It has been a really tough time for him over the last two seasons, and when you look at his injury record for 2024/25 and 2025/26, you can sort of understand why we’re being linked with somebody like Ezri Konsa. The Villa man is the same age as White, yet look at his record compared to Benny Blanco’s. It’s night and day. I am still not a fan of the move, if I’m honest, but that’s mainly because of his age and the cost it would take to prize him out of Villa. Given what they’ve just got for Rogers, they’ll probably want north of £ 40- £ 50 million, and you just can’t pay that for a player who looked a little shaky at times during the World Cup, plus who probably only has about four years of top-flight football left in him.

But the challenge Arsenal have, is putting all the eggs in the ‘Ben White fitness‘ basket. Four injuries in 2025/26 amounting to 13 games missed, and they’re all the types of injuries that have you worried – a couple of knocks, a knee injury and a hamstring injury. In 2024/25 it was three knee injuries (including one surgery) and one ‘unknown injury’ that kept him out for a game. But all that said, he’s a fantastic footballer; he offers so much to us in terms of the way he plays that right back slot differently to Timber, and personally, even with all of those injury problems, I’d still think we should be rolling the dice and having him for another season.

The big question will be over Timber. And those questions exist purely because I personally got Tomas Rosicky/Thomas Vermaelen vibes from the noises that came out at the end of last season. You remember, right? When they just couldn’t work out fully what was wrong with Rosicky, so he was meant to be out for a few weeks, then it was months, then it was like a whole season. That’s the worry with Timber, but I guess the good news is that what we saw yesterday is him in training with the team. We have to hope that basically the decision for him not to go to the World Cup was about sensible management and telling him, “you could risk it, but without rest, you might not play much next season”. The World Cup is the dream for any professional footballer, but if you are telling him he could miss another whole season, he’s clearly got to take the sensible option for the long-term health of his body. He’s already lost a season with an ACL when he first signed for us; he missed 11 games last season, plus 10 games in 2024/25 for both Arsenal and the Netherlands, and at 25 he still has a few more Euros and World Cups he could go to, so I’m hoping that he’s good to go come the start of the season. What we need to see, however, is a good pre-season from both him and White, because we need to know that they are ok to kick us off. Then, we need Arteta to rotate the two as well, because if Saliba is out for three to four months (although apparently not as bad as first feared, which is good), then it’s more than likely to be Mosquera in that right centre-half role.

Here’s the thing though, when you look at it, we kind of ‘do’ have cover. I get the John Stones links, I really do, but we could have, come the start of the season, the following players who could play the following positions:

• Right back: Timber, White, Mosquera
• Right centre-half: Mosquera, White, (Maybe Big Gabi or Calafiori at a push – Norgaard too if he stays)
• Left centre-half: Gabriel, Calafiori, Hincapie
• Left back: Hincapie, Calafiori, MLS

So we have seven players for four positions. That’s not too bad, right? So if we’re keeping Norgaard, for example, then it also gives us eight players. So I’m less stressed about our situation. I get it, none of those right centre-back positions are coming close to Saliba, but you aren’t dropping £ 75 million on an alternative, so until Big Bill is back, we have to make-do-and-mend. Mosquera is a guy who probably deserves a run of matches to see just how well he can do, so I’d be keen to give him a shot in that position, for sure. He may have wobbled a little at the end of last season, and he’ll not want to re-watch that Champions League final, I’d suspect, but that was him in at right back. My memories of him at centre half are impressing against Liverpool at Anfield, for example.

So I put us in a pretty decent spot in defence, all things considered, and so for me it is more about working out how to improve our attack that we need to focus on more. The good news is that Kai’s Germany were knocked out early against Paraguay, so hopefully he’ll be back within the next week or so. If we can get a fully fit season out of him, that would be massive too. And we shouldn’t forget the impact he has on the way we play and our style. Might do a little more on that tomorrow. For now though, I’ll leave it there, and catch you all tomorrow. Be good, be safe, enjoy your Tuesday.

For starters, most of the Arsenal boys got on to the pitch, with Rice, Saka, and Eze all starting. And lo and behold, each of them had an impact on the match; Rice bagging a good goal for the first, Eze providing an assist to Saka, who also netted a hat-trick and promptly declared afterwards that he was fit and wish he’d have played more.

Great stuff. Now go spend two weeks on a beach somewhere, mate. Get those Achilles rested and ease yourself back into pre-season with The Arsenal. Same goes with Rice, Eze and Madueke. You’re all going to be needed.

Saka’s performance won’t help Tuchel’s cause, though, I don’t expect. He decided to drop Saka for Rogers, and let’s be honest, aside from a good ball in for the Gordon goal, he was hardly sparkling against Argentina. I guess the counterpoint to that was that nobody was, but this was still a good example of showing why you put Saka in your team. He is a game changer. Hopefully, he can continue to be for us next season, too. He even said that Arsenal fans have nothing to worry about. Super duper stuff.

What’s not super duper, however, was the Ornbomb we got, in which David declared that once again, Chelsea have gazumped Arsenal for a player, and Morgan Rogers would be a Chelsea man next week. Chelsea fans will be delighted. Villa will be delighted. There are some Arsenal fans on social media who are a bit miffed at this.

I am not one of them.

I have said it a couple of times over the last week, but the price matters, especially when you are operating in these PSR times. Chelsea are gamers of the system. They will pay £117million – probably about £30million more than what he’s worth – just to get this guy in. Their fans will laugh at how they’ve poached him from us, but the reality is, they have to make some kind of statement after a season in which they finished 10th, have no European football, and still have a squad that is so packed to the rafters with other players they over-paid for, that they’ll have to offload this summer, I’d expect. I call them gamers to the system, because I have no doubt that they’ll have paid Villa this fee because Villa need it for PSR and accounting ‘creativity’, whilst Chelsea will probably need the same in reverse, so Villa will probably ‘pay’ them £50million for Nicholas Jackson. We’ve seen Newcastle and Villa do things like that, and Chelsea and Villa are also in the same boat.

For Arsenal, I’m pleased they stood firm, because frankly I was a little confused as to where he was going to play. If it was as a wide-forward, then I’m looking at this and saying that perhaps this will allow Arsenal to focus on somebody like a Barcola? He’s spent more time playing wide-left, so why not have a proper go for him now?

I do think that Berta might be under a bit of pressure now, because whilst the fans are a bit restless, I suspect the manager will be too. Arteta said after the Champions League final that we have to be ambitious and we have to be fast, and here we are on 19th July and our main target (or so it seemed) is heading elsewhere. That won’t be a good look for Andrea, so I suspect he and Arteta will be having some choice words about what happens next.

