Those ‘feelings’ are the ones that are irrational and based on the fact that because nobody has really kicked a ball in anger yet, every other team has strengthened in the market, will be 100% better than they were last season, everyone is going to fight for the title and we have the possibility of having our season tank.

I think those irrational feelings are because of our hard start, but also because sometimes as a fan you look over the fence at ‘rivals’ and think that everything they have done will click, whereas everything you do possibly won’t.

Kepa will have his tiny chocolate arms once again, having got rid of them from his early years at Chelsea.

Mosquera will end up being a little like Bambi-on Ice, despite the fact there’s no evidence of that so far.

Norgaard might not end up being better than Jorginho.

Zubimendi might not settle in to Premier League football.

We’ll find out that there was a reason Chelsea let Madueke go.

Gyokeres will struggle against low blocks and miss sitters against the big boys.

I know, I know, it’s stupid, irrational and in reality, a little bit disingenuous to the coaching staff, Mikel Arteta and also the transfer team that have spent a lot of time scoping and sussing out each of these players. But I can’t help have these irrational feelings and I think it is because we haven’t played any proper football yet. This summer has seen a hotch potch of XIs playing right up until we smashed Bilbao, which is when it looked like we were the Arsenal you’d expect, but it being a team I think might not reach the heights they did last season (Bilbao) has made me put caveats in front of that performance and win.

And then, as irrational as this is as well, Man United are suddenly going to be this team from 20 years ago that will be competing for the title. We talked about them towards the end of last night’s Same Old Arsenal podcast and James talked about how he would swap the signings up top that United have made for ours. I can kind of get where he’s coming from (Cunha and Sesko for Madueke and Gyokeres, anyone?) and it’s those attacking signings that make you think that they will be brilliant against us on Sunday. They might be. But let’s not poretend that all of their demons have gone away. I will talk on that game a little more in the coming days as we lead up to it and preview it, but as I said last night, ideally you want to be playing United about five or six games in. You’ll have a better idea of what team it is, for sure, but also there won’t be as much fever pitch excitement from the home crowd as there will be ahead of this match.

Again, I’m projecting in my mind a United side vastly superior to the one last season, whereas the truth may be quite different.

And that goes the same for the predictions we made, that journalists made, that ex-players are making about this season. I watched last summer as a lot of journalists were split between us and Man City (check out this as an example). This season?

All Liverpool, some City. Check this list out as an example

I can see why. They won the league last season. They’ve bought what looks like some exciting players in to the club. They look very strong going forward. But I watched the Community Shield and I really hope they are like that defensively, because that will give plenty of opportunities for opponents to get at them. And if they suffer at least ‘some’ injuries, unlike last season, then I think they’ll be pulled closer to the rest of the league compared to last season. There is an AFCON which means no Salah, they’ll be reliant on VVD being as good and bucking any kind of age curve and my hope is that much like last season where many couldn’t look beyond us, this season teams sleep on us and we can go about our business of trying to win the league as underdogs.

That label suits me fine.

But you can’t really afford to lose many matches and that’s why this hard start feels like it’s doubled down on the pressure, because a slip up against Man United and there will already be people signalling the death-knell on our season. We know that will be nonsense, but if you can only lose three or maybe four games a season, notching an ‘L’ on the first one really does put you on the back foot not just statistically, but also from a morale and mental point of view for the players.

That’s why I’m extra apprehensive ahead of the start of the new season. We need to hit the ground running and do it straight away.

Conversely, if we get through those first six games with circa 15 points, we’ll be in a superb position to take on a potential league challenge. After six games we’ll have chalked off Old Trafford, Anfield and St James’ Park and we’ll have played City at home too. If you’ve got anywhere around the 15 points mark by that time, things are looking a lot more rosier.

But for now the apprehension remains and until those first 15 – 20 minutes at Old Trafford play out, I am nervous about what sort of Arsenal team we’re going to get this season.

Hopefully the one capable of 89 points like two season’s ago.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Nothing is certain but death and taxes…and Liverpool getting a VAR decision in their favour

I watched the second half of the Community Shield game in my garden as I was prepping some food for the grill and I don’t know what Arne Slot was seeing, but when he said afterwards that Liverpool ‘controlled’ the game at 2-1, clearly he watched a different second half to me, because from what I saw it was pretty much all Palace, with a Liverpool side tucking in and defending compactly, looking to spring on the counter. Which they of course didn’t manage to do and Palace got a really well-worked goal. They then went on to win the Community Shield which I think was good because that additional trophy will have meant more to them than it would to Liverpool. So good on Palace.

But how about that handball that wasn’t given by the on-field referee OR VAR when the score was at 2-2, eh? I mean far be it for me to cry conspiracy or anything, but when you have the same guy on VAR who gave a penalty against us a couple of season’s ago at Stamford Bridge (so I’m told) for the ball hitting Saliba at point blank range, you have to wonder how they didn’t see that incident as the same outcome. It appears most of the watching world saw it other than the people that could influence the game. I had assumed (I spared myself the ignominy of listening to any commentary and instead was listening to Hed Kandi Beach House in the garden whilst taking it all in) that VAR wasn’t being used in the Community Shield but when I checked my timeline and saw that the VAR saw nothing wrong with it I had to give it a bit of a chuckle.

It’s all very well it being laughable in a game like this, but from next week it won’t be funny any more, with more of the same nonsense clearly being dished out by Howard Webb and his Old Boys Network of favoured North West stooges. The eight-second keeper rule will be a fun one to watch when David Raya gets penalised on week one for it, but then watching Leeds’ new number one Lucas Perri be given the freedom to get a deck chair out, sit in it and smoke a cigar before taking a goal kick at The Emirates a week later…

What the game yesterday did show me is that Liverpool may be an amazing team, favourites for the title and will start out as front runners with their start compared to ours and Man City’s, but they still have questions to answer at the back and we have to hope that remains the case for the season ahead. If they get Isak then they will be a formidable attack, but there were creaks at the back, that’s for sure. The game yesterday also has to be seen in the context of being a semi-competitive game. Sure, Liverpool will have wanted to win it and sure, they’ll be a little narked at the performances I suspect, but I think none of us are under the illusion that they will be as bad as they were in the second half when it all kicks off next weekend. And neither will we have it easy either like we did against Bilbao. It was good to see more cohesion, more ‘clicking’ by what should be the close to the first XI for next Sunday, but I think Man United will be a sterner opposition and we might not look as free-flowing as we did. I have hopes that we can get close to it, for sure, but everything all still feels a little opaque right now because you have the ‘friendly’ caveat. Every team – even Bilbao and Villareal – play a little bit within themselves because they don’t want to get injured in pre season, so you never really know the true face of your team until there is competitive football at stake and so even though we signed off the weekend with some positive vibes with that emphatic win against Bilbao, there’s still a question in my mind as to how close we’ll get to that performance at Old Trafford.

I think we’ll be closer to that than in the previous two games, because we played against two low blocks and I cannot see United doing that on their own turf. Even if they went ahead, the demands from the home crowd would be to keep venturing forward, so we may find more space and that may allow Arsenal to express themselves. But the unknown factor right now because of all of the above has my stomach going a little jangly. Could’ve done with an easier start to the season than OT away, but we are where we are, so we have to deal with it.

And we might have to deal with Sesko too, which will be an annoying narrative and something that will have the social media meme trolls out in force no doubt. But will we have Eze in? I doubt it, but the noises that are coming from some corners are that Stuttgart are about to cough up some cash for Fabio Vieira having just sold one of their players out to the Saudi Pro League, which will enable us to then go for Eze with some cash coming in. There’s also talk that Zinchenko is wanted by Mourinho in Turkey and if they stump up a bit of cash then you’re looking at a chunk of a possible Eze fee being done. He looked lively yesterday when I was watching and there was a cheeky laugh by him when somebody asked if he was going to Arsenal as he was collecting his Community Shield medal. I know you can’t read too much in to it, but with the bulk of our business done and our squad in place, having that prospect of an extra cherry on top of the cake is a nice one to think about going in to the new season.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Arsenal’s final pre season friendly of this summer ended with a pretty emphatic 3-0 win against a Champions League Athletic Bilbao, with boxes ticked all over the shop, including:

• Big Gabby returning to start
• Calafiori on the pitch for valuable minutes
• Timber shaking off his knock and starting
• Zubimendi looking imperious again running the show
• Ødegaard finding pockets and delivering good link up play.
• Big Vik running the lines and delivering us his first goal and trademark celebration.
• Good connectiveness for the second goal which involved key players like Rice, Ødegaard, Big Vik, Martinelli and Saka for the finish
• Havertz showing a turn of pace and good finish to cap off a great day.

I think if you asked Arteta for the perfect afternoon, he’d have told you he wanted the performance and cohesion first, then it’s the defensive solidity, then it’s the attackers all connecting and scoring, then it’s a nice big score line. Probably in that order.

He got everything so no wonder he was pleased post-match. This was the more familiar Arsenal side that we’ve seen in recent seasons and this morning, I’m kind of breathing a sigh of relief, because I’ll be honest and admit that the performances (more than the results) were a little concerning so far. We’ve looking disjointed in our build up, we’ve lacked a cutting edge and when you look at how the Villareal game played out, our high line had a feel of the Scum from last season. I had my concerns and ahead of the big kick off next week I was quite desperate to see us put on a show.

It didn’t even have to be full of goals either. If we’d have won 1-0 with a scrappy goal, but we’d battered Bilbao and their keeper Unai Simon had had the game of his life, I’d have been fine with that because:

• We’d have shown defensive solidity and kept a clean sheet
• Shown we are playing well to create chances
• We’d have had a ton of shots and just caught an inspired ‘keeper. That doesn’t happen every week.

We got everything we wanted though, including a great ball from Zubi and a deft flick from Gyokeres on his head, which set us off just after the half hour mark. We’ve spent the last few weeks since he signed talking about how the one thing in his game is he needs to be better with headed finishing and if this is a sign to come, then that’s a-ok with me.

I thought it was a great game by the Swede. He got his goal and is off the mark (although we all know it’s ’not really’ until he gets one in an official match), it was a fine finish and was just one of the positive things he can take from yesterday. Arteta seemed happy with him afterwards and after that performance it makes you wonder about his possibility for starting at Old Trafford next weekend. I had Kai down to start as he’s the incumbent, he’s somebody who knows our football well enough, he’s a big game player and Arteta knows what he’s getting. But when you see a performance like that from Big Vik, it could suddenly be a different outcome that Arteta looks for next weekend than Kai starting because he’s been here longer.

Either way, isn’t it good to see both of them on the scoresheet? I thought Kai’s goal was expertly taken and the way he controlled the ball as he raced away, as well as calmly slotting it in to the bottom hand corner, had me thinking “this guy wants to up his game this season”. We’ve all seen how he’s added a little more to his game, but perhaps it’s also the increased competition he now has that will make him strive to be even better next season. If that’s true, then we’re in good shape, because two quality forwards battling it out and scoring goals is how you get closer to that dream Premier League title.

And the second goal was a great bit of interlinking through the middle. I’ve mentioned the players involved already, but the way in which we moved the ball from back to front was quick, it caught Bilbao off-guard and resulted in Martinelli and Saka getting in behind through the centre. Saka was the eventual goal scorer, but to me that part of it was less relevant, rather that we crafted a good team goal and we got in behind. How many times last season did we find ourselves slow in build up and that meant that when we got to the edge of the box we had 11 bodies in front of us? I’ve lost count. So to see us cut a team open was pleasing.

Of course you could argue that we won’t face a side like Bilbao every week and we won’t always be going ahead in the first third of the match. There will be times this season in which we go behind and what ends up happening is teams just sit camped on the edge of their box. For that we still have questions to answer but yesterday I saw enough to make me a little more relaxed and a little more excited for next weekend. United won’t camp on the edge of their box and so if we can get the same spaces, there might be opportunities for us at a place that has for so many decades been really difficult to get wins at.

So we sign off with an emphatic victory and now the players and manager have a week of preparation and analysis on the new-look Man United team, with a new front three who they’ve just spunked over £200million on.

Back tomorrow as we begin the work week countdown to that game next Sunday.

I have to say I preferred the old Emirates Cup format of two matches per day and played over the Saturday and Sunday, but they keep it to one these days and there’s probably a conditioning reason behind that. What it does mean is that Arteta has 90+ minutes of semi competitive football to use now before we play United next weekend and it’s this game that makes me think that he might go full strength for a little longer than he has been so far. Up until this point in pre season he’s tended to have half-and-half rotated teams with some of the squad rotation players starting in amongst those players who would be regulars.

Today we – and probably he – need to see how the first XI get on and so I’m hoping to see a line up which looks a little like this:

Raya

White – Saliba – Gabriel – Lewis-Shelly

Zubimendi

Ødegaard – Rice

Saka – Gyokeres – Martinelli

That I think is our strongest starting XI given some of the absences we have. I suspect Arteta might play Havertz if he was fully fit but even if he can only get 30 minutes out of him today I suspect he’ll do that for Kai and then if Kai is fine thereafter I suspect it’ll be him who will start at Old Trafford instead of Big Vik. We know how much Arteta loves Kai and despite the fact we’ve got a shiny new number nine who everyone wants to see more of, let’s not forget how far Kai has come since he signed and how much we missed him last season when he wasn’t leading the line. Gyokeres might well over the season take more game time up top, but I think it’s Havertz’s shirt to lose when the proper stuff kicks off and then we’ll let the battle for the starting jersey kick off in earnest.

Potentially you could make a case for Madueke instead of Martinelli on the left, or Trossard if fit, but I suspect Arteta will stick with the Brazilian because, like Kai, he has the starter jersey for now. If Leo isn’t 100% that also has an impact today.

And then it becomes about getting plenty of minutes in the legs and so I would hope that at least two-thirds of today’s game involves those players, before Arteta looks for that mass rotation, which would be the likes of Kai, Leo, Merino, probably Madueke, then perhaps if fit Calafiori getting 20-30 minutes and maybe Timber too. But for the vast bulk we need to see the regulars and as Arteta said on Tuesday, we need to have the comfort within us that these guys are ready for Man United at Old Trafford next Sunday.

Maybe we’ll also get to see Nwaneri with some minutes too, as the 18-year-old officially confirmed that he’s put pen to paper and signed a new five-year deal. That is super stuff. There was some slight concern earlier in the summer that things had stalled, but clearly that was not the case and we find ourselves keeping one of the biggest teenage talents in the game for the foreseeable future.

