Arsenal put in the kind of display yesterday that makes me think that they all went out on the lash on Friday night. Passing was off, movement wasn’t great, intensity wasn’t there and for a team who have become masters of figuring things out and having an answer to an opponent, Arsenal just had no idea how to deal with Brighton’s press and intensity. It was absolutely abject, and Arteta will be giving them all a reality check at Sobha Realty tomorrow when they all do a debrief. I know they’re all going away with their international teams now, but that kind of game, like it unfolded yesterday, kind of makes me think that Mikel might call up the managers of the respective international sides and say “listen, I’ll send them across to you, but you’re going to need to give me an extra 24 hours, because I’ve got some things to say and some hard truths to lay down before the report for duty”.

Arteta said afterwards that he knew from the first throw-in that this was going to be one of those games, and if that really is the case, then he might have to take a portion of the blame for yesterday’s car crash too, I’m afraid. Because it was clear what Brighton were going to do: high press, commit bodies forward, push everyone on to us, and stop us from playing out from the back. After 10 minutes you could see that, so from that moment on we should have just gone long. Irritatingly, if it was like five-a-side and you can have rolling subs, the move should have been to have Raya distribute long, get Merino on the pitch and win headers, and probably also Zubimendi on for Bruno, who had an appalling first start in an Arsenal shirt in the Premier League. In the first half alone, he was guilty of some real howlers, but it wasn’t just him alone, because the whole team had been infected with some kind of passing JuJu; Raya in the first 15 minutes couldn’t find a man, it seemed, and given that just a week ago we had the world lauding him as the best ‘keeper on the planet, this was the kind of display that would bring anyone back down to earth.

From goalkeeper to striker, we were just crap. In fact, let’s go through them all:

1. Raya – talked about his distribution; it was pants, but he probably also should have saved at least one of those long-range shots. If you’re going to call yourself the best in the world, you’re probably pulling off saves for one of those.
2. Timber – again, lost focus once or twice, and there were a couple of big switches where I just couldn’t see him in the picture frame when the left winger picked up the ball.
3. Konsa – no massive howlers that I can remember, but was part of a disorganised defence, and that is uncharacteristic of this Arsenal team.
4. Gabriel – poor at closing down shot efforts and didn’t look like himself at all
5. Calafiori – same as Big Gabi on that closing down, and we never really got to see his marauding in attack. Defensively, he looked wobbly too.
6. Bruno – Don’t know what happened to him yesterday, but some of his passing was the worst in the whole team
7. Saka/Tzolis  – one half chance but Saka was pretty anonymous. I’ve lumped both wide forwards together here, because it felt like they both had similar performances. On a day when them being an out-ball from deep and space being there to have a run, neither did nearly enough to be an option
8. Odegaard – this was a return to those Odegaard games in which, for some reason, he drops into the back four to collect the ball and becomes busy but ineffective for the whole game.
9. Havertz – no change all day, missed a sitter later in the game, and it’s the kind of performance that I worried we’d get when we signed him. Thankfully, my worries have – for the most part – not come true. But that felt like a Chelsea Havertz performance.
10. Rice – bit like Odegaard – busy but crap.

My hope now is that this game is a wake-up call. Arteta talked about that afterwards. Everyone has spent the first part of this season talking about how great we are, how we’re going to win the Premier League at a canter, how there is nobody that can touch us. Well, by the time this day is done, we’ll have Man City sitting top on five wins out of five (they’ll beat a Sunderland side who had all the emotion from their first European game at home on Thursday night), and maybe the talk can all turn to them. My hope is that this shakes this Arsenal team to the core and that we don’t see another half-hearted performance like we did yesterday. And yes, it was half-hearted, because you can’t blame fatigue. We rested so many of our players in midweek, so the majority of those boys out there got a solid week between games (Raya, Timber, Calafiori, Rice, Saka, Havertz), so there can’t be any excuses on tiredness. Brighton were better; they were supercharged, they came with their A-game, and they delivered a sobering schooling. And those Arsenal players, as well as us fans, need to take our licks today.

We’ll of course, all stew on this for a bit, but part of me thinks that this horrendous international break might now be good. By the time we play Leeds 27 days from now, it’ll almost feel like the season has started up again. That’s absolutely fine by me. Let’s all go away, reset, then come back fresh and excited for a new reboot of this season.

But we can’t see another game like that again at all. Not if we want to be fighting for this title again.

Back tomorrow with some more thoughts. Going to do a Same Old Arsenal pod with Amanda in a bit so join us here if you’re around. Think we’re going live at 9.45am UK time.

And you have to give credit to the manager on that; each player knows their role and what is expected of them, and their training and drilling from the manager means that they execute his game plan to the letter.

It doesn’t always work perfectly. Heck, we conceded two goals, so Arteta and the team will hardly be ecstatic about that. But what we got last night was evidence that those who are waiting in the wings behind the first XI are able to deliver the kind of performance that means we feel comfortable that the parts of this machine are interchangeable, regardless of what happens with injury and suspension.

Well, almost all of the parts are, and I’ll get the negative bits from last night out of the way first. Viktor Gyokeres. Man, you sucked last night, dude. It was a lifeless performance from a guy who didn’t look involved in the play, made a couple of shoddy passes, was on his heels on the few occasions that the ball went into the box near him, and really didn’t show for any of his teammates. I was thinking at halftime that he’s the sort of player that needs a run of games to look like he’s up to speed, but on last night’s performance you just can’t play him. The difference between him and Havertz is night and day, and I’m sorry, but the gap between the two feels like it is a real worry if Havertz is out for any length of time. Maybe Havertz doesn’t get injured, or maybe if he does, Viktor can find some form with a run of games, but he looks miles off it. I tell you this much now: on the little evidence we’ve had so far, he ain’t getting anywhere near 20+ goals this season.

It’s a shame; it is a worry, but let’s not dwell on it too much, nor on the performance of Eze, who I also think wasn’t as amazing. But we know his talent and technique, so I’m less worried about him and his game time.

That being said, let’s focus on the positives, for which Max Dowman and Marli Salmon were the two biggest ones last night. Max’s first goal – dancing through the Ipswich defence – was a peach. AT 16-year’s-old he has such composure, and his finish looked like that of a 26-year-old, not somebody who got his GCSE (or whatever they call them these days) results in the summer. Likewise with Marli Salmon, who played alongside Gabriel and did not look out of place for a second. He even had a couple of moments where he wriggled out of a tight spot and came away with the ball. Those two kids have very exciting futures at The Arsenal if they continue on this trajectory.

My gut feel is that they might try to give Marli a loan deal in January if we get knocked out of the EFL Cup, because more minutes might be good for him, but for Max, based on his two goals, you have to keep him around. He’s going to be very useful for Mikel Arteta, and those twinkle-toes of his could be dancing their way through Premier League and Champions League teams very soon indeed. Hell, if I’m Tommy Tuchel, I might even have a look at him. Not to start, or even to get on the pitch at such a young age, but just to have him training with the England players will be good for him, and for Tuchel to take a look. The Euros are in two years; he’ll be 18, and at this rate I’ll be stunned if he wasn’t on the plane.

It was a good night not just for the kids, either, as Noni was off the mark with a fine finish, as well as Merino with the best of the lot, but mainly because it went in off the post. You all know how much I love those kinds of finishes. It was a weird one for the stats dorks, because our xG was 0.95 on a four-goal game, but that just shows that the quality of the strikes and the difficulties of the finishes were there on the night; think about how it was the opposite against Napoli – sometimes that’s just how the ball falls to you. And for us, it fell in the right place, for which we duly profited.

I thought we got some tidy performances from Zubimendi at right back, Myles at left back tucking into midfield, as well as Bruno wanting to get on the ball as much as possible. Merino was captain for the evening, and I thought he went about his role effortlessly. There was a few instances where we just glided past players, and he’s come to be known amongst a number of us as the most underrated player in this Arsenal squad. Gabriel shared the game with Konsa, and that was clearly just to manage minutes, whilst Kepa claimed a couple of crosses that will hopefully have helped to fully erase his clanger in the League Cup final. So all in all, it was a very good night in which my heart rate never really got above 90 beats per minute, which is pretty impressive given that I usually can top out at 130 when there’s a particularly stressful game going on. Arsenal progress to the fourth round, for which the draw is at 10.15pm tonight, and I’m hoping for an away game against lesser opponents – if the stadium is big enough, I might just go to it as well.

Right, that’ll do for today, I think. Back tomorrow for some more musings as we count down to a really tough away trip to Brighton.

Martin Odegaard, captain extrodinaire, leader, goalscorer, the metronome through which our creative play flows, showed everyone watching last night just what you get when he is fully fit, in form, and able to deliver in the final third of the pitch. 121 touches in total, drifting over to that right-hand side in between defence and midfield, picking up the ball and keeping us in control, he was once again a dominant force and deservedly the man-of-the-match in a hostile environment that could have been quite difficult for us on Champions League match week one.

He created the most chances, he had the most touches, he completed the most dribbles and his finish was the absolute pinnacle of pure. I remember being a kid and playing football in front of our house. We lived in a detached town house and to get to the front door you had to go up a flight of concrete steps. ON those steps as a metal railing and as the steps finished and then levelled out to a concrete front porch, there were two railings at either end of the porch that had bigger iron rails than the rest. My brother and I used to use those as the posts when we were playing football. I would deliberately try to hit those railings, in an effort to pretend to hit shots in off the post, because those goals felt the sweetest.

That’s what MO delivered last night. And I loved it.

His goal may have separated the two teams on paper, but in fact it was much more than that last night in Naples, because in truth Arsenal should have won by more than the one paltry goal we did win by. Merino had a point-blank header saved, Hincapie had a couple of chances, Saka should have scored, White had a chance, plus we had a barrage of efforts off target too. In total, Arsenal took 26 shots on goal, had eight on target, 58% possession and an xG (according to FOTMOB) of 4.05.

Four. Point. Zero. Five. That’s not comprehensive; that’s an absolute mauling. Towards the end of the game, Napoli fans were whistling, and The Management asked me why. My only explanation to her was that they wanted the referee to blow up early, because in truth, Napoli were the latest team to find themselves shut out by an Arsenal defence that once again conceded very little xG. In total, Kevin De Bruyne et al managed just 0.22; so they were reduced to pot shots and half-efforts, as Arsenal kept control and showed the reason why they’ve only conceded one goal so far this season.

