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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a great day.

Just two wins.

Sounds simple, right?

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

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

And yet…

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

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

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

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

Raya

Mosquera – Saliba – Gabriel – Calafiori

Rice

Odegaard – Eze

Saka – Havertz – Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

So for me, my ‘hoping for’ lineup is:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Rice

Odegaard   –   Eze

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until then.

The Premier League games just hit differently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, who else plays today, then, eh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, from a form perspective, they’re in pretty good nick. A win at home against Burnley the week before last was preceded by a win away at Newcastle, although they did lose at home to United before that, as well as Bournemouth at home with a man sent off. The form table tells us that they are seventh in terms of their last four games, ninth in their last six games, and then sixth in their last eight games. So it’s a bit of mixed form for a Toffees side who currently sit eighth in the table and have really stabilised themselves under David Moyes. West Ham fans wouldn’t like to admit it, but I bet they’d give their right arm to go back in time and have the Scot stay on as manager a little longer than he did after helping them lift the Europa Conference League a few years back.

I watched their game against Newcastle, and although Newcastle were poor, it gave a clear indication of what we’re going to see from Everton tomorrow. This will be low block, deep defence, transitional counter-attacking attempts. Or at least holding us for a shutout. They may have changed the manager from when they last came to the Emirates last season, but the aim remains the same: Low block the shizzle out of this one. That’s what they did against Newcastle, that’s what they did against us with Dyche, that’s what they’ll do once again – and the numbers feel like the support this:

• Fifth lowest xG in the whole league – they don’t create a lot of good chances
• Ninth highest xG against – they’re a solid mid-table team when it comes to conceding high-quality chances
• Fifth lowest average possession in the league – they don’t want the ball, they don’t keep the ball
• Fifth lowest ‘dangerous possession lost’ in the league (we are the lowest) – they don’t tend to make too many mistakes in their defensive positions.

I get these stats from MARKSTATS, by the way, which helps me to get an understanding of what we’re up against. But by all accounts, it feels like a defensively disciplined side who will sit in their shape and ask the likes of Gueye and Garner to tuck in and protect the defence, whilst McNeill and Ndiaye will be their counter-attacking wingers who will look to set the big man Beto in. They’ll look for set pieces to unsettle us (they have the third most shots from set pieces in the whole Premier League – we are fourth), because despite me saying that they’ll look for Beto, they actually have the lowest number of fast breaks in the league. Going on this initial assessment of some top-line data, this already feels like it is going to be a very attritional game for The Arsenal. I’m sure Arteta is ready for that, but are the media, when they once again accuse us of being boring when the opposition side has sat in their own half for most of the game?

Their fans are understandably buoyant after back-to-back wins, with a quick check on one of their fan forums giving us things like:

The pressure on them could work in our favour and let’s be honest they haven’t looked great lately.
I’m hoping our confidence will beat their nerves

And

We got battered there last year but somehow managed to get a 0-0 draw. I would take that again

And

Beto passes a sublime, curled injury time winner to start the Annual arsenal campaign rot. Followed by 15min delay as VAR team take the unusual step of a passport check to confirm it’s actually Beto.

0-1.

Jack Grealish has caused us problems over the years, but he’s injured, which is a bonus. I do think Ndiaye is a decent player. I had him in my FPL team at the start of the season, and he racked up a fair few points for me with his penalty goals and set pieces. He’s one to keep an eye on, I think. I also find it ironic that their fans are talking about Arsenal scrums in the penalty box, after we saw the game against Man United be probably even worse between those two sides. I do wonder if we’re getting to a point in the season, however, where a referee will select a game to make an example of. This feels like the sort of game where that might happen, be it a penalty for either side. I hope I’m wrong.

The pundits are – as you’d expect – giving Arsenal the edge in this one. Merse has gone for a 2-1 in which we edge it, Lewis Jones says it’ll be a 2-0, citing Moyes’ away form in these big games as not being that great. Sutton also thinks it’ll be 2-0, saying that Everton will make it difficult, there might be a chance of fatigue, but our squad should see us through. Which I kind of get. What’s interesting is that a lot of these guys are also predicting City to drop points away to West Ham. I’m not sure I see that. I get it, they will be down after Real Madrid, and they’ve had to travel back from Spain on Wednesday, before coming down to the capital, with West Ham having their feet up, but I just don’t see City dropping points tomorrow – that’s why we have to take care of our business first. If we slip up with a defeat or a draw, it gives City a boost before they even kick off. If they know that they cannot do anything other than win tomorrow night, maybe it makes those muscles a little more tense and tight. That’s the opportunity we have, and that’s what Mikel Arteta must be instructing on his players.

I’ll leave it there for now. I’m back as usual tomorrow, and I’ll catch you all then when we all know what the team news is, and can start the guesswork on how Arteta will set the team up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tottingham Popspurs, my-oh-my, what on earth? Even during the most banterous of Banter Era moments, I don’t remember us doing what they did last night. Three Champions League goals conceded in the first 15 minutes for the first time ever, I believe. A goalkeeper subbed off after 15 minutes for the first time ever. A Spurs side who have now lost six on the bounce in all competitions. And a manager who was supposed to be the short term ‘fixer’, now being heckled by a fanbase who in the last month have talked about ending the season, but now all believe that there is a massive chance they go down.

