He spoke fondly of Arsenal in the pre-match press conferences yesterday, also reflecting on his Puskas goal against Crystal Palace all those years back. That will live long in the memory for sure, but as he put it, I don’t think we’ll see one like that again, and very unlikely for lightning to strike twice tonight.

Lille will prove a stern challenge, however, having kicked off their season with four wins, a draw and a defeat, and alongside Giroud there will be a pantomime villain in the shape of ex-Scum player Nabil Bentaleb, who played for them for four years before moving abroad to Schalke.

Apparently, accoridng to the internet, they are an aggressive pressing side who will go direct, and you’d expect with somebody like Giroud in the team, they’ll be looking for rapid players to buzz around him as the target man, which means that whoever has the man-marking job this evening, can stifle a lot of their play if he can win the duels against the Frenchman. Here’s what David Ancelotti (son of Carlo) said with regards to his footballing philosophy:

But my idea is: during the defensive phase, a compact defensive line must be built, whether it’s high pressing or low block defense.

To me that says that Lille are going to try to low block us this evening, so we better be prepared for it, because you don’t normally see too much of that in the Champions League. usually you’re up against teams who want to come at you, but if Lille are playing for a point in North London, it could be a frustrating one for us I think.

I do wonder if Arteta needs to do a bit of rotation to freshen it up, on that basis, you know? I would have said “how about Zubi in midfield?”, but as confirmed in the press conference last night, he’s out. As is Hincapie, and that one doesn’t sound good. Apparently he had to be carried off the pitch after Leeds game by Meslier, and Arteta seemed to back it up that it doesn’t look great. He’s such a good footballer, but much like Calafiori (although maybe not quite a bad), he’s had a fair few injuries now since signing for us. It’s only because Arteta loves a left back, that we have always had options, and you do wonder if we’ll start to see a little more rotation with Myles in at left back to protect the Italian’s legs.

I’d do that tonight, actually, and give Myles the left back role, moving Bruno in centrally, so that you can reward him for his good performance and splendid finish to win us the game on Saturday. I thought that, goal aside, his overall play in changing the game was good too, so I’d like to see him take to the pitch from the start this evening.

And I do wonder if Mikel might change it up again in attack. Noni was alright overall on Saturday, even if he did have some iffy moments, but I’d be tempted to shift him right, give Saka a rest, bring Eze in on the left. I’d also have a think about Gyokeres, but I think a complete shuffle of the front three is probably unlikely by Arteta.

Unlikely, but not completely impossible because let’s face it, we weren’t exactly sparkling against an admittedly well-organised Leeds. He sort of called out the attacking too, saying last night:

But I think we’re certainly getting in some great, great, great positions. We need to be more clinical now to finish more actions.

I think that was the only problem from the Leeds game, but we also need to recognise that Leeds had only conceded three goals all season, and hadn’t conceded two since god knows when, so perhaps I/we need to be less harsh on the team. And perhaps that extends to tonight; Lille will be a tough nut to crack, they’re full of confidence given they’re second in Ligue Un, so a probing approach will probably be Soup Du Jour for those going along tonight.

I shall be one of them, hopefully not losing my voice like I did at the weekend, but a lot of that will be predicated on how the team gets on. My hope is that we see a slightly rotated side, because I do think Arteta needs to ensure he leans on to his squad more, to try to mitigate fatigue-based injuries. But also to keep those Arsenal players on the fringes of the team engaged. If you can’t give players more minutes when we’re easily playing two-to-three times a week, when can you give it to them? That’s what I think we need to see tonight, and hopefully Arteta does that.

So my side for this evening would look a little like this:

Raya

Timber – Mosquera – Gabriel – MLS

Bruno

Odegaard – Rice

Madueke – Gyokeres – Eze

There’s enough freshness in there, we have options on the bench, we also have the goal machine that is Merino if we want him to start, so I’d also potentially think of him instead of Big Vik. But I do think an element in rotation, in putting some more faith in the squad, is what you can do for a game like tonight. Let’s see if Arteta agrees.

That’s yer lot for today – back tomorrow with a Champions League debriwef, to see if we’ve maintained a 100% record in the competition. See you then.

And it’s Leeds United for The Arsenal for the early kick-off today, which means I’ll be dumping these thoughts on here, going for a quick run, then making my way straight to Highbury for a pre-match warm-up with my mate Steve.

These early ones are funny, I find, because they’re usually a little stodgy, particularly if we’ve played in midweek. We may not have done, but the players did for their international teams, so whether we see a free-flowing Arsenal or not remains to be seen. That is also the case with the team selection too, as we have lost a few players due to this patchy international break, but the good news is that we do have some returnees. Ben White, for example, is back and able to start, and you’d expect him to given we’re easing Timber back into first-team football. I also wonder if they might save Konsa and give Mosquera a go at centre-half today too, with the Champions League kicking back off next week. In midfield, Arteta confirmed that Declan is back and that managing his load by not playing for England was the right call. But up top, we know Kai and Tzolis will be missing, so I suspect it’ll be Eze and Big Vik that come in.

So for me, for today, I have a feeling Mikel might go:

Raya

White – Mosquera – Gabriel – Calafiori

Bruno

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Gyokeres – Eze

There are, as we know, plenty of bench options which do include Madueke and Dowman, plus the return of Hincapie, so we will be stocked. But today needs to be a physically imposing Arsenal side who will come up against a physically imposing Leeds United side. They’re missing Rodon and Daniel James, but the rest of the team are available, I think. And they come into this one in fifth place, with two wins and three draws, so they will certainly be feeling in fine form and able to cause an upset at the Emirates. IN their five games, they’ve scored seven and conceded just three (better than us thanks to that Brighton result we suffered last time out). They gave Newcastle an absolute battering a couple of games back, but drew with Palace at Elland Road last time.

This stage of the season is always a tough one when you try to look at the numbers and assess what sort of opposition you’re up against, but three of their seven goals have come from set pieces, so I think we’re going to need to defend better than we did for Brighton’s third goal a couple of weeks back. Leeds have a strong team, a tall team, and my mate Adam, who I used to work with (a Leeds fan) said to me when we were talking at the start of the season that “we’re a bunch of big bastards”. And at the spearhead of that team will be Calvert-Lewin, who is going to throw his arms and legs and elbows around today for sure. We need to be ready for him.

Leeds will probably accept that we’re going to have most of the ball today. They’re 15th in the League on average possession per game, and third from the bottom in terms of the total number of passes they’ve made so far. They’re also bottom for final third passes, through balls, and fourth from bottom on crossing too. But they’re fifth in terms of getting the ball forward with their pass direction; this is a Leeds side that is going to be direct as soon as they get the ball.

And without the ball, they will press us, intensively. They sit second behind the Scum in terms of pressing sequences and are fifth from the bottom in the number of times they put together 10+ passes. Again, this is building a picture to me of how this game is going to shape up. They will be strong, physical, look to catch us out with longer, direct balls, and they will be dangerous on the set pieces. That’s the sort of game I would normally love, until two weeks ago, when our defending was all over the place against Brighton. But I don’t think Leeds will press us as high as Brighton, and I don’t think they will look to catch us out in the same way, so my hope is that we control the game and do our business in the top end of the pitch. That means that we need to see more from Eze and Gyokeres. We need to have them performing like they did at the beginning of last season and I believe it was the Forest game in which both combined for one of his goals. That’s what we need today. We all know Saka will do Saka things with Odegaard and White on the right, but we need to see Rice, Eze and Gyokeres do some bits on the left. We need more unpredictability.

Perhaps that also comes through Calafiori occupying those unsual positions, because this feels like the sort of game where an organised Leeds defence will make it difficult to create chances, and so having a bit of an x-factorplayer comes in handy. Of course we also have the likes of Merino available too, although I suspect he’ll be a bench option rather than a starter today.

You can’t take anything for granted in the Premier League. Everyone can beat everyone (almost). So we cannot count our chickens. But if you want to fight for the title, you have to win home games like this, so I am hoping that we see an Arsenal side a little wounded from the Brighton defeat, and therefore ready to come out and prove a point against a decent Leeds side today.

Right, I’m off, time to get myself to the ground. See you tomorrow.

I was doing other things last night, so I only checked in and out on the game, but seeing them drop a 3-0 away to Brentford was hilarious. This was a side that their fans were telling us would rival us for the Premier League because of the lack of midweek football and the amazing squad and attack they have. Yet here we are on match week five, and they’ve lost two, drawn one, and have conceded so many goals that even Shkodran Mustafi would have felt he stood a chance of getting in the team at this rate.

Brentford are a tough nut to crack away from home, I will grant them that, but it’s still funny to see their fans getting angry. If you’ve spent any time on this blog over the years, you’ll know that I find that odious club utterly reprehensible, and an opportunity to be happy at any downfall they have is an absolute pleasure.

But it’s only a ‘half-pleasure’ right now, because we have to do our jobs later for the 3pm kick-off, and Mikel Arteta gave us an update yesterday, which certainly made me feel a little more comfortable about us going into this one at 3pm.

Firstly, the team news, which sounds pretty positive. Ben White was described by the boss as “all good”. He also said he’s “very positive about everybody” and whilst Ben might feel a little hard done by in terms of a lack of England recall for the upcoming barren wasteland that is the next international break, I do like that we have both him and Timber back for this one. It means Arteta can decide to give Jurrien 60 minutes and let Ben finish the game, or flip it the other way around, as they stage-manage Timber’s fitness following his lengthy absence.