If you’re going to be a little bit picky, you’d say that we probably shouldn’t have been so profligate in the sharp end of the pitch. If this was a night for Big Vik to show us why he needs to be in the consideration for a starting berth, he didn’t show it at all, I’m afraid. Just nine touches in the whole game, although FOTMOB has him creating four chances with those nine touches, so if you’re being kind, you’d say that he was certainly efficient. But when you consider that Havertz had 13 touches in his cameo, plus one big chance created, you can see why he’s probably getting the nod against Sunderland on Saturday evening.

Arteta may have rung the changes last night, but the same fluidity on the ball remained, and I have to say once again, much like Chelsea, there were times last night when we popped the ball around so fluidly, as if there wasn’t a care in the world for those Arsenal players. They just knew they were superior to their opponents, and those Napoli players knew it too.

And I love that Arteta felt happy to make those changes. Hincapie in, Merino in, Eze in and Gyokeres in. Alright, it didn’t result in the flurry of goals we probably deserved, but we still got minutes into legs that haven’t played too much, and for me that is important for the games ahead.

I’ve mentioned some of the stats already, but you can take your pick to see just how dominant we were. Five big chances created to Napoli’s zero, 559 accurate passes (at 92% completion) to Napoli’s 383 (and 86% completion), xG from open play was 3.81, and for those detractors last season who said Arteta couldn’t coach attractive football and all we relied on was set pieces: WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

We had 433 of the total 605 passes in the Napoli half; we were camped there. Napoli took just eight touches in our box. We had 51. 51! These are the sort of numbers that, if you took away the badges and just showed the result and stats, you’d probably argue it was a League Cup or FA Cup game against a lower opposition; such was the dominance.

Yes, there could be questions that are asked about the finishing from the team yesterday, and yes, that may well raise its head when the media does its analysis today. But I’m not minded to get too stressed about it, personally, because I feel like what this team is doing is very repeatable. A lot of the talk in the wake of the Chelsea game was that what Chelsea do is not sustainable, i.e., goalscoring and not keeping it tight at the back. But if you have a rock-solid defence, it absolutely is sustainable, because if we keep being so miserly with our chance creation for the opposition, it quickly grinds them down. Then we only need one moment of magic to win the game. Sure, we could do with upping it a bit in terms of our end product, but I feel like we’ve already shown we can do that with our opening games. So I’m in a really good place when it comes to this Arsenal team and how they are going about their work. Last night we were also able to rotate players so that we can have them ready and as fresh as possible for Sunderland on Saturday evening, as well as get minutes into players’ legs who haven’t played, as I’ve already mentioned. Ben White was even able to come off for Zubi, so hopefully that’s him with a little more juice in the tank left for the trip to Mackemmland.

But on the whole, this was a performance that had the control and dominance of a team that can call themselves champions. And I loved it. Looking to do a post-Napoli pod tonight if I can get some people on the show, so keep your eyes peeled on the Same Old Arsenal podcast here for more info.

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

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

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

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

And that’s exactly what we did.

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

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

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

We all know that Villa have been decimated. We know they have lost a chunk of their first-team players, and that those Villa fans would be up for a night under the lights as their first home game of the season, so perhaps we needed to also temper any hopes of an absolute battering. That was never feasible, and yet as I sat there watching the match unfold, I still had that expectation. We were the settled side, the unchanged side, the champions. We should have put them to the sword.

It’s true that they barely threatened. Even the Buendia chance off the bar wouldn’t have counted, because there was clearly a foul on Tzolis in the build-up, but conversely, it felt like we were equally sluggish. In that first half, we struggled to find an answer to Villa’s high line and compacting of space between defence, midfield and attack. We retained the ball, had two-thirds of it in the first half, forced Suzuki into one good stop and had four shots, but it all felt a little stodgy to my eyes. Problems of breaking down teams from last season felt like they were being rehashed from 2025/26.

I thought a lot was being made of commentary about our set pieces, for which one header from Gabriel was massively off target after Suzuki had flapped at the ball, but we didn’t quite get the opportunities that we normally do. Is that because of this new rule on holding? Perhaps. I saw basically every team do it this past weekend, but if there’s a team to make an example of with this rule, then it’ll be Arsenal before anyone else, so perhaps that’s why we’re deliberately being extra non-holding-y after the first two games?

Whatever it is, the set pieces were not going to be our avenue on the night, so we had to rely on a really well-worked open-play goal to be the difference. And Bukayo Saka – so often the guy who was missing or didn’t quite look at it last season- once again stepped forward and delivered ned product when we needed it. It was a proper poacher’s finish from Saka; getting into that spot in the six-yard box after the ball was worked well by Eze and Calafiori on the right. If we can keep him fit for most of this season, he – and we – will surely feel like he should be good for around 25-30 goals and assists. He’s already bagged two in the Premier League so far, so it is a good and positive sign based on what we have witnessed. I loved his little tap to the gold Premier League badge too. Nice.

There’s not a ton of other things to talk about based on the evening. It feels very much like an early-season ‘functional’ win that Arsenal needed. But there were some individual performances and maybe a tactical question or two for Mikel Arteta to ponder before we play Chelsea next Sunday. Firstly, on the tactical side, and it’s easy for me to sit here today and pick holes with the benefit of hindsight. But I did think that we perhaps didn’t quite have the right personnel on the pitch for the game. Villa’s high line needed to have somebody from deep acting as a quarterback for runners in behind. Havertz got in twice in the game – both times flagged offside – but failed to slot the ball into the net. Big Vik can be clunky; we know he’s not the most technically gifted, and he’d certainly have been caught out with a few offsides last night, but he also would have just kept on making that run again and again. And eventually those runs are timed well, and he’s in. And whilst I love Kai and think he’s the better all-around centre forward, I would probably have given Gyokeres minutes. Maybe even 30 minutes in that second half, because he’d have kept on making those runs. Then it’s on somebody to distribute from deep, and I think somebody like Zubimendi (assuming Bruno wasn’t 100% fit) could have been that guy. I’m nitpicking, though, because ultimately we still dominated in practically all metrics across both halves.

I thought Kai also had a pretty poor game. His two big chances may have been offside, but you still have to put them away. He was also quiet. If I’m going to call out Gyokeres when he is anonymous in these types of games, you have to do the same for Havertz. Likewise, I don’t think we saw enough of Odegaard on the ball. He put a nice ball in to Havertz for one of the offside chances in the first half, but other than that I don’t remember him dictating the game as he did in the Community Shield and last week against Coventry. Some of that might have been because of the congested nature of the game in the middle of the park; Odegaard is best in between the spaces of defence and midfield and last night there was essentially zero space there, so it kind of negated him a bit. But that’s perhaps – and again I’m nitpicking because ultimately we won and were the dominant side – where you realise it and try to switch his profile out for another earlier in the second half?

Tzolis too, didn’t have a great one, and found himself on the periphery after he picked up a yellow for Cash falling to the floor easily in the first half. John McGinn did John McGinn things by trying to get a fellow professional sent off after going down under a Tzolis challenge when he was already on a yellow, but it was never going to end up in a second yellow for the Greek. Nevertheless, Arteta rightly hooked him at halftime and his replacement Eze had a much improved performance. It’s perhaps ironic, because last season it was Eze who got hooked at Villa, who came on and looked like he should be taking the jersey off Tzolis for next week. He was involved in the goal, he was drifting into the right spaces, and I think it will certainly give Arteta food for thought. I know we are linked with Fofana from Lyon, but Eze deserves a shot on the left I reckon – let’s see what he can deliver because based on last night’s second half, he’ll offer something different to Tzolis. And that’s not a bad thing.

It’s Transfer Deadline Day today, so there will no doubt be some stuff to talk about – whether we sign anyone or not – so I’ll leave it there and be back tomorrow with some post-window thoughts. We’ll also be doing a pod towards the end of the day today, so come and check out the chat tonight at 5.45pm if you fancy it.

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

Welcome to the NBA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before I left for Italy, I was starting to feel like my daily musings were getting a bit repetitive. We had the Vini Junior to keep us sated for a week or so, then the announcement of Bruno G, which was edging closer until it happened, but that was about it. I never really felt like the game against Dortmund and Como could be seen as anything else other than fitness exercises; there were still so many players to come back, the team looked inevitably rusty, and there was a lot of chopping and changing in the line-ups. But yesterday was very different. Yesterday was an Arsenal side who had the stars returning, up against a City side who – Rodri aside – was also at full strength. This may be a showpiece friendly to kick off the domestic season for the big clubs, but both managers took it seriously, and so yesterday was the game to get a handle on how ready we are for the big kick-off next Friday.

We got a resounding answer on that front.

I thought Arsenal were superb yesterday. There were just so many positives to pick out and, in a summer in which a lot of Arsenal fans are a little nervous going into the season given the areas we haven’t fully addressed yet, an ACTUAL game of football quelled a lot of the nervousness – for me it did, anyway.

It also helps when you get a goal inside the first minute. I thought that Madueke looked offside when the excellent Christos Tzolis crossed the ball in, but the goal as allowed to stand, and Calafiori and Myles Lewis-Skelly will take all the plaudits for that one, as they should. Myles’ ball was sensational, and the run by Calafiori was perfectly timed. This was the sign of things to come, because by the time the first third of the match had been completed, we’re two-nil up and looking every bit the value for it. I think we’re going to hear his name a lot this season, but Christos Tzolis getting on the assist sheet for Havertz’s goal needs to be mentioned. I do wonder if Donnarumma fumbled it a little, but let’s focus on the build-up play and the man who got the assist. Havertz gets the goal with a good header, but Tzolis was superb all afternoon and must be a shoo-in to start against Coventry now. He looks like a very efficient player; it’s not about flicks, tricks, beating three men and then an action (which is a little more like Doku), but instead he is about being direct, looking for the pass/shot/header that gets you closer to goal as quickly as possible. In an Arsenal team that perhaps last season was accused of a little bit of profligacy, slowing down the play a little, having somebody like that to complement how Saka is also as efficient on the other side is really positive.

So much of our play yesterday was positive too. We know how good we are out of possession; this Arsenal team is well-drilled and gets into its shape when it doesn’t have the ball, making it hard to break down. But in possession, there was a fluidity of movement that wasn’t as evident at the back end of last season. We got over the line to win the league, but we found it tough going in those last few months; what I saw yesterday was slick interchanging of passes in build-up and spaces found by players regularly. Central to that was the skipper, who bagged the third goal early in the second half by sitting down the City goalie, but his all-round game was like peak Odegaard. If we get that version this season for most of the season, then we’re going to be a lot more silky in build-up and attack, methinks.