Chelsea did this to us before with Mudryk, so we pivoted for Trossard and that worked out very well indeed. We have to hope at this stage, that the club have an alternative target in mind and are going to pull the trigger sooner rather than later. Could that be a Barcola? Maybe. Could that be a left-of-field option like a Nusa, Lookman, or Nico Williams? We know Arteta loves the latter, so I don’t see why we couldn’t have a punt at one of these names.

I do wonder if Arsenal will want to make a ‘statement’ this summer, but the challenge they have, a bit like the striker market last summer, is that there just doesn’t seem to be the profile of elite wingers who have been burning it up in mainland Europe this summer. And what of the Premier League? I’d certainly be having a look at Kroupi, and if Mitoma was a bit younger, I’d have a go for him, but his age and some injury problems in the last couple of seasons preclude us from going for him, surely.

The challenge Arsenal are going to have, if they don’t strike soon, however, is that targets are going to start moving elsewhere. There was talk about the Scum making moves for Kroupi, Liverpool are also interested in Barcola, whilst Barca have already moved for Arteta’s other favoured player Anthony Gordon. If we hold on to our playing cards too long, there might not be too many great options left.

This is where Berta earns his coing now – and we need to see Arsenal starting to flash theirs at clubs with players we want.

Back tomorrow with more news, as we contemplate where to go next with all of the players having done the World Cup and the transfer merry-go-round gets into full force. See you then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a good one.

Or maybe, they were talking about where they’re going on their holidays. For Martin, that is obviously a priority closer to now than Declan, as the Norwegian team will probably be on their way home today I’d imagine. For Declan, that won’t happen until at least coming up to the weekend, which also made me wonder about the Community Shield and the first Premier League game of the season at home to Coventry.

Who could we realistically see, based on their participation at the World Cup?

In my mind, depending on the player, you have to give them at least two weeks’ holiday. Then, they’ll need at least two weeks of pre-season training. For some players, I suspect an extended holiday is needed, then perhaps an easing back into action. Somebody like Declan Rice, for example, needs to be getting a minimum of three weeks on a beach. With that in mind, I thought I’d spend today mapping out a team for the first Premier League game. I could do the Community Shield, but let’s be honest, it’s just a glorified friendly, so I thought I’d focus on the more important stuff.

So, who could realistically start for us on that first game on 21st August? Here’s me doing what me mammy always said re: showing my workings (A-Level maths teacher). And, because I’m a traditionalist, I’ve gone one to 11, thinking of traditional numbers for each player. For example, the full backs are 2 and 3, the wingers are seven and 11, we have a four and five at centre-back, a six at the base, an eight and 10 in the middle and a nine up front.

1. David Raya – Fairly easy one to kick us off. He’s basically been given a first-class seat for Spain’s games on the bench in this World Cup. Quite how he isn’t the number one is bizarre, because he’s clearly lightyears ahead of Unai Simon, but hey, he’s got less chance of being injured and that’s an easy one to start me off today.
2. Ben White – Ben is training already, he’s looking ripped, he’ll have had a full pre-season in him, plus he has a new friend to make him extra happy in Illan Meslier. We thought we’d lost him at the end of last season, but I can see him having a very important early impact for you. And that couldn’t make me happier.
3. Riccardo Calafiori – I had to have a think about this one, because originally I thought that he might play as the left-centre back, with Hincapie at full back. But I saw Hincapie limping once or twice during the World Cup, so I’m going to play it safe by having Ricy in there, having had the summer off to party and hopefully a pre season which see’s him take out his non-World Cup summer on Coventry City when he crops up in between the left winger and centre forward to smash the ball home for the opener and our first goal of the season – just like he did last season.
4. Gabriel – yes, he’s been at the World Cup, yes, he’s played a load of games, but my thinking here is that continuity at the back is key. With the suspicions about Big Bill Saliba remaining (which is a hint as to my next pick), I think you have to tell big Gabi to get himself out there for the season opener. Brazil were knocked out to Norway on Sunday, 5th July. Big Gabi was probably back in England by 8th July, then off on holiday this past weekend. Give him two weeks from then, you’re talking about getting him back on 25th July. That gives him a solid month to get his head back into the Arsenal game, which feels like ample time to me.
5. Christian Mosquera – He’s not gone to the World Cup, he’s Big Bill’s understudy, he had a great breakthrough first season, this feels like a bit of a no-brainer to me.
6. Martin Zubimendi – a little like Raya, he’s been a virtual spectator this World Cup. Yes, he’ll have had to train, so he’ll need to be given a bit of a holiday, but given he lost his place towards the end of last season, I think he’ll be chomping at the bit. I think we also need to all remember what a revelation he was for us in the first half of the season. Why couldn’t he be that again?
7. Noni Madueke – he’s actually played more football than I thought he would this World Cup, but his injury problems aren’t the same and, regardless, I think he’ll now find himself as a cameo appearance guy for the semi final and final if England get there.
8. Martin Odegaard – was getting back to his old self for Norway, is the reason I’ve written this piece today, because I think he’ll get enough time off and will be ready for the big kick off. Get the skipper back in the side and let’s see if he can continue the form from the World Cup, but in Arsenal colours instead.
9. Kai Havertz – Went home even earlier than the Brazilians. Even if he was given a month off, he’d still be back by the beginning of August, which gives him three week’s to get ready for the new season. Came back towards the end of last season haing had an injury-hit one, so I think he’ll be absolutely desperate to get back on the pitch for The Arsenal. Plus, he’s our best centre forward.
10. Eberechi Eze – come on, let’s see the Odegaard and Eze combination for the Coventry game, can we? Ebs is another one that hasn’t racked up a ton of game time for England, so he’ll be ready and raring to go, plus I think against a newly promoted side that might employ a low block, this is the kind of player you want in your side.
11. Gabriel Martinelli – Trossard’s impending exit kind of makes this a default position, and given Gabby Martinelli didn’t start every minute, didn’t play a ton of minutes for Brazil, plus has the same situation as Big Gabi, it feels natural that he’ll be the one to be given the nod. Of course, depending on when they get the Tzolis deal done, Arteta could go for the new guy, but as of right now, it feels a little silly to put in a player who hasn’t actually signed. Even if we do have him, however, I’m guessing Arteta eases him in, rather than chucks him in.