Likewise, we have positives on Mosquera and Hincapie, who are all confirmed to be part of yesterday’s training session, which is great to hear. It will even be a difficult match selection to make for the manager, because he can only name a 20-man squad, and I make it so that we have the following players fit:

1. Raya
2. Kepa
3. Mosquera
4. White
5. Hincapie
6. Gabriel
7. Konsa
8. Timber
9. Calafiori
10. Odegaard
11. Eze
12. Merino
13. Zubimendi
14. Bruno
15. RiceLewis-Skelly
16. Dowman
17. Saka
18. Gyokeres
19. Tzolis
20. Madueke
21. Havertz

I haven’t mentioned Salmon there, but you’d assume he’s not going to make the matchday squad. If I’m looking at that list, I’m probably saying Max gets a sit-down having played in midweek, but given his output against Ipswich, it might be tempting for Arteta. If that happens, he’s going to find himself in an uncomfortable chat with a senior pro. I guess that’s the nature of the beast when you have a squad that is aiming to fight for the top honours this season.

So, with that level of competition available today, who should he play for this one?

For me, if he’s fit, I’d certainly get Timber in there. We need our most robust defensive side today, because Brighton play a high press and have created chances all season. We’re only four games in; their stats are skewed a bit by the pulverising they gave Coventry last week, but Brighton have created significantly the most xG this season on 10.18, scoring 13 goals and leading the league so far. Again, some of that is predicated on the fact that they got three of their five goals against a Coventry side that had gone down to 10 men and were already two down by the time Awoniyi was sent off, but they have still shown they can bag goals against Chelsea (three) and Villa (four). SO this Arsenal team will be tested by a VERY confident Brighton side on their own turf. Brighton will be aggressive; they will look to win the ball high up the pitch, they will try to suffocate and strangle us in our own half, so for us those out-balls from defence are vital. We need passes out from the back, and so whilst I am a little bit minded to wonder whether Hincapie is the better option to start for his defensive prowess, it’s the range that Calafiori has that makes me think he will edge it for a starting place.

In midfield, I think we’ll see a change from Sunderland. I think Bruno will come in for Myles, and we’ll see Rice and Odegaard back. Then up top, I think it’ll be the same front three again as was featured in our last Premier League outing, which sets the team up like this:

Raya

Timber – Konsa – Gabriel – Calafiori

Bruno

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Tzolis

And it’s in those left and right wide forward positions that I’m looking at our two attackers and saying, “this is where you lads need to be the game changers today”. Brighton will push their fullbacks high; they will leave men in our half, because Huerzeler has his way of playing, and he will want to impose the Brighton approach to this game. They’ll probably have more possession than us. I suspect they will most likely score, even though some of our defensive stats and xG that we give away is crazy-good right now. But Brighton take a lot of shots, they score a lot of goals, they press high up the pitch, and they dominate the ball (they are averaging 70.9% possession this season already). As I said yesterday, I think this will easily be our toughest game of the season. Getting three points today would be massive.

One final stat that I thought was interesting, as I looked at the numbers for any weaknesses, and it is that Brighton are 15th in the Premier League for xG conceded. This Brighton team will give us chances, given all of their good play and attacking prowess so far this season. And the ‘xG per shot’ stat – which basically tells you the quality of shots they give up – is the worst in the Premier League. So when they do give you chances, it’s probably in the box and with the most likely chance of being a goal so far this season, albeit admittedly with a small sample size. But even though there are only four games to use as data points, some patterns of style of play are already evident, and we know what type of opponent we’re going to be up against, despite their injuries to key players. The one that has impressed me the most is Yalcouye; he looked good in the Chelsea game and bagged a goal in the Coventry win. He’s slotted in really well, and I think he might be a danger man to watch this afternoon.

Arsenal have the tools to win this; we have the form we’ve been showing to hurt Brighton, but football has so many variables that this one is really tough to call. I just hope what somebody said on the blog in the comments yesterday is going to ring true today: They occasionally do throw one in their own net. That would be useful on the South Coast.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief. Have a good one, peeps.

But our performances in the Premier League so far, coupled with the fact that we’re already Champions and so the stress and pressure has subsided somewhat, means that I kind of don’t feel the same about this game as I probably would have done last season. There’s also probably an element of it being still so early in the season that the usual Premier League worries aren’t there.

So tonight’s game away to Ipswich at Portman Road feels like a strange one, because I still have my usual EFL vibes, but I’m also looking at Brighton and getting excited to see whether we can make it five out of five to kick our season off.

As for the team, well, I suspect there absolutely has to be rotation tonight, and I’d be stunned if Arteta didn’t ring the changes. It’s not a 100% certainty though; there have been times in the FA Cup earlier rounds, or this competition, that Arteta has gone stronger on his XI than we’d have liked. But the days in which you see a bunch of kids out there just don’t exist anymore. Let’s look at an alternate XI that Arteta could put out tonight, whose minutes have been limited:

Kepa

Salmon – Mosquera (if fit) – Gabriel – Hincapié

Zubimendi

Merino – Eze

Dowman – Gyokeres – Madueke

And if he goes for that, I’d be more than happy. In fact, I’d be even happier if Big Gabi wasn’t in contention in this team, but I suspect you’d have to move Hincapie into the centre and then find a left back from the youth team. I suspect Arteta doesn’t do that if Salmon plays, which means we’ll more than likely see at least one of our main starters get on the pitch.

Of course, that side still doesn’t include Bruno, so he could put Zubi in at right back, Salmon in central defence with Gabriel, then have Bruno occupy the deep-lying positions. It’s not ideal; Zubi probably won’t thank Arteta for it, but given some of the potential injuries to the team in the shape of Mosquera, it probably needs to be done.

We do need Mosquera back for these kinds of games, though. With Konsa’s form being such that he is going to find game time perhaps a wee bit limited, these are the kinds of games he needs to get to ensure he has minutes in the tank. My hope is that the injury he sustained against Villa was just a tweak, and the club felt a week or two’s rest would be enough. As of yesterday, it’s two weeks, and we haven’t had a press conference from Arteta on tonight’s game, so we’re not sure on team news, but he didn’t seem that fussed about it after the Villa game, so I have hopes that we’ll see him tonight. And if that happens, it means the above line-up becomes feasible, plus you can keep Bruno in reserve for the visit to Brighton on Saturday afternoon.

As for Ipswich, well, it’s tough to really do any kind of analysis on them, in the same way that it’s tough for them to do any analysis on us, because the Arsenal team tonight is going to be so different. I suspect the same can be said for Ipswich tonight, although we don’t fully know if Gary O’Neill will view this as a distraction his team doesn’t need. He’ll never say that, of course, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn before kick-off that he’s either rotated his team fully, or he’s gone full strength to see if he can lay down a bit of a marker. Against Leicester in the last round he rotated, but Leicester are in a spot of bother and a league lower than Ipswich now, so that was hardly surprising. We’re a different kettle of fish entirely. He’s a sensible bloke; they have Everton away on Saturday, and I don’t think their squad is that deep that they can fully handle a midweek-weekend fixture congestion, even if the season is still young and the players are relatively fresh. On the other hand, Ipswich picked up that win against Sunderland on the first match week; they beat Palace away at the weekend, so they’ve already picked up six points and are doing pretty well at this early stage of the season, so perhaps he’ll feel like having a go at The Arsenal on their own turf is something worth doing.

See what I mean? I am even flip-flopping myself on the line-ups and the approach from them; it’s really hard to properly work out what sort of game we’re going to get. We do know that O’Neill is a pretty decent boss; he likes to be compact and organised out of possession, whilst pushing his wide forwards up to press when we have the ball at the back. The hope is that our ability to play out of the press can get us out of trouble if that happens tonight, and also catch Ipswich out if they press bodies forward, but without the distribution of Raya at the back, it might not feel as simple as it would if we had him in between the sticks.

If we progress this evening, I don’t think we’ll find out our opponents until tomorrow evening, but the job needs to be done, and Arteta needs to make sure that those players who do play demonstrate to him that they are ready to step up if called upon through injury and suspension. So hopefully we get a good performance from those squad players this evening.

Back tomorrow with a match review.

It was a cautionary tale of the ‘always on’ mentality needed in the Premier League.

Sunderland were superb at home last season. It is the reason they are playing in Europe in midweek next week. They drew with us, Villa, United and City, and they beat The Scum (although that was less of a ‘feat’ last season), and they showed that with the right coaching, shape and structure, a newly promoted team can easily avoid relegation if they have the right signings in place as well. Granit Xhaka was a key one in that respect, and tonight we’ll face up against him for the second time, having missed him at the Emirates last season. He is a fighter; we all know that, and the vision of him standing over Merino and having a go at him still sticks in my mind. He will be all smiles and hugs before the game, but the second that he crosses that white line, he will view us as the enemy, and those Arsenal players will need to treat him as such as well.

I don’t think it will be that hard, though; there aren’t actually many players left from the last time Xhaka played for The Arsenal. That day was a 5-0 win in which he got two goals, but the squad that day only now has White, Ødegaard and Saka in it; such has been the renewal of Arteta’s Arsenal since the Swiss left. There will still be smiles and a happy reunion with the manager, and I enjoyed his interview with the Premier League ahead of this one. His is a story with a great redemption arc, and as fans we love to see that kind of stuff.