Three goals. Three well-worked goals. Good shape out of possession, good in possession, first official debuts for the new guys Bruno G and Tzolis, captain pulling the strings, plus we had Raya making several very smart saves to just let everyone know that we have the best goalkeeper in the league. It was the perfect way to get us ready for the new season.

Of course, we probably should add in a small caveat, which is that City looked a little undercooked in my eyes. They’ve played a couple of games less, I believe, plus they’ve been travelling to far-off lands, whereas we have deliberately kept ourselves closer to UK shores – so we looked more prepped. But whilst that might explain their performance a little, ultimately the Premier League kicks off next week, and so all teams need to see signs that they are good to go. If you’re a City fan waking up this morning reminding yourself of that performance, you’re hardly going to be jumping for joy.

I’d also say that given the strength of the squad we had, it was a little sad to see that some players didn’t even make the matchday squad. Gabriel Martinelli and Ethan Nwaneri were not in it, which will only add further fuel to the potential of them not being at the club come September. I can understand Martinelli moving on, but we can’t be having that happen for a low-balled price. At a time when clubs are paying £30million for players who have never played in the Premier League before, the idea that we’d sell a Brazilian international who has just played and scored at the World Cup for £38.5million is surely laughable. We might as well just keep Martinelli. I know his contract is due to expire next summer, but there’s a one-year extension that could be added on, and if we can’t find somebody better than him, then I’d be fine keeping him. For Ethan, I’m just hoping the club finds a good loan in England. Arteta has already said he needs to play, and I suspect that means he’ll not be at the club come September, but if it is because he has gone on loan for a year, then I’d be ok with that. Let’s have him develop in the Premier League, and then if we really are going to persist with giving Noni another crack, then by next summer we’ll know if he’s actually able to shed the ‘headless chicken’ part of his game, and hopefully Ethan will have stepped up and we can know if he can fulfill the understudy role to Saka. Cards on the table from my side – I think I’d rather that than persist with Madueke, personally.

But let’s not end on a sour note, because yesterday was pretty much all positive, and those Arsenal players got to celebrate another trophy – which for that winning mentality, really helps. Now, bring on Friday night, under the lights, to Frank Lampard’s Coventry.

I found a way to watch the game last night against Real Betis, and by the time I’d switched over to watch Live at the Apollo at about 9.45pm, I’d kind of wish I hadn’t bothered.

Now, what we all have to say is that it is a friendly, so whilst I’m not exactly going to wax lyrical over performances today by those Arsenal players, what I will say is that this is friendly number two, it is about fitness, it is about minutes in legs and getting to see a few youngsters too. It is almost literally a zero-stakes game. That being said, I don’t think it is without merit to objectively critique some of the performances, because we are defending a Premier League title here. We made it to the summit, so we need to see that some of these players can keep us there, and pre-season is an opportunity to view who might play a big role.

I think it is also important to drop the caveat in there that this is a Betis team who are on friendly number five now. They’ve got three extra games compared to us, so there’s no doubt they came into this one fresher, with players more prepared, looking to make a little bit of a statement against a team who had the Premier League trophy on display in Dublin last night. And I think that does play a part in what unfolded; they were quicker than us, they took their chances, they were gifted some chances. And Arsenal looked exceedingly sloppy in the defensive third. Uncharacteristically so, a fact for which Arteta was clear in pointing out after the game. This wasn’t a side that delivered on the same fogging standards that he – and we – are used to. In fact, I would say that all Arsenal’s conceded goals last night were due to our own brain-fart moments that you just don’t expect. So let’s go through them.

Kepa’s blunder

Yep, in a repeat of the League Cup final, Kepa got done on a cross, this time from a corner, and within 10 minutes and their first real opportunity, Arsenal found themselves one down. We really should have been one up. If I’m being generous, I’m saying that Big Vik is rusty, because in one minute he should have buried a chance that normally you expect him to put away. We all know his limitations; we know he struggles with controlling the football at times, but when you get him in or around the six-yard box, he’s normally bagging. But it was Betis who were gifted the opener and, I’m just going to say it, so far Meslier has looked a little more assured than Kepa has so far. If Raya is in goal, that goal simply doesn’t happen.

Close your man

You have to hold your hands up and say it was a superb strike from Betis for goal number two, but there were a couple of moments about 30 seconds before the goal in which we gave the ball away sloppily.

Kai snoozing

Silly and lazy from Kai for the third, and he’ll be annoyed with himself for his pass that led to Betis’ third.

We were gifted a little present from the Betis ‘keeper to pull it back to 2-1 in the first half through Hincapie, but other than that first-minute Gyokeres chance, you can hardly say we looked worthy to be even level at the break. There was plenty of possession (we ended the game with 56 to their 43%), but there was no real penetration, with just two of nine shots on target compared to Betis’ seven from ten. And a lot of their chances came through counterattacks, or through individual defensive third errors from those Arsenal players. The errors were all over the pitch, though; it felt like we had a ton of offsides where players could just be looking along the line (in fact, it was only four), we had players who just couldn’t find the final ball, and I thought there wasn’t really a single player on the night who we can say massively impressed. I was hoping to see good stuff from Ethan, but we got a slightly spikey performance from him, clearly worked up and annoyed by something the Betis players were doing. Max never really got into the game; Tzolis was quiet, and Kai/Big Vik I’ve kind of already talked about. If there was anyone that you might think could say “yeah, I wasn’t too bad,” it was probably Calafiori, who was finding pockets of time and space in between lines at times as he does, but that was about it.

Perhaps that is a concern, but when you look at who we ended up finishing the game with, I think it’s just best if we just put this game in a box and forget it ever happened. The final XI included Fabio Vieira, Reiss Nelson and Gabriel Jesus – all of whom I think most of us expect to leave this summer. Vieira certainly looked like he was just going through the motions for me. I saw a social media message that said that three years ago today we won the Community Shield against City, with Fabio Vieira getting the winning penalty – shows what a difference just a few short years can make in football, eh?

Arsenal, Arteta and the team head back to London now, and will no doubt be greeted by Bruno Guimaraes, who signed his four-year-deal having done his medical yesterday, I believe, as reported by HandOfArsenal first thing today. It’s a fantastic signing, and I suspect he’ll be at the Emirates on Sunday to be welcomed by the home fans as we take on Dortmund. I’ve said quite a lot about him already, and £75million is still a little bit of an overpay, but it could have been a lot worse, especially given all the posturing from the Newcastle-based journos saying the number had to start with an ‘8’ to get the deal done. So I suspect all parties are happy. Now we just need to wait for closure on Vini Jr signing his new deal with Real Madrid, and Arsenal can look to pivot to other options for that left wing spot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are we still calling them that these days?

Regardless, his two goals were enough, on a night in which two teams duked it out who were clearly on equal footing to each other. In fact, if I’m honest, I thought Norway were slightly the better team. After England dominated the first part of the game, Norway gre back into it, got a flukey goal, but after that goal it felt like they deserved it and probably should have gone on and got at least one. The Robot will be FEWMIN’ with Sorloth for not squaring to him when Norway had a counter.

The Arsenal boys were, I thought, a bit ‘meh’. Maybe I’m being harsh on Saka, who I thought showed some sparkles of the real Saka, but I’m still putting it down to him not being fully fit. How can he be? There’s no way Tuchel benches one of his best players in a quarter-final, unless he knows that he can’t get a full 90 out of him. And if a player can’t do the full 90, well, he ain’t fit, is he?

Rice, like Saka, clearly was off the pace, and the fact he couldn’t beat the first man was all the evidence Tommy T needed to hook him. Hopefully, that illness bug is all it is. If that is the case, maybe it is to England’s benefit that he came off, because it saves his legs, because if he’d have played the full 120, you never know what might have happened in terms of him breaking down. At this stage now, as with some of the noises around Saliba, it’s feeling like it’s a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ with Rice, which I’ll be honest and tell you, I’m very nervous about for next season. I was born in England, I live in England, I (loosely) support England and want them to win the World Cup, obviously, but there was a little part of me watching last night who was calculating when the English lads would be back home and resting up for the new season, should they have gone out to the Norwegians.

Noni was Noni, and you have to say he hardly set the world alight with his overhit crosses and general absentness, but then again that was a classic Harry-Kane-In-Latter-Rounds-Of-International-Tournaments too, so it wasn’t just Madueke who was off colour. I also thought that Rice for Eze wasn’t the right move, a decision that I think Tuchel realised after he then brought James on at 71 minutes for Gordon, shifted Ebs wide left and then had James in the middle of the park. I get why he did it – Eze is a ‘moments’ player; so you wouldn’t be surprised if he cropped up on the edge of the box and leathered one in from 25 yards, but he struggled to influence the game. We’ve seen that ourselves last season. I feel like sometimes you can just tell if this “is going to be an Eze game” or not; the two NLDs, the Palace home game, the Newcastle home and away games last season – we was great in all of them. But there will be games that it just don’t seem to be ‘his’ game, and that felt like one last night.

It was more of an ‘intriguing’ game last night, rather than an exciting or interesting one. Norway was disciplined; they moved the ball well, and I thought Odegaard looked quite lively in the first half. He looked ok in the second, but despite Norway being more dominant and playing better than England in the second half, it didn’t feel like he influenced the match as much. He’s played well for Norway in this tournament so far, looking much like the old Odegaard, and weirdly if you’re looking at it from an Arsenal perspective, we probably could have done with him going further and the Arsenal boys resting up, but hey, he’ll now head home and let’s see if we can have him ready for the start of the new season.

And that’s pretty much it from the game. Oh, actually, one more thing – Thomas Tuchel. I kind of like the spikiness of his post match interviews. It shows the exacting demands he puts on the team, and it’s why he’s been a winner where he’s been. I think Neville said in his post-match commentary that he likes it too, so aside from the fact I’m agreeing with Gary Neville, I do agree that the mentality of continous improvement from the German is exactly what this England team need.

And that’s because they’re up against Argentina on wednesday night, which is a game that, if I’m honest, I don’t think England can consider themselves heavy favourites. Yeah, Argentina have the Messi factor, but I also look at that England back line and I remain to be convinced in the slightest. Very shaky indeed.

Right, got to head off, as I’m off to watch my niece in a play this afternoon.

Have a good one peeps.

Catch you all tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back tomorrow. Have a good one boys and girls.

How is this becoming MORE stressful each week?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last night was one of them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phew.

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, boys and girls.

I am convinced of it.

Diego Simeone was waving his arms around like a lunatic. He was encroaching on the referee. He was barking and hollering, and so was the crowd. And last night’s referee just played to that gallery.