So that’s my starting XI, as well as justification on why they start. But here’s the good thing; that’s a good side. It’s a side which I’d be excited about. And barring no injuries to any of those players, it’s a side that I think can see us through the first few games. I didn’t even put MLS in there. For sure, he could be given the nod over Zubi, but just for now, I’m trying to remove recency bias and remember what a difference the Spaniard made for us when he first joined. But regardless, I haven’t talked about Gyokeres, we still don’t know about Timber, we have Max Dowman who is a year older, plus there’s even Gabby Jesus who hasn’t left the club yet. For a team with which we’re all worried about the players not being in the right shape to return, I’m pretty happy with that squad kicking us off the new season – even before we’ve signed anyone.

But what do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Plenty of discussion on this one inline, on socials and in the GCs on WhatsApp. I think the discourse on this is predicated on his role. I still maintain I suspect he’ll be number three, and if that bears out, then I’m quite ‘meh’ on this one. I’m not angry, I’m not excited, it’s a body coming in and I’m sure he’ll be a good cheerleader for the team. He’s played 107 times in the Premier League, 265 career appearances, he has experience and he won’t be on mega money at Leeds United. I heard somebody say that it was a two-year deal, which very much therefore feels like a “come be with us for a couple of years, train with the team, pick up a wage, get Arsenal on your CV and you can move on after that”. I don’t think anybody should read anything else into it. We move on.

Who to, next, then?

Seems like this Greek lad Christos Tzolis is the one most likely to go through, with a £35million move being mooted across a few channels yesterday, and I have to say I don’t mind this deal. In a summer where Premier League clubs are looking to charge farcial amounts for their tlent, perhaps looking to mainland Europe to unearth the next gem isn’t a bad idea. I listened to the Arsenal opinion pod earlier this morning on my run and the lads were talking about how City picked up Doku from Rennes, he had a ‘bedding in’ season, then this season and last season he was making a real impact. They picked Doku up at 21-years-old from Rennes for £55million in 2023. This guy is a little older at 24, plays in obviously a weaker league in Belgium, but his numbers are pretty good. If you take the idea that Gyokeres’ target that I set was basically to just be half of the output machine that he was in Lisbon, and he achieved that, if Tzolis is the one replacing Trossard for £35million, having scored 22 goals and got 29 assists in 52 games. If he can translate that into even 10 goals and 10 assists for the first team at Arsenal next season, then that’s absolutely fine.

He’s apparently rapid, he’s got Champions League experience and two goals and an assist, so he’s been playing in the elite competition. He actually played against us in our 3-0 win in December. WhoScored put him down as a 6.5 out of 10 score on the day, which was second best in the team, on a day in which they really were second best, as Noni had arguably his best game for Arsenal that day, bagged two goals, and I wonder if this potential arrival really does signal the end of any chance that we see Noni on that left hand side.

Mind you, given Saka can’t seem to do 90-minutes for England at the moment, Noni is probably looking likely to be starting the season off on that right-hand side anyway, at this rate. That goes the same for a few Arsenal players for the start of this season, methinks. Saliba’s rumoured back problems won’t go away, so if you’re Christian Mosquera you’re looking at the start of the season as an opportunity to rack up some minutes. And whilst a doubt remains over Timber, and Ben White back in training (and having a lovely ol’ catch up with Meslier as the club showed on a video yesterday), he’s probably looking at the start of the season as an opportunity to get himself minutes too. I think a few of us thought that his Arsenal race was run, but I don’t see how Arsenal sanction any move for White whilst we still don’t have full knowledge on the Timber situation. It’s a bit of a worry, I have to say, because what was thought to be only a few weeks, has turned into him missing a World Cup. And even if he is fit for the start of pre-season training, if I was Arteta, there’s no way I’d sanction a White exit right now. He’s experienced, he knows the first team, the Premier League, he is looking fit and he can slot right back into that role and know exactly what Arteta wants. Keeping Ben White, whilst there are so many other questions around fitness of players for the start of the season, is feeling kind of important now.

It’s why the Bruno Guimaraes move now – if it happens (and I still remain sceptical, as I wonder whether it’s an agent play for a mega-deal from Newcastle) – makes sense. Rice is playing with pain and spends half the time with an ice pack strapped to his leg. If Bruno comes in, Rice can be eased in for the new season. Zubi has hardly played this World Cup, so you’d hope he’d be ready and raring to go, whilst Myles will also be in contention. So there are options there for Arteta for the start of the season, even if he decides to give the World Cup lads extra time off to recover. I saw talk that Rice, Saka and Saliba will basically not be seen until October. I suspect that’s a little hyperbolic, but if you give them three weeks off after the World Cup, that takes you to the second week of August. Then they have to pick up as pre-season training again, so they’ll be a month behind the other lads – that takes you to the middle of September, so that October timeline suddenly doesn’t look as unrealistic, right?

If we get the right cover and quality in, then I’m all up for it. We don’t want to see Rice and Saka in particular breaking down and then not being seen until 2027. The club will have all the data and medical records they need, however, so I personally am feeling quite relaxed. Again, as I’ve said once or twice already this summer, that’s the benefit you get when you are champions.

Right – catch you all tomorrow. Hey! I even managed to get through 1000 words without talking the World Cup – great stuff!

Tuchel said that as the opponents get better,  so will England, which I suspect will happen. But I still doubt they’ll be better than a Spain, Argentine, Brazil or France.

The next game they’ll have will be the Democratic Republic of Congo, for which England will of course be favourites, but I suspect what we’re also going to see is a game akin to the Ghana and Panama matches; England will dominate territory, possession, attempts and field tilt, but Congo will get one or two chances and if they take those it could be an uncomfortable evening for the Three Lions.

My family background also enables me to claim a stake in Germany and, loosely, the Netherlands. For the Germans it’s Paraguay in the next round, which I suspect they’ll overcome quite quickly, before probably playing France in the Round of 16. The Netherlands have a tricky time of it next, with a game against Morocco, but if they overcome them, I think they’ll get through one of Canada or South Africa quite easily.

As for the Arsenal news, I didn’t get the chance to pen any thoughts yesterday as we were busy for most of the day, but the big talking point is Bruno Guimaraes, as I’m sure you already know and have been thinking about like I have. At 28, going on 29, he’s at the upper end fo the age bracket, and I keep flip-flopping on how I feel about this. I think ultimately I’ve landed on this being a good deal, but probably based on the fee. You can’t be paying north of £80 million for a guy of his age. He’s a very good footballer, very talented, but that represents a hefty ol’ outlay for a player who will soon be knocking on the door of 30.