I think with the emergence of Dowman in these pre season games, a lot of people have been distracted by the fact that in Nwaneri we already have a teenager who is oven-ready for the Premier League this season. He bagged some of the most goals in the whole squad last season and given that he was used sparingly for the first half of it, I don’t think that can be underestimated. He’s exciting, he’s a direct runner with the ball, he’s got a good finish on him and it feels after last season as though he’s ‘arrived’. He’s just come off the back of a good under-21s season and my hope for him this season is that he’s going to bang as Ødegaard’s understudy.

And that’s exciting because I think last season Arteta wasn’t sure and that’s why when Martin got injured we tried a few things that didn’t work. This season I think Arteta will have no hesitation in saying “Ethan, Martin’s out for the next few weeks, you’re in”. Off the ball he probably needs to align himself a little closer in his pressing to what Ødegaard does, but that’s something that can be taught, because on the ball he just needs to keep doing what he was doing last season.

He has also proven his versatility too. He played on the right as Saka’s understudy towards the end of the season, he’s played up top in youth football and Arteta has mentioned that he can be an option there, but I suspect he could also do a very good job at left wing too. He might find those wide positions a little more congested to get into this season with Madueke there, but at least we have another very viable option and I don’t think you will find a displeased Arsenal fan today upon hearing the news of his contract renewal.

Right, that’ll do from me today. I’m in Norfolk seeing friends and when the game is on I’ll be on a little boat having some sundowners on the Broads, but will keep track of the game when I get signal.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Due to work commitments I managed to catch from minute 28 of the game against Villareal last night and found myself trying valiantly to find emotions on both sides of the fence – both positive and negative.

I landed on both and as a result this morning I’m not entirely sure how I feel. I think some of the negative stuff is probably predicated on the fact that after the game and this morning as I was brushing my teeth I went on to social media and saw a lot of hand-wringing over the result and performance. Questions were raised about whether the team has regressed, or at least just stagnated, from a tactical point of view. Questions were raised about the form of some players (Martinelli, etc) and I too as a result of reading these comments had some worries that we are not ready. “We need another week” I told myself this morning. That’s because some players clearly look rusty, or haven’t been able to integrate into the team enough yet. Arteta admitted yesterday after the 3-2 defeat that Gyokeres has only had four or five training sessions. Big Gabi looked a little sluggish for their counter-attacking third goal and that’s because he hasn’t featured in any pre season games yet. He got a fair few minutes yesterday and I think he’ll get a fair few at the weekend too, so hopefully that will bring him up to speed, because we’re going to need him at Old Trafford.

From a physical point of view we look a little off in some quarters of the team and clearly the club and players know that, evidenced by the fact that pictures emerged after the game of some of the Arsenal players going out there to do training drills on the pitch after the meaningless penalty shootout was completed. Odegaard was pictured in particular doing a few shuttle runs and clearly he is a man very keen to make sure that physically he is up to speed ahead of the big kick off. I thought he was ok; his shooting boots still need to be re-adjusted, but he was dictating the play and the movement of the ball well enough when he came on, so that’s a positive. I thought Saka was just ‘ok’ too – nothing really special about his performance, but then he can be like that, can our Starboy. And I don’t mean that in a negative way; Saka has always been good at knowing his body and also knowing when to be in ‘rest mode’ in games – it’s kind of a super power for him, because it enables him to flick the switch at any moment. So given this is a friendly and he’s trying to build up his fitness, perhaps he just leant more into that ‘rest mode’ than usual? That’s what I’m hoping, anyway.

I thought Martinelli was ok, he made a few decent runs, put in a good ball in to the back post for Norgaard to score to bring it back to 2-1 before halftime, but some of the head down running was still there. He also slows us down at times when he stops, checks in field and then square passes it. Nwaneri looked lively and had some good movement and Gyokeres had a couple of half-decent efforts as he builds his connections with the team, but he couldn’t quite find the spaces to fashion those big chances. And that’s because the game yesterday had a very familiar feel to it when we think of last season; a team came to the Emirates, scored a goal on the counter (and a second one) and then just dropped into shape looking to hit us with transitional counters. And we didn’t really know how to deal with that low block. It is the ‘final boss’ if you like; the final thing that Arteta needs to ‘unlock’ and as it stands it doesn’t really look like we’ve found an answer. Merino up top certainly isn’t the answer, although Kai missing because ‘he felt something’ isn’t great. Is it just me, or are we getting a lot of that this pre season? Calafiori ‘felt something’ on tour, Leo ‘felt something’ on tour and now that we’re back home, Kai ‘felt something’.

CAN EVERYBODY STOP ‘FEELING SOMETHING’! DON’T TOUCH OR FEEL ANYTHING!

It’s meant that we are only one friendly away from our away match to United and there are still a lot of questions that Arsenal fans are asking. Because of the familiar pattern of yesterday – team comes to the Emirates, sits in shape and catches us on the break (think West Ham last season and the season before) – there’s a fair bit of naval-gazing going on (I am not immune) and I think that’s causing the trepidation for the new season.

I also think the expectations are such that people want to see evidence that Arsenal have solved all of their problems from last season. Got ourselves a striker. Tick. Got an upgrade in that number six. Tick. Lifted the floor of our rotation options to cover us from another injury crisis. Tick. We’ve done everything right on paper, but not on grass and when we’ve managed to get on grass, it hasn’t all clicked. So naturally, those expectations, are suddenly feeling like their being dampened a little bit. 

I am guilty of it too by the way. I spent most of last season cursing the shocking application of rules by the PGMOL and when that wasn’t a factor, I looked at that long injury list we had. It was a comfort blanket to say to myself “if we didn’t have those things out of our control, we’d have competed for the league until right until the end”. But that is naive to think that the team didn’t have flaws in it. And I don’t think they were the obvious flaws that the media portray (“Arsenal need a number nine”). There’s more to be done about the pace of the way we play and how we slow down everything when we are on the ball. Knowing when to slow and when to ‘go’ is key and I’m not sure if we have that balance yet.

What I also think didn’t help yesterday was that defensively we conceded goals that you just don’t see us concede. Kiwior was great at the end of last season but he didn’t cover himself in glory for Pepe’s finish. We seem to be a little lacklustre in closing our men down collectively for their second goal. For the final goal, the back line was so high it would have made Big Ange proud. So the thing that we’re ace at, suddenly didn’t seem to be so good, although we chopped and changed quite a lot at the back (and I thought Mosquera looked very tidy on the ball) so maybe that was a factor.

So it wasn’t exactly the best prep and in front of the home crowd there wasn’t tons to shout about, but at the same time I’m trying to put this in to the ‘pre season fitness friendly’ box. Even if I’d be lying to say that I think there is absolutely nothing to have concerns over.

What about you?

Their last match was over a week ago in Portugal, where they lost 1-0 to Sporting in Lisbon and before that they drew 2-2 with St Gallen in Switzerland. I don’t think we can read too much in to it though; like our games it is about fitness and conditioning more than anything else. Which brings me to Mikel’s comments ahead of this game, which are in the match day programme but you can read on the official site, and I think we can read a little into what he was talking about when it comes to the type of opposition we face. He talks about specifically choosing the opposition for the type of manager there is and style they play and spoke about Villareal and Athletic Bilbao in that sense, but I’m not sure I buy his argument that they hand picked Newcastle and the Scum for the Singapore tour. I suspect that gets defined based on money and he gets told who we are playing and has to deal with it.

I like that he highlighted how both our upcoming friendlies are against Champions League sides and I think that suggests a level of quality about these sides, which is good and will provide a test. There’s no point playing a Preston, or a Hannover 96 (although the German second division has already kicked off to be fair) this close to the start of the season; you need to play opponents with Premier League quality or similar and I think in Villareal we have that.

There will also be some familiar faces in that team too. We have a certain Mr Nicholas Pepe in their ranks who last season made 28 appearances, although largely as a sub it looks like, so I doubt we’ll see a ton of him tonight. What a shame that turned out to be because I always thought there was a player in there, but he never really clicked at us and doesn’t seemed to have clicked anywhere for him, whether it’s Turkey, back in France or for Villareal, where he’s made two consecutive free transfers. They also have Ayoyze Perez, formerly of Newcastle and Leicester, who plays a little more than Pepe and got over 2,000 minutes last season, bagging 22 goals and four assists in his 32 games. That’s a pretty good return so I suspect he’ll be lining up tonight, with their other two big players Yeremy Pino and new signing Alberto Moieiro alongside him. Other than that I don’t really know a lot about them. They lost one of their breakout players Thierno Barry to Everton this summer and I haven’t been able to find much footage of their pre season stuff (not that I’d watch hours of it, but it’s good to know what you’re up against), but the focus from our side will always be to look at how we line up, who is performing and which players are looking sharpest for that first game away at Old Trafford.

Arteta talked about how the information from these pre season games gets fed into their ‘database’ and that they use what they get from these matches to evolve game models during the season. I know that elite football and the Premier League is such a detailed and statistical game these days, I know that every match is analysed to death by every club and they use models and data far beyond my comprehension, but it still does amaze me how far the game has come from those training sessions in Austrian where you play a third division Austrian team just t o get your fitness up. The clubs are hand-picking specific training regimes on a day-by-day basis to extract every single marginal gain they can from their pre season, to give them the best possible chance of being successful and in his programme notes Arteta is giving the slightest hint of the detail they go in to.

I liked how Arteta has also talked about how the new players have ‘shaken things up’ too. It all felt a bit stodgy towards the second half of the season and even though I haven’t watched the matches myself I have spoken to people who have in pre season and having also listened to a few podcasts, lots of people were saying how these games we’ve played has felt a little ‘more of the same’ from last season to denote some of the more negative sides of our attacking build up. Well now, with the integration of Gyokeres and Madueke, there’s just a little more in the team than was there before so I’m looking forward to seeing what these guys can bring. The manager is certainly feeling it, but now we need to see it.

We also need to see the return of a few players and having Big Gabi back in training is good. The noises have been that they were just being cautious with him out in Asia and if you look at the window and game opportunities we now have, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him get between 20 – 30 minutes today, with a view to giving him a solid 60 at the weekend so he is ready for the following weekend and the Premier League kick off.

As for the rest of the line up, it’s a ‘wait and see’ time for us all today, whilst trying to find ways to watch the game without paying the silly money the club charges for a friendly ‘pass’.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some thoughts. See you then.

It’s funny, you know, because United were such a shambles last season that everyone thinks that the fact we have them up first in two weeks is a good start for us. I can’t quite abide that way of thinking because the one thing you’d say about the start of a new season is that every team starts with a clean slate and confidence / hope. If Man United are going to be that terrible like they were last season (which I am sceptical about if I am honest) then they will at least need half-a-dozen games in which to prove to the footballing world that they are terrible. That means that they will go into the game with us full of confidence, whereas I’d probably prefer to play them after ten games or so.

And so with this in mind, I’ve started to look at how our initial rivals for the opening few week’s of the season are getting on, which is weird in itself if I am honest. I am not putting too much stock (or at least I haven’t so far) in Arsenal’s pre season games, yet I find myself looking at United’s results to see what the signs are pointing us towards? Has AMorim been able to get concentrated time on the training pitch and they look a different outfit? Or are United still showing the same frailties?

I think it’s a bit of both. After they beat Bournemouth 4-1 last Thursday I think I saw Amorim proclaim that it is a ‘different’ United that he saw out there on the pitch. That score line suggested so. They’d already outplayed a West Ham side that was pretty much full strength a few days beforehand 2-1 and my timeline had a few posts yesterday about how they were leading against Everton. I didn’t bother following that game last night but the initial noises from a couple of the accounts I follow suggested to me that they were looking like a very different proposition.

But I had a look at their pre season overall and they’d drawn 0-0 against Leeds first up, they’d beaten a Hong Kong XI with a somewhat unrecognisable side, then last night they ended up drawing against Everton 2-2 in the end. So perhaps their same frailties exist.

In the same vein, however, I can’t proclaim that their pre season means something whilst ours doesn’t. But what I think most of us want to see from the next two matches on home soil against Spanish opposition, is that some of the problems from the Asia tour – kinks, if you will – are being ironed out. I suspect we will look better than that game against The Scum. The pitch will be better and more like a Premier League pitch, the weather will be more akin to what the players will experience when we kick off against United, plus the new players will have bedded in more. Will that include Eze? I am doubtful at this stage. It feels like the interest that is there is predicated on our squad being trimmed somewhat and so I think most of us probably acknowledge that until the dominoes of player exits start to fall, we’re probably not going to see the Palace man in our colours.

I’m kind of ok with that though. I think a lot is being made of our misfunctioning left hand side, but Eze isn’t the solve for that. of his 303 matches he’s played in all competitions so far, according to TransferMarkt he’s only had 33 appearances at left wing. Perhaps Madueke can do that, but he too has only made 12 appearances at left wing in his 217 games in all comps. So that side will continue to remain a mystery I think. But what I did read on social media the other day (apologies but I can’t find who said it now) is that the Martinelli in 2022/23 had some specific conditions that allowed him to flourish:

• Zinchenko moving in field which occupied opponents and opened up space
• Gabriel Jesus naturally drifting over to create connections
• Granit Xhaka operating in a specific way as a left eight which enabled Martinelli to get more space.

If Eze comes in and plays left eight, or if Rice gravitates more to that side this season, coupled with somebody like Gyokeres who has been naturally left-side focused for Sporting, we may yet see a better version of Martinelli that could see him rekindle his old form. Sure, so far this pre season neither he nor Trossard appear to have clicked, but we haven’t really started to put together all of the pieces from our summer business yet. Gyokeres only had around 15 minutes against a low block Tottenham last week, for example. So there’s plenty more to be worked on and plenty more to see in these next two games I think.

I mentioned Man United and their indifferent pre season like ours, but what is interesting is the difference between ours/United’s and Liverpool’s. We’ve gone straight in to playing Premier League teams but Liverpool have taken a different path, playing Preston, then Stoke, then AC Milan on tour followed by Yokohama FM on Wednesday. They have the same opponent as us coming up – Athletic Club Bilbao at home, followed by Palace in Community Shield, so it will be interesting to see how their preparation has gone. The one ‘big’ game – if you can call it that – was against AC Milan in which they did look a little rusty at the back, but again I can hardly say with one hand that it is irrelevant, but then claim some semblance of significance with a rival. But I do think like us, it will be interesting to see how they are shaping up in the next couple of matches.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today. Catch you all tomorrow.