So then, to the football, and what sort of game we’re going to get from Sunderland today. With only three Premier League data points to draw upon, and all against what you would call ‘mid-table’ opposition or worse, it is difficult to say with any certainty how Regis Le Bris will line his side up. I saw an interesting stat today from Opta that since the start of last season, Sunderland have played the most forward passes in the whole league. They are a direct side, who want to go forward quickly, and the ‘zones of control’ on this page show that they are more left-sided dominant than anywhere else. On that side they have Nelson Angulo, but they also have the new guy Fofana, who was rumoured to be with us on deadline day, so I wonder if those two might share minutes today, as Le Bris tries to keep his side fresh for Alkmaar in midweek next week.

Opta has them lining up in a 4-2-3-1, and I think most of the pundits are suggesting that, but I suspect it will be a similar approach to last season. That means I think they’ll look to go a little longer, but in our defensive third, it’ll be Enzo Le Fee and Brobbey who will be looking to win those battles. Brobbey showed at the Emirates that he’s a big, strong, powerful guy, so perhaps aerial duels might be something that Gabriel and Konsa need to be mindful of.

In terms of the data, it’s tough because, as mentioned already, the sample size is small, but from what we have seen so far, Sunderland are down there in terms of goals scored (three), their xG is around mid-table (4.40), they’re about mid-table on the total number of shots and shots on target, possession, passing numbers, the lot. They sit towards the top of the league on through balls, which rings true with their forward passing metrics that I saw from Opta; if they’re getting on the ball in the middle third, they’re going to try to put Brobbey in.

Defensively, they are up there with us in terms of xG conceded, sort of, because we’re miles in front of anyone in terms of how miserly we are in front of goal. But they’ve shown that they have a decent shape about them so far, so we will need to be better in front of goal than we were against Napoli, I reckon. I suspect we won’t get as many clear-cut chances as we did in Naples on Wednesday.

So how do we beat them?

Well, for me, a lot of what is good about us so far is via Martin Odegaard, so he surely feels like the guy we need to get on the ball. It’s funny because when you look at our stats on Opta, we are dominant on both left and right sides of the pitch. I looked at that map on that page and assumed it would show us right-side bias, but we’ve been mixing it up with Tzolis in there, as last weekend against Chelsea, where our second goal came from, attests. If Sunderland are left-side biased, and we are right-side biased, it does feel like whoever wins that battle will be the eventual victors.

So in terms of team set-up, I suspect Arteta goes back to the side that succeeded against Chelsea:

Raya

White – Konsa – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Tzolis

Maybe he has a think about Bruno for Myles, which is certainly something I’d be thinking about, given how he’ll get a hostile reception, and it’s the type of game I suspect he thrives on. But I just have a feeling that Arteta puts his faith in Myles once more, with rotation happening in the second half. That team has shown it can get goals, and with the slightly rotated side in midweek not exactly putting a decent-but-not-great Napoli side to the sword, I think Arteta reverts to what I think we’d all call the ‘first XI’ based on form and availability right now.

I often find myself saying “start early” in these preview blogs, but I don’t think we have to today. We can feel our way into the game. If we can limit Sunderland’s opportunities in attack, it’ll keep the home fans quiet, which will be absolutely fine by me, you and any Arsenal fan tuning in or in the stadium. But we need to be ready for direct football and a Sunderland side who will fancy a scalp under the lights.

Right, I’m off to go and see a bunch of old Spitfires perform at Duxford, so I’ll bid you all a fine farewell. Let’s hope Everton can make this a hilarious afternoon at The Scum Stadium, before we kick off in the North East. Ciao.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laters kids.

And it’s a campaign that I think a lot of Arsenal fans have their eyes on, having gone:

• Quarter-finals in 2024
• Semi-finals in 2025
• Final in 2026

Oh, if only life was linear, eh? A straight path to winning the Champions League this season would be unreal. But in order for that to happen, you do feel we’re going to need to have a very good group stage, because it does drastically help your route through the knockouts. Last season we certainly had a favourable draw; it’s unlikely we’ll get the same again this season, but finishing top again would not only lay down a marker for the rest of Europe, but it would also most likely at least make our Round of 16 game a little easier.

The key question I think most of us have for tonight is how much Mikel Arteta will rotate. This is the first week in which there are three games within a week. We played on Sunday, we play tonight, then it’s a trip to Sunderland on Saturday evening, so we really do need to see some kind of shuffle somewhere on the pitch. The challenge is where that happens, because Arteta has so many options, which is really great when you think about it. We’ve spent the best part of two seasons worrying about injuries, and whilst they will still come this season, the fact that we’ve got the squad we have is testimony to the good work that the club has done. Chelsea were bemoaning how they got to a situation where they are playing two right-backs in central midfield at the end of the last game, whereas we’re wondering how we’re going to keep players happy.

I look at the players who missed a lot of football last season, and those are the ones I think I have the most focus on for rotation tonight. To me, that means Calafioiri, Odegaard, Saka, and Havertz, so personally I’d be looking at those guys as candidates. Maybe not all of them, but one or two, perhaps. We play Sunderland at the weekend, who are a direct side and will go long and fancy a battle, so I’d be looking at Hincapie for that one. I think Calafiori would probably start tonight if it were me. He’s also going back to Italy; he’s just done an interview stating how fresh he feels, he’s in great form, and was unlucky not to score at the weekend. So I’d keep him in.

As for the rest of the defence, I think Arteta probably doesn’t have much of a choice; White and Konsa start because we still don’t know about Mosquera, and he can’t be risked if he’s not fit, so you’d think the rest of the back five will pick itself. Midfield is where the real questions lie, because we have a litany of players who could play, and personally, here’s where I’d do most of the rotation. I think I’d certainly give one of Zubimendi or Bruno a go, and I suspect it might be Bruno to start tonight. He’s been on the bench for a couple of games; I think the manager will be eager to put him in, but if it were me, I’d hold him back for one more game, with Sunderland in mind. He’ll be bang up for that one at the weekend against his former club’s hated rivals, so I kind of feel like that one works, whilst Zubimendi needs to get minutes into those legs, so I’d go with the Spaniard. I’d probably keep Odegaard and Rice together, given the captain’s performance at the weekend just gone, whilst Rice is the engine that just keeps going. Perhaps there’s a case to swap Bruno for Rice, but I suspect Arteta won’t do that, and neither would I.

It’s the same with Saka; I think he’s looked good. I’d keep him tonight, although I have a sneaky suspicion that he might use Noni. I’d keep Saka on the right, I’d have Tzolis on the left, then I’d actually go for Gyokeres down the middle. I think of all the players who missed a lot of football last season; Kai missed some of the most, and after that first game against United on opening day last season, we then didn’t see him until the new year if I remember rightly. So for me, this is one where you bring in big Vik, you get him to run channels, knowing there is always more space in the Champions League compared to the Premier League.

Napoli will have a familiar look about them, as they’ll have De Bruyne, Hojlund, Gilmour and Badiashile, but they’ll be missing McTominay and Anguissa, which is a bonus for us as it’s two players who are a key part of the way they play. They got beat away at Inter at the weekend, which had a defeat at home to Como before it, but I think Allegri might be thinking about rolling out the old guard in De Bruyne to try to hurt us this evening with our passing range. At 35, he won’t have the running power of the guy who bossed Premier League midfields five years ago, but he can still see a pass; he still has goals in him, and I wonder if Allegri will think about wheeling him out to see if he can roll back the years against a club he had plenty of joy with for 115 FC. And he’ll be looking for Hojlund to play the ‘Haaland-lite’ role this evening, with two goals already this season, like Gyokeres, you’d think he’ll be looking to make those runs in behind our back line as we press a little higher.

The good thing we have is that our two centre halves are ball recovery monsters, so I am hopeful we can keep Napoli at bay. And if we do that, then it’s over to those attacking Arsenal players to do the business.

A win tonight sets us up really nicely for Lille at home in October, before we then have the tricky away day in Munich against Bayern to worry about. The good thing about this setup is that one or two defeats isn’t fatal, but if we want to lay down a marker that we might go deep in this competition, you kind of feel we probably need to win at least two of our four away games – probably three, which means one of Napoli, Munich, Slavia Praha or Betis needs to fall. Let’s kick it off by doing it in Naples tonight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raya

White – Konsa – Gabriel – Calafiori

Bruno

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Eze

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

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

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

I watched bits of the Chelsea game and, whilst going forward they did look good to be fair, cutting Brighton open on several occasions, at the back they look shaky as heck, and if they are like that against us next weekend, I’d 100% back us to pick up the points. But there’s no doubt they have a wee bit of momentum after those wins, so The Arsenal need to build theirs this evening with a team that has been a bit of a thorn in our side in recent years. In the last four games, we’ve won two and lost two. If you use the COVID period as a line in the sand, it’s four wins for Villa versus three for us, and the defeat last season was in incredibly late and dramatic fashion.