There is another way of looking at it though, and that’s when you think about the lifespan of this current ‘Project’. Arteta has been manager for six-and-a-half years now. He’s done a great stint, I hope we get a few more years and a few more trophies, but if he has the longevity of Pep at City, that’s ten hyears, which means he only has another three or four seasons before he probably starts to think about doing something else. If we have one more trophies in three years time with Arteta at the helm, I think it is almost inevitable. But he’ll have a bunch of his players who have grown up with him, all getting to the age in which renewal will be needed. Rice will be 30 in three years, Odegaard too. Saka will be 27, if we kept Martinelli he’d be 28, Big Gabi will be 31 and Saliba will be 28 as well. So for me that ‘feels’ like the duration of ‘The Process’ will reach it’s natural conclusion.

So, that being the case, Arteta and Berta might be thinking “do you know what? This guy is good for three seasons, so let’s have him”. It feels like it would very much be a signing to ‘top off’ this current project, rather than build for the next five to ten years. It would certainly make our midfield more imperious, and if you think that Rice has just spent some time for England with a big strapping on his calf, this Bruno potential signing is perhaps an acknowledgement from the manager and the club that we can’t keep flogging Dec with 4,000+ minutes each season. Sooner or later, he’s gonna break.

Do I think if you’re looking at this potential deal through the lens of ‘great player who adds to the ‘win now’ attempt at getting another Premier League or two, in addition to perhaps getting us over the line in the Champions League, you’re probably taking that.

A lot of this is conjecture though, because it is Newcastle we’re dealing with here, who will want to play hard ball despite note being able to offer Champions League – or any kind of European football, actually – to their players. But I doubt they’ll allow their team to be purged, and with Tonali probably off to The Scum, I don’t see the Mags letting us have their captain as well. They’ve lost Gordon too, so there’s no way they offload both of those midfielders.

But it’s a good start in terms of the vibes of the players we are after. Of course, we need to start seeing things go a little more concrete, but we can’t complain too much with the calibre of player we are after.

Right, that’ll do for today I think, as I’ve got a fair bit of gardening to be getting on with. have yourself a lovely Sunday, and I’ll catch you tomorrow – might be later in the day as I have a few more bits and bobs to be getting on with.

Ciao folks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laters.

Perhaps this feeling was triggered by the Jurrien Timber news, which I spoke about yesterday, or maybe it was the news from Tommy Tuchel that Bukayo Saka is still suffering from the Achilles problem that plagued him last season. Those two bits of news within two days of each other have me spooked. I’m not going to lie to you, and given our boys played more than any other team last season in Europe, I have genuine fears that we’re going to get some breakdowns.

I certainly think we’re not going to see a load of them for the start of the Premier League season, which means the fixture lists, which come out on 19th June, will have an impact and a bearing on our overall season. For sure. Think about it – if Arsenal, Man City, and Liverpool all have players who are still recovering having gone deep into World Cup competition, then they are not going to be ready for mid-August. So the clubs will have to bed their star players in later, probably for some only really getting them up to fitness for September. Now think about who we played at the start of this season – United away, Leeds at home, Liverpool away. Man City kicked off with Wolves, Spurs, and Brighton. Imagine the same happens again this season, in which we get three really tough opening games, whilst still bringing players back, whilst Liverpool and City play two teams expected to be down there towards the end of the season.

It has an impact.

So don’t let anyone tell you things like “everyone has to play everyone twice” as if that makes it some kind of level playing field. It isn’t. Arsenal playing Brighton away on a Saturday, having half the squad injured, following an away Champions League game in Azerbaijan, for example, would be very different from City playing Brighton away in April if the Seagulls have nothing to play for. It’s the same principle for games at the start of the season if you have players missing.

That’s why I’m praying for a relatively easy start. Doesn’t tend to happen for us, though. Didn’t happen last season, the season before, in our first four games, we had to play Aston Villa away, Brighton at home (that joke of a draw in which Rice was sent off) followed by the Scum away. In 2023/24 we had the sort of kick-off I would take in a heartbeat: Forest at home, Palace away, Fulham at home. That’s the sort of thing you need for your early games in the season, especially if half your players are crocked coming back from a World Cup, with the other half shattered.

Back to Saka, though, and I don’t know about you, but it does make me wonder about how his Achilles problem gets solved. Is it simply a case that he needs rest that he just hasn’t had? What you don’t want is for this to become a regular ‘thing’, i.e., he plays three or four games, then is out for three or four games. And how long has the club known about this? Has this been going on for over a year? Have they been managing it for longer than we all know? If it’s an Achilles tendonitis that he’s suffering from, then in reality, he probably shouldn’t be at the World Cup at all, but there’s no way that you’re going to stop Saka from being there. If he needs three months of rest, then that should have started after the Champions League Final and finished in August, with him ready for September.

One thing I will say about Tuchel, that I certainly didn’t feel the same with Southgate and that twat Holland, his assistant, was that I trust him to manage Saka’s fitness and be sensible with it more than Southgate, who would happily be flogging him in whatever friendly England have next before they kick off their World Cup campaign.

I do wonder what the news about Arsenal sacking the club doctor abruptly, and then bringing in this guy from Villa, has to do with some of the injury problems and challenges we’ve faced over the last two seasons, will do for us. I seem to recall a Palace fan or two saying “good luck with the muscular injuries” when the previous doctor came to us from Palace. So perhaps there’s been a bit of a review internally and they decided that his methods weren’t quite on the nose. There’s a lot of talk about how Arteta beasts the players in training. We’ve heard that Eze had a word and that made Arteta reign in some of his training sessions towards the end of the season, but if that’s the case, then there needs to be a strong voice that tells Arteta where we’re at when players get to that fabled ‘red zone’. Arteta may be a man of his own mind, but he’s proven he’s willing to listen to people if they are good enough in communicating their message.

Ultimately, we won’t really know how this appointment impacts the team until we get into the thick of next season. We countered it this season by stockpiling in all positions – is that just what Arsenal need to do from now on because of the volume of games? Maybe.

Right, i’ll call it a day, although not before I point you in the direction of James’ lovely video documentary he released yesterday. It’s a great 12-minute watch here.

Well, it looks like it’s underway now, because this morning I’ve had a little flick through my social feeds and a few websites, and there are about half a dozen names that have popped up. Morgan Rogers from Villa is the loudest one, but there was also Gabriel Jesus to Everton, Calafiori to Real Madrid, Frankfurt’s Nathaniel Brown from Leverkusen, Declan Rice to Real Madrid, Rafael Leao from AC to Arsenal, Julian Alvarez to Arsenal from Atleti, Enzo Fernandez from Arsenal to Chelsea and hilariously, Igor Thiago from Brentford to Arsenal – For £99.5million!

