeats
• Four draws
• Two wins

If you go even further back it gets worse. So I have painful memories of bang average post-Fergie United sides getting one over on us. So I would never say I’m confident going in to these kinds of matches.

But as I have started to do over the last couple of seasons, I wondered if that is just an irrational pessimism I have inherently built in to my brain, when the reality is that I should be a little more bullish, so I started to have a nose at what United fans are saying.

My first port of call was a place called the ‘United Forum’ and I’m precising what I’ve seen so you don’t have to venture into enemy territory. You’re welcome, by the way.

So, where are United fans’ heads at?

Well, on one chat which was called ‘Arsenal pre-hype’ I was encourages. “I’d take a draw” was the first comment I read this morning. Nice. “Would take a draw in a heartbeat. Unfortunately we will lose 2-0” was the next. Ok, I’m feeling better now.

“2-1 new lad with the winner”. Gyokeres maybe?

“I’d take a 4-1 romp in the sun”. Hmmm….

“Are they still only scoring from set pieces?” – ok you lot are starting to cheese me off now.

Then I started spreading my net a little wider just looking for predictions and as usual with these things you have a mixture of those who will always back their team (fair enough), but there’s a fair few – at least half I’d say – who are predicting a loss, or hopeful for a draw.

That gives me a little more hope. These people watch United a lot more than I do. They know exactly where their club is and when they are predominantly saying that they aren’t sure and hopeful for a draw, it means we need to be going into this game with a little more confidence than what I have.

That’s where the opposition fans are at, but a better lie of the land is with the pundits, so what’s this Friday bringing up ahead of this game then?

Shearer is calling a draw, citing that is too early in the season to really know what a good result would be, which I kind of get and speaks to my point about playing United now. If we were going there in six weeks time I suspect we’d probably be in a better position because I don’t think this United – front line aside – are that much different to the one from last season. The London Evening Standard have gone with a 3-2 win for Arsenal which I could understand with potentially some rusty defences out there. Somebody at SportsMole has gone with a 1-0 United win, but the girl is a United fan so that’s fair enough. Roy Keane thinks we’ll win 2-1, but he’s always a bit of a pessimist over United these days, whereas Gary Neville thinks United 2-1, Merse thinks we’ll win 2-1, whereas Jones Knows on Sky Sports is going for a 1-1.

And to me I think this just backs up my argument that this kind of game on opening weekend is a bad time to play United. I’m kind of getting to repetition levels on the blog today but I just think it’s set up for the media pitchforks to be out. I was thinking back to the Brentford opening day defeat in 2021 and it’s funny how the bad sticks out more than the good, because the first thing I thought was how our opening day isn’t always the best. But last season we beat Wolves, the season before that it was Forest at home, the season before that it was a Palace win away. If you look at our away games to give more context, there’s also FUlham 3-0 away, Newcastle 1-0 win away in 2019, then you have to go back to a 0-0 at Newcastle in 2011. So our opening day form isn’t that bad after all.

We do need it to be a win this weekend though. If you are going to challenge for the title, it’s the sort of game you have to.

More thoughts on that tomorrow.

You’d be a fool if you were to bet on when Arsenal would make the announcement, but given they haven’t officially announced the third kit yet (a white abomination that there is no way in hell I’m buying), I’m guessing if Adidas and the media teams at Arsenal had their way they’d announce it in the launch video with him smiling at the end. Now that would be a way to announce yourself as an Arsenal player!

In terms of the transfer itself, is anybody else just glad that all of this will soon be over? I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted he’s signing, but when you think that we’ve had practically two years of striker search and being told “they need a centre forward” rammed down our throats, it’s nice to know that there will be an alternate stick to beat us with from the media next season, because we’ve finally gone out and brought ‘the big fella up top’.

Of course the reality is that our problems won’t be solved with this signing. Even if he ‘bangs’ and bags goals, we still need it to come from all over the pitch and last season our problems wasn’t because we didn’t have a striker, but because we had a big chunk of the season in which we had four of them missing from our front line (if you count Gabby J as one of those guys which, ostensibly, he still is). That we have padded out the front line with a striker and wide forward who can play both flanks will help (Madueke surely has to have more of an impact than Sterling!) for sure, but we still need to find ways to spread the goals around, be more unpredictable in attack and unlock those stubborn low and mid-block teams.

But I’m happy i don’t have to lament “if only we’d have addressed the striker issue’ because the club have now done it. Fine. Good. Now can everyone please stop talking about it??