For some reason, a bit like Newcastle fans, Villa seem to have an irrational hatred for us. Perhaps it is because we continue to insist that Unai Emery is not that great, whereas they point to his trophy haul in his career, having delivered the Europa League to Villa once again. But in tonight’s game, we see a Villa side who have had the bulk of their stars taken away from them. Morgan Rogers, Ollie Watkins, Ezri Konsa, Youri Tielemans, Donyell Malen, Emi Martinez, Lucas Digne, with Douglas Luiz and Jadon Sancho also returning from whence they came upon the expiry of their contracts. In return, we will find ourselves up against plenty of familiar names (as I went through yesterday), but not in a Villa shirt. And it is my hope that our consistency of team can therefore have the edge over the uncertainty of the Villa side, who are still working out their own automatisms. I will begrudgingly admit that Emery has done a good job with Villa; they finished in the Champions League places last season, they massively outperformed metrics like xG, and they have plenty of talent who can hurt us (Cash and Buendia both got the goals for them against us last season). The stats that day told of a fairly even game, with both teams sharing a roughly equal amount of possession, shots on and off target, fouls, corners, etc. But it was an Arsenal team who were makeshift at the back, with Gabriel and Saliba both out that day.

Tonight, we know that Saliba won’t play, so for me it’s time to give Konsa his debut. He’s a big boy, he’ll be well aware of the pantomime booing that will come his way. He’ll know that it is just part of the spectacle, but he’s a professional who was bought because of his experience and abilities, and so I say we have to chuck him in alongside Big Gabi. It’s harsh on Mosquera, who I thought did well against Coventry, but you don’t spend £50million on an experienced England international to see him not play in big games. And this is a big game. So for me I’d have the following as my line up this evening:

Raya

White – Konsa – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Tzolis

With Gabriel Martinelli due to be confirmed as departed the club any time soon, Tzolis is basically the defacto number one choice at left wing, but I wouldn’t be averse to seeing Eze there more too. I’ve also chosen Calafiori as the one I’d want in there because he has started the season really well, he seems to already be striking up a good rapport with Tzolis, taking up positions that enable them to find each other with regularity, so whilst we all love Hincapié, that feels like the right thing to do to kick off this game.

And the good news for Arteta is that he has so many options. Mosquera is a great cover for White or Konsa, Hincapie covers both Calafiori or Gabriel, whilst Zubimendi is an World Cup winner that could equally start instead of MLS. We don’t have 100% certainty over Bruno, but there’s no need to rush him back when you also have Eze and Merino available, whilst up top Viktor Gyokeres can be used in the second half if Kai isn’t working. And if Saka is to be protected, then Madueke is there too. We have such depth and I expect Arteta will certainly want to use it at some stage this evening.

Villa will look to press high and be compact in that midfield area of the pitch; Unai likes to leave a little more space with a higher line, so weirdly, if that happens, it’d be the kind of game that Big Vik might thrive on. But with Kai having scored two in two if you count the Community Shield, you can’t be dropping him. Maybe there are options in the second half, but the way the initial skirmishes go in this game, I’d expect Villa to try to go from back-to-front as quickly as possible as soon as there is a transition, looking to spring traps on us as we build up as we usually do through the likes of Odegaard. So we’ll need to be ready for that and I do think that’s why you have to start Konsa, because I think I read a stat/heard a stat that he was one of the most difficult people to get past last season – he’s a duel winner and therefore good with one-on-ones. If you’re coming up against a team who want to spring transitional traps, then you need individuals to win their battles. If he is that guy, if he does it in an Arsenal shirt, he’ll be a fan favourite. But he’ll also be very valuable in games like this.

It’s a game we lost last season, yet still won the league, so you can’t say that a defeat or a draw tonight is a massive problem for this Arsenal side, but given that last season we lost five games, the season before Liverpool lost four and the season before that Man City lost just three, it shows you that the Premier League is usually not won if you pick up a couple of defeats so early in the season. So tonight is one that we need to win and lay down a marker for the rest of the league. Last weekend’s 3-0 win was fun, but it was against a Coventry side who have already shown that they will struggle this season. So we need to be showing against a quality opponent that we are favourites for a reason.

I’ll be back tomorrow for a match review, maybe a word or two about those exiting players (Gabby’s Jesus and Martinelli), but for now, enjoy your bank holiday Monday (if you have one) and I’ll catch you all then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raya

White – Mosquera – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Eze

Saka – Havertz – Tzolis

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow for a review blog.

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

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

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

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

Raya

Timber – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Up The Arsenal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a great day.

Just two wins.

Sounds simple, right?

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

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

And yet…

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

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

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

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

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

Rice

Odegaard – Eze

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow.

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

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

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

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS – Rice

Odegaard

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

My thinking on the selections are:

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

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

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

Let’s hope the boys are up for it.

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

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

So, what of West Ham then, eh?

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday will not be any such thing.

It is a mismatch.

And:

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

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

And:

No point messing about:

West Ham 0 – 4 Arsenal
Tottenham 3 – 0 Leeds

All done and dusted.

And:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I always liked David Moyes.

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

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

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

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Hincapie

Zubimendi

Eze – Rice

Saka – Gyokeres – Martinelli

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So for me, my ‘hoping for’ lineup is:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Rice

Odegaard   –   Eze

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until then.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”

It’s a grind right now, eh? But a lot of that has been because of the performances. The City game gave us hope, the Newcastle game gave us more fear, so what will Fulham bring to the table tomorrow?

Well, they’ll be without Sessegnon, who limped off injured in their win against Villa, having scored the goal in the first half. I have just watched the highlights of that game, and Villa certainly created enough chances for it to be at least a draw. So his being out, I guess, is a plus point for us, but so is the fact that Iwobi is out. We have enough things to worry about without having an ex-player cause us all manner of headaches tomorrow evening.

**Emile Smith Rowe enters the chat**

Their main man this season, however, has been Harry Wilson, who has 10 Premier League goals to his name and has racked up the second-highest goals vs xG metrics, which means when he gets chances, they tend to be lower quality but higher conversion.

As a team, Fulham sit mid-table for xG, they’re 12th for goals scored, 12th for total volume of shots, 14th for shots on target, 11th for touches in the opponents’ box, and 14th for ‘fast breaks’. By all rights, this is very much a ‘mid-table’ side based on the stats. And yet they find themselves in 10th, and because of this mad Premier League this season, they are just two points off Brighton in sixth position, fighting for a European slot. So last weekend, in hindsight, we could have done with Villa probably winning that game against them, as it might have meant they pretty much know that their chance of Europe is gone. Now they will be looking at this match as one that, if they can pick up a win on our patch, then they have a good chance of hitting that target.

That’s why this is a mad season, because Everton are only just one point behind them, and we’re hoping that on their own patch they can do us a favour against City on Monday night. But Fulham are just as likely to cause an upset as Everton are, which is why Arteta and his players need to be wary.

We’ve had a couple of recent memory slip-ups against Fulham at home, too. Two seasons ago, it was the 2-2 in which we contrived to drop points having been 2-1 up and a man to the good after Bassey was sent off in the 83rd minute. We went one down in one minute, then had two goals on 70 and 72, and when their man was sent off, you’re thinking that we’ll coast to the final whistle. But an 87th-minute goalkeeper mistake from a corner (Ramsdale) cost us three points, and I remember being very grumpy that bank holiday weekend in August, away with friends all weekend.

Two seasons before that, it was Eddie Nketiah rescuing a point for us after they’d scored on 59 minutes, after a Maja penalty was converted. In fact, since Arteta took charge, he’s had two narrow 2-1 wins and two draws against Fulham. We haven’t had it easy against them for seven years. I don’t expect that to start tomorrow.

And in Marco Silva, they do have a tactically fluid manager, who will shift their approach. I suspect we’ll see a side that will build up with a back three, stretch their fullbacks to make the pitch as wide as possible, and see if they can get runners and dribblers disrupting the middle. They rely on the ability of their full-backs, and I seem to recall Antoinee Robinson always has a good game for us in that left-back spot. On the left-hand side, if we had an attacker in any kind of form, I’d fancy them against Castagne, but unfortunately, we don’t, unless Arteta leans into Eze there again. That will be one to discuss tomorrow when we have an update (of sorts) with the team news.

Fulham’s style this season – having read a few articles – is to leverage those full-backs, but also make diagonal passes as two or three runners try to get in behind the opposition defence. They will sit in a compact back five out of possession, then try to spring traps on us. We have to be ready for that.

I hope we are. Arteta pulled Odegaard off in midweek, presumably to protect him for tomorrow, as well as not starting Eze. He gave Saka 20 minutes against Atletico Madrid, having given him 10 minutes against Newcastle, so one would hope that he might be ready to play. The big question is over Kai, but I suspect the club will be cautious, and we will get told he’s not available. That means he’ll most likely turn to Big Vik, who hopefully has a little bit more confidence after a decent performance against Atleti in midweek, as well as a goal, albeit one from the spot.

I don’t expect anything other than a coy Arteta to give nothing away, but I hope that we at least get some word on Timber. It’s getting to the point where I’m wondering if we will ever see him again this season. I really hope so. He is such a key component of that back line and their defensive stability. A fit Timber, along with Big Gabi, Saliba and Calafiori would be huge for these final games.

It is unlikely to be tomorrow, but even having him in the squad would be a big boost, so let’s cross our fingers for some good news today.

And with that, I’ll toddle off for now, with some pre-match thoughts tomorrow. Catch you then.

Laters people.

I don’t really feel massively nervous about tonight.

It almost feels like a League Cup game.