We all know the drill by now. Transfer rumours make clicks. Spurious links to players towards Arsenal will ‘do numbers’ and websites will try to make hay whilst we have this void between the end of the domestic season in Europe and the start of the World Cup next week. They’ll still make hay during the World Cup, but the distraction of football will mean that some people are less interested than others.

I always feel like I’m in some kind of No Man’s Land with this sort of stuff. I just can’t be arsed to entertain certain transfer rumours until certain sources start saying it. I’m not trusting MSN News for a second, for example, so I try to filter out the transfer stuff. But equally, I’m less fussed about international football and the World Cup. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll watch it when it’s on and convenient, I’ll follow, and as a person who was born and lives in England, I want to see England do well (especially given we have a few more Arsenal players in the squad these days). But I’m only partially invested. The Management won’t see my heart rate hit 130 beats per minute when watching, as I do with The Arsenal.

I probably will talk about matches I watch on here, mainly because what the World Cup does do is slow a lot of the transfer rumour stuff down. Lots of players put blockers on talking about their future, and the media obviously know this, so the value of clubs making enquiries just isn’t there until early/mid-July. I guess if you’re a player too, you’re probably getting a bit cheesed off if you’re getting phone calls from your agent whilst preparing for what is a big game for yourself, representing your international team. As buying clubs, you really don’t want to cheese off any potential new signing by disrupting them when they are focused on the World Cup, which is something you’re also going to feed back to your agent. So I think up until next Friday, we probably WILL see this flurry of news and transfer gossip, before it starts to go quiet, albeit not completely silent, from next Friday.

The funny thing is, the transfer window doesn’t open up until 15th June, which is four days after the World Cup has started. So it’ll be weird because there will probably be announcement videos, etc, for players who have done deals a week earlier, but who are now in the World Cup. Will be slightly odd for some of them I suspect, because I’m sure there are some deals that are already ‘being done’ so to speak.

Personally, I think it is good that Arsenal are in a position of strength. I think it was Mark Goldbridge who said yesterday that Arsenal could probably not sign anyone and still be in the strongest position to win the Premier League next season, and personally, I would think that’s a pretty decent shout. If you think about our situation right now, we have a stable and settled team, we have a deep squad that has been able to deal with the second-most injuries of any team last season, I believe behind Spurs (168 absences – 1 x player missing 1 x game – across the whole squad this season – which I believe was worse than last season), plus we have players who will only get better – Big Vik’s improvement in the second half of the season as he adjusted, Kai missing most of the season, MLS in midfield, Max Dowman’s emergence, etc. Even the more established players are merely just reaching their prime.

Of course, I don’t think Arsenal will, in fact, just stick with the existing squad. I think renewal is healthy, and so there will be some players who will inevitably depart whom we love. But given our position of strength as Premier League winners, this will be the first summer transfer window I personally will go into feeling super chilled, knowing that the basis of this team is there. As I said in the piece the BBC asked me to write this week, we don’t need a revolution, we just need cherries on top of cakes.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today. There’s not a lot else going on, but if you do fancy listening in later, we’ve got a crew of people together to chat to us about the season in a bit of an end-of-season-review style get-together on the Same Old Arsenal podcast. Come join us tonight if you fancy it.

Otherwise, I’ll catch you all tomorrow for some more Arsenal musings.

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

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

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

Man City

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

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

I haven’t even mentioned the 115…

Man United

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

Aston Villa

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

Liverpool

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

Raya

Timber – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Up The Arsenal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a great day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow for some more thoughts.

Today, those Arsenal players will take to the pitch for the last time this season in the Premier League; by the time the final whistle goes, they will be lifting the Premier League title. The name has already been engraved on the trophy base, and now it is time for the ceremony to make it official.

Last week we had the unbridled joy. We had the delight of knowing that, because of City’s draw away at Bournemouth, we would be able to enjoy the rest of the week as Premier League Champions. The consumption of #ALLTHECONTENT has been happening since then. I’ve listened to as many podcasts as possible, I’ve watched countless videos and comps, I’ve seen the different Arsenal players all being interviewed, as well as read Mikel Arteta’s press conference transcript. All that is left to do now is to sit back and watch the final game unfold.

And the fact that it doesn’t matter is amazing. I’m going to level with you – I was praying we could get it done early, because this weekend I have my German aunt staying with us, and later we have a family BBQ. As the game is going on, I will be firing up the coals. I prayed that I wasn’t going to make this an uncomfortable afternoon for my family, as they all sat outside, me inside in the lounge, making the air tense with nerves, the only interaction being the occasional check-in by The Management to see the score. But now, today becomes a party. The stress isn’t there. I can be jolly. Jovial. happy. I can welcome them all into the garden, I can fire up the laptop, I can interact with them whilst the game is going on, and I can be a better host.

I could not be more grateful.

I guess we should touch on the game, even if it is meaningless for both sides, given that both teams have bigger fish to fry next week. On Wednesday, Palace have a Europa Conference League Final, and I would love it if they won it. So, with that in mind, I really hope that Oliver Glasner just rotates his whole team. Play the kids, mate. You don’t need to rest anyone. The midweek action of last week means that nobody is going to question you now; get a rotated team in there, then let’s just get through this game as the most testimonial-looking, pre-season-feeling, knockabout that we possibly can.

And Mikel, do the same. I don’t care about the guard of honour stuff at the start, just get some rotated players in there, and have the key players rested for next weekend. So let’s see the following today:

Kepa

Mosquera   –   Norgaard   –   Calafiori   –   Hincapie

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Dowman

Madueke   –   Havertz   –   Martinelli

Not exactly ‘play all the kids’ from my suggested selection choice here, is it? But he’s my thinking:

1. Calafiori in – so we rest big Gabi, plus I don’t think he’ll be stretching himself too much
2. Hincapie in – because I think Calafiori starts next weekend
3. Zubimendi in – hasn’t played a lot lately, and I suspect we might go with the MLS approach for the final
4. Eze – let him get a nice cheer and a fun farewell for those Palace fans
5. Dowman – obviously
6. Madueke and Martinelli – haven’t played a lot, and we want to rest Saka and Trossard
7. Havertz – I think we should be giving Big Vik 20 at the end to run at a perhaps tired Palace defence to grab another goal before the season finishes.