As for the rest of the squad, they are of course doing their media bits out in Singapore and there’s a nice puff piece on the official site where Mikel has spoken to the media team about how great it is to meet young kids from the Arsenal soccer schools, the support in the ground, good facilities and how thankful he is to be out there. There’s nothing really massively informative about the interview and he’s not really talking about any new incomings (yeah, I know, like he would!) or any kind of new tactical approaches he’s working on (again, that’s a little like expecting water to not be wet), but it’s still great for the people out there who will have seen a few years of us going to the States and probably wondering “when’s it our turn?”

I take it for granted that I see the games all the time at home. I’m in Cologne visiting an Aunt and I was showing her pictures last night of where my seat is and the atmosphere pre Real Madrid. She doesn’t have any interest in football but even she went “wow!” When she saw it via an almost pitch side view. She even said “it would be lovely to come along someday”. Needless to say I didn’t tell her about the waiting list or clamour for every single match-day ticket!

But it did hit home – along with thinking about these tours – the privilege I have and the fact that I just know that providing I’m fit and able enough, I’ll be at the first home game of the season in just over a month’s time.

A month away. Well, less than that really, because we have the small matter of United away. It’s just as well because as much as I needed last season’s cursed season to go away towards the end and after the Champions League semi final, here I find myself, tapping away at an iPad, starting to feel the pang of longing for The Arsenal to return. I want to smell that north London grass on a (hopefully) warm, August day. I want to meet up with mates I haven’t seen over the summer. And lastly, I want to feel those nerves kick in at kick off.

Bring me back to My Arsenal.

Catch you all again tomorrow.

It’s fine. It’s better than that fluorescent yellow and black monstrosity from two season’s ago. Am I going out to buy it? Probably not. I always wanted the early 90s blue one with the lightning woven through the design when I was a kid, but this one less so. I think it’s just probably not as ‘wow’ for me. I think blue and white as Arsenal kits still feel a little ‘odd’. I had one years ago, but it never felt right. Like I was betraying the tribal instincts of being a red and white Gooner by wearing a blue kit. And there’s no way in hell you’re getting me in a white Arsenal shirt.

I do like the home shirt that they have released, but whether or not that’s enough to get me out there and purchasing one remains to be seen. I often think to myself “am I too old for this sh*t?” when it comes to football kits. I already occasionally wear some of them when I’m at work and The Management is starting to get the hump with the lack of shelf space as a result of my recent purchases. I probably will go out and buy the home one, then just kept it hidden from her in amongst the other red and white home kits from the Adidas era.

I have ZERO kits from the Puma era. Make of that what you will.

I suspect that away kit launched this week will mean it’s also on display tomorrow lunchtime (UK time) when we play AC Milan in Singapore. There will be a fair few of the squad who will be donning it for the first time and whilst it won’t impact performance in any way, shape or form, for some of those younger squad members who have travelled, it will be quite an experience. Imagine being 15 – 18 years-old and being one of the first players to rock the new away kit. It will feel pretty cool for them. I suspect Arteta will also be all too happy to gift some of them some minutes too.

You don’t really want to go out there with an all reserve/youth team from the off tomorrow, but perhaps a smattering of first teamers rotating for two halves of football, whilst some of the younger players get to share the pitch with them as well. Makes sense to all involved as the young players get their taste of top-tier football and the first teamers start to get minutes in their tanks.

I’m also pleased it’s AC Milan. I’ve always held a soft spot for Milan, going back to the Maldini days. They were ‘my’ team in Italy and I remember having one of those hookie kits from a Portuguese market that I bought as a kid with ‘Ba’ on the back. Not Demba, of course, but Ibrahim who played there for six years in the late 90s. Bit of a cult name on the back that one, because he scored just one goal during his time at the club and only amassed 56 appearances in those six seasons. Hardly a legend of Milan, but I always enjoyed donning that shirt when playing football with my mates in the 90s/2000s.

It’s also good to not play English teams, which is sadly something that won’t be happening out in Asia after that match tomorrow. I know that the way things are these days are that you end up playing these teams in different environments and its for the fans out there, not the privileged ones who get to go to The Emirates as a season ticket holder, but still, couldn’t we pick teams from other places in Europe to play against? I couldn’t think of anything worse than playing Newcastle and The Scum. Give me an AC Milan, a Marseille and a Leverkusen ahead of playing more English teams.

I guess it’s the money that these tournaments bring in. The Premier League is where the big cash is, it’s where fans from Asia tend to invest more of their football-watching time, so they’re going to want to see that rather than an Arsenal side lining up against Bordeaux or St Pauli. We just have to accept it.