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

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

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

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

But this Arsenal side has the capability.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Rice

Gabriel Jesus   –   Havertz   –   Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mikel Arteta

• Perspective before performance – Mikel started with humanity. A reminder that context matters, and that leadership isn’t just about the next result – it’s about grounding people before asking more of them.
• Adaptability is the real constant – He talked about how injuries aren’t drama, they’re data. The message is simple: we’ve dealt with it all season, we’ll deal with it again. No noise, just solutions.
• Control the controllables – No chat about draws, permutations, or what others might do. He was very binary about the preparation – you play to win the next game, full stop.
• Mindset isn’t fluffy – it’s decisive – Talent gets you in the conversation. Mentality keeps you there. Arteta was explicit that this is an area they’ve worked hard on – and now have to prove again.
• Pressure reframed as privilege – Instead of fearing the moment, he reframes it. Being here is earned. That mindset shift matters when the stakes are high.
• Learn fast, don’t linger – Past losses and external noise aren’t baggage – they’re fuel. Take the lesson, feel it briefly, then channel it productively into what’s next.

I think it’s the right approach ahead of a huge game and, unlike last weekend, there wasn’t any need to do the whole ‘fire’ or ‘bring your dinner’ stuff. He knows that this game is already being built up so much by everyone that we need to dial it down a bit. I do wonder if the players are feeling that, though. We heard from Eze ahead of Sporting, and he was chill; Rice was also very focused but saying all the right things in a Sky Sports interview. But I worry that the actions of the players of late have shown a different side, a side that is feeling the weight of expectation, a side that is running out of gas whilst also dropping like flies on the injury front.

To that end, the absence of Saka is a real blow, and I think at this stage, we probably have to start thinking about him as an optional extra now, for the rest of this season. He’s struggling with an Achilles injury, and he won’t be in the squad tomorrow, meaning his last game was over a month ago. There’s no way he’s going to be back in the starting XI next Saturday against Newcastle, which means we’ll probably also only see him as a bit-part player for the first leg of the semi-final of the Champions League. It means we need to see more from Noni, who, at least, Arteta confirmed, should be ok. As usual, he wouldn’t be drawn on which players are fit, saying that some players are ‘close’, but he said that last weekend and ahead of Sporting, so whether they are fit remains to be seen. I think all of us are desperate to see Timber back, for sure, because Doku might be licking his lips if he’s up against White or Mosquera. Equally, having Calafiori available would be a big boost, even if he’s not fit to start, with Hincapie and him able to share minutes. Hincapie was restricted in the League Cup Final because of that ridiculous yellow card that wouldn’t have been a yellow, but I wonder if this time, if that were to happen again, Arteta would bring on Riccardo earlier if he had to. I certainly hope so.

Pep Guardiola

• Calm realism, not drama – Pep was a little matter-of-fact about injuries and circumstances. Players will be missing, that’s the season. No emotional charge, just acceptance and adjustment.
• Success is contextual, not emotional – He was clear that winning the title this season wouldn’t be framed as his “greatest achievement”. That’s telling. Perspective matters when you’ve been there before.
• Respect without obsession – He acknowledged that Arsenal are the benchmark this season – consistently strong, improving year on year. Respect is clear, but it doesn’t tip into fixation.
• Big games are still just games – Even with the stakes obvious, he strips the occasion back to performance basics. Execute well, compete properly, and control what you can.
• Pressure reframed as opportunity – Six points is a gap, not a crisis. Home crowd, sold-out stadium, everything aligned to try – not to panic. His was a message of readiness over rhetoric.
• Clarity on what will decide it – Guardiola was precise about the challenge: physical duels, aggression, second balls, build-up quality. No vague talk of “desire” – just clear performance realities.

For them, the requirement is clear, and I wonder if ‘the title is over if we don’t win’ will work in their favour tomorrow or not. I think it will certainly fire everyone up, and I think those first 15 – 20 minutes or so tomorrow will be a bit of a cauldron, as their fans are unusually loud, whilst their players will be massively aggressive in trying to get ahead early, I suspect. As I said yesterday, the numbers favour that early goal, so we have to make sure we don’t go behind. As I was on my run yesterday, I was listening to the always excellent Arsenal Opinion Podcast, and the lads were quite bullish about our chances. But what Matt said on his ‘hot take’ really resonated with me: The first goal wins the league. It’s a deliberately provocative take, which is kind of the point, but it does feel significant. When Arsenal go behind, we tend not to win football matches, and City have a history of scoring early against us and going on to win. But even against other teams, we know we’re not a side that goes on to win football matches if we score first. This season, we’ve beaten Newcastle when going behind, but that’s all I could find for this season. In 2024/25 it was three wins in total. In 23/24 it was three times again. So we don’t exactly have a habit of making comebacks. The data tells us City scores first, and we don’t do well coming from behind. If we’re going to get anything from this game, it does feel like we’re going to need to score first.

And that is what I will leave you to ponder on today, my friends, so have a good one, and I’ll be back tomorrow with a match preview.

Laters.

Honestly, this Premier League race has infected my brain at this stage.

I can just hope that tonight proves to be a different tonic for the players, that they use this as an adrenaline booster, ahead of the weekend’s match. Because we need it after that disastrous Bournemouth result last weekend.

That result came about because of a poor tactical setup, as well as some pretty bad basics being missing from some players, but also because of the wrong players out there on the field for the type of opponent we were up against, due to a lack of the right type of players available. So when I saw that there was ANOTHER open training session, and ANOTHER one that had a host of players missing…well…let’s just say I was hardly filled with comfort.

No Timber.

No Calafiori.

No Rice.

No Odegaard.

No Saka.

Great stuff.

Even if those players were just doing light training, there are some in there that you’d have to say probably won’t make tonight. And if they don’t make it tonight, that means they are certainly doubtful to be fit at the weekend, for the most important domestic game, certainly this season, but perhaps since Arteta took over this team.

I saw somebody on social media saying we are doing this season on ‘hard mode’. Certainly feels like it, eh?

For his part, Arteta once again came out swinging in his press conference, interrupting one of the journo’s asking him how he is feeling with the phrase “I am opn fire”. That Basque passion certainly shone through in his press conference. I saw a Chelsea fan online – yep, that’s right, A CHELSEA fan – say that if he were a player and he heard this from his manager, he’d want to run through bricks walls for him. We’ll park the metaphor that would inevitably mean those Arsenal players would shatter into a million pieces if that happened, due to our rotten injury luck, but the sentiment there is one that I hope rubs off on those Arsenal players. Because they need to be at it tonight. I dread to think what might happen at the weekend if we’re knocked out of the Champions League on our own patch this evening.

Sporting will be missing Fresnada, who I thought looked very impressive at right back in the first leg, but they do have ‘Diplomatic Immunity’ Araujo at left back, who one would hope is not gievn the same freedom for fouling away from home as he was at home. Other than that, they have pretty much a similar side that lined up against us, which means we will need to be mindful of those balls in behind the fullbacks for the channel running that caught out White a week ago.

It is for that reason that I would seriously consider Mosquera at right back tonight, because White has played a lot of football recently. Mosquera has the recovery pace (think his recovery tackle when Southampton had a man through on goal in the FA Cup a couple of weekends back), so let’s get him in there. At left back, you’d hope that because Hincapie was left on the bench on Saturday, he’s back and in contention to start, and that’s what I would opt for. Even if Calafiori is fit, I kind of feel we need the Italian on Sunday – assuming he ever gets fit again. Arteta was asked about Timber and Saka and said “maybe one of them” could make the match day squad, and given he said Saka was suffering from an Achilles problem, my gut feel is that at best we get Timber for the bench.

I’d also be considering Norgaard as the holding midfielder at this stage, too, because Zubimendi’s form is in the toilet right now. Norgaard will not do anything fancy, we won’t get those progressive passes we have seen from Zubimendi towards the start of the season, but the Spaniard hasn’t been doing that for ages now anyway, so we might as well lean in to a traditional six that is going to break up play and sit in front of the back four, for protection.

And then, to the attacking side of the pitch, for which I need to see some of those wide forwards grow some f*cking cajones and put in a display. Martinelli, Madueke and Trossard were all shambolic against Bournemouth. Fix up. Step up. Do your job. Take your men on. Have shots. Link up with your centre forward. Track your runners. Yeah, we’re looking at you from last weekend, Noni.

I think Arteta will go with Gyokeres up top, and I hope he does, because the man is about the only one with end product these days. Plus, I’d be looking at Kai as the number nine on Sunday because let’s face it, in those sort of games Gyokeres is basically a passenger. So save the German for the weekend.

And please, Arsenal, get this done in 90 minutes. The thought of 120 minutes and then having a couple of days off before we travel to Mancchester fills me with as much dread as everything else has this week. At this crunch time, where the players need to be able to prove they are worthy of where they have got to, we need back-to-back results. No excuses. Tonight, go out there and prove the watching world that you are ready to grasp the opportunity. The coach has done his bit, his staff have done their bit, but now it is up to you players to do yours. So go and do it.

I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully in a more cheery mood, so let’s keep out fingers crossed for a good Arsenal performance under the lights.

See you in the morning.

The players know it, our supporters know it, it’s an early kick-off, so get up early, have an early breakfast, bring your lunch, bring your dinner, and let’s all go together for it because it has to be a big day.

I went out and had a skinful last night, before and after watching Sue Perkins at the Soho Theatre, deep in enemy territory in Walthamstow. I’m up early because I couldn’t sleep. I’ve got a banging headache, but do you know what? Come 12.30 pm, I am going to be fully ‘game face on’, because those Arsenal players need all of us today.