Let’s look at the facts here, boys and girls:

1. Eze gets to the ball first
2. There is contact by the Atletico Madrid defender
3. It is inside the box

It. Is. A. Penalty. Now, what you could argue is that the contact was, indeed, minimal. And because of that, if the referee doesn’t give it, you’d have me saying things like “tight call, but it’s not a stonewaller of a penalty”. And then you go with the on-field decision. But when the referee gives the penalty, there is ZERO chance that it shouldn’t be given. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. No way should that have been re-refereed in the way it was.

And yet here we are. Simeone is a prick. Afterwards, he supposedly (can’t find the exact quote but some journalists mention it on social media) laughably tried to claim Gyokeres’ penalty shouldn’t have stood because he backed into the Atletico player. Utter deflection, because his side had been edged out in the second half, and I thought we’d played really well to go one-up in the break. Their home fans were loud and raucous for the opening exchanges. Atleti started well and fed off that, but once we rallied and started getting on the ball, I thought we looked composed and in control. You could tell that Atletico Madrid were going to show us respect; this is a swashbuckling Spanish side who bag a lot of goals, but they were remaining tight and compact in their shape, and at times I was watching this game seeing a back five from the home side. That is a compliment to what we were doing in possession, and I thought the back four, particularly, were good.

Arteta changed it a bit, and I think it is a blueprint we need to think about moving forward, because Rice was playing the deeper of the two midfielders, with Zubi just in front of him, and that also enabled us to move to a back three at times and give us more passing lanes. It was good from the manager, and even though we still had that dreaded front three, we had a few chances. I still think between them, Martinelli and Trossard, when he came on, didn’t offer enough on that left-hand side, but Madueke was better.

And so too was Gyokeres, who notched his 19th of the season, and never in my life have I been more convinced that a player would score penalties than the big Swede. We all have our issues with Gyokeres; he’s been frustrating at times this season, but when it comes to finishing and penalties, the ball stays hit, and you know we are going to score.

That’s why the Eze penalty is also such a disgrace, because Gyokeres absolutely would have tucked it away to win us the game, and then you’re talking about bringing a one-goal lead back to your own turf. We’ve been robbed of that, and it’s a real shame because although Atletico were better in the second half, there was still so much positive to take from the way Arsenal handled the game overall.

On the Ben White penalty, I think Arteta handled that perfectly too, afterwards, admitting that it isn’t given in the Premier League, but it is in Europe, so we have to stomach it. Atletico had other chances too. Raya made a couple of good saves, Griezmann hit the bar, plus big Gabi made a tremendous block to deny the Frenchman. We rode our luck at points, but there’s no doubt in my mind, the luck was more with the home side than ours by the time the final whistle came along.

So where do we find ourselves now? How am I feeling this morning?

Actually, pretty good, if truth be told. We went to a tough ground, with a partisan home crowd and a barking manager, we came away with a draw. We can all be annoyed by the end, but before a ball would have kicked, I’d have taken an away draw to turn our home game into a knockout. Away goals mean nothing anymore, so this match next week is effectively one in which all is decided on the night. And having home advantage has to make you feel more confident.

I also think Arteta has some ammo now. We got minutes into Saka’s legs, Calafiori is available, Eze also got on the pitch so he should be fine for Saturday, Rice and Zubi had great games. The only question is with Odegaard, who came off and I read that he was getting some treatment on the sideline. We have to just hope that it’s nothing massive and he can have a day or two off and be ready for the game against the Cottagers on Saturday evening, because we need everyone now.

Arteta can use this injustice on the Atletico game, but he can also use the performance for Saturdaay too. The team can take confidence from the game and given that Saturday’s game is an evening kick off and hopefully the weather is good like last weekend, the home fans might just be feeling a little more boistrous than we would have done if we’d have lost last night.

We didn’t lose. we played pretty good. There is some confidence that can get built back up now. And so on to Saturday, in which another big match looms and Arsenal simple MUST win.

Back tomorrow as we start to prep for that one. See you then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I used to collect the match-day programmes back when I was a kid. It was usually for big games I’d ask for one (FA Cup final, etc), or for matches I was in attendance at. I don’t do it so much anymore, but when there is a potentially big game like Real Madrid at home last season, or PSG in the semi-finals, I pick one up. It probably shows where our performances are at (and maybe the opposition) that the thought never crossed my mind as I was heading into the ground.

I think part of it is to do with the fact that my eyes and mind have been worryingly fixated on the game in Manchester on Sunday, but also, I think we’ve had it rammed down our throats since the summer that the Portuguese league is akin to the Championship. In the summer, it was the gamble in relation to signing a killer in that league and whether it would translate to the Premier League (which has some truths about it), but last night it was in my mind as we thought about beating a side that plays in a league that is more like lining up against Wrexham, Oxford and Stoke.

The TIFO was out to bring the atmosphere nonetheless, and I thought overall, considering where a lot of us are right now with the Arsenal and the performances, the fans were in decent voice throughout.

Arteta named the same attacking line-up as Saturday, which was a slight worry, and in reality, whilst the stats will say we have eight attempts and one big chance, we were hardly peppering the Sporting keeper’s goal.

The ‘goal’ of the evening, however, was to progress. So we have to say that is a big ‘tick’ because overall Arsenal limited Sporting to barely anything. They hit the outside of the post towards the end of the half, but that was pretty much it. And in the second half, they offered very little threat overall. I think we have the key defensive components to thank for that; Gabriel and Saliba looked assured again, whilst Hincapie had an excellent game, I thought. He was strong and physical in defence, whilst in attack, he was getting forward and providing options on the wing in both halves.

If I’m seeming a little overly critical today, I think it is probably because I had hoped that this would be a bit of a ‘reset’ ahead of Sunday. I hope that Arsenal would come out all guns blazing, catch Sporting Lisbon out, control the game and maybe bag a goal or two. I do think we did come out well in the first half, but we were still found wanting on those wings. I do wonder how long we can let Madueke get away with these types of performances, but he came off with a knee problem in that second half, so Arteta’s hand might once again be forced, unfortunately. Throwing Max Dowman in for our biggest game of the season seems harsh, but we might be at the stage of saying “who else?” at this rate.

Let’s pull today’s musings back to some positivity, though, eh? And that positivity comes in the shape of Martin Zubimendi, who was excellent last night and picked up the man-of-the-match award.

The verticality of passing has returned!!!

I think a lot of that probably had something to do with the fact that Eze’s reintroduction into the team gave him an outlet to find further forward, and Eze himself looked lively and also played well, I thought. He was there to link up; he was further up the pitch in between the Sporting midfield and defence, and were he to have another forward in front of him who could receive the ball and make less static runs, we might have found ourselves ahead with a few chances. Having Ebs fit and with minutes under his belt for Sunday is certainly something that gave me cause for some optimism.

So too, did having Havertz come on for his cameo up front, because we haven’t seen that of late. Kai has been playing in that midfield role that doesn’t work for him at all, so when Gyokeres’ number came up for Havertz, a lot of the Block Fivers around me were very pleased. Kai has to start up top on Sunday, with Eze behind him.

Back to my ‘reset’ point, and I think a few players needed that, if we’re all honest. The back line needed another game in which the opposition’s xG was negligible. Zubimendi needed a game to remind us of his quality and passing range, and by picking up the man-of-the-match gong last night, his confidence will be flowing back in. Seeing him cut a sad and depressed figure on Saturday, as his teammates consoled him at times, was not fun. So if I could have chosen anyone to have a really good game and look a little more like the 2025 version of himself, it would have been Zubimendi.

Rice was his usual all-action self, and I thought Leo looked a little more spritely too, so hopefully he’s good to start at the weekend.

And if you think about that huge game at the weekend, there are some more overall positives we can take:

• Havertz only playing a cameo means he should be fresher
• Hincapie, with minutes under his belt following injury, means he will be ready
• Zubi’s good performance will give him confidence
• Eze getting 79 minutes means he should be good
• Trossard for Martinelli feels a bit of a no-brainer.

It would be lovely to hear news of Saka, Timber, Odegaard and Calafiori all being back for Sunday, but they won’t be fit enough to start, so let’s just take these positives for now and move on.

And move on we do. To the semi-final of the Champions League. Something that we’ve only managed three times in our history. That’s an impressive level of consistency that Arteta and his team should be applauded for. Can they go one better than last season and make it to the final?

Let’s get the small matter of Sunday and Newcastle at home out of the way first before we worry about that.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Well, having stood in Block Five yesterday, I will tell you this: Those Arsenal fans in my area of the stadium absolutely brought their dinner. By the time I got home yesterday, I had little voice left. Part of that was because I was screeching at the woeful performance in the second half, but before that, there was support and desire from the home fans to be that extra man for a very much makeshift Arsenal team.

And it felt like a very tired, leggy, and makeshift performance. Bournemouth may have had three weeks to prepare for this one, but that is no excuse for those Arsenal players to do just the basics all very wrong, as Arteta also admitted afterwards. White getting done in behind by the wide-forward (maybe Madueke should have tracked too) is one thing, but MLS just watching as Kroupi just ran past him to tap it in after a deflection as just bad defending. I don’t think that goal happens if you have Calafiori or Hincapie on the pitch. We all love MLS, but the performances of last season are a distant memory. He looked every bit the young and fallible player in that moment.

Overall, though, he didn’t actually have the worst game in comparison to some of his teammates. Martin Zubimendi, for one, has regressed so much that in my WhatsApp groups, there are genuine calls to change something now. Honestly, people, Zubi is starting to scare the sh*t out of me when he drops to collect the ball from Raya, which happens an alarming amount of times, I’m afraid. There was one moment in which it was a simple pass to Ben White in the first half that he just massively overcooked and knocked it out for a throw-in. Where’s the vertical line-breaker from the first half of the season? It can’t be down to fatigue when you’re doing that for 15-20 minutes. He’s just woefully out of form. I am wondering if some of my mates are right; perhaps we do need to drop him completely and get Rice into that six role.

Mind you, if he’s there, who is playing in the left eight spot? Maybe Eze, who wasn’t fit enough to do 90 yesterday, but certainly not Havertz. When he signed for us, Arteta tried him there, but it didn’t work, and as somebody has already pointed out on social media after the game yesterday, that’s three defeats out of four with Havertz playing in midfield. Of course, it’s not all his fault that the team has lost those three games – there’s a collective failing of multiple players that has led to this – but I think none of us believe him in that position is a viable one.