That team can go out there, maybe even get the win, whilst getting minutes in their legs, and Arteta can tell them that they can all play for the opportunity to get minutes or a start in the Champions League final.

I would also think that all five subs can be used today, too:

1. Odegaard – get him on for the final 10 to be the one to lift the trophy
2. Timber – hoping to see him in the match day squad and get 20 minutes, to give him a chance for the Champions League final
3. Merino – back in training, and so surely 10 minutes for him would be useful
4. Gyokeres – as mentioned for 30 minutes
5. Saka – same reasons as Odegaard. He is the centrepiece of this Arsenal triumph. Let’s not risk him, but let’s give him some minutes on the turf.

There you go, Mikel, I’ve done the hard work for you! Just send them out there now

And go collect your prize at the end – you have all earned it, you all deserve it, enjoy the day. I know we all will.

Happy Coronation Day, one and all.

Catch you all tomorrow.

<<< Oh, wait, no, I was wrong. He did both yesterday. I can’t be arsed to delete all of the above text, so I’ll just leave it in there. >>>

And here we go. I am still on Cloud Nine, but today I’m thinking about Super Mik Arteta. He knew exactly what we needed. And he delivered it to us. He has overseen something special, and he and his players have been able to deliver happiness to millions of fans around the world. I watched a video of him talking about his wife with a Sky Sports reporter in one of their video rooms, and it was genuinely lovely to see him give her praise, to talk about how much she means. You could see he was welling up when he was speaking about the emotions of the moment.

There are idiot rival fans and pundits that say idiotic things about Arteta like “I hate him. he’s so annoying, waving his arms up and down and running around on the touchline like a maniac”, which is exactly what Klopp used to do – with an added feature of snarling at third officials with those massive chompers of his. They completely ignore how he talks about his players, they don’t watch the interviews like that, they ignore his innovative ideas and how he’s constantly having to evolve and change Arsenal’s game to keep us a neck ahead. They focus on one attribute, and they ignore everything else.

But if they actually took the time to see what this man has achieved, how he has turned us from a divided fanbase into one that mobilised outside the armoury in an estimated 100,000 army in a matter of a couple of hours – unprompted – then, even deep down, I guarantee they would appreciate and give respect for what he has achieved. The “He ain’t won nuffing tho” crowd are finished. Rising from their ashes should be a begrudging collective of people who frustratingly acknowledge his status as an elite manager.

Arteta recalling the moment he found out was lovely. With his family, in the garden, the kids are crying, all hugging. Beautiful stuff. And then when he said he got a video from Martin Odegaard saying “Boss – come out” – that was lovely too. There’s plenty of talk about Arteta and his ‘antics’, but he is a man who recognised that in that moment it was better for the players to have the unbridled joy of being champions themselves, without their manager. He is ‘the boss’ after all.

He did deliver some team news and the best of all was that Mikel Merino is back in full training. That’s great. I suspect he might get a token 10 or 15 minutes at the weekend, then it means he has a chance to be available for the matchday squad in the Champions League in a week. Timber, too is getting there, but he wasn’t pictured in training yesterday, with Mikel admitting it would be a ‘few days’ before he is ready. I wonder if they will try to get him in there for Sunday? There is another training session today, which won’t be filmed, but if he can be with the group then that would be great. It does feel like he’s close. He was out on the pre-match walkabout pre-Burnley, so I just wonder if they’ll think about getting him in on the bench for Sunday, to give him hopes of making the squad for the final.

The rest of the stuff he said was about the journey, which he admitted was a tough start for us, and it’s funny because you don’t realise all of those highs and lows whilst you’re still basking. But there have been so many. I remember after we got over that initial tough period of games intact and still up there, thinking “that’s a great foundation to build on”, and, ultimately, it was. We have pretty much been top of the league for the whole season. We took it off Liverpool in match week seven and never looked back. We had wobbles, particularly in 2026, but the team course-corrected on several occasions and were able to hold off City’s title charge attempt. It takes some mental toll to be leading the whole time, especially after what happened in 2022/23, as well as us being chased down in 2023/24 like we were. But this time, this group of players and the manager held their nerve, and we are all in ecstasy because of it.

He also talked about a story in which, at the start of the season, they gathered around a tree he asked to be planted when he arrived, to symbolise the growth journey they had to go on. I love things like this. The little innovations that Arteta tries. I’ve seen people suggest it is a little David Brenty, but I think that belies the reality of what Arteta needs to do to motivate a team of professional athletes. These are young men in their 20s/30s. If you deliver the same message in the same way every week, they will become blinded to it. Mikel Arteta is a tactical innovator, but he’s also a ‘details’ guy. Yes, that includes things like set-pieces, throw-ins, stuff that happens on the pitch, etc. But he also understands the psychology of the modern-day footballers. These guys have to be motivated and stimulated mentally, as well as on the training ground, so he is constantly finding new approaches, new ways to challenge their minds, and it has manifested itself with the Premier League title this week – a reward for statistically being the best team in the Premier League on points for the last three seasons anyway.

I salute you Mikel. Thank you for everything.

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.

Just two wins.

Sounds simple, right?

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

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

And yet…

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

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

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

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

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

Rice

Odegaard – Eze

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow.

That is such a shame, and you have to feel for him. And on so many levels, too. Firstly, he was starting to look like his old self again; regular football had seen him linking well on that right-hand side, he looked fitter to me, he was impacting games positively, and we could see his impact when he came out of the team on Sunday. Some of that, as we know, was down to the manager not quite getting the balance of the side right by shifting Rice to right back, but I also just think our back four had a great look to it with the two centre-halves and then Calafiori roaming on the left-hand side. Earlier in the season, we all talked about the gulf between Timber and White, but with each passing game, it felt to me as if that gap was shortening, so to have his season cut short like this is incredibly sad.

You could kind of see it on his face on Sunday, too, I think. He is a guy who will run through brick walls, and so when he’s wincing and hobbling off, it means that something bad has happened. I think we all probably suspected as such, but when the news comes through on the official channels, it’s still a shock. And yet, sadly for Benny Blanco, part of it isn’t really a shock. Sadly for Ben, his last two seasons have been blighted by injury, as a result of his constant playing through pain and willingness to be a soldier for Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal side. His TransferMarkt injury record tells us this: this is a guy who was robust enough to play through everything, until he wasn’t. He was a guy who could run through those aforementioned brick walls until he couldn’t. And clearly, that point in his career kicked off last season with him missing 29 games through four separate injuries, then this season it will be another three games to take him to 13 games missed this season, across four separate injuries.