Yes, they won and yes, they’ll be more than happy to crow about it this morning. I’m less worried about that. For me the question needs to be asked “what did we learn?” from both teams and I don’t think Frank will have taken too much from it. Arsenal went behind to a goal that shouldn’t have been because of a foul just before it, the Scum sat back like a small team defending a lead (they had a total of six shots and one on target all game), whilst Arsenal apparently struggled against a low block, whilst dominating territory, shots (off target), passes, corners, etc. The familiar challenges existed for us that were there last season, but you only have to look at the number of subs made to see that this was about getting minutes in legs.

The best thing about yesterday was Richarlison posting a picture of himself with the player of the match trophy and tagging Big Gabi, who responded brilliantly in kind with his THREE player of the match trophies from the PREMIER LEAGUE against the Scum. Isn’t it just so very Tottenham to have one of their players giving that smouldering look after they won in a friendly, to a guy who wasn’t even playing? Brilliantly hilarious.

What’s not hilarious is that Trossard appeared to have a knock and is it me, or have pre season’s somehow become treacherous in recent years? Maybe I’m just rose-tinted-glasses’ing it, but I feel like 20 years ago players would go on pre season, get fitness in their legs, then when the first game of the season rocked up you’d have a full squad of fit players. That doesn’t feel like it’s happened for at least the last three years and here we are with two weeks to go until the season starts, with questions over:

• Big Gabi – still has not featured
• Timber – still has not featured
• Calafiori – came off against Newcastle and didn’t feature yesterday
• Trossard – came on, felt something according to Arteta, then came off after 20 minutes

So it appears already like the injury curse hasn’t left us, which is why you can see why Arteta is stockpiling players. At this rate we’re going to need a few more!

We’re all having a great time looking at Dowman, but if we keep getting players dropping like flies, then he’s a very real option.

If we’re going to glass half full it though, Arteta at least doesn’t seem concerned. Hopefully the players can come back, rest up for a few days, then next weekend we can see them as more of a cohesive unit and not as injured. This time next week we’re on a one week countdown and we really could do with seeing a fully fit and firing Arsenal.

And that includes performance-wise too, because by the sounds of it there were a few players off their game yesterday. I can only comment based on what I’ve been told, but Odegaard was apparently a little off, our left hand side still isn’t quite functioning and one of my mates said that Rice looked a little off the pace. I think a lot of those things can be put down to building up their fitness, but the left hand side is one that is becoming more concerning. It just hasn’t happened for Martinelli this pre season, by all accounts, so that is a worry but in Noni Madueke, there is an unknown ‘X-Factor’ lever that Arsenal can pull when the players get back to England this coming week. We’ve talked about him as the Saka back up, but I suspect he’s looking at that left wing spot and thinking he can craft himself a fair few minutes there. And with Martinelli blowing a bit cold at the moment, there will be an opportunity. If Madueke impresses in one or both of the home games, it wouldn’t surprise me to see that he’s taking the jersey off of Martinelli t Old Trafford. If that happens, it’s up to Gabby to respond and as fans that what we want; players have to be fighting for their jersey all the time because it pushes them to be better. I still believe in Gabriel Martinelli, I still think that 2022/23 variant is in there somewhere, we just need to find a way to unlock it.

Perhaps that is through Gyokeres, who naturally drifts to the left as part of his game. Yesterday he was on the pitch but game state and the fact he’s only just joined the team meant that he was never going to set the world alight in the 14+minutes he had at the end of the game. By then the Scum were just happy to camp in their box, be organised and see out the 1-0, so we are not going to learn anything from our Swede. That will come in the games at The Emirates and it’ll be interesting to see how he starts to adapt his game to ours and vice-versa.

The next game will come on Wednesday night at 6pm against Villareal and what we will want to see, as well as Mikel Arteta, is an Arsenal side who are more cohesive than the one that has undertaken this tour.

Back tomorrow with some more musings.

Of course the article is more about the demand for his number given the club was giving away free printing for a limited time if you bought the Arsenal shirt, but the very fact that we’ve had such demand and there is this direct purchase, meaning more money going to the club if you buy directly from them. At least, that’s what I think happens, although this article from a couple of years ago shows that in fact, football clubs don’t get a big chunk of the money. I think that’s fair enough though; it’s thee club’s IP for sure, but if they are essentially subbing out everything – shirt design, production, distribution and shipping, etc – then why should they get the bulk of sales? The likes of Adidas also pay them a sponsorship fee too, so there’s ample cash going to the club. But if they’ve sold 100,000 Gyokere’s shirts since he signed and they get 10% of every sale, for example, that’s around £7.50 and around £750,000 – no small change indeed!

But it ain’t paying for Big Vik’s fee I’m afraid. That’s going to take 733,333 shirts to get to that £55million number. With the age of the internet and access to information that we have, we all know that the whole ‘it’s paid for his transfer’ is a myth, but it’s still fun to trot out little stories like this I think.

In the meantime, we’ve got our first pictures of the big man in training and whilst that’s also good to see, my favourite picture was the one of Zubimendi and Norgaard tussling for a ball and Zubi holding on to his shirt. Given they both play in the same position, I couldn’t help but feel like there was some kind of symbolism or metaphor in there somewhere…

I also liked picture 36 from 36, in which Merino looks like he’s holding court and telling the others around him “so I told her, I am not putting chia seed on my polenta, it’ll ruin the dynamics of my lunch”…

They are, of course, gearing up to a ‘North London Derby’ tomorrow in Hong Kong and I have to say I’m not a fan. Those are the worst games of the season for me and I get so nervous beforehand. Tomorrow won’t be anywhere near as worrying, but even thinking about it I find myself saying “we can’t lose to that scummy lot – they’ll be proclaiming Frank as the new Messiah if we do”, which is silly because it’s a friendly and there will be yet more mass rotation at varying intervals. But what we don’t need is a game full of clatterings. I hope – but will not expect – that Frank will talk to Arteta beforehand and both will agree that players need to go easy on the gas tomorrow – both teams had their injury problems and so neither needs to have players going down with injuries that will impact the respective starts to their season’s. Let’s just have a game of football without any crunching tackles please. Oh, and keep Calafiori away from the pitch! The last thing we need is him going down again like he did against Newcastle.

There’s some tenuously-linked Arsenal news that Ramsdale could be on his way to Newcastle to compete with Nick Pope, but I can’t help but find that one a little odd. If Pope is the defacto number one, doesn’t that just mean that Ramsdale is back to where he was at The Arsenal? In which case, why didn’t he just stay with us? I guess being a number one and then effectively being demoted forces you to seek a move elsewhere, but surely there are better options than being Newcastle’s backup? A quick look at the number one’s in the Premier League tells me I think he could go to any of the following clubs and be better than what they have:

• Chelsea (they buy anyone for any fee, so finding money will be no problem for them)
• Crystal Palace (price might be an issue but I think Ramsdale is better than Henderson)
• Man United (In money troubles but they’re looking at a striker so surely they should have a go at a ‘keeper first)
• The Scum (he’s not doing that though)
• Fulham (he’s already dislodged Leno once)
• Brighton (might be a money issue)
• Wolves (same again re: money)

That’s just a few but it feels to me like there should be more options for him. Hopefully that’s just a rumour in which will die. We don’t really want him going to that Orcky lot in the North East, do we?

There’s still some rumours about Eze knocking around but I suspect that one bubbles along a bit for a few more weeks if I’m honest. Feels like one in which Arsenal need to keep him sweet by telling him “we’re coming”, but I suspect there has to be some people going out the door first to free up space, so I’m not expecting anything any time soon on that one. And as a result I don’t really feel like talking much about it. The ITK stuff can be a bit weary with the whole ‘edging closer’ nonsense; we’ve just gone through that with Big Vik, so I’m a little reluctant to invest more time and energy in another saga. We’re in a good shape right now and there’s a ‘friendly’ tomorrow to focus on.

So I’ll catch you all tomorrow for some more thoughts ahead of that game. See you then.

I can only assume he’s been told that he’ll be a squad player next season rather than a first team regular and maybe he’s thought that, at 32 year’s of age, he needs more regular game time whilst he’s still at a physical best. It’s still weird though. I thought one of the reasons he went back to Germany was that his wife was also interested in heading back there (so I heard). Of course there was the challenge of working with Xavi Alonso and what he was doing in Leverkusen, but I would have thought Xhaka would have a few more glamorous places he could go and play football in than the North East. And having The Management with family from that part of the world, I can tell you know, there ain’t much glamour in Sunderland, that’s for sure. Mind you, I also have family in Cologne and Leverkusen is right next to it and I can also confirm there is bugger all in Leverkusen other than the Bayer factory.

But it is what it is, Granit will get a great reception at The Emirates next season and hopefully he has a good time up there in the upcoming season.

As for us, well, with all of the transfers done and one more Asia Tour game left to go, the in between time we have is filled with interviews. It’s full of people wanting soundbites, little snippets, the tiniest of ‘scoops’ to report back on and the one that is doing the rounds at the moment appears to be William Saliba saying positive things about a new contract. Needless to say, I think every Arsenal fan knows that he is a guy who we need to try to tie down to a longer term deal. The worry for me has always been that you just know that Real Madrid will come sniffing eventually and whilst that has only been a tentative noise so far, with two year’s left on his deal, efforts simply must be stepped up this summer.

On his part he’s been positive; he’s said to people that he’s happy and hopefully a deal can get done, that he wants to leave that to his agent, etc, etc. Arteta also said during last season that all of the noises are positive from him. There appears to be a happy camp on all parts, but as we know, that doesn’t necessarily always lead to a deal. The money will have to be right and Arsenal will need to be offering top dollar here, because if Real Madrid want him, they’ll be laying down the foundations for a Trent-style snaffling for free (or near free) in a couple of year’s time. If Arsenal can propose the right deal, that is good for him and gives him top billing (or close to) on the earnings list at The Arsenal, I have hope he will sign. He’s 24, he turns 25 in March next year and if you look at how he plays and how he reads the game, I don’t think he’s a centre half who starts to look old when his pace starts to depart him. He’s always been a strong and physical player with the ability to read the game well and whilst he’s not the same as Vin Dijk (he certainly doesn’t get the same level of preferential treatment from referees as the Dutchman does), I do think his ability to remain at the top of the game for longer is there.

So if you’re talking about him as a centre half who could – injury permitting – stay at the top for another ten years, then he still has time for that Madrid move if he signs another deal this summer. If Arsenal time him down to a four-plus-one deal, they have him covered until his 29-year-old season and it’ll probably mean that Madrid can come knocking in three or four years, with us getting a nice fee for him and being able to move on.

Of course that’s not what I want to happen; I want him to stick around for another 10 years and become an Arsenal legend, winning trophies and writing himself into Arsenal folklore. But the older you get, the more more you realise the transient nature of football and their careers (just look at Granit), you realise that it rarely works out that way. But Arsenal do need to move heaven and earth to get this one extended for a few years I feel. It appears as though a deal is there to be done and that’s where we need to see that Berta can deliver on all facets of his job. He’s done it with MLS and Big Gabby, but to me it has always felt as though the more difficult contract renewals will be Saka and Saliba. Get those over the line this summer and we’re talking.

Of course the other side to the transfer coins is also something we need to sort out is the outgoings – and doing it for decent money. Chelsea seem to cheat their way through big deal after big deal (although I suspect the letters ‘P’, ‘I’ and ‘F’ have something to do with it..), Liverpool can command decent money for back up centre halves, so the final piece of the Berta puzzle this summer will be those outgoings. If I was to put a number on it as a target, it would be:

Can you get us £75million in sales this summer?

I think that is achievable given some of the assets we have. If I break it down, I would see it as:

• Reiss Nelson = loan with obligation to buy at £15million
• Oleksandr Zinchenko = £15million
• Fabio Vieira = £15million (West Ham supposedly sniffing)
• Sambi Lokonga = £10million
• Gabriel Jesus = loan with a £10million obligation to buy

We’ve already got £7million (ish – I think it’s just under that with the Euro conversion) for Tavares too, which brings us to £72million and then you’d hope that sales of players like Hein, etc, could net a few million here and there to bring that over the line. And I don’t think those fees above are over-valued. In fact in some instances I might be under valuing some of those experienced players. But if we’re netting £75million having spent around £200million in the summer, I suspect from a PSR point of view it leaves us in good shape.

Were used to signings being dragged out. We normally expect there to be an element of wait and delay as Arsenal pick the right moment, usually do all the pictures and videos, then it takes a day or two, then BAM! We’re hit with the announcement. But after getting the confirmation on Friday that he’d been given approval to travel to London, after the medical was scheduled for Saturday and on Friday evening pictures emerged of him getting off a private plane, we got last night the announcement we’d all been waiting for:

Viktor Gyokeres has signed for The Arsenal.

It is done. Sporting have relented and I suspect I am not alone in hoping we don’t go back to them again for any of their players, because that president is a pain in the arse.

Sporting and Chelsea – can we just not from now on?

But it’s over, the striker is signed and despite there being a bit of handwringing from some Arsenal fans over the likes of Isak or Sesko (me too on the latter by the way as he was my preferred choice, not so much on Isak because of the money and the injury record), I think most Arsenal fans – if not all – are happy to get this one over the line and see what big Vik can do.

He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s powerful, he’ll run all day and he knows where the goal is. One of the biggest challenges with any new player joining The Arsenal from overseas is the physicality of the league. The Prem is about power and pace and you can’t have somebody who is getting boshed off the ball in your attacking line. Sure, he has flaws, which I’m sure you’ve also already read about like me with things like his heading, etc, but the key fundamentals of his game seem well suited for the Premier League.

He won’t get the same time as he does in Portugal, he’ll certainly have more shots saved from goalies in our country (I’ve seen his goal compilations and there are some in there I just don’t think he gets against Premier League ‘keepers), but he knows where the goal is and I guess a bit like Madueke, he’s going to try to have a pop. We’ve needed that for some time to be fair. We all lamented our lack of unpredictability but what the club have done this summer is, I think, commendable because I think we’ve set ourselves up well to be competitive this season.

He’s also clearly got some cajones and really backs himself, because he’s selected that iconic number 14 as his number. He will be very aware of its significance and with the last person to wear 14 being Aubameyang, he’ll know that goals is what that number demands and us Arsenal fans will be desperate to see him deliver those in abundance in red and white.

I’ve also read some positive noises about how he was desperate for that Sporting move and really pushed for it from Coventry. Clearly he is a strong-willed man and having read all of the noises about how much he pushed for this Arsenal move, we can only feel positive about a guy who is desperate to play in the shirt. Lovely stuff.