If you’re going to be kind to Arteta, you’ll say it’s because he has once again been robbed of key players. Still no Timber, Calafiori not in the squad having played on Tuesday, no Eze from the start, no Odegaard, no Saka, and a left-wing position with which whoever starts these days is utterly toilet. Honestly, Martinelli can get in the bin with performances like yesterday, then Trossard coming on did little else, unfortunately. But that’s being kind on Arteta, because he has to shoulder some of the blame after this one, too. After all, he’s the one who motivates them; he’s the one who needs to assess the opposition and set a team up to exploit our strengths and the opponent’s weaknesses, yet it felt like he just set up the team because of certain players being the ‘next one up’. For example, in Madueke, Martinelli, and Gyokeres, we have three runners. We’ve already seen that it doesn’t work. So why not go with Trossard? I know he’s been crap in 2026, but he has a better working relationship with Gyokeres than Martinelli does. Could we also have gone with Mosquera instead of Ben White? White has been playing a lot of football lately, and I just feel like Mosquera’s recovery pace is better than White’s. Could he have made a difference on that first goal? Maybe, maybe not, as I think the situation is still recoverable if the left back does his job.

But it wasn’t just players who were coming in a little colder. Gabriel and Saliba looked shaky, too. How Bournemouth were allowed to ghost in and just waltz through our defence for that second goal was ridiculous. It was pathetic. Spineless. Lacking in energy, cowardice. There are so many adjectives I could throw at such a shambolic performance.

Even after we went behind for the second time, there was still time for there to be a fightback, but this team looked inhibited. They ran out of ideas, and I saw the xG stats. We had 2.3 overall, but a big chunk of that was the Gyokeres penalty. In that second half, Big Vik was unlucky not to be onside with his run for the disallowed goal for offside (which it clearly was), but I don’t remember us forcing Petrovic into a load of saves.

This was an Arsenal performance for the ages, in a very bad way. It was not a performance of a team that is as far ahead on points in the league as we are right now. It was the performance of a team of players scared of their own shadows. And simply not acceptable.

I’m not really sure what else there is to say. Simply not good enough, City will beat Chelsea today, then next weekend looks like one of those that feels like a foregone conclusion based on that performance and effort from those players yesterday. We need some good news regarding some returning players now, because we can’t have that team, with that lack of balance and creativity, to play again in that set-up. We’ll fall apart if we see that again.

Doing a pod this morning with James. It won’t be fun. Then the football and social media are off for the day.

Catch you all tomorrow.

And were it not for David Raya, we may well have succumbed, but having him back in the side showed the difference you can make when you have a world-class keeper in between the sticks. I actually don’t think Kepa was that bad last weekend – he’s just not Raya, who exuded calmness and composure with the ball at his feet, but also followed it up with some fine saves too. His first, from a pretty splendid ‘Paul Merson Pass’ outside of the ball splitter by Diomande to put Araujo in, was finger-tippingly brilliant. It crashed the underside of the bar, but he had a vital touch, which enabled the ball to avoid rippling the net. And who knows what direction the match might have changed into, had that gone in?

As a quick aside, the shooter in that instance must have had something on the referee, because quite how Araujo managed to avoid a booking for accumulation despite making upwards of seven fouls last night is beyond me. He had obviously read the Jordan Ayew Book of Impunity with Refs, because even when players like Madueke exasperatedly asked “How many?”, he still got away with one or two more.

It felt like a game in which we really did have to ‘huff and puff’ last night. We were in control in terms of ball-dominance and xG chance creation, but Sporting did have their moments. When you look at the stats, it was pretty 50-50, and so as the clock ticked down to the end of the game, my nerves were more about avoiding a last-minute sucker-punch as we have on a number of occasions already this season, rather than winning it. So when Martinelli shimmied himself into enough space to dink it to Kai in the middle of the penalty box to slot home, I was over the moon. It was a rarely-seen Martinelli pass; we don’t usually expect to see him being the provider to that type of goal, but more the man running on to it. It was a really deft chip and quite impressive from the Brazilian. So too, was Havertz’s touch and finish, which was certainly very clinical, and you could see how pleased he was with his celebration. The run was the type of run that you expect from Havertz when Gyokeres is on the pitch; he is playing as a false nine as Gyokeres occupies another defender, he finds the space in between centre-halves, which enables him to be picked out with a run from the D to the penalty spot, completely unmarked. Kai will not give us the vision or passing range in midfield that Odegaard or Eze can, but as a second striker, he has a big impact.

Elsewhere in the team, we had some decent, if not spectacular, performances. I thought Rice was superb again in his midfield duel-winning role, winning his one tackle on the night, making four interceptions, and recovering the ball 13 times. Any nerves about his lingering fatigue were dispelled last night, and that was great. Big Gabi had his hands full with Luis Suarez, but he came through 90 minutes and, like Rice, I am just pleased we had no lingering effects from what was clearly a niggling knee injury on Saturday. I thought White looked shaky in some of the ‘big’ moments – like that chance from Diomande to Araujo – but if you look at his performance as a whole, he did alright I thought. Plus we got 70 minutes out of Odegaard, which is positive, although his performance felt like a pretty rusty guy. He wasn’t really able to impact the game at all, and of all of his 48 passes (out of 59) that came off, I’m struggling to remember how many really did any kind of significant damage. It’s tough when the guy you come on for does what Kai did, but this season has certainly been one in which substitutes have made the biggest impact. I can’t remember the exact number, but I think we’re close to 40-odd involvements from Arsenal players this season. I think that’s miles more than any other team, so it really does show the positive impact that Mikel Arteta’s changes have made this season.

Understandably, Mikel Arteta was delighted last night, but I do wonder if he will continue to analyse why we have found it so difficult to break teams down. It isn’t as if Sporting sat in a low block last night, I didn’t think. There was space there for us to exploit, but it felt like we chose safety first in ball retention, which, I guess, given this is the first of a two-legged affair, is understandable. But I did feel at times that we could have got more out of the likes of Trossard and Madueke, who blew hot and cold last night I thought. We all know that when Gyokeres doesn’t get service he is basically a passenger, which is why I wanted a little more from our wide forwards. And that left-hand wide-forward slot continues to be an enigma, because it feels like no player wants to step up and make it his own. Martinelli was pretty poor against Southampton, but then comes on and made a key impact last night. Trossard had an indifferent game, but if he doesn’t start at the weekend, I’d imagine that he’ll come on and play well from the bench against Bournemouth. It’s frustrating, but equally a bit of a relief that you know these guys can impact from the sidelines when coming on. Or maybe it is just that Martinelli loves the Champions League? That’s six goals and two assists in 512 minutes – he’s averaging a contribution every hour -Harry Kane averages one every 70 minutes, for context.

So it’s a victory, it’s a commanding position in the Champions League, but it’s back to domestic focus immediately now, because Bournemouth on Saturday lunchtime is already filling my stomach with a bit of dread/fear/butterflies. Catch you all tomorrow for some more thoughts as we build up to that.

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

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

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

How on earth are you STILL earning that much money?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another League Cup Final, another defeat in it, and at this point, it feels like that competition is as cursed for us as the European ones are.

Simply put, Arsenal only showed up for one half, on a day in which there were hopes that we could get a trophy monkey off our back.

I have lots of emotions going on right now; lots of thoughts that might be worth picking up, given that we now go into an interlull, but for today, let’s just pick on one or two of the key talking points from yesterday.

Firstly, I don’t think any is getting away from the fact that the goalkeeper question was a primary reason why we lost yesterday. Kepa is a fine backup. We discussed it in the pub before the game, and I said I was ok with him starting, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, and clearly it wasn’t the right move. The delta between Kepa and Raya is quite large, it seems, and I’m not only talking about the rick that our keeper made in the game to give City the lead. His passing range is not as wide as Raya’s, and his box presence isn’t the same, which I think also leads to a little bit less confidence in the back line. The first goal we conceded yesterday will be one that will give him nightmares. It was proper chocolate wrists stuff, and whereas at the other end, Trafford gave a decent account of himself in the first half with a couple of saves, when the pressure was on us in the second, our goalkeeper folded in that key moment. And that’s what we don’t get with Raya. Sure, he’s had his dodgy moments like the end of the Wolves away game, but in the main, he is solid, and even with little to do, he still has the concentration in key moments that Kepa just doesn’t have (think that great save against Leverkusen at the end of the game last week).

I don’t blame Arteta for starting Kepa, because as I said, I think this was one that he felt he could do. But I don’t think we’ll see the Spaniard in between the sticks if we get to the FA Cup final. And his error yesterday kind of gives Arteta the licence to sit him down if that happens and say “sorry mate, not after what happened last time.

This was one of those cliched ‘game of two halves’ kind of matches. I thought we bested Man City in the first; we limited their chance creation, whilst we got in behind at least once, and Kai probably should have scored. That’s what you occasionally get with Kai, though; he isn’t always the most clinical. Ironically, if Gyokeres had been in that position, it might have been different, but he was somewhere else on the pitch, not getting those chances. But it fell to Kai; Trafford did his job, which we didn’t see from Kepa in the second half, which was also the half in which we failed to respond to City’s approach. They pressed in the right spaces, they were able to control more of the ball, and whilst they hardly troubled Kepa until his mistake, they were definitely edging it. And I think Arteta will do a re-watch of this game and realise that he probably should have made the changes a little earlier than he did. Kai didn’t have a great game, Gyokeres was pretty anonymous, Saka’s poor form continues, and Trossard was left pretty much neutralised and quiet. In that second half in particular, the attack didn’t click, and we simply could not string together enough passes or get enough of a rhythm to cause City any problems.

That second half was woefully short of the ‘standards’ that Arteta and the team set, and unfortunately, in 2026, it’s not an isolated incident. There’s plenty made about the fact that not pressing Arsenal’s defenders is a good way of neutralising them. I think that’s only part of the story. History is always written by the victors, and City fans and the stats people have already been clipping up short videos of City sitting back whilst 1-0 up and us playing the ball across our back four. But game state is everything. I said yesterday morning that the first goal would be pivotal, and I think that’s exactly why yesterday felt so flat in the end, but that’s how it turned out to be. And I don’t want to make this all about Kepa, because so many other players didn’t play remotely to their potential, but in these tight games, there’s nothing more frustrating than a mistake leading to a goal. If a player puts the ball in the top bins from 30 yards, you just hold your hands up, but when the important goal you concede is entirely avoidable, it is doubly hard to take.