He’ll be devastated on multiple fronts here. Firstly, not to play and have yet another setback in your season for the second-year running, but secondly, the timing of this injury couldn’t be worse. For him or us.

Ben will miss two games that could see us (hopefully) lift the Premier League trophy. Given the fact that he was now the de facto first-choice right back and we were only playing once per week for the next three matches, that is a load that he certainly could have managed before this impact injury. If we get over the line, he would have been there, on the pitch, to be part of that final push. But secondly, he will miss the Champions League Final. That is the pivotal point in a footballer’s career. That is history. And to have it taken away as he has is really cruel indeed.

Again, because of the current unknown situation surrounding Jurrien Timber, I think Ben White would have been an odds-on to start in that showpiece final. And although I am less worried about the World Cup, given his form and the fact he’d been playing regularly for The Arsenal, I think there was also an outside chance of him making the England squad too. At a time when he was edging his way back into contention for the national team, he’s been ruled out almost indefinitely.

So, what now then at right back for these remaining games, eh? Well, that is a conundrum that Arteta has to solve. He’s previously said that he doesn’t know if Timber will play again this season, but there are chinks of light on that story, as reported on social media by HandOfArsenal:

Arsenal General Update

David Raya has a 1 year OPTIONAL extension on his current contract which has 2 years left. All parties are very relaxed about his long term future as a payrise was agreed last summer as reported by @SamiMokbel_BBC .

Contender for POTY? Serious shout…

— HandofArsenal (@HandofArsenal) May 11, 2026

I think the caution from Arsenal – and from us as well – is well-placed. Timber hasn’t played in coming up to months, so he will need time to get back to fitness. And even if he does come back before the end of the season, is he in tip-top shape to take on somebody like Khvicha Kvaratskhelia? I would question that. As PSG once again lead a procession to their domestic league title, he has sat on the bench for two of the last three matches against Angers and Lorient, only playing 29 minutes in a 1-0 win over Stade Brestois at the weekend just gone, so he will be fresh. The other option – which, to be fair, for a third-choice right back ain’t too shabby, is Mosquera, but again it isn’t optimal. I think for the Burnley game on Monday, you’d hope that Mosquera can come in and do a job and, for Palace away with him playing from the start, you’d hope he’ll be able to feel his way into the game well enough. But that Champions League final sticks out, and the quality of opposition sticks out. It is a worry.

And the other final worry I have with regards to this news is for the player and his longer-term future in itself. Has Ben White played his last game for The Arsenal? That’s difficult to speculate on right now, but if some of the online reading on MCL injuries is right, he could be looking at between three and six months out. Not only does that impact his ability to recover and have a pre-season, but it is unlikely that – if he wanted to go somewhere and play football more regularly this summer – his chances of doing so have just taken a blow. If we assume the worst-case scenario, it’ll be six months, and that takes him to November this year. With no pre-season to get up to speed as the rest of the squad are well into it, you’re probably talking until December before he can start to be considered. And my biggest worry with this sort of timeline is that it all feels a little Tierney/Tomiyasu-like. KT was a regular for The Arsenal and Arteta when he first arrived, but after his knee surgery in 2021/22, he never really got trusted by the manager afterwards and saw out his contract as a bit-part player. Tomiyasu was exactly the same. If Ben isn’t getting into matchday squads until December next season, one fears that his playing time is going to be limited, because Arteta will have moved on and found another right back to deputy Timber, I suspect.

I’m going to leave it there for today. But I’m going to say thank you from one Gooner to the man who has been such a cult player for us over the years. His sh*thousery will go down in folklore, his interviews, his deadpan face, but most of all, his connection with his teammates in that right back slot.

Get well soon Benny Blanco.

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.

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

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

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

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS – Rice

Odegaard

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

My thinking on the selections are:

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

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

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

Let’s hope the boys are up for it.

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

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

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.

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

I always liked David Moyes.

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

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

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

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Hincapie

Zubimendi

Eze – Rice

Saka – Gyokeres – Martinelli

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Unai Emery going ‘Full Unai’ with his team ahead of their home game against Forest on Thursday, Villa put in the kind of performance you expect from an end-of-season team that really are mentally on the beach. That was frustrating from an Arsenal fan perspective because:

1. The Scum won and will probably now stay clear of relegation
2. West Ham will now be doubly motivated next Sunday when we play them.

That second point will be one to worry about. Over the years, West Ham have given us tough games on their patch, and with the threat of relegation now very real with just three games to go, they will be more fired up for this one than we could imagine.

West Ham got battered by an improved Brentford side on Saturday, which had mixed blessings for us overall, because:

1. It means that Brentford are closing down a European spot and next weekend they will go to City, knowing a win could be huge for them
2. West Ham are probably going to need to beat Arsenal next weekend – their heavy defeat doesn’t help the goal difference either.

Before that match yesterday, we also saw Bournemouth pick up a big win at home to Palace, which was certainly a better scoreline for us, because:

1. Bournemouth will be buoyed, and to qualify for Europe, will probably need to beat City in a week and a half at home on their own patch
2. Palace losing heavily shows us that there’s a team that has all eyes on a possible European final, which will happen just after they play us on the final day, when hopefully we are fighting to win the title.

The complexities and permutations of this season are not lost on a single Arsenal fan, I don’t think, and in pubs and homes all over the Arsenal-supporting world, we’re all doing the mental gymnastics to see chinks of light or opportunities to build out a little more hope, through the actions of others.

But it will be Arsenal’s actions that define this season. If we beat West Ham, then we hopefully have two games in which you’d hope Arsenal can rack up plenty of goals. If we do that, then the goal difference thing would swing from City’s favour to ours. I can’t see City hammering all of the teams they are playing by fours and fives. So there is a chink of light and hope that we might have a bit of an advantage.

Tonight, all eyes will be on Merseyside. Can Everton do something against City? I’m not so sure. They’ve lost their last two games to Liverpool at home and West Ham away. Before that, they picked up a 2-2 draw away at Brentford, but before that, they won at home 3-0 against a shockingly bad Chelsea side. Their record at home this season is mixed; I just had a look, and there are defeats to United, Brentford, Tottenham, and Newcastle, whilst also draws against Leeds, West Ham and Villa. They are a patchy side. But the good thing about tonight, one would hope, is that today’s game means that if they lose it, their outside chance of Europe is basically gone. That’s what most Arsenal fans will be hoping for this evening – that this ‘last chance saloon’ inspires them to do something special in front of their own fans.