So, what else is new, eh? Not a lot it seems. Xavi Simons has supposedly been offered to The Arsenal, so of course the next logical conclusion there is that Chelsea start sniffing and probably buy him. If there’s an attacker in Europe linked to anyone, Chelsea are after them. I think it’s the new rules of the transfer window, or something. I’ve seen him a couple of times, but I have to say he’s hardly blown me away. He feels like the sort of signing that if you can do it for £25million it’s worth a punt, but you don’t really want to break the bank. Is somebody like Simons that much better than Trossard? I don’t think so. He feels rather underwhelming and when you also have the data and eye test of knowing that Trossard gets goals in this Arsenal team and that he’s got years of experience in the Premier League, I’m hoping that this rumour has some cold water poured on it. go get me Eze Arsenal, let’s not mess about with Bundesliga players like Simons when we have the real deal from the Premier League who would be chomping at the bit to make his way back to The Arsenal.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today. Be back tomorrow with more thoughts and whether anything shakes out of the Gyokeres tree if we get some news.

So we know that one’s in the post and I don’t know whether to ‘go for it’ and start having a look and giving some thoughts on the signing in a little more detail now, or wait until it is officially confirmed. I think I’ll go now, in the absence of any other news other than the fact it appears that Arsenal players descended en masse (sort of) yesterday at Wimbledon.

Norgaard is an interesting selection choice, but the value of the deal – reported by Ornstein as £10million+£2million in bonuses – is certainly a brilliant one as far as we are concerned too. I have already spoken about the finances in this deal making total sense compared to the wages of Partey here, but I wonder about the stylistic change that we’re gonna get between him and Jorginho, because that’s the replacement we’re getting in midfield, so my comparison’s with Partey are probably a little wide of the mark. I think it’s just because the two deals are being seen to be done around a similar time (because we all already knew about Zubimendi months ago), plus it feels like this deal was done in response to Partey not accepting new contract terms.

But in reality this is the Jorginho replacement and so I thought I’d look at what we’ll get that is different – but also what is similar – and the first thing that strikes me is that we have replaced leader for leader in the dressing room. Norgaard was captain for Brentford, he played 34 times for them last season and racked up over 2,800 minutes. So from a footballing point of view we’re getting a guy whose engine is up and running; he’s not been out in the cold and barely played, which we cannot see with Jorginho on nine starts, six sub appearances and 700+ minutes. In his time last season Norgaard got five goals and four assists and guess what folks, he’s a threat on set pieces in scoring four of those chances from crosses or set pieces. When it comes to Set Piece FC, we have ourselves another lieutenant, that’s for sure. And as this article shows, he’s a guy who will attack the ball in both boxes, either to score or to clear it.

I decided to also have a look at the two players at the same age too, because I thought to myself that Jorginho is a little older, maybe there’s a bit of a decline in there, so let’s do like-for-like. Jorginho’s 30-year-old season was in 2022-23, Norgaard’s was last season. They both played around the same number of matches (32 vs 34 for Norgaard), although Norgaard had an extra 700 minutes, which might skew the numbers more as he was on the pitch. But that aerial threat from Norgaard was clearly something that made him stand out from an attacking perspective, because in their respective season’s Jorginho only had two goals and one assist, both of his goals were penalties. That impacted his xG which was 1.9 to 4.3 in Norgaard’s favour. Clearly in Norgaard we’re getting somebody who should probably be contributing more in the penalty box.

What we’re not getting, however, is a progressive passer or carrier of the ball. In their respective same season, Jorginho made 28 carries to Norgaard’s 14, whilst passes was 179 to 154 in Jorginho’s favour. We kind of knew that already – that Norgaard was a breaker of play and somebody who anchors the midfield – but I think it is important to note because even though Jorginho wasn’t used much last season, we knew that when he was going to be used, he would be more analogous to Partey than Norgaard will be to Zubimendi, who is also a very progressive passer of the ball. This tells me we’re probably going to see quite a difference if that rotation option happens with those two players at number six this season; we need to be mindful of that I think.

Norgaard also takes waaaay more shots, again leading to his increase in threat compared to Jorgi. In their respective season’s, we see that in a 39 shots by Norgaard to nine shots for Jorginho. I can picture that; Jorginho would always look to that final pass rather than having a go himself – that great strike against Villa stands out for that very reason – he didn’t do it very much.