There’s one question that we all have about upgrading that left hand side and sure, I’m with you that we could certainly do that if perhaps there was a buyer for Trossard and we pulled the trigger on Eze, but even if that deal doesn’t happen I have to say I’m in a good place with where Arsenal are at right now.

Wide rotation forward

Striker

Central defender rotation option

Upgrade on Partey

Upgrade on Jorginho

Upgrade back up ‘keeper

That’s a heck of a lot of work done before we hit August. There’s more to do – we need Sara and Saliba to put pen to paper and we probably need to bank at least £50million in sales before the window slams shut – but for where my head is at this morning I feel like there’s a good balance about this squad and we look like we’re ready to be competitive with a better team than we had last season.

And so now all focus needs to shift to that. We need to get the group together, get matches under their belt for pre season and now the hard work with his squad (practically) all assembled is what will be Arteta’s focus. An Eze-shaped signing will be a cherry on a cake for sure, but I think we’re good enough to compete and I’m really excited to see how we line up come that first game against Man United.

Before then – and today – we have a few friendlies to get through and that includes Newcastle this lunchtime UK time. I’m still in Cologne having a mini break seeing family so I won’t be watching the game, but hopefully we see more positive football from the players and we have some good stuff to talk about tomorrow.

Catch you then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bring me back to My Arsenal.

Catch you all again tomorrow.

I like these kind of signings, because it has rivals going “who’s he? Arsenal have bought poorly again” and because they don’t know the player or haven’t become invested in him like us since the deals of a potential move surfaced, they sleep on him a bit. But when you start reading into him, his profile and also the bloody size of him – he’s six foot three at 20 years old! – you see that he feels like a very impressive acquisition. Although I  have to lay my cards on the table here; I don’t really know much about him and don’t really watch much Spanish football other than the odd game if it’s on in the background as I’m cooking. So I read up on this article from Phil Costa on Arseblog and I have to say, that ticks all the boxes for me. Comparisons to Rudiger, a player who has the kind of minutes under your belt that you’d expect from a 23-year-old, can play either side of the defence, good ball retention and I love it when I get the ‘Gandalf’ feeling from reading about a player. You know what I’m talking about – that “YOU SHALL NOT PASS” kind of vibe. Super stuff.

We of course need to let him get settled in, he needs time to adapt to the English game and its physicality, but he looks like he’s got all of the tools to be a very good signing for us and it’s the first one that I think most of us know is a true ‘Berta’ signing. Even in the video itself Mosquera references ‘the sporting director’ along with Mikel as the reasons he wanted so desperately to sign. And it’s another one that ‘desperately’ wanted to sign, which has become a feature of the signings this summer. Players moving heaven and earth to get to your club is a sure sign that when they put on that shirt, they are walking an inch or two taller, are going to try that little bit more, which is all we ever ask of as fans. But yes, this one is for sure a Berta one. There’s lots of talk about the great summer he’s had, but I do think that does a little bit of injustice to the groundwork that was already done. I think Zubimendi, for example, was already sorted. And I’m not sure (but happy to be told otherwise) whether he had too much impact on the Big Gabi signing, because that seemed to happen pretty quickly after he’d walked through the door, if my memory serves me right. The rumours of Gyokeres or Sesko have persisted for most of this season gone by and although Berta clearly had his preference and maybe that’s what has led us to the Swede, I wouldn’t think he’s ‘instrumental’ on the deal, but maybe just did his bit to push it over the line.

I dunno, perhaps I’m doing Andrea a disservice, but for this one I think it feels to me 100% like this is ‘his guy’. Apparently according to Phil’s article there were rumours that Berta wanted him at Atleti, so that shows you how much of an influence he’s clearly had here. It’s proper pissed Valencia off too by the looks of it. That statement is as cold as you’re gonna get from his selling club. Eek.

But he’ll move on, they’ll move on, hopefully it works well for him and we have a guy who will compete for a starting spot within a few seasons.

The other article I wanted to give you a heads up on was an Athletic article written by Gunnerblog that was released yesterday (behind a paywall here). What I loved about it was the way in which Rice spoke about Madueke, saying how driven he is to prove everyone wrong and be a success. Again, a response from one of our pseudo captains along the lines of “wait and see guys, you’re going to be excited” is the sort of thing you want to read as a fan. We’ve all had our say on the transfer, but now it’s time to see what he can actually do with a red and white shirt on and I hope Rice is right about him surprising people.

I also hope he’s right about his own ambitions. We all wondered about Rice last season at the start and he himself said that the Euro’s and basically having two week’s to ‘get over it’ before being pushed back out on the Premier League stage meant that he didn’t quite feel with it. We all saw that play out. But we saw the real Rice towards the final third of the season and if we think about how he’s had plenty of rest, a full pre season under his belt and now is ready and raring to go, it’s exciting. To me it feels exciting that we could get the Declan Rice that finished the season, starting this season, so when you couple that with the hope that Odegaard is over his struggles, Kai has beefed up, Ethan and Myles are a year older (and Ethan looks like he’s been taking his vitamins!), we’ve got an upgrade at six in Zubimendi and a lot of depth options have been solved – something else Rice mentioned.

It makes me really hope we get to make some rival fans chow down on some humble pie next season. I’ve seen plenty saying we’ve bought bang average players, we will finish between fourth to sixth, that there’s no chance we’re competing and I’m absolutely fine with that. I just hope we can kick on early on and show them that we mean business this season, because I think we really do, and I hope Rice is right with what he was saying.

Catch you tomorrow – maybe – I’m doing a cheeky weekend in Cologne to see family so may or may not get time for writing stuff.

Annoyingly I wasn’t able to watch the game in full because I was at work, but even if I’d have been off, there’s zero chance I’m paying a tenner to watch friendlies. I mean, I get the club being creative with new revenue streams, but I pay over a grand a year for my season ticket, so surely giving some kind of mega discount to those already shelling out a fair bit of coin would be a better idea?

Obviously not and so I shan’t be watching any of the matches in real time. If I can find a stream that gives me more extended highlights within 24-48 hours I will do, but with the next game coming up this weekend, like yesterday’s news becoming chip paper, Arsenal results in pre season have a very short shelf life.

Arteta named a strong blended line up to kick our pre season off though, with Raya, White, Saliba, Calafiori, Norgaard, Rice, Saka, Havertz and Martinelli all starting. Milan started with their new number one (with Maignan off somewhere this summer) and by all accounts they too had a pretty strong XI, playing Leao, Pulisic, Musah, Tomori, Pavlovic and Loftus-Cheek all playing, but Arsenal pretty much dominated from start to finish. That’s not surprising really; this is a Milan side that finished eighth last season and has got a goalie on the way out, lost Reijnders to City earlier in the summer and probably is unlikely to be competing for the title this season. They are a big name but their current squad suggests it is the name above the personnel that is the big draw.

From the highlights I’ve seen it looks like we got a very good performance from Nwaneri – clearly there to impress having cut his holiday short following the under-21s – and he dominated a lot of the highlights I saw from us in that first half. I’ve read one or two of the perspectives on the online site and a few other places and it sounds as though Norgaard was tidy too. That’s what we’re expecting from him this season; we want a guy who will deputise well when he comes in and if we’re thinking that Milan are a kind of upper-middle table side in Serie A, then that’s the sort of side that you’d expect Norgaard to do well against if we’re dominating possession and chances at home, for instance.

And we did in both halves, but that first half we forced their goalie into three good saves and had 11 shots in total to Milan’s two. Raya had little to do in that first half and even after he swapped in the second, Kepa was only forced into one save that was pretty much down his throat.

Our goal from our Starboy was one that was very impressive in terms of the delivery and for all of the talk of a Kiwior potential exit this summer, if there are Italian clubs sniffing around him for a possible return, they’ll have noted his end product play with that superbly whipped ball into the box for Saka to ghost in and hit the back of the net. It wasn’t the tidiest finish from Saka, but he timed his run perfectly and you can’t ask for much more than that. It was by far and away what we had deserved based on the stats up until that point and from what I’ve watched on the highlights we’d pretty much replicated that first half form in the second too. Shots from Trossard and Nelson stand out to me and what I thought was interesting was seeing an Arsenal side willing to have a pop from outside of the box. Not only that, but hitting the target too and I thought Nelson was particularly unlucky to have his shot low to the left hand corner saved by their ‘keeper. SofaScore has Terraccino as one of their best players on the night and that tells you a story of our dominance. Perhaps some naysayers will argue that Arsenal showed a familiar failing in not being able to convert their chances and finish off Milan, but it’s pre season and the players are only just getting started now, so I’m not too worried about it.

That’s because minutes got into the legs, players who have been out for a while got back into the swing of it and ultimately Arsenal kicked off pre season with a win, which is a ‘nice to have’ for sure. The weird penalty shoot-out thing I’ll never quite understand but I guess it’s a bit of fun for the fans.

I’ve seen a video doing the rounds focused on Zubimendi and I’ll be honest, I liked what I saw. There was plenty of verticality in his passing on the montage I watched and hopefully as pre season goes on we’ll start to see more and more what he’s going to bring to this side. We have three games in Asia and then two back home against Villareal and Athletic Club in the Emirates Cup and by the time we’re back in England you’d expect the team to be forming those connections and be a little more like the Arsenal we’re going to see at the big kick off on 17th August. But for now, it’s job done, which sounded like it was Arteta’s thoughts after the game. There’s nothing really worth pointing out from his press conference from my perspective, other than the fact he rightly batted away Gyokeres talk and praised Dowman and Salmon for making their debuts for the club. A great day for them and their families and I’m sure they were delighted to get on the pitch – Dowman even had a decent effort in the second half, so good on him.

And that’s me done for the day. Time to clock off and get on with some work. Enjoy your Thursday – whatever it is you are doing – and I’ll be back tomorrow. I wonder if they’ll announce Mosquera today for us to finally talk about him as an Arsenal player tomorrow, eh?

See you then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He also spoke about those already in the door and you can tell he’s super pumped about Zubimendi above all. That was the one that we know he coveted and he talked about how it was a long process to get him, how the club did a great job of convincing him, but this signing feels like it has all the hallmarks of it being an Arteta deal. Sometimes you never know how much involvement Arteta has. Take Gyokeres, for example, who most people pretty much universally accept that it’s one of Berta’s guys. I’ve heard multiple journalists and podcasters talk about how Arsenal were hot on Sesko, Arteta was desperate for the Slovenian, that was ‘his guy’, yet Gyokeres is the one we’ve landed on, mainly because Berta is backing him big time and I think Arteta is like “ok cool”. Madueke feels like he’s Arteta going “you get Gyokeres, I get Madueke as my pick” in that forward line, but the Zubimendi deal was one that was really clear that everyone wants and Arteta clearly feels that he’s a guy who is going to take us to the next level.

The exit of Partey meant a hole needed to be filled and I think Arteta feels like he’s definitely got an upgrade in that respect. He was asked about the Partey situation and of course he said that he felt the club acted 100% correct and he can’t talk about it for legal reasons, but I suspect even Arteta is glad that sorry mess is behind him and now he can focus on Zubimendi, who he mentioned he was very excited about. It’s easy to see why – he himself adopted that position when he arrived at The Arsenal and I suspect Arteta see’s a lot to like from the way Martin plays and his style. He intimated that by saying that after 10 days of training now he’s been very impressed. He doesn’t have to say that; he could just say he’s very happy, glad he’s in, happy to have signed somebody with that level of experience. But he chose his words very carefully and when he’s talking about Zubimendi’s character and personality, you can tell he’s got a guy who is a perfect fit for the environment and culture that Arteta has built over these years.

He spoke positively too about Madueke and that one was more general soundbites I think. I think Arteta and the club know full well how it went down amongst the fanbase pre the announcement. They know there’s a bit of work to do and I don’t think talking too much will do anything any more. So what everyone needs to see is him on the pitch and making an impact – which I think is fair enough.

Apart from that there’s a little bit from Gabriel talking about how he wants to win things at The Arsenal, how he’s happy to have signed a new deal, etc. It’s nothing majorly ground-breaking in terms of what he said, but it’s nice to hear that he’s bought in for the long term. We need that energy from Bill Saliba now, as the second part of that double act, which will need to be the next thing Berta and his team get sorted once the transfers are done. In a way, you want us to get the Mosquera and Gyokeres sorted ASAP this week, because it will mean that he can focus attention on outgoings and also contracts, so hopefully that’s the second half of the summer that gets sorted for us. We need to hear that positive news on contracts as much as we need to hear the new signing news. Let’s hope Berta is on it. The initial signs have been positive though. MLS and Big Gabby seemed to be done with little fuss. The Nwaneri deal is – if all is to be believed – done and dusted too. So we need Saka and Saliba the focus of attention next and if that can be done by the time the summer is over, that will be hugely positive for all of us and the club too.

Hopefully we see a little movement this week, whilst the team get on with the process of bonding on the pitch with the upcoming friendlies.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Sixty million down the drain…

And that’s exactly how it should be. I didn’t want this deal, I am sceptical on the player, I think we’ve paid about £10million more than we should, but I am absolutely going to be singing his name loudly and proudly if he gets on to the pitch for that first home game against Leeds in August. He will need it and he will want it and I think as fans it is our job to now do our bit.

Welcome Noni.

The initial noises are good too. He’s said he wanted to join the tour as they jetted off yesterday for the pre season tour of Singapore yesterday, but the club have told him to take some rest, so he’s clearly eager to get started. I thought the announcement message was cleverly crafted actually. The statement made by Berta and Arteta talked about his ability, his pace, but also his ‘professionalism’, which is something that we’ve actually heard the opposite about in recent years. He’s been dropped from match day squads, we saw the fighting on the pitch with Jackson over a penalty and clearly there’s something in this player that has a bit of spice to him. I listen to the Arsenal Opinion podcast and Johnny and Pete talk about this on their pod so I’d urge you to go have a listen if you want another couple of perspectives on the player. Here’s a link to the show – you can get the free version wherever you get your pods.

But I do think the club have been very careful in the wording of their announcement on Friday. They know that this deal hasn’t gone down amazingly with the fanbase, like Kai two year’s ago and like Ramsdale four years ago, but they also know that the Arsenal fans – because of those two deals as examples – know that they have tended to get behind these deals and that the club has tended to get these signings right. So I think a lot of us are willing to sit back and let this play out with the hopeful positive consequences.