Mind you, the same could have been said about Fulham at the weekend, and yet we absolutely rinsed them in that first half on Saturday. To be fair, that was at home for us, whereas this is away for Man City, so perhaps that swings the balance back a little, but I still think that Everton probably won’t have too much for a City side who are in form at the moment. Despite their bitching through the back channels about their impending fixture congestion, they’ve also just had over a week off, so they will be fresh now, too.

As for us, we have our eyes trained on that Champions League semi-final, and Arteta will be making his way to The Emirates this evening to deliver his pre-match press conference ahead of the game. The noises we’re hearing are that Kai is pushing to be fit to play a part, which would be massive not just for tomorrow, but also in the context of the remainder of the domestic season. Having him as an option when we’re facing a low block in the league might be very important, although tomorrow night I think you do still have to go with Big Vik, given his two goals and confidence will be up after one of the best performances for him this season.

The big question I have is around Timber. Like, are we actually going to see him this season, or nah? I really would love to have him back, or even news of him back, but what we’ve had over the last couple of weeks is Arteta saying “a few more days” and yet not even a sniff of a return. Odegaard too, we need to get a good update on, but I suspect his absence from the weekend was precautionary and there to manage the knocks he’s had that have kept him out of that difficult period of April that we’ve just overcome. If he’s back, if Timber can even just be seen in full training this week at some stage (even if it is not possible to be in the squad for tomorrow), then I will take that as a big positive. Having him available at right back for a game like West Ham feels like it would be a huge boost, although at this stage, given how long he’s been out, I’m not sure even then how viable it would be.

Let’s wait and see what Arteta says later. As for me, I’m going to take the opportunity to enjoy the rest of my bank holiday weekend in Portugal, before I fly back tomorrow morning. I hope whatever you are doing you have a great day too. 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 read comments like “Fulham have never won at The Emirates,” and that only makes it worse. Because you just know there is a first time for everything. And unlike our situation at City, in which we basically NEVER win up there, today could very easily end up with Arsenal dropping points and opening the door to City having a clear path to the Premier League title.

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

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

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

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

So for me, my ‘hoping for’ lineup is:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Rice

Odegaard   –   Eze

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until then.

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

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

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

**Emile Smith Rowe enters the chat**

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laters people.

I 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.

I don’t really feel massively nervous about tonight.

It almost feels like a League Cup game.

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

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

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

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

But this Arsenal side has the capability.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@SamiMokbel_BBC has confirmed the below.

For clarity, City’s objective is to manipulate the fixtures and avoid playing Bournemouth on a few days rest when Bournemouth have 10+ days rest… just like Arsenal had to do the other week.

It would hurt Palace’s possible final
prep too https://t.co/qZZpHDsiHG pic.twitter.com/u79BFpYoek

— Magic hat (@themagic_tophat) April 28, 2026

I don’t think I want to spend too much time on this, but it does feel as though there should be little room for manoeuvre here. Arsenal had to suffer playing a very good Bournemouth team after they were not in the FA Cup, and we had both FA Cup and the Champions League games in between our Premier League matches. If City are playing a fresher Bournemouth too, then so be it. You can’t rearrange things just because of the hope from the TV companies (because you can bet your bottom dollar that Sky will want this re-arrangement, to take it to the last day of the season) that they get more drama on that last week.

They’re gonna get it anyway! Have you seen how nervy we look when playing!

Those nerves were heightened somewhat at the weekend, when we thought that we’d be losing both Eze and Havertz for a period of time, right when they were just coming back for us and able to play significant minutes. Thankfully, Eze dispelled that almost immediately by doing his media duties and being seen on the pitch afterwards on Saturday. Phew. One sigh of relief down.

Then we got a ‘sort of’ sigh of relief yesterday evening, as news emerged from the likes of The Athletic that Kai’s injury is not as bad as feared, which again is good stuff. Depending on what you read, there are variations on when he could potentially be back. I suspect we’ll get it confirmed from Arteta this evening that he’ll play no part tonight. I saw one report suggesting that Arsenal think he might be able to play some part in all of our remaining Premier League games. If that’s true, then happy days, because that means he’d at least be fit for the Fulham home game this coming weekend.

I suspect that might be a little more hope than reality, though.

What he brings is without question. We talked about it on Sunday, and Scarlet spoke the truth when she said that we looked very different after Kai came off. That’s very true indeed. I had a look at some of the stats up until the 34th minute, when he limped off, and we had:

• Better possession (just) – edging it 51% to 49% (we finished the game on
• More through balls (four to one)
• Level on shots (they ended up out-shooting us by the end of the game)

But the way we played just looked more fluid to the eye. Kai links players all around him, where Gyokeres seems to be a lot more isolated. A lot of that, I think, is that his technical quality is so low that the players don’t want to lose the ball, but rather than turn this into a Gyokeres-bashing piece, I want to lean in more into what Kai brings us.

We were much better against City. It ‘felt’ better against Newcastle until he came off. I also think the Everton game we played well, although Big Vik did his bit by coming on later in the game and making an impact. The prospect of not having Kai for anything longer than Fulham next weekend was very real, so having him potentially available thereafter is massive.

The next worry we have about this week is the volume of games within a week. Jamie Carragher pointed it out on Monday Night Football last night, but we play Wednesday-Saturday-Tuesday, at a point in the season in which we still have players not fully fit and back to form. It’s going to be quite some gruelling week, and when I look at tomorrow night’s game against Atletico Madrid, I can’t help but think it just needs to be one of those “just get through it” games. Get through it, try to keep it tight, then see how much you can rest up before playing a Fulham side who have had a week off, plus will be coming off the back of a morale-boosting 1-0 victory over Villa last weekend.

I didn’t watch the game Fulham played, but I’ve looked at the numbers, and it looks like a classic one in which one team (Villa) had all of the possession, but Fulham created more chances and ultimately like us had that one moment of magic. Before that win, they had just one win in six games, so their form was patchy, but as we know, so was Newcastle’s, and yet they made us look very leggy indeed at times on Saturday.

I don’t know how we overcome that, to be honest, because Arteta has very much just patched up players and sent them out of late. I doubt Saka can do many 90-minute games, and given he was only given around 20 minutes on Saturday, surely he can’t start in Madrid?

Odegaard and Eze will also need to be managed carefully, so despite our big squad, it’s all feeling a little paper-thin in certain positions right now.

We’ll know more later on who is likely to start, and wouldn’t it just be nice to get some positive news about Jurrien Timber, eh? Let’s see what the boss says later.

Otherwise, I’ll be back for a match preview tomorrow, so I’ll catch 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.