I think most of us knew this already, but it’s still worth pointing out, which is that Norgaard will also not be the metronomic footballer that Jorginho was, or Zubimendi is, because event will 700 more minutes Norgaard only just misses out on total number of touches (1833 to 1802) and Jorginho made nearly 200 more passes in that season compared to the Dane. That could be because Brentford go long more, whereas Arsenal/Chelsea certainly play shorter, but I do think it also speaks to the players and their styles too; Norgaard will sit, break up play, distribute to the nearest guy close to him and then reset himself back into his position whilst others do their thang going forward. I don’t necessarily think there is anything wrong with that, but depending on the opponent, I suspect we might find that we will need to change up the approach, or even not play Norgaard at all and drop Rice into the number six role. Imagine a low block, at home, where we’re having most of the ball in the opponents third. You don’t really need a destroyer sitting back. You might use his aerial threat in the box, but I personally would probably think that a Rice in there and the opportunity to play a more attacking left eight, would be a better option for me. If you’re playing a side like City and Zubimendi is not available, then sure, you’re going to use Norgaard as that extra bit of protection.

So in summary, whilst we don’t have a like-for-like comparison, I do think Norgaard brings value to the squad in terms of who is as a footballer. We just need to be mindful that injuries and suspensions to players won’t give us the same – or similar – options for Arteta like Jorginho and Partey did.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Except two times in my life. The first was when the Super League announcement came and it was depresssing to see that Arsenal were willing to go down that US model route and announce they would break away from the Premier League and other competitions. That hit me and I had a rage and sadness about the way in which my club had acted.

The second was yesterday when, after we’d just released Thomas Partey from his contract, he was officially charged with five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault. And today I am sad. Firstly, I’m sad for the women who are caught up in this, because they have had to sit on this for literal years before it became public. Lord knows what they have been through and whilst I don’t know them, follow them or haven’t seen too much about them, I think I’ve seen some stories about how they have been abused online because of this situation. I’m sorry but that is utterly inexcusable. To abuse somebody because they have been wronged and you have an affinity with the predator of this situation? Unacceptable to me. They will get their day in court and they will be able to tell their side of the story and that is important. We are talking about one of the most heinous crimes you can get; a violation of somebody that no human being should have to go through. Of course at this stage we have to say that these are merely allegations and Partey – via his lawyer – has said he welcomes the opportunity to finally clear his name.

That last bit tells its own story – finally. So basically this is an acknowledgement that everyone knew this existed. Which also means the club knew about this for a long time. Yet no action was taken. Worse than that, Partey has played an integral role in the back end of this season and that in itself is bad enough. I was talking about this yesterday with the wife and we both agreed that there would – and should – have been things Arsenal could have done. They could have suspended him pending the conclusion of this situation. They could have sacked him outright. They could have told the world he was injured. There’s lots of ways they could have handled this. Yet it was swept under the carpet and then cynically it has all come out now that he has departed the club. I’m sure you’ve thought this as well, but I also think about how there were noises that the club wanted to renew his contract! Knowing what they will have known, how on earth they could have even remotely entertained that idea is utterly baffling and really quite tragic to think about. The ‘look the other way’ nature of this leaves a blemish on Arsenal’s history and I hope there are some serious questions being asked about how thie should have been handled. More importantly, that this never happens again.

I am also slightly concerned that it wasn’t until he was released that this process has been made public. Why is that? I really hope it isn’t because he is a famous and high profile person. Again, I do not know the in’s and out’s of this situation, we all have to be careful how we talk about what is a very serious crime, but the timing of this announcement has left me with a knot in my stomach because I immediately start to think about sinister reasons behind it all coming out now as opposed to previously.

I don’t really want to comment too much more on this, because of the sensitive nature, but let’s just say it’s not a great day to be an Arsenal fan.

I wanted to say a few final words about Tomiyasu though, as a way of looking at a positive contribution to the club. I remember when we signed him – I was in Portugal and I had Sky Sports News on in the hotel room. The wife was like “are we going down to the pool now?” and I made her wait five minutes so I could read and watch all of the breaking news on it. His first season was immense at right back but that first injury he got set the sad tone for his Arsenal career: Blighted by injuries and unable to put together any kind of rhythm. It’s testament to the man himself that, despite that, the club offered him an extension last summer. But it said a lot that it was just one year with an additional one year, so that he could prove his fitness, which sadly he has not done and now he’s exited the club. I believe he still has four or five months of rehab left so my hope is that the club still offer him their facilities. Tomi, you were a fine player and by the sounds of it a lovely person, so I don’t think there’s a single Arsenal fan out there who wouldn’t wish you the best of luck.

Right, I’m wrapping this up for today, with the hope that we have some good news at some point.

Catch you tomorrow.