I’ve talked about Bournemouth and the threat they pose already. I’ve had a look at how their fans have been feeling. I’ve perused what the media and pundits think about this game. The talking is almost done. Now it is time to do the business on the pitch.

The team news from Arteta’s press conference yesterday was mixed, but there are some positives in there from some of the people ‘in the know’, including the fact that Pierro Hincapie has been included in the preliminary squad for today, according to the well-known source ‘HandOf Arsenal’. That’s a big boost, because one of the question marks is Calafiori, and whilst we have Myles Lewis-Skelly there who can play if needed, it does feel as though we need that steel available in such a tense game as this.

And it is tense. It is scary. It is a worry, and it is a match I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Bournemouth are no mugs. They are on a long unbeaten run (again, as I’ve already mentioned on the blog this past week), and they still have Europe in their sights. A win for them, or even a draw, keeps them in contention, so we aren’t at the point in the season yet where a team in 13th has nothing to play for. They absolutely do. So we need to be ready for them.

So, to a possible starting XI, which I feel is going to be tough to predict, given the number of question marks we have over some of our players. Thankfully, as we’ve all seen, Eze is back, but Arteta wouldn’t really be drawn on who is fit out of Saka, Odegaard, Timber, and Calafiori. If I were to stab at a guess based on players out and trying to feed certain players back in to the team, this is the line up I ‘think’ Arteta will go with today:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Hincapie

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Rice

Saka   –   Havertz   –   Martinelli

I think the fact that Bournemouth is a more open team, a team that does give up chances, means that Martinelli is preferred on the left. I also think that Arteta will be managing Trossard’s minutes, and I think Leo starts in the Champions League in midweek. I think Havertz being used as a sub was telling, because I think he’s been earmarked to start centrally, and I think that is the right call. Martinelli and Gyokeres haven’t really seemed to connect, but Havertz can do with the Brazilian, who, if given more space through a transitional game as Bournemouth presses forward, will give him space to open up his stride a bit more. Havertz feels like a player who will also be a little more effective in a game like this, plus he’s more rested than Big Vik. I think Saka comes in because I am hoping he’s rested enough from his injury. Let’s not forget that he wanted to play for England just over a week ago. He reported to training and was sent back like Rice. I have no evidence, no insider knowledge, but I just have a ‘feeling’ that he has been given extra time to rest and recuperate after carrying something, and I think he’s been earmarked to come back in for this game. Because it’s massive. It’s an opportunity to go temporarily 12-points clear and that, as an incentive to deal a psychological blow to Man City, is huge for the players. They have to be ready to take it.

In defence, I’ve gone with Timber and Hincapie to return, but perhaps Timber is the one I’m not sure about. He’s been out for a while now, he could be quite rusty, but I don’t think that means White comes in, so maybe I’m wavering on that one and it’ll be Mosquera who is given the nod. And if that happens, I think most of us are ok. Hincapie on the other side might be one that is more likely to start, because he’s been out for a shorter duration of time, and therefore he might be somebody who can pick up match fitness quicker.

For Bournemouth, they don’t have such injury question marks, as Iraola has said they are in a ‘good place’ with players returning from injury. Tyler Adams, Ben Gannon-Doak and Julio Soler are all back, as well as Alex Jimenez and Junior Kroupi, who has bagged goals this season from the bench, including against us in January. They have had time off, so they are well-rested, which I think means they are going to be intense in the press and put us under a fair bit of pressure today. So these Arsenal players need to be up for it. They need to move the ball quickly, smartly, with purpose and precision. And if we do that, this Bournemouth team might be able to be moved about a bit.

I don’t think any of us are under the illusion that this will be a walk in the park today. It’s going to be gruelling, it’s going to be scary, but that’s what this time of the season is all about. Those Arsenal players need to heed the words of their manager and embrace this challenge. We’re at the proper ‘business end’ of this season. We can’t afford not to show up today.

Right, that’s it from me I think, as I need to drag my sorry arse out of these PJs and get my game face on for this kick off.

See you all tomorrow.

Firstly, the training pics and team news, and the real positive from yesterday was the sight of Eze in full training. He’s been out for three-and-a-bit weeks so far, so having him back is timely. Especially so, given that Odegaard wasn’t pictured in the open training session that the club held yesterday. Now, that doesn’t mean he isn’t good for Saturday, because there were other players not there, and I have a feeling we’ll see a few line up against the Cherries. For example, in the video session, there was no Timber, Hincapie, Calafiori, or Saka in shot. They might have been doing work inside, and, given that Calafiori has played a lot of football lately, plus Odegaard has been out, my gut feeling tells me that this weekend we might see Timber, Calafiori, and Odegaard. Whether we see Saka remains to be seen. The general vibes we got from Tuchel, and then Arteta was that he wasn’t far away, so I suspect they are just managing his load in training.

The good news is that Noni looked decent against Sporting, and if they want to be super cautious tomorrow, they can just have Saka on the bench and give Noni the start. In a way, you’d probably say he earned it and, were the referee to actually have done his job on Tuesday night and booked Araujo, I’m pretty sure we’d have seen even more from him as he’d have had more licence to try to beat a man who would already have been on a (deserved) yellow. With Eze back, that kind of covers any concern about Odegaard starting back-to-back games, which just really leaves question marks over the full-backs. Ben White has been playing more football, but Arsenal must surely be getting to the point of concern re: his ability to complete consecutive 90s. The upside is that Mosquera could come in and deputise if White needs his minutes managed, but on the other side, Myles looked off the pace against Southampton, so Calafiori starting tomorrow is one I have my eye on in particular. I do think Myles would be better with more of the first-XI regulars on the pitch, but there’s no doubt Calafiori adds a spot of dynamism to that position, which we might need against Bournemouth. So, of all the players I hope the club is wrapping up in cotton wool, the Italian is top of my list to be protected and told to get out there tomorrow lunchtime.

We’ll know more from the manager later at his press conference, but for now, let’s turn our attention outwards and see what some of the pundits think about tomorrow, eh? I had a little look at how Bournemouth may play against us based on the numbers and some of the comments from their fans in yesterday’s blog, but I’m interested in knowing what the supposed ‘neutrals’ think.

Well, let’s start with that grumpy bar steward, Chris Sutton, who thinks we’ll get a 2-0 victory, but does admit in his commentary that Bournemouth will give us a good game. I didn’t realise that they were undefeated in the League since we played them in January! That’s 11 games and, whilst a lot of those matches have been draws, it shows they are a tough side to beat. Conversely, I guess, and for balance, we are also unbeaten in the league for our last eight in the Premier League since that defeat to United at home, although some have admittedly been anything but comfortable (Chelsea, Brighton and Everton the last three that we played and hardly convincing).

Merson has gone ‘balls out’ with his prediction, saying we’ll beat Bournemouth 3-0 and City getting a draw at Chelsea, which means the title is ‘over’. I can’t see any of these things happening. Firstly, I do think we might concede, given that Bournemouth are a side that knows how to get goals. I don’t think it will be an easy 3-0 for us, but nor do I see Chelsea getting anything against City; they’ve already handicapped themselves by sidelining Enzo Fernandez, and I think City will smell blood.

Lewis Jones on Sky Sports is an interesting one, though. I quite respect his opinion because he’s a guy who knows about the betting markets, and they make it their job to know absolutely everything that the data tells them. He’s talking about how Bournemouth are on a good run of 12 in all competitions unbeaten, but that in their last six matches, there has been regression. This is good. This is the kind of intel I need to soothe my worried heart. Apparently, their xG against in those games is nearly two goals per game. They are giving teams chances. So he’s gone for a 2-0.

And finally, to Sports Mole, who have said it will be a ‘winning ugly’ kind of 2-1 game for The Arsenal. At this stage, I think as all of us have said in the pubs, WhatsApp chats and on social media, we accept that this might just ‘be us’ for the rest of the season. We have to make peace with that. I would bite yer hand off for a 2-1, and that’s my gut feel on scoreline, as I mentioned above with Bournemouth’s form and yesterday with their chance creation. They put the probability of an Arsenal win at 64.7%, with the most likely score being 1-0 with a 13% probability. I don’t buy that, for the aforementioned reasons, but I do hope that some karma comes our way from last season, because to me that Evanilson winner at The Emirates was handball. It clearly came off his elbow, and if that happened to us, you’d bet VAR would have pulled it back. Not that I’m still bitter or anything, mind…

So that’s the view from the pundits. We’ll hear the team news and vibes from the managers later today, so now all we have to do is wait until kick-off to see what sort of Arsenal we’re going to get, and what sort of Bournemouth will show up as well.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a match preview. See you then.

The Premier League games just hit differently.

That’s why the nerves are already starting to ramp up.

Bournemouth is a good side. They are a well-coached side. On Saturday, they will be a well-rested side, too, and in the time since they last played on 20th March at home to Man United, we’ve played:

• Three Champions League games
• One League Cup final
• One FA Cup quarter-final

There are a lot more minutes in those Arsenal players’ legs than there are in those of the Bournemouth players.