I do think the absence of Eze and Odegaard had somewhat of an impact, though. Eze has just found some form, and now he’s injured, which is really frustrating. Arteta said that we have to leave it seven days for a scan, but we have to pray that it is just a short-term thing, because whilst he can rest up for a week because of these internationals, ideally we want to see him on the road to recovery for Southampton in two weeks. In his place Havertz looked at first like he might link up well with Big Vik, and there were a couple of moments where, from my vantage point, I could see us almost playing with two up top, but he faded quickly after a good opening half an hour and the lack of that creative 8/10 hybrid felt like it began to take its toll.

So City draws first blood. Seeing the dejected Arsenal players wasn’t a fun sight afterwards, but the hope has to be that they use this as fuel, because after this international break, there is a great opportunity to get back on the wagon and on to winning ways with an away game against Southampton.

This was the least of our priorities, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t sting, for which I thought Declan Rice summed it up well when describing the mood after this match. Now there is an opportunity to just take a beat, for the players to go away with their respective international teams, which hopefully will provide enough of a reset, before we get back to the proper football over the Easter weekend.

As I said above, I might do a bit of a deeper dive into some of the problems we’ve had in attack over the coming days, given that I have no interest whatsoever in the international nonsense going on from now until the end of next week.

So I’ll catch up with you back on here tomorrow. Up the Arsenal.

His finish yesterday sailed past the Leverkusen keeper Blaswich who, up until that point, very much had the feel of Gandalf and was not letting anybody pass. He’d made six saves before Eze’s rocket to break the deadlock and some of them were worldies too. The one he saved with his foot to have the ball just skip wide of the post is the first one that comes to mind. But on a night in which big shocks had happened in the other part of this side of the draw with Lisbon beating Bodo/Glimt, this was not to be another upset, as Arsenal pretty much dominated from start to finish.

One of the criticisms I think a few of us Gooners have had is that we haven’t started games too quickly. It’s felt at times – certainly in 2026 – as though we take our time to ‘feel’ our way into a game and how the opponent sets itself up. This was not the case last night. Arteta made some tactical tweaks, including Ben White, which I think worked really well, and we were pretty much on the front foot within the first few minutes. You could see that White was looking to overlap and create more space for Saka and I think he must have appreciated that, because he got on the ball and was creating chances. There were still some instances in which I thought Saka could have got a shot off a little earlier, but today is not a day to be bagging on the starboy. Sometimes, to recapture your best form, you have to take incremental steps in the right direction. I thought last night was definitely one.

But there were strides forward from a number of attacking players yesterday. I thought Trossard looked lively, popping up in spaces across the front three, whilst Viktor Gyokeres must have had arguably his best game of the season yesterday. He didn’t score, which is obviously a marker a lot of people will put down as another failing, but not me. Not today. He used his power well; he looked to be half a yard sharper. He had a few runs at defenders and a couple of shots, one of which was deflected wide. He is the sort of guy who will probably have got into the dressing room at full time quite disappointed in himself for not scoring, but I bet the manager was exactly the opposite of that.

After the dominance of the first half, things felt like they got back on to a more even keel in the second, which you’d expect given Leverkusen couldn’t just sit back and hope to counter us in transition. We had our goal, we didn’t need to press forward, so gaps started opening up and even though the game ended with Leverkusen having more possession than us, I think we created the better chances in the second half overall. The one for them that stands out is the fantastic Raya save right at the end, but other than that I can’t rememberr him making a string of saves. That was Blaswich who was in that mood last night, making a couple in the second, but not Arsenal’s second, which was another superb Rice finish from outside the box. Have that, you open play Arsenal goal naysayers.

His first touch for that goal was sublime. It meant it sat up perfectly for a second touch, then the stroke of the ball past the Leverkusen goalie to just kiss the post – *chef’s kiss*. He picked up the man-of-the-match award on the night and, once again, the cries rang out about how we’d really made a steal with him on the price. He’s fantastic. He’s all action. He’s the best player in this Arsenal team by a country mile this season. There’s talk that Bruno Fernandes should get Player of the Year – pull the other one, it’s got bells on. Rice has been the most consistently impressive footballer in the Premier League; he’s been doing it in the Champions League, and his goal last night ensured that the last ten minutes or so were nowhere near as nervous as it could have been.

There were so many positives to take from individual and collective performances last night. I thought Zubimendi looked spritely; he’s been accused lately of taking the safe and backwards options on his passing recently, but I thought he was much more progressive and willing to take risks. With the League Cup final on the horizon, it is lovely to see that we have players hitting some stride, although Declan Rice’s post-match comments about being shattered are a concern. Arsenal and England should take note; there is a period coming up here where there is an opportunity to manage his and the likes of Zubimendi’s minutes differently. I said it on social media, but I’ll reiterate it now – neither of these players should be going away with their international teams, and neither should be starting against Southampton a week after that, too. If you can wrap them up, give them rest, a kind of Spring Break, if you will, then it could be beneficial to both The Arsenal and their respective international managers.

Defensively, we looked good too; our pressing was right, we got into our shape at the right time, Gabriel and Saliba looked good and Hincapie and White both performed well. There was also enough time for a Kai Havertz cameo and I thought he also looked lively when he came on.

And all of this means that Arteta has options for Sunday, too. In the pub before we were talking about where we were going to have a drink on Sunday and a few of us joked that we were overlooking Leverkusen. That wasn’t the case for those Arsenal players, who will also have the big confidence boost of knowing they are into the quarter finals with a great chance to progress there too. But before that, it’s all eyes on the League Cup now, and a showdown with 115 Charges FC. My hope is that they are licking their wounds and feeling a bit sorry for themselves this morning, having just been knocked out to Real Madrid last night.

More on that tomorrow as we begin the countdown to the first trophy attempt of the season. Catch you then.

He comes to maybe one or two games a season, max, and so I could see where he was coming from. Heck, I even said beforehand that it would be an attritional game, and Mark – who helped me with the tickets – also said the same in the concourse before a ball was kicked. We all knew what Everton would bring; it was going to be a case of whether we could get over the line.

The line was well and truly ‘gotten over’ by the end, though, eh?

Effing football, eh? Effing Arsenal, eh? You will be the death of me, as much as you are the life of me.

I had mused on some way through the second half that the ball just doesn’t seem to be dropping to an Arsenal shirt when it comes to the loose ones. There seemed to be an Everton player there every time. That was, of course, until Big Vik Gyokeres was there inside the six-yard box to tap it home.

Pandemonium. Limbs. Hugging. Relief. Arsenal had done it. And all it took was a 16-year-old kid to send us wild. It was Arteta’s ‘Hail Mary’ and boy, did it work. I know we’ve been saying it for a while, but how has a 16-year-old got that much talent at that age? It’s extraordinary. He breathed fresh air into our attack; he unsettled Everton, so much so that I think Jordan Pickford’s flap for our first goal was a result of him being on the pitch. Maybe that’s a stretch, but it was a good ball; close enough to the keeper to entice him to come out, far enough away that he couldn’t get to it. Big Vik touches home on 89 minutes.

Football. In those moments, I love you.

There was still time for us to all be nervous as hell, though, and Everton – who had been pretty defensively resolute and not really an attacking threat in that second half – suddenly were here to spoil a party. But commeth the hour, commeth the…ma…erm…boy?

We now hold the record for having the youngest ever Premier League goal scorer to add to our record books for this season. It’s fair to say it wasn’t the hardest of goals at the end, but to get to that position, Dowman has to show composure, poise, and a fabulous header and touch to set himself off and us two points clear.

We had the joys at the end, and ultimately, the job has been done, but it wasn’t all sunshine and daisies overall, was it? We struggled to break down Everton; they created a few chances in the first half, and McNeil was unlucky not to score from his effort that hit the post. Raya also made a good save with his feet from Beto in the second half. I thought tactically Everton set up quite well; compact shape, difficult to break down, go long where you can, hit on transitional counter when you can. And we struggled in both halves. There was a period between the start of the second half and around the 60-minute mark where it felt like we were starting to exert pressure that might pay off, but after Everton rode that out, we started to look edgy. It wasn’t quite working, Arteta made the subs and, ultimately, I guess you have to say that it paid off.

We did create a few chances ourselves, but not loads and loads, with the Eze effort that just curled wide of the post being one that definitely sprung to mind. But our attack wasn’t clicking. Kai was ok, should have had a stonewall penalty and how VAR has given it I’m not really sure, but I guess it’s one of those that they probably looked at the ‘way’ in which Kai went down and thought he was over-egging it a little bit. We never got to see any replays in the stadium, and VAR seemed to say ‘no’ far too quickly for my liking, but I guess ultimately we got what we deserved, and that was the win. And I think it was a deserved win when you look at the stats. 25 shots, 65% possession, 2.59 xG toi Everton’s 1.07, 249 passes in Everton’s final third, compared to them having 85 in ours – this was a game that Arsenal should have won, and did, ultimately, win. 

We’re just in ‘win’ mode now. We’ve overcome the latest hurdle by hook or by crook. It wasn’t particularly convincing, but I think given all the context and given how deep we are into the season, I think we just have to accept ‘this is who we are’. We’ve probably got another seven of these types of performances to come in the Premier League. Bournemouth will be the same, as will Fulham, Newcastle, West Ham and Crystal Palace. 

The fabulous news kept coming, though, because City dropping points to West Ham was as awesome as it was surprising. That gives us a nine-point buffer, albeit with a game in hand, but that buffer gives us all a bit of relief as we head into a mini break away from the League with the Champions League and then the League Cup Final against Man City. Who knows, maybe the psychological blow from the Real Madrid first leg, then dropping points yesterday, then maybe an exit for them in midweek, can have an impact on how they play against us next weekend? Let’s hope so. 

James, Mark and I are doing the Same Old Arsenal pod this morning, so if you fancy it,  you can catch our thoughts here. Otherwise, I’ll be back tomorrow as the big games keep on coming – with Leverkusen in the Champions League to come on Tuesday. 

The problem is, it takes two to tango, and Bayer Leverkusen were in no mind to make it an open and easy game for us.

I guess where I’m at this morning after that 1-1 draw in the Bayer Arena, is that it’s a decent draw and leaves us with the minor advantage of home soil for what effectively becomes a one-off knock out game now. That’s how I reflected on it to The Management when she came home last night and said “What does this mean now?” after I told her the result. With the abolition of the away goal rule, the home leg for us becomes the equivalent of an FA Cup round; there’s no need for mental gymnastics, or the psychology of being a goal or two up – it’s just them versus us and if it’s level after 90, then we go to extra time, followed by pens.