There was also the accidental Mosquera video release and supposedly there’s some technical stuff around the medical which is just delaying the formal announcement, but given the player has already done his interviews and been pictured, that deal clearly is just going to get over the line. And it’s a good deal that brings that depth we need at centre half, but as a result of it, I’m convinced the club will try to move Kiwior on for decent money this summer. We brought him for around the £22million mark and if a club comes in and offers £35 – £40million, you have to take it, after he showed his capabilities at the end of last season deputising for big Gabby. I think given Mosquera can play left or right centre-half, the reason he was dead set on signing for Arsenal is that he’s basically been told he’s getting any centre-half minutes that our two main men at the back don’t take. That means Kiwior doesn’t get them and I think flipping him for a profit also means that we recoup back some of the cash we’ve outlayed on players already this summer.

And we still have to get that striker in, which has all gone weirdly quiet given that it was a week ago that we saw that Arsenal and Lisbon had finally agreed the fee. I liked Arseblog’s work this morning in giving us the amusing comments from the A Bola article about the deal potentially being off because it’s stalled. Have a read if you want a little light-heartedness on your Sunday morning. The reality is that both clubs are just driving a hard bargain. Everyone expects this deal to happen and it’s so far along right now, that nobody is going to want it to collapse:

1. Sporting want their money so they can move on. They also don’t want an unhappy player and I don’t think given how much they’ve messed around on this deal, Gyokeres is just going to shrug his shoulders and say “oh well, never mind, it’s back to training in Lisbon for me” is he?
2. Arsenal want their player. They have set their stall out and starting all over again for another player is probably just not something that they want to entertain at this late stage in the transfer saga.
3. Gyokeres wants his move. He’s packed up his house and has already said his goodbyes. The last thing he wants is to have to do a full U-turn and move himself back in.

So this deal is happening, it’s just a matter of when, as well as somebody finally blinking and I suspect both clubs will move a little more towards each other to get this over the line.

Other than that, we play the waiting game, as Arsenal will be playing during next week and we’ll start to get things like press conferences ahead of the next pre season friendly. What will be exciting is to see whether some of the (really) young players who have joined the tour get any minutes. I think most of us are looking at Downman and thinking he might be the one to watch, but sometimes on these tours another player comes from nowhere and has really good pre season. We saw what pre season did for Lewis-Skelly last year and here we are one year later with him as our starting left back. So it will be good to see if we have another one of those waiting in the wings.

Right, that’ll do for today I think – have yourselves a good Sunday and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

Of course this supposed deadline is just a pin in pre season; deals won’t all get to be done before that date and Arsenal aren’t going to just slap extra money down just so that a shiny new signing can be unveiled whilst out in Asia. Now wouldn’t that be a crazy reveal, eh? Imagine if Eze is smuggled in to the cargo-hold, then whilst up 20,000 feet in the air, they pull him into his seat and he just bowls down the aircraft steps with fans screaming all around him. I’ll have me some of that, thank you very much.

I do think most of us are expecting movement now though. Over the weekend we got our Ornbomb’s about Gyokeres and the agreement in place, so I suspect the player will be doing a medical within the next day or two, which gives the club enough time to get the pictures snapped and then have him on the plane as the players make their way. The Madueke signing will come first though; we’ve all already heard that he’s completed his medical, which means pictures are probably taken today, then maybe an announcement tomorrow. We still need to work out where the heck we’re going to play him and who he is going to displace, but it’ll be ratified by the usual social media and then we can start to understand how Arteta might deploy him. For a little bit of bonus “what are we getting?” I’d recommend checking out James’ chat with a Chelsea podcaster on the Same Old Arsenal pod here.

I wouldn’t say that the pod has completely turned me 180 on Madueke, but there’s enough in there for an ageing Arsenal fan like me can start to get his head around in terms of what he might bring that is different to the current squad. I’d still probably take the Chelsea fan up on the fee though; I think football fans always over-inflate the value of the players they have and the guy on there said that £48.5million for Madueke was fair market value. When you hear that, I always think we’ve probably over paid for him – a bit like we did for Havertz to be honest. And that still doesn’t leave the best taste in the mouth, because we’ve once again bailed out a reprehensible club in Chelsea. But it’s done now. eventually I’ll move on.

And so will Reiss Nelson too, by the sounds of it, because there appears to be two or three clubs interested in his signature. And for a pretty decent fee too. You’ll note my comment about fans over-inflating their players’ values, but in this instance I thought we’d be lucky to get £10million for Reiss. He’s on a decent wage (I think the rumours were circa £100k), he’s had a load of injuries throughout his career, plus he’s not really in the Arsenal first team picture. But I guess when you get a player who is English, still young (he’s 25 and will be 26 in December), plus he was well liked at Fulham where he was on loan before his injury, there will be clubs interested in that and hoping that he can get over his injury challenges. Apparently Palace are having a sniff and I’m sure I also saw that Brentford were interested and as we all know, when there’s more than one club interested, you can always get a little more cash for what you are expecting. I doubt we’ll get too much of a bidding war, but if the negotiations are indeed with Palace, you could see where Arsenal might naturally take the conversation next.

Eze is apparently next on the list after the completion of negotiations for Gyokeres and whilst there’s no chance that deal gets done before the players depart for the pre season tour, I suspect if the do want Nelson in through the doors at Selhurst Park, these conversations will help to smooth the way. And if it’s £15million fee, that’s another good bit of cash generated by Hale End once more, added to the Smith Rowe and Nketiah money we got last summer. We can talk a little more about Nelson if those rumours become a little more concrete, but it does feel like now is the right time for a player like him to be find a permanent home where he can play more football.

And for Arsenal it will help to pay off for some of the outlay we’ve had this summer. I saw talk that there might need to be a significant outbound departure over the next 12 months to balance the books, but if Arsenal make a number of sales that are for around the £15 – £20million mark, then surely that would help to covera  lot of the costs from this summer? Nelson, Vieira, Zinchenko, Kiwior – all of those players could potentially fetch that £15million fee (more for Kiwior I’d hope) and if that happens we should be looking at a minimum of £60million there. And i haven’t even talked about the likes of Sambi Lokonga or if Tavares moves to Saudi. So let’s see how those exits go.

There’s also expected to be the movement of Christian Mosquera from Valencia, which sounds like a superb deal for Arsenal and maybe that too can get done this week, but I think i’d rather save my thoughts for another day on that one. Let’s see if he’s in through the door by Friday too.

Right – that’s it from me today. Maybe we have a shiny new signing to talk about come this time tomorrow.

Wait, is it still an ‘Ornbomb’ when we’ve kind of had varying degrees of reporting on this stuff. Like, when does an ‘Ornbomb’ become an actual ‘Ornbomb’? When initial stories about the player break? When it is announced that there are talks between clubs? Or when there is an agreement made? Has anyone actually set some parameters around what constitutes the actual ‘bomb’ part?

I’m saying all of this with a little bit of my tongue in my cheek, but this saga has dragged on for a fair bit and so the ‘bomb’ side of it – which I always feel is the exciting and surprising side of the story – has kind of already gone off. Now all we’re doing is drawing everything to a close.

I guess none of this matters. The important thing is that the two clubs finally agreed on the fee and value and when it was announced that it was going to be €63.5million plus €10million in bonuses, I found myself thinking “hang on a second, that’s less than Arsenal were bidding in the first place. Why?” It kind of feels like that Family Guy sketch in which Peter doesn’t know how to haggle. Of course the benefit of the reporting these days is that it becomes easy to find that information out, which it appears is centered on the agent and Gyokeres waiving their fees for commission to get this over the line. That meant that Sporting didn’t have to pay him, they get to keep a little more of the total fee, whilst Arsenal also got to do a deal that was less than they originally offered.

Literally ‘everybody wins’ in this situation. Sporting get their money. Arsenal don’t have to pay over their value, Gyokeres gets his move and whilst the agent doesn’t get his cash pay-out, he’ll know that there will always be future contracts to negotiate and this will bag him enough goodwill amongst all parties, that will come in handy in future. It’s also kind of good that this kind of story gets out into the media, because agents are frequently seen as somewhat pseudo bad guys for taking big cash, moving players around, poorly advising in some instances, being a bit chirpy in interviews sometimes, etc. But this is a story which paints an agent in a more favourable light and whilst I suspect it is on the agent side that this story was leaked, it is still good to hear and see.

The deal should now pass through relatively quickly and by the sounds of it Arsenal aren’t stopping there, because Mosquera is also getting closer to being concluded and with Madueke set to be announced within the next few days I suspect, I think that deadline of the end of this week will end up being met for Arteta to get his players on the plane heading out to Asia. If all of the stars align, we might see the following heading out on tour:

1. Kepa (£5million)
2. Martin Zubimendi (£55million)
3. Christian Norgaard (£10million)
4. Noni Madueke (£48.5million)
5. Viktor Gyokeres (£55million)
6. Christian Mosquera (£17million)

There are still rumours about Eze and I saw something about a possible player going in the other direction yesterday, but I suspect that one will take longer to bubble before we see which direction (if any) the player move goes. What the above arrivals do tell us is that Arsenal will have almost completed their rebuild on players based on some of the exits we’ve already had, but I suspect we might see some outgoings, because I think the guys coming in at the moment are replacements, rather than additions. There we noises yesterday from Germany that Bayern Munich are looking at Leo Trossard as a possible option if they can’t get Luis Diaz and if you think about the fact he’s been linked to Saudi Arabia, as well as Fenerbahce in the last week or so, it feels like there’s no smoke without fire. I also saw some noises online that Kiwior is up for sale too. I can understand that, particularly if we can inflate his price as a result of the run he had at the end of last season. Let’s look at that list above again, for which I think we’re looking at:

1. Kepa – as a replacement for Neto
2. Martin Zubimendi – as a replacement for Thomas Partey
3. Christian Norgaard – as a replacement for Jorginho
4. Noni Madueke – as a replacement for Trossard
5. Viktor Gyokeres – as a replacement for Gabriel Jesus
6. Christian Mosquera – as a replacement for Jakub Kiwior

If the reported numbers are right, Arsenal will have made an outlay of around the £190million, which is no small change. You’d think that in order for Arsenal to press on with Eze, they’d have to probably get some cash in, which is why I’d expect there to then be a fair few sales going on. Kiwior? Trossard? Zinchenko? Fabio Vieira? Nelson? Sambi Lokonga? Karl Hein? If we offload all of those players you’d hope we could get around the £100million mark. That’s me being a little conservative I’d have thought for seven players. And I think with the above additions mentioned above we have basically replaced in terms of quality and numbers, because aside from Kiwior and Trossard, none of the other players really made a meaningul contribution:

• Zinchenko played a total of 795 minutes in 23 appearances
• Fabio Vieira played zero minutes as he was on loan at Porto
• Nelson played three minutes of one game
• Sambi Lokonga played zero minutes as he was on loan

So if we pick up money for even the above players, we’re banking cash and not really weakening the squad much from last season. So maybe there is some money to be found and some space to be filled up by an Eze?

Who knows. But for now let’s keep an eye out this week for those Madueke, Gyokeres and Mosquera moves that might come to fruition.

Back tomorrow.

Firstly, I think it’s difficult for me to row back from my original thoughts and feelings about the player. I have been told by two Chelsea fans – one a season ticket holder – plus last night had a chat with my Godfather who used to take me to The Arsenal when I was a kid and he was saying that two of his work colleagues had told him “you’ll get 10 minutes of football out of him every match”. I hear that stuff and I find it difficult to get too enthused. Then I see that we’re giving Chelsea a £20million uplift by signing him for £48.5million in initial payments (they paid £28.5million two years ago to PSV) and it just annoys me. If you’re talking about £30million then I can get behind this deal. Why? Because this deal does, I think, mean that other hopes many of us have for the window don’t happen. By investing that kind of money on Madueke – a rotation option for Saka as it stands – is a lot of money that I think could probably have been spent elsewhere.

And I don’t think Arsenal are spending it elsewhere on all the players we want. Well, all the players I want, should I say. I would have loved an Eze to come in. That could still happen and I suspect after the club have sorted out the messy Viktor Gyokeres saga, they’ll turn their attentions to Eze, so we may yet see that develop more. But I also wanted us to really try to push the boat out and go for Rodrygo this summer. He’s a quality player, he’s an impressive player, he’s a guy who I think would have moved the needle on that left hand side and my hope was that with Martinelli playing there too, we’d have two superb options to battle it out.

I can’t see that happening now. You don’t go out and sign Gyokeres AND Madueke AND Rodrygo. I can’t see a world in which that happens financially or from a squad balance perspective. Especially with the news I’ve seen this morning from a few sources that Arsenal are getting close to a deal of extending Trossard’s contract. I did wonder if Arsenal were to look to shift him on, but I think if he signs then that’s our forward line for next season:

• Saka
• Martinelli
• Havertz
• Trossard
• Madueke
• Gyokeres
• Eze

That’s seven players for three positions and I think that’s too much as it is. Now, I know there are caveats, because we might see Kai in at left eight, Eze too playing there or 10, whilst we haven’t actually got any closer in the Gyokeres signing, although I think most of us think that’ll get done. But there isn’t a world in which we get all of those players AND then go for Rodrygo, even if the reporting is that Arsenal are mad-keen on the Brazilian. In fact, I even wonder if Trossard signing a new deal means we don’t go after Eze? I don’t think it’s outside of the realms of possibility.

And I think that’s probably where my Madueke stance is, because from what I thought we were getting this summer, it would suddenly feel underwhelming. The player himself, when you look at what he’s bring, I’m kind of like “fine, let’s give it a go”, but for me I think it’s all the things that Madueke doesn’t represent that has also impacted my perspective. So that’s:

1. The fee that might impact other signings
2. The stories about the player, his style, attitude and the fact Chelsea fans seem happy to be offloading
3. The space he takes up that might stop some kind of other deal happening

Do I hate the player? Of course not. Am I going to abuse him when he signs? Absolutely no way. Will I pray this is another Havertz situation (I didn’t want him either and said so on this blog)? You betcha. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have reservations given all of the above, right?

Now, having said that, I think I – and a lot of Arsenal fans, podcasters, bloggers, etc – are all now a little bit in ‘Justification Mode’. Because I didn’t see many people jumping up and down with joy when his name was first mentioned. So there’s a lot of people who – like me – are going to have to go into, as I mention, Justification Mode to get behind this signing (well, apart from some of the football hipsters who deliberately take the alternate view so they can be uber ‘told you so’ if the player does do well, in some kind of race to be the first who is right). And that’s ok. That happens. We have opinions, we share them, as long as you’re not a dick about it (like putting white paint ‘Arteta Out’ nonsense across NorthBanksy’s murals by the ground – whoever you are you are an absolute idiot and you’ve destroyed a wonderful bit of fan culture that we’ve had for a couple of years, you cretin), then I think that’s ok.