They have a pretty strong and relatively injury-free injury squad to call from, too. We’ll hear more from Iraola tomorrow, but by my count, they might only be missing Justin Kluivert, Julio Soler, and perhaps Tyler Adams. They also have the benefit of UAE-favouring Michael Oliver and Darren England. Honestly, I don’t understand why at this stage in the season, they don’t just stick him in random mid-table games, because any contentious decision against us this weekend is just going to have more people questioning the man’s integrity. For what it’s worth, I don’t think he is corrupt, but I do think he has an unconscious bias against Arsenal in certain games. Namely, those against Man City, and if he’s the ref next weekend, I’ll probably be blowing my lid more than this weekend. He’s refereed us twice this season; one was the 0-0 draw in which he and his VAR officials decided that Olana’s blatant handball wasn’t a handball (which I put on VAR more than Oliver), as well as the 4-1 home win against the Scum. So this season has not been as bad as we might have worried. Indeed, Bournemouth fans feel the same about him, but their story is similar. I haven’t watched the games in question, but they have a 2-0 win away at Wolves, a 0-0 at home to Chelsea, and a 2-2 away at Leeds.

I got this sense from them whilst having a look at one of their fan forums – Up The Cherries – and they’re feeling like this, be more history repeating itself as the draw specialists. They have 15 in the League so far, which is almost half of their games, and the only club that comes close to that are Sunderland and Brighton, on 10 draws this season. Those 15 draws have stopped a promising start to the season from being a run like Forest had last season to try to get Champions League football, and I seem to recall Bournemouth being up in the top spots after eight games. Their current position of 13th isn’t where they’d want to be, but the very nature of this league this season means that it’s congested enough that a few wins could put them in contention for European spots. With the coefficient confirmed after our win on Tuesday, I think it means if you’re down in eighth, you could make it. If Chelsea or City win the FA Cup, I think it confirms a Europa League spot in the Premier League. Bournemouth are currently just four points off that position (currently occupied by Everton), so for sure they have something to play for this weekend.

Their fans are naturally feeling that we will be nervous, and there is an opportunity to smell blood. I can understand that; last season they picked up wins both home and away, whilst in the game at the beginning of January they went ahead through a Gabriel mistake really early, before going ahead to cruise 3-1, before Kroupi pulled out a wonder strike to make the game a little nervous at the end. In those last three games, there is enough there to make Bournemouth fans feel optimistic, because before then, we had a fabulous record against them – winning each of the previous five games, and winning eight of the previous nine going back to 2018. But Iraola has changed their fortunes somewhat, with two wins and three defeats since he joined. So we need to be ready for a really tough game.

From a statistical point of view, Bournemouth are a side who score goals and concede goals with a fairly even level of regularity – I guess, hence the draws they pick up! They are the sixth-highest goal scorers in the league, whilst also conceding the fifth-highest number of goals. They take a lot of shots (and get plenty on target), they create high levels of xG (again, sixth in the league), and they try to get in as many crosses as possible. They press the ball high; they’re only behind Brighton, City and Everton in the league, just ahead of us, and their attacks are direct – they have had more direct attacks than any other team in the league this season so far (just behind us).

So we’re starting to have the data give us a bit of intel about what we might come up against on Saturday:

• Higher press
• Plenty of shots
• Go direct, but try to get wide to get crosses in

If they play like they have done all season, they will create chances, but they will also give us space too. That rings true if you think about the game at their ground, when they managed to unsettle us on two occasions. I’ve had a look back on the stats from that day and Bournemouth had 15 shot attempts, with three on target, whilst we had 12 and five on target. They played a 4-2-3-1 and at least two players from that day won’t be playing – Semenyo and Kluivert. They’ve replaced Semenyo with the Brazilian Rayan, who is quick, likes to beat a man and in a game that might end up being end-to-end, he could be one that we need Calafiori to be concerned with.

I’ll do a little more on Bournemouth tomorrow, as we await team news, but for today I will leave you with this thought: I think we might get a good game on Saturday. It might be terrifying, but I don’t think we’re getting Low Block FC rocking up at The Emirates.

Let’s start with the good news, which I think top of my list this morning, the inclusion of Big Gabi in the training session. He went off with a knee complaint against Southampton and was pictured with an ice pack on his knee. When you see that sort of stuff, you naturally feel the worst, but he took part in training, and that means he should be good to go tonight. Phew. I think for me the worry was less about this evening – we have Mosquera, who has proved to be an able deputy all season – but more about what a knee injury could do for his participation for the rest of the season. I think the club will clearly have to monitor him very carefully, but this at least means we have our best centre half in contention for tonight, and hopefully he gets through ok and his knock he sustained can be managed.

It’s the same with Madueke, who this time last week we ended up talking about how his season might end, as he was pictured walking out of Wembley with a knee brace, but he played against Southampton as a sub coming on, and he was also pictured in training. That is really good news, because the bad stuff coming out from yesterday was that Bukayo Saka is out for tonight. And once again, I have to say, to all of those tosser rival fans and media pundits who complained about Arsenal pulling players from international duty – where are you now, eh? Because Saka hasn’t played since the cup final, and there’s no way Arteta would have him in the squad tonight unless he couldn’t train and wasn’t ready. He sounded a little more optimistic about both Saka and Timber for the weekend, but it seems we’ll have to do without them both this evening.

Which is a blow, but it is why we brought in those expensively-acquired squad players, and for Saka, we will see Madueke, but for Timber, who will play at right back? I have a feeling it might be Mosquera. Ben White has played a fair bit of football of late, but he did look a little underpowered with some of his running against Southampton, so I have a sneaky suspicion that Arteta will go with the Spaniard. Either way, we’ve got two solid pros to replace Timber, and even if White does start, I’ve got a feeling we’ll see a better performance from him, because he’ll be around more of the first team.

Which for me means Raya in, Saliba in, Big Gabi in, Calafiori in, Zubimendi in, Rice in (who was also pictured in training), Odegaard in (taken off against Southampton, clearly to protect him for tonight), Gyokeres in, Trossard in. And with Madueke on the right, it makes for a more familiar first XI line-up and one that I’ll expect a little more cohesion from as well.

As for Sporting, they’ll fancy themselves tonight, not least because they’ve won their last 17 home games in all competitions. That sort of run breeds a lot of confidence, and they’ll fancy taking a scalp against us, even though we’ve either beaten or drawn against them in our last five games. They knocked us out on pens a few years back, but last season’s 5-1 win in the group stages was probably one of the best performances we had in the season. We need to take the memory of that and use it as fuel. This Arsenal team have shown they are capable of much more dynamism in the Champions League this season, as teams come at us, and I think Sporting’s home form will mean they fancy having a go tonight.

Their main strength from an attacking point of view comes via Luis Suarez (not that one), who has already bagged over 30 goals in his season. It appears they aren’t missing Big Vik too much, so he’ll be keen to remind them of what he’s capable of, and his good form going in to this means his confidence will be a helpful factor, I hope. Sporting look like they play in a familiar 4-2-3-1 formation, with Goncalves and Trincao as their main creative outlets to spring Luis Suarez. Trincao is a familiar name, as he played in November last season during the 5-1 victory, but there doesn’t look like there is a ton of players remaining from that side. By my count, if Sporting play their ‘first choice’ side, the familiar names who played in that game last season are:

• Trincao
• Hjulmand
• Inacio
• Morita
• Araujo
• Diomande

So actually, it is more than half the team, but there has also been a fair bit of churn, so we need to expect a very different game from last season, I think. That is also true because of the manager change, with Sporting having only just lost Amorim to United, before appointing Joao Pereira, who lasted just over a month before Borges came in. He’s therefore had over a year to mould the side in his image, so I suspect there will be a much tighter game this evening than there was 17 months ago.

Arsenal need to answer some questions that have popped up in our last two games. They have people who are already stoking the ‘bottle jobs’ fire, so a performance in a big European game tonight will go a long way to showing that they are ready for the remaining two competitions we are in. Ready to fight, ready to pick up results, ready to make this still a wonderful season, despite the last two disappointing results in the domestic cups.

We’re going to face a hostile atmosphere, a Lisbon side and home fans who are massively up for it after their impressive comeback against Bodo/Glimt, so those opening salvoes in which they will try to high press and probe us need to have Arsenal taking control of the game and quietening the home crowd. I am hopeful we can do it.

I’ll be travelling for the second half tonight, so I will have to play catch-up, but I will be back tomorrow with some post-match thoughts. See you then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kepa

White   –   Mosquera   –   Gabriel   –   MLS

Norgaard

Odegaard   –   Havertz

Dowman   –   Jesus   –   Martinelli

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

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

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

This is our first one since Mikel Arteta took us to Wembley for the FA Cup, albeit behind closed doors, and it’s the first time we’ve been at Wembley since we played in the Community Shield back in 2023. That day, we saw Kai Havertz and Jurrien Timber for the first time, as we beat City on penalties 4-1. Whilst I absolutely don’t want to see that type of fixture play out today, if you offered it to me right now, I would take it.

That’s because we all know rumours of Man City’s demise have been greatly overestimated. This is a Pep Guardiola side who, if they win their game in hand and beat us on their own patch (we haven’t won at the Etihad in over 11 years in the Premier League), will only be three behind us in the league, a side who still boasts elite talent like Haaland, Doku, Semenyo, Rodri et al, a side who might have stumbled lately, have still won 31 of the 48 matches they’ve played this season.

Arsenal must be ready for what is going to be an incredibly hard challenge.

But I believe in this Arsenal team. I am nervous – of course I am – but I want to transmit only positivity right up until kick off. Then, when I’m in the ground, I’ll be a bundle of nerves. But until that point, I have nothing but positive vibes of success that I want to transmit to Mikel Arteta and his team.