And if you look at the way we played in the main last night, you probably have to say “I’ll take that”. We weren’t great. We had our passing structures all set up, Eze was finding pockets of space deeper, getting on the ball. But I suspect that’s exactly what Bayer wanted. He’s not a guy who dictates from deep. He’s somebody who comes alive in the final third and last night he was probably a little too far from it, a little too often, for my liking.

I thought he had a decent-ish game though, which cannot be said across our front line. Martinelli had the best chance right up until Kai put the ball on the penalty spot to draw us level late on in the game, but his shot off the bar was about it from the Brazilian; it was another frustrating one in which I don’t think he beat his man often enough (when he did he drew a yellow card from the Leverkusen right back, but he never built on that, which is disappointing), and spent a lot of time checking back and slowing the play.

Big Vik started brightly and used good strength within a minute to leave Andrick on a yellow (who might have seen red if his body check on the same Arsenal player would have been 30 minutes later instead of three) early on and he had a couple of early touches and lay-offs that I thought meant we might get one of the better performances from the Swede, but that soon faded away.

But the biggest surprise of the night was just how poor Saka was. In fact, he was so poor, that people on my social media timeline were questioning whether he was fit or not. The manager never alluded to anything in his post-match press conference, and in fact, he even hinted (or so I thought) at the reason Madueke came on being the poor performance of the Starboy. It was just so odd; he never beat his man, his passing was off, he was slowing the play down and it seemed like he’d run out of ideas. One or two of us have touched on the fact we need him to step up, because he’s our best player, but this season has so far been quite underwhelming. And yesterday’s game felt like it was a point in which more people are going to start questioning him.

His replacement Madueke made an instant impact. He was beating his man, which is his bread and butter, and the move which led to the penalty was excellent. I thought the pen itself was super soft, although in real time it looked like a stonewaller to me, but when you see the replay you’re getting quite annoyed that’s it’s given if it’s against you. Mind you, the referee was terrible all night and gave silly fouls and ridiculous yellows all night. Zubimendi’s and Havertz’s were a case in point; how on earth Kai got booked for standing his ground in the penalty box is beyond me. So maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised that he gave that penalty.

It was a relief to bag it, and kudos to Kai for the cajones to step up against his old club and deliver, but it felt like we’d got away with that draw in the end. The stats and efforts overall tell of a game pretty evenly matched though, so perhaps the draw is just the footballing gods appreciating and recognising that neither side really deserved it on the night. Leverkusen caught us cold at the beginning of the second half with their corner goal (Jover will have them all in doing lines on the blackboard this morning, for sure), we caught them out late with a bit of trickery from Noni. One cancelled the other out and we go again on Tuesday evening next week at The Emirates.

I’m not really sure what else there is to reflect on in that game. It wasn’t a classic, Bayer were set up to contain us and then hit us on the counter with Kofane proving a handful for a surprisingly shaky looking Saliba and Gabriel, but they didn’t really have a ton of work to do when you think back over the chances created. Raya made one worldie of a save, I’ve mentioned Martinelli’s crossbar challenge effort, but other than that I can’t remember either side creating a ton and deserving to win this game outright.

That needs to change in six days’ time though. And we need to see a better performance on Saturday too.

Back tomorrow as we look ahead to that tricky one against Everton.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow.

A huge one.

On a night in which Nottingham Forest amazingly managed to pick up a point at The Etihad (bonus hilarity watching can be had with Bernardo Silva’s whinge at the end of the game yesterday – mate, you’ve had all the decisions go your way week-after-week since Rodri moaned at Spurs), Arsenal found a way to ‘win ugly’ at a very difficult Brighton side, to extend our lead at the top and build back a mini cushion with eight games for us to go.

We should focus on the key moments of the game, of course, but before we do that, let’s talk Fabian Huerzeler. What a dislikeable and odious character he is. Much like what we see these days, where a narrative is spun in the media and it is pulled into the common vernacular by those within the game, Huerzeler used his post-match press conference and interviews to cry ‘foul’ over Arsenal’s supposed delaying tactics. He whined about it being ‘not football’ and how nobody wants to see a game like yesterday. He moaned about David Raya going down three times and said you never see a ‘keeper do that.

Yes, we do. Emi Martinez. Regularly. Jordan Pickford is known to stay down a little longer to take pressure off his defenders. Goalkeepers have been going down and time-wasting at The Emirates for decades. Tim Krul was a master of it.

Huerzeler’s deflection tactics about the quality of the game are laughable. Brighton played well, right up until our box, in which Gabriel, Hincapie, Timber, and Mosquera (replaced by Calafiori) were imperious in ensuring this game ended as a shutout for Brighton. Arsenal didn’t play well, our attack was once again not really functioning, and Martinelli and Gyokeres were pretty anonymous (the whole ‘Martinelli/Gyokeres can’t play with each other’ discourse feels like it is really starting to become a ‘thing’ now, unfortunately) throughout the game. But to call us ‘boring’ and ‘not football’ – as will be the case by all of the ‘pundits’ this morning and for the next few days – is disingenuous. Brighton are the first team to actually outplay us for a very long time; most teams just sit in a low block and counter. So Why don’t we focus on that and how Arsenal had to dig deep to secure the points today?

The team was pretty much as I think most of us would have predicted; Martinelli in for Trossard, who was poor on Sunday against Chelsea. Saliba picked up a knock, and so Mosquera came in, whilst the rest of the team remained unchanged. And we got off to the perfect start. Saka’s goal in the 9th minute made me think that we were in for an impressive Arsenal away day, but after that initial deflected goal, we never really managed to assert control on this game. Brighton were good. They popped the ball around well, had more possession than us, kept us pegged back into our own half, and we struggled to find outlets for our attacking players. Gyokeres had another one of those games where the ball didn’t stick, and by the time his number came up for Havertz, he’d registered just 20 touches and had lost the ball 13 times. Not good enough. He needs to shape up, and if I’m Arteta, I’m thinking about doing 45 minutes for him against Mansfield, as well as 45 minutes for Havertz, because I think we need to start looking at Havertz slowly taking over more of the work up top as we reach the crunch point in this Premier League season.

Martinelli did his bit to demonstrate that maybe he is just a really good impact player, offering practically nothing on the left flank, whilst Eze had another game that sort of half-passed him by. What I mean by that is that at times he looked like he couldn’t get on the ball, but I saw other times in which he was popping it round quite well. There was one moment in thefirst half, for example, in which his quick touch set Saka in behind, only for him to flash the ball across goal to where neither Big Vik or Martinelli were ready to pounce.

I thought Saka was quiet, but on his 300th game for the club, with the winning goal scored, you have to give him a pass in terms of performance. The front end of our team just didn’t function.

That’s certainly not true of the defence or the midfield, though, and one Raya brain-fart moment aside right at the beginning of the game, I thought to a man our back line and two anchoring midfielders were excellent. Declan Rice and Gabriel, in particular, were rocks for us and this game felt like a throwback to the earlier part of the season, in which the Arsenal team defended like their lives were at stake. It was the type of performance that has felt like we’ve forgotten how to do in 2026, so whilst I am disappointed in us going forward this morning, I am pleased that the muscle memory at the back appears to have kicked back in for our defensive line.

I’m not sure what else there is to say, really, because there wasn’t a ton of other stuff going on in the game. Raya only made two saves all evening, whilst Chris Kavanagh seemed to offer Brighton players just about every free kick they wanted. The yellow Mosquera got was fine, if you’re applying the same rules to all players, but Brighton players seemed to get away with a fair few more challenges than Arsenal’s did. Which is why the bitching by Huerzeler was so ironic.

But hey, we got the win, we got the three points, this midweek has turned out to be a bit of a blinder and we now have everything in our hands once again.

Let’s hope it stays that way for a long time yet.

Back tomorrow as we start to preview Mansfield away in the cup. See you then.

That Arsenal made it look a lot harder than it probably should have been after Neto’s sending off in the second half probably needs to be consigned to history, now that the points are in the bag. But it doesn’t help my general stress and anxiety levels when we make these types of games feel like such a slog.

The chatter in the Greek beforehand was about how this game would be a really tough one for Arteta’s men. Chelsea is a decent side, a side that, as I pointed out in yesterday’s blog, hadn’t lost away in the league for nearly three months. This is a side that went to the Emptihad with a caretaker manager and nicked a point off City. So we all knew they wouldn’t be a pushover. The question was how Arteta was going to line us up, given he has a near fully-fit squad to select from. Well, all except Odegaard, whose knee problems appear to have flared up again. When I saw the leaked team news before the official stuff came out, I suspected that it meant that Eze was keeping his place on merit, but it appears it is more of neccessity, because of this injury. Let’s hope it is nothing too serious for the captain.

The return of Kai to the bench made for good vibes as the tifo explained why the world had only come to see the Arsenal, and I thought we were in command in that first half for pretty much most of it, underlying the tifo message with our ball dominance. I don’t think Chelsea dropped off, but I do think they recognised we would be the ones to drive the narrative of the day, given we were the ones at home. And we did. I thought we might even get a nice early helping hand from Sanchez, too, with his miscontrol within a few minutes, but unfortunately, Gyokeres couldn’t profit from a ‘keeper who then had the crowd making excited noises every time he touched the ball thereafter. He is really not a good keeper, and I am very glad that Chelsea places little value in trying to get good keepers, too. He complained about the second goal, for what reason I have no idea, but despite how poor he is, there wasn’t really a lot he could do with our first goal.

Somebody said to me that it was Saliba’s first goal of the season, and that shocked me. I was like “no way! He scored when we…oh…wait,” and I think my mind has just grouped our centre-halves together in terms of their goalscoring prowess, when in fact it is Big Gabi who is ‘the guy’ when it comes to the opposition penalty box. In fact, when you look at Saliba’s stats, it reads thusly:

• 25/26 = one goal, one assist
• 24/25 = two goals
• 23/24 = two goals, one assist
• 22/23 = three goals, one assist

So Big Bill is not the guy who regularly notches up the goals. When you compare that to Gabriel, it’s chalk and cheese, because this season alone, the Brazilian has four goals and five assists. The latest assist of which was, of course, his knock back into the box for Saliba’s goal, and having watched it back again, trying to find out where Chelsea went wrong, I think I’m just inclined to say it was a superbly worked Arsenal goal. We can go whipped to the near post, we can get it right under the ‘keeper, we can go to the back post; this Arsenal team has so many different clubs in its set-piece bag that it keeps opponents guessing and continues to be such a massive threat for us as a team. Long may it continue.