As soon as he’s in that Arsenal shirt, get behind him and hope that whatever Arteta has seen in this player, it comes out in spades over the coming years. I’ve seen some liken him to Alexis Sanchez. Give me that kind of output and approach and Noni, my boy, you’ll have me singing from the rafters about you as an Arsenal player – I can tell you that much.

And maybe there is something in there that is about to go ‘bang’? Maybe we might see something that takes him to the next level and we will all be saying in 12 – 18 months that we got him for a bargain. That’s where my head is at right now, as I enter Justification Mode. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all. We’re football fans. We’re allowed to change our minds and those of us who do have our minds changed when players step up like Havertz did, we are all the happier, because it means we’re doing the right things. That’s all I care about.

Back tomorrow.

I’ve seen people getting really quite pissy over the fact that Sesko will most probably not be ‘the guy’ and that he’ll probably be plying his trade elsewhere either this summer or next when he eventually moves on from Leipzig.

I’ve stated my case for Sesko to be my first choice, but now that it’s not going to be that, for me it really isn’t that big a deal. We are getting a guy at the peak of his powers, with a physical prowess that should translate to the Premier League, as an alternate option to a guy we were already falling in love with last season in Kai Havertz. He’s also a guy, I might add, that was on course for a 20 goal season I think, had he not picked up that injury in January.

If Gyokeres can come in and deliver even half of what he did for Sporting this upcoming season for us, I think we are close to achieving that lofty ambition of winning the title.

But that news is still to be confirmed, so we’ll park any further talk, because the next one off the transfer production line with be Norgaard, who is expected to be announced either today or tomorrow. I’ve touched on this being a good move for all parties and I don’t think there should be too many people arguing against. And when it happens, I think we’ve upgraded our midfield from last season.

1. Zubimendi should be an upgrade on what was an increasingly ageing and leggy Thomas Partey (particularly towards the end of last season).
2. Norgaard I think is an upgrade on Jorginho (by virtue of the fact he’s played more games, is a little younger and has been Brentford’s captain).

I think our goalkeeping situation has been upgraded (Kepa is better than Neto) and I think Gyokeres’ arrival is an upgrade on what alternatives we had to Kai; the square peg (that we are all very thankful for I might add) in the round hole that was Mikel Merino, or the frequently (sadly) injured and unavailable Gabriel Jesus. So already I can see that we’re in a better position than last season.

Those Madueke links won’t go away though, which I can kind of understand if you’re looking at what appears to be gathering pace as a rumour – Leandro Trossard attracting interest from Turkey.

Now, I’ve already been on here saying that Madueke would certainly not be my preferred choice and for £43million I think we should laugh Chelsea out of any negotiating room. But if you tell me that Trossard is exiting for £20million and Madueke is his replacement, I can understand why these links are arising. I’m still not sure I like them though. I’d rather have Leo in there than a guy with whom so much inconsistency still exists. We know what we get from Leo and let’s face it, he’s still one of the most potent finishers at the club. Does Madueke really move the needle that much? Not for me I don’t think he does. The age profile works if you’re swapping Trossard for Madueke, but there’s a whole bunch of challenges I’ve already mentioned in yesterday’s blog that still have been unsure about this particular scenario. Let’s hope Arsenal are either going to do the bargain of the century and pick him up for £10million less than is being quoted, or they’re just keeping their options open at the moment, which is certainly what my hope is.

The Eze stuff, however, is something I can 100% get behind. I’ve also said my piece on him, but the latest emerging yesterday was that we were exploring an instalments deal with three £20million payments the club wants to make for the player, as well as £8million in incentivised bonuses. It remains to be seen whether Palace would be happy to sanction that and as we know from Steve Parrish and his dealings with Arsenal with the Wilf Zaha stuff a number of years back, that he will dig his heels in if needed, despite those interviews that have surfaced sounding like he’d be happy to let Eze make a dream move to one of the big clubs. Palace will likely stick to that valuation, which still feels a little toppy to me, but I think if Arsenal want the FA Cup final match winner in the squad before Singapore, they’ll have to move probably within the next few days on structuring a deal I suspect.

Arteta has his deadline and that’s the tour of Asia, but that deadline can – and probably will – be missed for some of our signings. But I suspect that if he’s looking at replacing those that he’s already lost – barring Sterling – then he’ll probably see that as enough to work with. Then it becomes about getting in those players who will have that little bit of extra sauce like an Eze or Rodrygo. If Eze can be done early then great but I suspect there’ll be a fair bit of haggling, so let’s not expect to see him in an Arsenal shirt any time soon.

And so we wait. And tick follows tock. Let’s hope for some more transfer goodness during the day. Catch you all tomorrow.

Yesterday we got the official confirmation of Martin Zubimendi’s arrival from Real Sociedad, with the first pictures of him in next season’s kit, then later in the day there was talk of the striker situation finally nearing a conclusion. Thankfully.

Let’s start with the Zubimendi transfer. Yes, we all knew it was happening, yes, it didn’t come as a surprise to many, but until it’s on the dot com you still have that last 0.1% of doubt. So to see it all confirmed and ratified and to have him talking through his ambitions was still lovely to see. He came across as quite humble, down to earth and I suspect his character is as much of a draw for Arteta and Arsenal, as his ability on the pitch. And on the pitch we have a guy who is a Spanish international, who looks at home anchoring the midfield and who we hope will be an ever-present in an Arsenal side that needs to start picking up trophies. Zubimendi even referenced that need in his interview. He is a ‘win now’ player and at 26-year’s-old we’re getting somebody who – providing he acclimatises to the Premier League well enough – goes straight in to the starting XI.

That acclimatisation period is going to be aided by the fact he’s got some old teammates who are teammates once again in Merino and to a lesser extent Martin Odegaard, as well as the fact there are a few Spaniard’s and Arteta himself who will all be able to help him settle in. But by this deal being done earlyish in the window he’ll have time to do a bit of training at London Colney, before jetting off on tour to Singapore and then Hong Kong at the end of the month. He’ll also be given a taste of home over the next 10 days or so, because according to the Met Office it’s going to be a bit of a scorcher in London for just over a week after today! Martin, trust me, it isn’t always like this mate, so don’t get used to it!

This is a superb move any way you look at it. We have a duel winner, a guy who is a progressive passer, somebody who should be able to provide us with an even more stable base and not only that, but somebody coveted all over the top European leagues. But what also shows you how much work goes into these kinds of deals, is when you read articles like this on the BBC about how it unfolded, going all the way back to the summer. I  hadn’t realised that we had spent time talking to them as they were nearly about to seal the Liverpool deal. He’s a player that I think we’d been tentatively linked with before Liverpool, but nothing concrete and I remember last summer when that felt like it was about to happen, being a little apprehensive. “This guy is a winner and he’ll be really good for Liverpool” I thought. But I hadn’t realised that Zubimendi clearly looked at wanting to stay in La Real, as well as looking at the fact he might have something on the table from Arsenal for the following summer, had an impact on his decision making. These are the kinds of stories you love to hear – to think that last summer I was worried about losing a great player to a rival, when all the time he had his eyes on us, is pretty wild really.

Welcome to The Arsenal, Zubi!

And it appears he might soon be joined by a striker signing too, after Ornstein dropped his bomba yesterday about Arsenal being in advanced talks over Viktor Gyokeres, with the clubs nearing an agreement on the fee it appears.

I’ve been pretty clear in stating my case about Sesko as my preferred option, I just feel like it would be a better move for us overall, but with RB Leipzig supposedly wanting close to €100million for the player, Arsenal clearly had to act. I think Sesko was Arteta’s first choice and I think if Leipzig would have played ball a bit then a deal could be done, but I also think that Arteta wants his business done now so he can get everyone in and acclimatised to the style of play and how we set up before the pre season tour kicks off. If a deal can be done for a reported €65-€70million plus add-ons, as opposed to €100million, then you gotta do it. Arsenal can get it wrapped up this week, he can be training with his new teammates for a week, before heading off on tour and starting to get a feel of the ball at his feet as an Arsenal player.

It’s good to see the club making a decision. We’ve had a few transfer window’s now where it has felt like we’ve had a plan A and if that didn’t come off, there was no striker plan B. I think Gyokeres might be plan B, but if you’re going to have a guy who has bagged as many goals as he has, who is a style and an approach different to Havertz that means we can approach games differently between different types of matches and game states, then that’s a-ok with me.

I have a feeling that it might be a fair few days before this saga really reaches a conclusion, so I don’t think I want to have a deeper look at Gyokeres and give too many thoughts until it is done, but I think for most of us we’ll just be glad that this saga is reaching a conclusion. Go get the Swede, get him in, then let’s see if we have ourselves a goal machine like he was for Sporting. Even the talks about waving parts of his salary to get this deal done feel like there’s a player there who has a massive desire to join Arsenal, which will please Arteta too.

That’s about all I got got you today. I suspect we might even have the Norgaard announcement at some stage in the next day or so, which will be another positive bit of squad bolstering but for now, I’ll leave you be and hope you have a great Monday.

I picked a bad day to do it.

That’s because all the talk yesterday was on Arsenal reaching personal terms with Noni Madueke from Chelsea. My initial reaction?

“Really? Another Chelsea cast off?”

I just don’t see why we are looking at this as a deal. There are so many reason’s not to do it and the fact that things are advancing leaves me very ‘meh’ about the situation. Firstly, let’s talk about the fee. They bought him from PSV in 2023 for £28.5million. During that time he has played for them 91 times and had 29 goals and assists. That’s 3.1 games per goal. Gabriel Martinelli is a year older, has suffered a fair few more injury problems, but has 80 goals and assists in 225 games for The Arsenal. Do we’re buying a guy who is less prolific than the guy who we think isn’t prolific enough?

I can hear what you’re saying, which is “Ahh, but we’re buying him as a Saka back up, not on that left wing”, to which my response is:

What about Ethan Nwaneri?

We’ve already heard in the last week that negotiations are not going completely well, that it’s at a ‘delicate’ stage and that he wants a little more assurance on game time. To that I ask what game time can we offer one of the most exciting talents out of Hale End since Saka himself?

1. He’s not going to get time wide right as a Saka understudy if Madueke comes in
2. He’s not going to be given time wide left if we are looking to bring in somebody like Rodrygo
3. He’s not going to be given time left eight if Eze comes in.

So are we basically saying that Nwaneri plays if Odegaard doesn’t play? He’s the captain at the club, so I don’t see him being dropped much. I guess you could argue just as much as Saka, but if Ethan is covering two positions – Saka and Odegaard, then he’s absolutely more highly likely to be racking up minutes. Madueke blocks a path for a player who, actually, I already think is probably better than Madueke anyway. Last season Madueke got 11 goals and five assists in 45 games. Ethan bagged nine goals and two assists in 37. At 17/18 years old (turned 18 in March). Why on earth are we looking at Madueke with Ethan right in front of our eyes?

Then, worse still, Fabrizio Romano said Chelsea were looking at the situation. That would be the ultimate kicker, because they’d be offloading an erratic, inconcsistent right winger, getting in a guy who I think within 18 months would be a regular starter in their team. Forget Omari Hutchinson-style stuff, Ethan goes on to be a regular at that horrible football club and we would have to sit here and watch it all unfold.

Now, of course, I could just be getting a little too irrational for a Sunday morning. This could all be agent posturing to get the best deal for his client and if Arsenal sign Ethan up with a big fat contract soon, then I’m not fussed. But with all the rumblings talking about how this Madueke stuff is advancing, it’s just giving me the jitters.

There’s also the fact that we’re rummaging around in Chelsea’s bins again. That is more of an inconvenience than anything else, but I don’t like the fact that by getting anywhere near their farcical £50million valuation, we’d be giving them an option to flip a profit on a layer. That club buys attacker after attacker and yet they never seem to pay the price; if this deal is going through I really hope it’s one that we don’t pay over the odds for. And for me, over the odds is anything over about £35million. He looks like a £30million player to me, TransferMarkt has him as €40million (£34,5million) player and so unless Arsenal are getting close to that figure, I don’t think we should even be sniffing at him.

I’ve spoken to a Chelsea season ticket holder at work. He says he loves looking at himself on the big screen, you can tell within five minutes if he can be arsed to play and he thinks it’s normally 50/50 based on whether he’s up for it or not. There’s also rumours of attitude problems – as evidenced here when he was accused by Maresca of a lack of effort in training – and for me I am wondering why Arteta is thinking that he needs this guy when he really doesn’t sound like the sort of character that Arteta would want in his dressing room.

So we’ve got a guy over-priced, a guy with rumoured attitude problems, a potential blocker for Nwaneri’s path, plus somebody who would be a back up option for £45million+. Can anybody explain to me in what world this makes sense?

Why not just take that money and plough it in to a Rodrygo or Eze deal, because I don’t think if we sign Madueke, we’ll be getting both of those players. Maybe we go for Eze because he’s slightly different in terms of his position and potential role in the squad, but Rodrygo?

No. Thank. You.

Of course if this progresses, if he signs, he will get my support as all Arsenal players do. But if it happens, I don’t see a world in which this is a complete success of a transfer, for all of the reaason’s I’ve listed above. Incidentally, TransferMarkt has Nwaneri down as  €55million market value, the same as Martinelli as well. It’s always a little up and down, is TransferMarkt, but it’s a good gauge of overall player value. And I’m not seeing the value in this deal at all. Not when we have perfectly capable players who can play in wide positions already at the club.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today, as I’m going to do a spot of bowling I think. Take my mind off dodgy transfers for a bit.

Catch you all tomorrow.

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

From an Arsenal perspective the expectation was that the club would announce Zubimendi yesterday, but after that news, I think it was the right thing to do to postpone anything relating to transfers on a day in which the footballing world was mourning. Whether they go ahead today and announce the signing remains to be seen – but how long is it appropriate to show a mark of respect before news starts filtering back out? I have no idea. Even today might still feel too soon, so we might not get any further confirmation until the weekend is truly upon us.

David Ornstein did have a late night scoop for us thought; it appears Carlos Cuesta is being replaced by the more experienced Gabriel Heinze. Clearly Arteta feels that you can never have enough Gabriel’s in your team, so he’s bringing one more in, just for safe keeping. It feels like a good move to me because Heinze has already been a manager at a number of clubs. He’s been mainly at Argentinian clubs like Velez Sarsfield and Newell’s Old Boys, but he also had a stint in the MLS with Atlanta United and with over 200 games in management under his belt, Arteta is bringing in a coach who can provide him the benefit of his wisdom and experience, which must be of value.