And it is a team with whom, if some of the pictures doing the rounds on social media yesterday and this morning showed Martin Odegaard in training, as well as Jurrien Timber. And if both are fit to make the match-day squad, I think one of them will definitely start.

That’s Timber for me. Because if Guardiola is going to opt for Doku on that left wing for City, it just feels like having Jurrien up against him is the best chance we’ve got of neutralising him. Odegaard may be back in training, but he hasn’t played since coming on against The Scum for 13 minutes on 22nd February. A month ago. In fact, you have to go back to the 3-2 defeat against United almost a month before that, to see his first game from the start, so I just can’t see it today. In fact, given the limitations of the squad you can name for this cup final, I’d be wondering if he’s even ready for the bench. If you can only get 10 – 15 minutes out of Odegaard, shouldn’t his space in the match-day squad be taken up by another?

That’s a decision Arteta is going to have to make today, but if his captain is fit and he can get something from him, my gut feeling says he will make the squad.

So, who else plays today, then, eh?

Firstly, the keeper situation, which basically every Arsenal fan I was listening to on podcasts this week has been debating. The media also asked him the question during his press conference on Friday. Of course, he wouldn’t be drawn on it, but I have a feeling he goes with Kepa today. I’m not sure it’s the right move, hopefully it doesn’t come back to bite us on the arse, but I go back to his arrival in the summer, and I can’t help but think it is a situation like today that is the reason Kepa signed for us in the first place. He was number one at Bournemouth; he could have signed for them or another club and been their number one, but he chose Arsenal, knowing that he 99% won’t displace Raya. But if Arteta had a conversation with him and told him he’s the cup keeper, all the way to domestic finals, then I think he will honour that, and we’ll see the other Spaniard in goal today.

And I think I’m fine with it. Providing, of course, we see know ricks in him…

I’ve named Timber in at right back, and I think the two centre halves speak for themselves, but who to put in at left back, I wonder…

**taps finger on chin in a pondering fashion**

I think it might be Calafiori, you know. I think Arteta will want to have a little bit more chaos in the final third with his inside channel runs, and I think that means it will be the Italian over the Ecuadorian. It doesn’t mean Hincapie won’t see minutes – I absolutely think he will – but I think for the first 60 – 70 of this game, he will be tasked with getting into those pockets of position similarly to last season’s 2-2 draw at the Etihad, where he scored. His task for the day will be keeping an eye on Semenyo, I suspect – no easy feet.

In front of them, I think it’s fairly obvious that Rice and Zubimendi start, and I think Eze is pretty much nailed on for his position too, after his fine display against Leverkusen. He was on the ball more, involved, plus we saw just how hard he can hit the ball if given the chance. But let’s also not forget that Eze has good recent memories of this stadium. This was the scene of his ascension to cult hero status for Palace fans in May and I watched that goal again this morning. It’s a great finish, running onto a cross as City were in transition, and his stroking the ball home was perfectly timed. Another one of those would be great. He was also there for Palace’s 2-2 penalty win in the Community Shield last August, so I’m sure he’s more than happy about his time at Wembley in the last year. Let’s hope he can transmit some of that this afternoon.

The attack has another couple of questions to ask about it, too. Not Saka, I don’t think, but I do think that there is a question over whether it’s Kai or Big Vik, and, despite his good showing in midweek against Leverkusen, if it was my choice, it would be Havertz all day long. He will bring other wide forwards into play, he will be a handful in the air for those City defenders, plus he put in a super display at Wembley in the Community Shield for his Arsenal debut too. So it has to be the German who leads the line. And so to that left-wing spot, in which nobody has really nailed it so far. But I’m thinking it will be Trossard. Again, he combined well at home against Leverkusen, plus I liked how he was drifting a little more, and I think rotation across our attacking players is key today. We need to get at the likes of Nunes and probably Khusanov, because both are players with obvious strengths, but also weaknesses too. Nunes is a physical presence and likes to be aggressive in the press, but he isn’t always the most consistent and I’ve seen people suggest he does have an error or two in him. Khusanov is rapid, but he too has mistakes in him.

Man City can be ‘got at’. We’ve seen it all this season, but we need to see it today, and I think the first goal is massive in this one. At the Emirates earlier in the season, City got their goal with pretty much their first attack and then just sat in the lowest block that has ever been recorded by a Pep Guardiola side. They were away from home and they could see how dominant we were and it was only a late bit of magic that salvaged a point for us. What that meant is that we couldn’t truly test what City are like running back towards their own goal, as many teams have already done this season since that day. If they score first, I think they will be a similar variant of that City team that day, although I expect them to create a few more chances. But if we score first…well…that will 100% bring them on to us and that’s where we need to take advantage of the inevitable space that crops up.

It’s so hard to call. I keep chopping and changing my mind on how this one will play out. But what we all have to remember is that this is just the start of the ‘business end’ run in for triphy attempts. This is the cherry on the cake, before we’ve even got the cake fully prepped yet. So I’m going to try my hardest not to be too down if we lose, but equally, not to be too high if we win.

But if we could just win, yeah Arsenal? That would be great.

Back tomorrow for a debrief. Let’s hope it is a happy one.

This is a weird fixture for me. When the draw was announced, there was relief about a possibly easier passage through the competition. WhatsApp groups were awash with ‘take that’ and ‘lovely’ comments. Then you get to the first leg kick off, and you’re thinking, ‘hopefully we can make a statement tonight and put one foot in the final’. Then at the end of the game, after Arsenal haven’t been great, Leverkusen have shown a blueprint on how to counter and hit us on the break, the mind thinks ‘got away with that one, but we have the home leg to finish the job’, as well as ‘the game at home now becomes a one-off cup tie – lovely’.

And yet, here I find myself, Tuesday morning, apprehensive about the match. Yes, it IS a one-off cup game, for sure. And yes, we WILL be heavily favourites to go through, most definitely. But all it takes tonight is one good low block, one transitional counter, and we could find ourselves out of a competition that so many Arsenal fans have coveted for years. We’re all looking over at City’s daunting tie at home to Real Madrid, but if we aren’t careful, we could have our own psychological blow tonight against a Leverkusen side who drew with Bayern at the weekend. Of course, the caveat remains that they played over half the match against ten men, but they still got a draw, and that will still fill them with some confidence, I would have thought.

Arteta did his press conference, and the bad news is that Odegaard and Timber are out. The good news is that it sounds like Leo is back, and whilst Arteta confirmed White is back up and in full training, I’m not sure whether he’ll start in place of the absent Dutchman. Mosquera was preferred against Everton, and I suspect it might be the same tonight. Of course, it may be that Arteta selected Mosquera for that game because he knew he could only get White playing the majority of one match out of these two, so he’s prioritised the Englishman for his overlapping runs today. Maybe I’m talking myself into something that won’t happen, but that does make sense to me, especially after Saka’s performance in the first leg. He wasn’t great; he was hooked on 60 minutes in favour of Noni, but if Arteta wants to create more space for Saka up against Grimaldo tonight, then playing a guy with whom he has a clear connection would make sense to me.

The rest of the team picks itself largely, I think; Raya, Saliba, and Gabriel will all play. I suspect Hincapie comes in at left back. At the base of the midfield, it’ll be Zubi, with Rice on the left and Eze on the right. Up top, I doubt they’ll risk back-to-back starts for Havertz, so it’ll be Gyokeres, with possibly Trossard and Saka flanking him. I certainly think that dynamic works better than Martinelli wide left, plus I’m not sure that Noni on the left really worked against Everton. You could ask the question about whether he deserves a start on the right, but I think Arteta sticks with one of his most trusted players in Saka tonight, so for me, it should be Trossard.

The game plan has to be about control tonight, which I suspect makes for a tetchy start to the game, probably a little shadow-boxing from Arsenal as they look to maintain the control of the ball, with Leverkusen tucking in deep and maintaining a tight shape throughout. They want to hit us on the counter and get a goal up so they can sit deep and see us deliver the horseshoe of death aka The Arc of boredom, so if we can score in that first half, maybe it draws them out a bit, and a little more space opens up.

I suspect patience will be the name of the game today; it is not going to be a pretty one, unfortunately.

Leverkusen will look to Grimaldo to find space in that left-hand-side pocket, and particularly with Timber out, they’ll want to see if they can stress either White or Mosquera, so if we can keep them pinned back as much as possible, then I think we can nullify him somewhat. They have Schick back, which will be a different kind of physical threat, but I wonder if they look at the likes of Kofane as a viable option, because he really tested our two centre halves all game last week, so it will be interesting to see how the Leverkusen boss goes about his starting selection dilemma up top. Of course, if they are behind in the tie and he needs to throw a Hail Mary, then both Kofane and Schick up top could be an option. We need to be wary and ready for that possibility.

The good thing is that if Leverkusen go down that route, then it means they are behind, and in that situation, we would all back our defensive line to be able to hold out.

We’ve gotten used to this season – and particularly ‘The Business End’ of it being quite uncomfortable, nervy and at times downright stressful. But Arsenal keep finding ways – even when leaving it late – to win these football matches. Nothing is guaranteed; those ‘finding ways’ could very well end tonight, but we’re in a good spot as it stands and I am hopeful that we have the players to see us through this evening. Fingers crossed I’m right.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a debrief, as always. Catch you then.