And overall, it was fair in the balance of play. Chelsea were content to have a bit more of the ball in that first half, but there wasn’t a ton of chances created for either side. So when they scored right on the brink of halftime, it felt slightly against the run of play to me. I know there are a few people who have said we were lucky to get away with not conceding a penalty on Rice for the ‘handball’ on the goal kick before the one we conceded, but I’m not having that. It was on his shirt sleeve that the ball hit him, and if you’re a City fan (or another fan, given that so many seem to want that financially doped football club to win the league), crying about that this morning, go have a look at the Leeds v City game and see that handball. Bet you weren’t crying over that yesterday, were you?

It left a bad taste in the mouth at halftime, but thankfully, that bad taste only lasted around 20 minutes in the second half. Step forward, Set-Piece FC again, and step forward Jurrien Timber, who not only scored the winner but also gave my fantasy team the kind of boost it needed this weekend. Double bubble delight for me. Again, as mentioned already, Chelsea players complained about a push, but that’s a stretch. In both boxes throughout the game, players were grappling with each other all game, so this one was never going to get ruled out. And nor should it. But you always have those few seconds after the goal where you’re wondering what VAR will try to see to knock off a goal. Not this time, though.

So with the lead regained, you’re looking at Arsenal consolidating for five minutes and not conceding a silly goal or doing anything stupid. Thankfully, the same needs to be said for Chelsea, who obliged us via Pedro Neto’s utterly mental lunge on the floor at Martinelli to get himself sent off with a second yellow. Honestly, how on earth can somebody be so stupid? You’re on a yellow mate, you can’t go to ground like that, but we’ll take it.

And at that point, I think most of us were pretty happy. We could control the ball, make use of the extra man, move Chelsea around, and maybe go and get one more. But not for the first time this calendar year, we seem to just retreat into our shells again. And whilst we ultimately hung on (and we really did hang on, with Chelsea having the ball in our net only to be ruled rightly offside, then that Garnacho cross saved by Raya at the death), I think we are right to be a little concerned about how we didn’t manage the game well after we went up with a man advantage. It didn’t feel to me as though we had that advantage. Chelsea held the ball; they were starting to get forward, and by the end of the game, if you look at the stats, it felt like a very even one. They had more possession than us, the xG was practically the same (1.09 to their 1.07), they created an extra big chance than us, with our goalkeeper making one more save than theirs.

At the end of the day, the points were all that mattered, and with nine more cup finals to go, we have knocked down one of the hardest. But we have to be better than what we showed in the second half after we scored. We have to manage those key moments better, and Arteta referenced that in his post-match too. This is becoming a bit of a pattern, and we need to nip it in the bud. We need to see more like the North London Derby style of game, where the end of the match is more of a slow march to the whistle, feeling comfortable.

We play Brighton on Wednesday, and it is a Brighton team who have just had back-to-back wins and will be feeling themselves on a ground in which we’ve struggled for a few years. We will have to be better than the performance showed yesterday. But above all, we have to pick up all three points.

Right, I’ll leave it there. Amanda and James did a duet on the Same Old Arsenal podcast yesterday, so if you fancy a bit more of a debrief from them, you can do so via YouTube here. Otherwise, I’ll be back here tomorrow as we prepare for the quick turnaround against Brighton. See you then.

But as the saying goes, “It’s always darkest before dawn,” and our dawning moment came yesterday at the Toilet Bowl Stadium.

I’ll get into the “whys” and “wherefores” of the game itself in a minute, but before that, I want to talk about what this means. Yes, Tottenham are terrible, yes they have a ton of injuries, and yes, they haven’t won a game in 2026. When you put it like that, a team at the top of the league should absolutely beat a side very much in the relegation mire. But this is a North London Derby. This is the most horrible fixture of the season. This is the one in which they get up for more than anything else. When you play The Scum at that Sh*thole, you’re not playing a team who are towards the bottom of the table, you are playing history, you are playing a cup final, you are playing a side who will perform much more than their league form suggests. So for Arsenal to go out and do what they did yesterday, in the way they did (and it wasn’t perfect, which I will come to), really speaks volumes for me on these players.

I hope that this is Arsenal’s “Anfield” moment, like City had a few weeks ago. I hope that the adrenaline and the stature of this big game, as well as the manner in which we dominated it, will have these players remembering what 2025 Arsenal looks like, not the one that has stuttered at the start of 2026. They will need to, because Chelsea at home next weekend is another massively tough game that they will have to overcome.

And so to the nuances of the game itself. And my-oh-my wasn’t it an interesting game to watch, eh? Arteta played it, I think, brilliantly with his team selection by bringing in Eze. One of the things we saw from him at Palace last season was how he a) is a big game player, and b) comes alive towards the latter part of the season. Well, here we are, and here he was, putting on what I think is arguably a man-of-the-match display, even though Viktor Gyokeres got it.

Eze was a key component of everything we did right yesterday. The time and space he found were devastating. Everyone rightly looks at the goals he scored at critical moments in the match, but it was other parts of his game that I loved. He was finding pockets of space in between lines and feeding the likes of Saka and Big Vik with ease. His heatmap looks like the archetypal ‘number 10’ in that his positions he took up were just outside of the D, but I also saw him on the left and the right linking with Trossard, Saka, Rice, as well as the aforementioned Gyokeres. He created one big chance, he had two key passes (a pass leading to a shot), and importantly, he felt a key part of the game with 41 touches in total. I really hope this is the point at which he really kicks on, and I think it must be giving Arteta food for thought for Chelsea next weekend.

But it was Big Vik who got the plaudits and the little yellow Premier League trophy at the end yesterday, and I guess with the two goals and all-around play he got, you could see why. That first one he bagged was the archetypal goal that we have seen on the highlight reels; he finds a bit of space, then absolutely leathers the ball into the net. It was a fine and clever pass from Timber to get it to him, but his first touch was good enough to set himself up, and then the finish was brilliant. We all know his flaws; he goes missing in lots of games, but this was a big game in which he stepped up, and I don’t think there will be many unhappy Arsenal fans with his performance yesterday. If you can just deliver that on a more regular basis, then we won’t care as much that you don’t seem too involved, your technique isn’t very aesthetic on the eye, and at times it feels like you are wading through treacle. Your job is goals, Viktor, and I’m pleased you did the business yesterday. What is also kind of weird is that whilst we have struggled in 2026, he seems to have found some form, with five goals in the last five Premier League games, eight in all competitions in 2026 so far, as well as getting himself up to 15 goals and two assists so far this season. I have said that what we need from him is at least 20 goals this season. He’s on course for that, but if he carries on with his 2026 form, he might end up with closer to 25 in all competitions. It seems weird to say this, given how, at times, we’ve wondered what we have actually brought, but if he ends up with 25 goals this season, you’d have to say that, despite all of our reservations, he’s absolutely done his job. There’s still a way to go, but this is a positive sign.

This wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. We should probably acknowledge that, even though we’re all feeling pretty happy this morning. For one example, we did shoot ourselves in the foot despite the total domination of the team in that first half. Tottenham offered nothing in the first 45, yet they still found themselves level after Rice’s uncharacteristic mistake. Quite what he was thinking dribbling the ball out from the back like he attempted is beyond me, but as Arteta pointed out afterwards, his character to step up and have another great game thereafter is a testament to his mentality. Trossard too was, I thought, rather poor overall and I was surprised he stayed on the pitch as long as he did. It just felt like he flitted in and out of the game, with some of his shot-selection efforts feeling rather poor, too.

I don’t really want to dwell on those moments, though, not on a day which has been ultimately very positive. Arsenal took the disappointment of not leading at halftime and doubled down on their total domination from almost the first minute of the second half. That has to be praised. And that’s where I think I want to leave it for today. It was a great win; the team now has a week off before Chelsea at home, which means they can rest up and prep themselves for what will be another really tough game. I wasn’t feeling great yesterday so I didn’t do the Same Old Arsenal pod, but you can check it out here if you want to get some more Arsenal content going. I know I will.

I am starting this blog the night of the game. I never do that.

This was an unprofessional Arsenal performance.

This was a disgraceful performance.

I am embarrassed.

This is falling apart.

Two wins in nine.

This is a football side who have spent two-thirds of the season being a dominant side, the best side in the league, the ‘Champions-Elect’.

Nope.

This team is crumbling and they are – collectively – falling apart.

That second half is one for the ages. In a bad way. Players lumping the ball. Players hiding in plain sight. A manager who – in his instence to keep Martinelli on the pitch – showed that maybe he is also feeling the pinch and not recognising when difficult decisions need to be made.

I don’t even want to go into details on this game. It was shit. Arsenal were shit. They played a Wolves side who spent most of the game passing the ball to us.

And yet they have found two goals to draw level with us.

Who cares about analysis at this stage? Arsenal just fell apart and our form is a real problem right now.

I don’t want to hear about the others. I don’t want to hear about the fact we are five points clear. City win their game in hand and beat us – which feels certainly feasible, nay – realistic given our record up there – and they are in the driving seat.

This Arsenal team could have turned this Premier League season into a procession. Instead they are delivering unto us torture.

Name me one player who has stepped up in that Wolves game. I can’t. I see scared little boys who played what might end up being the worst team in Premier League in history.

Shame on so many of you Arsenal players.

What’s the point in analysing it? Arsenal were awful. Wolves were awful. Two awful teams played out what felt like a relegation scrap.

Normally, I write 1,000 words for this blog. But what’s the point at this stage?

The North London Derby – against a terrible Tottenham team – could bring more misery. Because if Wolves can do that to us on their own patch, why can’t a Tottenham team with plenty of rest, as well as the incentive of seeing an Arsenal team falling apart.

It feels like a horror show waiting to happen. And right now – I feel like I don’t even want to watch it.

Sorry – you’ll get no positivity from me today.

I’m going to stop now. I’m going to save this as a draft. Then I’m going to wake up tomorrow and look at this again. I don’t think I’ll feel much different. But at least before I post I’ll have a night’s sleep. How much sleep I’ll get I don’t know.

Shambles.

************************************************

The dividing line is the difference a sleep makes. I didn’t get too much sleep. I am still utterly apoplectic with rage. I have re-read my semi-drunken ramblings from last night and I still feel the same. This Premier League season is imploding in front of our very eyes. It is pathetic.

It’s a football media and social media lock down for me now for at least 24 hours I think. SO it’s also debatable whether I’ll blog tomorrow morning too. I probably will, but right now, I just don’t feel like it. And the North London Derby on Sunday is the absolute WORST game to be playing right now.

Laters people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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