The pair know each other from Arteta’s PSG days and so they have a connection, whilst Heinze will be able to speak English, having spent three year’s at Man United before moving on to Real Madrid, Marseille and Roma. This is a season’s professional who knows all the leagues of Europe and I suspect this is something that Arteta has wanted for some time. I don’t think he’s happy Carlos Cuesta has gone, I’m sure he didn’t want it to happen, but with a spot opening up, this feels like an obvious move.

Heinze has the gravitas and CV of a winner on the pitch too. He won the league in 2007 with United, he won the league with Real Madrid and played 72 times for Argentina. The Arsenal players will be well aware of his credentials and whilst there might be an acclimatisation period for him joining the team and getting settled in this summer, the fact that he comes with that background gives him a bit of a leg up. Can he replicate the relationship with the player’s that Cuesta had? That’s difficult to say. He was a guy who was basically the same age as a lot of the footballers on the pitch, so perhaps they could relate to him more than a 47-year-old, but perhaps the dynamics need to change and we do need a little more experience with a coach like Heinze.

That’s obviously not where our focus lies, which is still on the pitch and I had a good chat with Johnny and Pete on the Arsenal Opinion Podcast last night about incomings, which centred around the Eze chat and, as I said to the gents last night I’m really warming up to this one. That’s because I think this allows Arteta to take his tactical fluidity to the next level. I called it “Arteta 2.0” because in my mind, if we go for (and get) a guy who operates in that left eight attacking space like Eze, it unlocks a number of different approaches Arteta could try. Looking to break down a low block at home? Play both Odegaard and Eze in the same game. Want to mix it up against a team like Newcastle who overload their right hand side and double up on Saka? Switch from ‘right pod’ bias to a ‘left pod’ bias by having Eze and Martinelli on that side. That could also potentially leave the likes of Saka with more space if teams them naturally shift over to dealing with us on the left hand side. Thinking about rotating Odegaard because of signs of fatigue? Ebreche – you’re in mate. want to even try and mix things up and get a number ten on the pitch? He can do that.

In Eze you have a dribbler who will take plenty of shots – he has some of the highest shot-taking percentages in the league – and with 16 goals and assists in 34 Premier League games last season, you do have a guy who has end product. I do have questions over a few niggly injuries he picks up, plus there is the fact that he himself admitted pre-FA Cup that he’s a guy who needs games to get rhythm, which I’m not sure he’ll get at The Arsenal. But there’s a lot to like about this deal, if the price is right of course. You can’t pay £68million for a guy who is 27 and will not be guaranteed game time every week. if you can do the deal for £50million I think we have a superb footballer to add in to the squad.

A final piece of news that came in late last night from that HandofArsenal chap yesterday, which was that Arsenal were in talks with Tomiyasu to mutually part ways with him pending an agreement. I don’t know if that means a free transfer or not – I suspect so – but there are Saudi Arabian clubs who are supposed to be interested and I think sadly, that’s best for all parties. He has always come across as a lovely guy, whenever he’s played he’s been brilliant, but that body of his has just let him down time and time again and it’s clear that the rigours of the Premier League are just not right for him. It’s a real shame if/when it happens, because I remember that first season for us and he was bloody brilliant at right back. But his lack of availability has meant Arsenal have now stocked both of the positions he can play and, as a result, his game time would probably end up being negligible next season anyway.

Right, I’m done this week. As I said at the top of today’s blog – hug your loved ones. Life is fleeting and we should appreciate the gift we have all been given whilst we have it.

I think a lot of fans, despite seeing some of our rivals do some initial deals, have been somewhat serene on the signings situation. But for me today is the point where my nerves start to kick in. I get that today is when contracts expire, it’ll be when Arsenal announce Zubimendi (or tomorrow if they’re really teasing us), so in essence the business will start to kick in. But what we’ve had in June is plenty of “make strides towards” stuff from the ITKs, with not a lot of actual ACTION happening.

My hope is that Arsenal have everything lined up to go on a number of fronts and those dominoes will fall one after the other. So Zubimendi, then Kepa, then Norgaard, all coming in relatively swiftly. These are all the easy deals to do and I even saw one of the head people over at Brentford admitting that it’s a great opportunity to join Arsenal that Norgaard has, so that one feels like it’s pretty much sewn up. So these ‘low hanging fruit’ signings need to happen asap really. Not because we are all transfer-starved fiends who demand shiny new things to look at, but because we have genuine need for these signings to replace departed players.

With Neto returning to Bournemouth, Kepa’s arrival is the replacement.

With Jorginho having been released early to join Flamengo we have Norgaard as the replacement.

With Partey’s contract expiring today we have Zubimendi announced as his replacement.

We also have Sterling returning to Chelsea to sit in the barren wasteland that is their reserves, stocked full of expensive talent on big contracts that they aren’t using because they chase EVERY shiny new thing, so there is a replacement there that needs to be filled.

We all know about the need for a striker, needed because we had to do it last summer and in January, but also because Gabriel Jesus is probably cooked as a top flight footballer when he returns towards the end of the year.

So action is the name of the game, because as it stands, as I write this, technically speaking we are weaker with the current team than the one that ended the season. We all expect that to change, but every day that deals aren’t official, are days in which players can’t be getting more embedded with their new teammates. And as we’ve seen with the disruption of the World Cup and Euro’s years, not having a proper pre season under your belt can make a big difference to the start of the season and building up that momentum.

Of course the longer term deals – like this current striker hunt – might not be done too quickly, but I suspect Arteta will be pretty peeved if he hasn’t got the bulk of his team in for when they go on pre season tour towards the latter part of this month. That, again, is a great opportunity for embedding players and so having this situation where we still don’t know who might be leading the line next season (wink wink, we all know it’ll be Havertz to start off with, at least) will not be the kind of preparation Arteta will want. We all know that this is a man of intense and precise detail; having a striker rocking up on 1st August is not going to be something he will be happy about.

It’s a little different with the wide forward, with Eze the current name linked in the press over the last 48 hours or so, as we already have Martinelli and Trossard who occupy those positions. Both are well-versed in our style of play, I’d be happy with seeing either start the season, but Eze isn’t always a left winger as it is. So I’m not 100% sure how somebody like that fits in. Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be a good addition and certainly adds something, but are you spending £65million for somebody to be a rotation and ‘x-factor’ player who can come off the bench? Doesn’t feel like it to me. Let’s also not discount Nwaneri either. He played in Saka’s role on the right when he was injured, but this kid is good enough to play wide left, as well as centrally, so I do think we need to be mindful of that when thinking about players like Eze. Nwaneri will be even better than he was last season and if that means he goes north of ten goals next season, then we’ve got a perfectly good understudy who will get game time and give us more of the end product we’ve been craving.

Perhaps it’s just Arsenal and Berta exploring as many options and different ways of playing as possible. Either way, I don’t see it as an immediate priority, because first we replace the players who have exited, then we address most pressing concerns (striker), then we look for that wide forward.

That’s all from me today. Hopefully tomorrow we’re talking about at least one confirmation of an arrival at the club.

I wonder if that’s how Mudryk is feeling today. Certainly he’ll be thinking about his football career, in which it might be cut even shorter, if his doping ban is upheld and he gets four years. Apparently he hasn’t played since November last year and so, even if he gets off, he’ll have essentially missed most of a season by the time this all gets cleared up. And the Arsenal connection? Well, as we all know, that is a bullet dodged, with the player flattering to deceive ever since Chelsea signed him for that whopping £88.5million. Wowsers. We got pelters for Pepe, but Chelsea aren’t getting nearly as much heat for the Ukrainian, but then again that’s what happens when you are a big club versus an artificially inflated club. That pivot for Trossard is looking definitely a wise move right now.

Whether Trossard is on the starting XI teamsheet for that first trip to Manchester on 17th August remains to be seen though, because depending on what the situation is, we might have some shiny new signings in contention. For as you know as well as I do right now, we’ve been ‘gifted’ another incredibly difficult start to our season in our first six games, playing three of last season’s top six in those matches, with two of those away from home.

I saw somebody say “if you think these fixtures are random you are naive” and I’m inclined to agree. It’s funny that Man City and Chelsea – having played in the Club World Cup – have themselves a very nice start to the season and as Sky Sports has analysed, City in particular have one of the most favourable run ins.

Why does this matter, we all play the same teams, right?

Of course, but what everyone needs to acknowledge here too, is that momentum is massive in football. The first of our three recent runners up finishes came because we got off to a brilliant start. We won five of our first six games, we were top of the league and it helped to sustain a title push until the later parts of the season. Last season Liverpool had a nice and easy start and that helped them to get to 15 points out of 18. It helped them to sustain their title win, which was helped by everyone else falling away. So the start to the season and building momentum matters. What the Premier League have done with our fixtures is give us the most difficult opportunity to build that momentum.

Now, on the flip side, if we come out of those first six fixtures in good shape, then that changes everything. With 18 points to play for, if we’ve picked up anything more than 12 points, I’ll be pretty satisfied with that. United might be terrible, but our record up there is pretty abysmal, with two wins in the League up there dating back to 2006 – that’s nearly 20 years and only six points across 18 football matches. So I take nothing for granted regardless of how rubbish United were last season. You’d expect us to beat Leeds at home, as well as Forest away in the next Premier League game we have, but before that Forest game is Liverpool away (again, I don’t need to tell you  how bad our record is at Anfield, but the winless streak stretches back way longer than United, I’ll say that much), then it’s Forest at home before the small matter of City at home and Newcastle away. If we’re sitting anything north of 12 points (four wins our of six) then regardless of the league position, I’d be feeling pretty happy about that.

Then I immediately look to the end of the season and whilst there’s the inevitably daunting trip to City (a reminder that we haven’t won up their since Santi and Coquelin were in our midfield) on 18th April, after that it’s Newcastle at home, Fulham at home, West Ham away, Burnley at home and Palace away. If we’re within touching distance of the league around that time, I’d really fancy our chances.

James and I are going to have a chat about that tonight on the Same Old Arsenal show this evening, if you fancy joining us – you can watch here.

Elsewhere from a news perspective, we have Carlos Cuesta bidding Arteta farewell, as he heads off to Parma to be their manager. At 29 it is mad to me to think how quickly this bloke has risen up to the top, but he’s clearly got something about him, because being number one in a league like that at such a young age takes some cajones. Arteta will be gutted I suspect, because he was highly rated at the club, but perhaps there will be an opportunity to bring in somebody equally as good or even better? Changing up the back room staff every once in a while is not the worst thing in the world. We know that this has happened in elite sports all the time, so I don’t suspect there will be much moping around by Arteta – instead he’ll be looking at what he can do to improve his coaching staff and get more marginal gains than he did last season.

Other than that I don’t really think there’s much else going on. The rumblings about strikers keep on keeping on and at this stage I’m just becoming a bit shoulder-shruggy over it. It’s going to become a saga, I’ve accepted that, so we just need to be mindful and acknowledge that ‘gentleman’s agreements’ mean nothing and that Arsenal are going to – eventually – pay more than they probably should for one of the striking options.

Catch you all tomorrow. Maybe we get some kind of breaking news today (here’s hoping).

Still, at least it gives me the opportunity to be hysterical about tomorrow, so there is that.

Of course there is the ‘leaks’ that you get access to and I’ve seen some of those. By the time you read this you’ll already know, but it sounds like another tough start for us. I’ll elaborate with thoughts tomorrow, but United away on the opening day won’t be easy – they won’t be bogged down by the poor season last season, we have a terrible record there historically (one win in the league going back about 15 years I think – will double check for tomorrow), so it’s not one to be taking for granted. Liverpool away a couple of games later and as Charlie who I follow on Twitter said – if you think these fixtures are random then you’re a silly Billy (or word to that effect).

So in lieu of me being able to talk about fixtures, shall we delve back into the murky waters of transfer tittle-tattle?

Thomas Partey

The noises are that he has rejected a contract offer from The Arsenal because he wants a pay rise. Interesting. I saw a couple of week’s back an offer from Barca might be incoming, but they aren’t in the habit of increasing wage offers to players; they love nothing more than getting players to drop their wages to play for them, so I can’t see that happening. My only thought on this one is that he must be getting some sizeable numbers passed his way from Saudi Arabia. He has said previously he’s happy at The Arsenal, Arteta has said he wants to keep him, but I guess at 31 if somebody comes in and offers you a two-year deal that doubles your money, you take it.

Partey is a contentious player for a number of reasons. I am not going to go into the rumoured off the field stuff, which needs to be a consideration in itself for whether to renew his contract, but on the field too he has never really delivered consistently. That’s because his body constantly let him down and having spent five years at The Arsenal now, the fact that just two of those five have felt like he has been fit an able to contribute, should be cause enough for concern. We can’t have him signed up for another year in the hope he would stay fit, because invariably he’d end up injured for most of it. The club are clearly moving on from him anyway with the expected and impending deal for Zubimendi, but this decision of Partey’s – if it turns out to be true – does mean that we will have to think twice about our options. Sure, Rice can play in the six as well as Zubimendi, but we saw last season that he’s best in that left eight role and whilst Merino can play the left eight, as well as Kai at a push, I think we will still need another body in there for cover. Maybe that’s MLS, but he’s got left back locked down right now, so do we really want to be making our squad smaller by not finding a replacement if Partey leaves at the end of his contract in just over a week’s time? 

I don’t like the sound of the Jorginho may not have been used much last season, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need a body. Is there an experienced centre midfielder who would be happy to play the rotation option, who has Premier League experience, that we could have a look at? I see Doucourre has left Everton, although he’s not as much of a ‘anchor the defence’ player – I also think I heard he might be off to Saudi for big cash too. So maybe a bit more work will be needed to be done by the Arsenal transfer team than they first thought.

Benjamin Sesko

I saw an interesting article on Sky Sports yesterday, talking about how Sesko won’t force a move from Leipzig and that Leipzig want between €80 – €100million for his signature. If it’s getting close to the €100million mark, you can see why Arsenal haven’t pulled the trigger, despite him seemingly being their first choice. If there was a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ in place to let him leave, it does make me wonder why these agents and players do these things. Apparent Gyokeres is pretty pissed off with the Sporting Lisbon president for the same reason. I mean, come on now guys, have you learned nothing from all of football transfer history? Forget the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ and focus on release clauses. And make sure they aren’t astronomical like in Spain. 

If Sesko is desperate for the move, however, then I think he’ll be putting pressure on Leipzig to get it done. And done at a fair market price. According to TranfsferMarkt that value is €70million, which is around £60million. I think if Arsenal go to them with a solid £65million (€76million) then that is more than acceptable. If Leipzig are messing around, then you can understand why Arsenal are still in dialogue with not just Gyokeres, but also Watkins too. And if both clubs keep messing around, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that the Watkins deal is back on the table this time next week.

But what this does at least give us an insight in to, is that Arsenal aren’t just ‘dallying’. They might be getting messed around by these clubs who keep changing their stance. We just don’t know. All we know is that it’s mid-June and there appears to be little movement and that causes – rightly, because I feel it too – angst amongst the Arsenal fanbase. But perversely, I did find that Sky Sports article giving a crumb of comfort, when I read it. We’ve praised Arsenal for being able to quickly pivot in the past (Mudryk/Trossard, Caicedo/Jorginho) and how they stick to their guns. If they’re doing it now, we can’t criticise too much I don’t think. 

Having said that, come back to me on 1st July and let’s see how I’m feeling.

Right, better get this out the door before the fixtures do come out and make me look like a wally for believing somebody on the internet.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I’m not even going to go in to detail about the new third kit rumoured to be being released today (with a nice little cameo from Vieira in a video posted last night, I might add), although it does look sensational.

Instead, it’s the 2-0 win over Lyon that we need to talk about, as Arsenal prepared for the big kick off next weekend in the best possible style.

Now, admittedly, Lyon didn’t really provide much of a threat to us and perhaps this is the Arsenal side of my brain that has neurosis when it comes to my football team, manifesting itself in me overthinking about how “we probably needed a bit more of a test, otherwise what have we learned?”, but other than that corner pocket of my mind I thought we looked very impressive indeed. Mikel named what I think most of us – barring maybe a couple of positional questions that are up for grabs – would have though would be the team to start next weekend. Raya in goal, a back four of White, Saliba, Gabriel and Zinchenko, Partey anchoring the midfield with Rice and Odegaard further forward, Martinelli, Havertz and Saka being the front three. It looked very familiar in set up and it kicked off with us dominant in front of a jubilant Emirates crowd, not having to wait long until we got our first. Saliba’s header was firm but the ‘keeper probably have should have done something about it. Maybe. As a former member of the ‘keepers union I will cut him a little slack; sometimes when the ball is pumped straight at you above your head you don’t always have the time to react quickly enough and get your hands there. But from an Arsenal fans perspective who cares, right? One up inside the first ten minutes and it was two on 27 minutes, this time from Gabriel on a corner and hopefully it’s a positive sign that we’re going to once again be a big threat from set pieces. In fact I’ve noticed a bit in the last couple of games that we seem to be happier to swing the ball in and Saka got his head on a couple of chances yesterday too, which was interesting. Arteta has already spoken this summer and at the end of last season that we needed to have more solutions and be a little more unpredictable, so selecting different ways of attacking a box will certainly do that.

We also created chances in behind as Lyon played a weird style that I couldn’t really work out what their gameplan was. On some occasions they seemed to hit with a high press, on some they sat back, so Arsenal exploited the space in midfield by finding pockets through the always excellent Martin Odegaard, who found Havertz and Martinelli quite easily throughout the game I thought. Martinelli was getting on the ball a lot; he got in behind a few times and got to the by-line to get the ball in a few times. He was also put in one-on-one in the first half and whilst he didn’t quite get his shot away which he’ll be disappointed in, I don’t think there’s too much to be frustrated about just yet. For sure he needs to improve his end product this season (something that has been labelled as a deficiency in the past – both from an assist and finishing perspective), but I think it was David Hillier on comms yesterday who said that when you’ve taken a knock in pre season just before the full season kicks in, the last thing you want to do is exacerbate a potential injury by going at full speed. Hence, Hillier thought (and I’m inclined to agree with him) he probably only went at 75% when in behind the defender, which gave him the opportunity to nick the ball away from Martinelli.

For me though it’s more important that he’s getting in to those positions, because not only does it show that we were able to approach the game differently in terms of chance creation (crosses, corners, balls in behind), but it also showed that we have different players to answer different challenges this coming season. And I think that’s where the biggest selection headache for Arteta will come in for next week, on that left wing, because Trossard and Martinelli have both had good games in the last seven days. My gut feel tells me I think Trossard will get the nod on Saturday against Wolves, because he finished last season the strongest, but having somebody like Martinelli there waiting in the wings is very good indeed for us, I think.

Left back will also be a question mark for Arteta eventually, but I suspect for Wolves it will remain with Zinchenko because although we got to see Calafiori in at left back on 65 minutes, it was only for about 10 – 15 minutes that he played there, because off came Gabriel around the 78 – 80 mark and the Italian slotted in at left centre back. Arteta is not starting him ahead of Zinchenko with just 13 minutes of football in that position for Arsenal and with the news that Tomiyasu is once again out injured for a few more weeks, Zinchenko kind of gets that start by default with Timber also having been rested for the last two games. Whether he keeps it for Villa away will be interesting though.

So left back is a selection question for another week for Arteta, left wing will be one for Saturday, but I think a lot of the other positions will be pretty easy to predict. Even in that number six role we saw Thomas Partey get 77 minutes and I thought he performed well. Again, I don’t think we were as tested defensively and so perhaps that is a question we still need the Ghanaian to answer, but he popped the ball around, he looked fit, he was strong and with Rice alongside him as well, we looked like we were comfortable in controlling the middle of the park.

The second half was a little bit more of a non-event on account of Arsenal playing within themselves and the substitutions from both sides turning it in to a scrappy kind of game with little flow to it, but the job had been done by halftime and it meant we could once again see cameos from Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly. No place on the pitch for Nketiah though, which only heightens the suspicions that there might be some movement this week, plus I thought it was interesting that Nelson got on instead of Vieira. Perhaps that was a ‘shop window’ exercise, which would explain it, but I don’t think it bodes amazingly well for the Portuguese that he didn’t see a single minute of a game that I mentioned yesterday was basically a dress rehearsal for the start of the Premier League season. Perhaps he had a knock, perhaps it was a chance to give more minutes to the younger players because we won’t see as much of them this season and Vieira will naturally be given more of a chance, but I don’t think it augurs particularly well for him if I’m honest.

That’s probably enough from me on yesterday’s Emirates Cup win. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more of the usual ramblings, so until then have yourselves a good one and I’ll catch thee in the morrow.

This one will be one that I’m expecting Arteta to be taking the most serious of all of the pre season friendlies, although I still think the second half will give us plenty of rotation at some stage, but for at least 60 minutes I think we’re likely to see the best XI that we can put out as a pre-screen before the big kick off and I’m weirdly excited about this friendly. I think it’s because it gives us the biggest indication on how ready the team is for what is a bloody difficult start. Normally I place absolutely zero stock in these games and yes, in terms of the result, it doesn’t really matter. But we want to see Arsenal perform well, play with an attacking spritz and keep it tight at the back, because we all want that sense of comfort that what we’re going to get this coming season is more of what we’ve had last season and the season before.

And that’s the irrational fan in me coming out now, because I’m suggesting – and have a slight fear of – us not being as good as last season. Perhaps it’s my natural self-preservation of not wanting to get my hopes built up high only for them to be knocked down, but despite what my eyes have shown me for the last two seasons, I still worry that we aren’t going to be able to repeat what we’ve done in recent memory. Despite looking at the squad and thinking we are better, despite liking what we’ve done in pre season, despite the fact that some of the young players are now a year more experienced, despite the fact Arteta has shown he is adaptable and innovative in his tactical approach and set up throughout seasons, I STILL have a fear that our footballing world will come crashing down.

That’s probably why I’m excited and maybe a little apprehensive about today, despite it being a friendly, because I want to see this Arsenal team play well and do what they were doing last season. Even in the Leverkusen game I found myself saying “yeah but Leverkusen are a couple of games behind us, their fitness isn’t as good, so despite the fact we trounced them we need to take it with a pinch of salt”. To be fair that thinking came in post game rather than in the moment and I’m sure as soon as kick off comes at 2pm today I’ll ignore all of that and just get wrapped up in the match. But what I hope to see is a strong Arsenal XI to start, a side that takes the game to Lyon and one that shows that we are ready for Wolves and ready to see if we can steal City’s crown.

And whilst Leverkusen were a bit behind from a fitness and match perspective last week, the same cannot be said for Lyon, who start their season next weekend like we do and who have played four pre season friendlies already. Their last one was a 4-0 drubbing of Union Berlin in Germany and wouldn’t you just know it but our old friend Ainsley Maitland-Niles bagged a goal from midfield too. I suspect he’ll get on, but we won’t see Lacazette, who was part of the French team that lost in the final on Friday at the Olympics. Whether he’s in the stadium to wave to the fans is probably unlikely, but apart from Maitland-Niles the familiar faces we will remember in that Lyon team will be Nemanja Matic and Said Benrahma, who also scored against Union Berlin and missed a penalty against us at The Emirates in that West Ham game at Christmas last year.

In terms of a tactical set up, I’m loathed to really bother looking in to this too much, because quite often in friendlies team experiment and so we don’t really know what Lyon will do today. It’s unlikely they’ll sit back and park the bus, but equally I don’t see them leaving us with acres of space to exploit. They played a 4-2-3-1 against Union but against Torino they went for a 4-3-3, which they also did against St Pauli in the friendly before that and even on the official site in their preview of this game they say that you can’t really pin Lyon down to a particular approach. I think that Arteta will therefore see them as a perfect final friendly opponent before we start the proper stuff next weekend, because depending on how the game plays out in the initial stages, he might want to adapt his style and our set up if it is or isn’t working. And that’s one of the things that you’d say is Mikel’s super power, because he has got better and better every season at spotting where we have problems and rectifying it, so perhaps a bit of adversity today against an unknown quantity in Lyon might be a good thing for us.

But as a fan of course you want to see goals and so if it’s an absolute drubbing in which we learn absolutely nothing but we get to give a team a pasting on our own soil would also be a lot of fun.

I’ll certainly be finding a way to watch it today somehow, then tomorrow inevitably I’ll be over-analysing every last moment as if it’s a cup final. Well, to some extent, I guess it is!

I’ll leave it there for today. Enjoy your Sunday, let’s hope it’s a lot of fun this afternoon, then I’ll be back tomorrow for a match review of some sort.

Laters people.

I’m going to start with something that I usually try to avoid – talking about The Scum – but it’s only because there’s little else going on and some of their fans will be getting a bit excited that they’re spending £654million on Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth.

Firstly, it is kind of funny that he grew up an Arsenal fan – after Matt Whats-his-face came from Wolves and had to do an apology tour video deleting his tweets because he was an Arsenal fan, Solanke will probably have to go back in to the archives to do the same when he signs. Don’t worry though, the Arsenal universe keeps ALL the receipts, man:

Has spurs ever signed a non Arsenal fan
pic.twitter.com/A7a5wT3IOF

— Arsenal ANOOP (@ArsenalAnoop) August 9, 2024

To be fair he had a very good season for Bournemouth and 19 goals is not to be sniffed at. He’s 26 and will be 27 in September, so he’s of prime age, but for me that is a little beyond what I’d put down for him. There are obviously a few of us Gooners who have seen that they’re moving for a player like this and the temptation is to get a little worried. I get it and at first, I have to admit, I was thinking “hmmm….don’t like the sound of that”, but after a few initial moments of that concern, I applied some basic logic so thought I’d share:

If Arsenal were paying that money for that player, how would I feel about it?

The answer, upon reflection, is “not good”. Yes, he’s had a good season last season, yes he’s a decent player, but £65million feels about £20million over the asking price if you ask me. I know it’s not always the most perfect gauge of a player’s value and heck, beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to values, right? Whatever a club is willing to pay, etc, but TransferMarkt has him at €40million and given that the season before last he got seven goals, the season before that he was in the Championship (although admittedly got 30 goals) and the season before that he got 15, £65million is a lot of money for that kind of player.

So hopefully he won’t ‘bang’, he’ll be a waste of money and we can see that filthy club fall further down the league next season. That would be nice.

Let’s bring it back to The Arsenal now, eh? Somebody said to me on Threads last night that imagine if that triggered off an offer from Bournemouth for Eddie for around £30million? Maybe that’s me wishcasting something in to being, but suddenly this merry-go-round felt very palatable. I have nothing against Eddie, he’s been a great servant to us and scored some great and important goals (remember the late one against United two season’s ago? That was awesome, had me believing we might actually win the title at that time and remember being in the pub talking to Johnny and Pete about it afterwards that day – it really felt like something was about to happen), but I think for him and for us it’s probably time to have a natural break and so getting the best valuable possible is the way forward when you want to invest as a club.

That’s kind of why I’m getting excited about this Merino deal; somewhere I read yesterday it was £17million. That would be crazy good money and save enough in the coffers for the club to potentially go big late in the window (Nico Williams wishcasting again, anyone?), but I suspect that’s wishful thinking and it seems more likely that it’ll be closer to the £25million most are suggesting, which is still pretty good to be fair.

What sounds more likely is that Eddie is off to Marseille on a season long loan and then €30million at the end of that. Let’s hope the Euro gets stronger to the pound by then, eh??

Then there’s the Neto move from Chelsea too. Let’s park the fact they have 985 first team players on their books and will have spent around £150million so far on players that I’m not sure massively improve their team, but £51million for Neto feels very steep indeed. Very talented player, plenty of Arsenal fans have said they’d like him at The Arsenal, but you look at this injury record and geez, that’s a gamble. Missed 21 games last season, 27 the season before that, 52 before that; that’s a guy you’re spending a lot of cash on for a gamble. And he plays right wing – that mean Madueke out the door? He’s a guy who I thought was one of their positives from last season, so what are they going to do there? How are they going to fit Sterling, Palmer, Nkunku, Mudryk, Neto and Jackson all in one team? They playing rush goalie or something?

I guess what I’m trying to say here, and by way of finishing off today’s blog, is that given our relative stability, clear plan, thoughtful recruitment process and balanced squad, some of the moves that other clubs are making does make me quite sanguine about how we’re going about this summer. Merino will most likely come in, then if we offload Eddie and Reiss we can move, but if we don’t we still have plenty of decent options. It makes for an exciting – if not slightly worrying because of the difficulty – start to the season.

I can’t wait. Just hope it hurries up and gets here already.

Catch you all tomorrow ahead of the friendly against Lyon.