I can’t remember if I’ve talked about it on here, but I would love it if they went down. Love it. There are Arsenal fans talking about how we’d lose a guaranteed six points, about the joys of the North London Derby being unmatched, and about how it is good to have them in the Premier League for us. Not for me. Whack them down to the Championship, please.

That’s 245 words of today’s match day musings that I’ve wasted on that club, so let’s get to The Arsenal now, shall we? Arteta and Havertz (understandably, given his history with Leverkusen) were the ones up in front of the media yesterday, and thankfully, it appears as though some of the knocks from the weekend and players missing from training were exactly as we’d all hoped – nothing serious and rest has been had. So we have Gabriel, Saliba, Raya, Zubimendi, Rice, Calafiori and Trossard all available for selection tonight. Charles Watts also reported that Ben White travelled with the squad, so that’s great news as well. Hopefully, he can get some minutes today, because I do think Arteta is going to have to keep Jurrien Timber from breaking down by limiting his minutes if he can. White is a good player, has been a great servant for us in his time so far, but he’s already shown his body can’t handle being the sole breadwinner on that right hand side, so Arteta needs to make sure he keeps both players as fresh as possible by giving them minutes.

I think the rest of the team is going to be largely easy to predict, with just a question on left wing and left back. I’m thinking Arteta will go for:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Hincapie

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Rice

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

I think Hincapie’s form, plus Arteta not wanting to risk Calafiori, suggests the Ecuadorian might get the nod. He’s not cup-tied, given that technically Leverkusen are still his club, but that’s all the more reason to start him, I think. He’ll have some extra impetus and incentive to demonstrate how his career is kicking on, and his form is such that he deserves that start. On the left this is a tricky one. In the Champions League, Martinelli has been bagging goals, and with teams often pressing high (especially at home) it feels as though there’s more space for him to exploit. But I’ve gone with Trossard because:

1. I think he works better with Gyokeres
2. I think Leverkusen are going to go more compact tonight and look to contain Arsenal

They may be at home, but if they are solid defensively and can limit us in a lower block, then the pressure switches to us at The Emirates. Thankfully, the away goal rule is done, so it does mean that Leverkusen can’t do the ol’ “draw 0-0 at home and 1-1 away and go through” that felt like it was one of the more rubbish things about the 90s and 2000s Champions League. But the gameplan can still be similar; stay in the tie in the first leg, then see if the supposed ‘favourites’ crack under the pressure on their own turf. It’s how I would set up tonight.

I’ve watched a couple of good tactical videos, including this one here, so it appears as though we’re going to get a back three from Leverkusen with two floating 10s supporting their front man. They’ll rely on their wing-backs for width and in Grimaldo, they have a quality player who this season is their second top scorer in all competitions with 12 goals. Not bad for a left wing-back, eh? There’s a question mark over their main man, Patrik Schick, who has been out with a muscular injury for the last couple of games, but their coach confirmed he trained yesterday and so will be in the squad. I talked about the strengths of the guy who might replace him yesterday, but if Schick is available and starts, it will be a different prospect for Gabriel and Salba. He’s about six foot three and is good in the air; he’ll be a strong link-up man for them in bringing those two tens in place, and if they utilise their wing-backs as we think they might.

Apparently, one of the challenges Bayer has is that they haven’t really rotated their first XI much this season, so I have read, with one report saying that Grimaldo has openly talked about how fatigued he is. We have to hope that is the case tonight, especially given that Saka only came on as a sub at the weekend. I hope he’s fresher than the Spaniard and that his penchant for venturing forward leaves space in behind, becaus eit feels like that might be an area of the pitch we could take advantage of.

Nothing is decided tonight, but we know full well, having seen Bayern smash Atalanta and Atletico dispatch the Scum, that you can very well put yourself with one foot out of Europe if you don’t get the duels right and the tactics spot on. Leverkusen have already beaten Man City away (something we haven’t done in about 10 years!), as well as drawn at home to Newcastle and beaten Villareal on their own patch too. They are a decent side in their own ground, so Mikel Arteta needs tobe very wary of that.

Catch you all tomorrow for the usual debrief.

Today we’ll have the managers’ press conference, which will give us an update on team news, which won’t be very telling on our side. But as I sort of touched on yesterday, it is Chelsea’s team that I am more interested in knowing who is available. For us, the main question will centre around whether Havertz can make the match-day squad, with Mikel Arteta saying last week that he had the outside chance of making the game against the Scum. We’re a week later now and so my hopes are that we get some good news, although we need to be ready to hear a ‘not-a-lot’ update from Arteta; I think he’ll say the same as last week, which could mean anything. The reports of the Havertz injury came out around 12th February, so if he was due to miss a month, that puts him as possibly available next weekend at best, I would suggest. Let’s just hope for some good news, though, anyway, eh?

So, as we head into this weekend’s set of fixtures, what are the pundits saying about our hopes?

Well, Lewis Jones on Sky Sports thinks we’ll get a clean sheet in a 2-0 win, and whilst I’d love to say that it’s music to mine ears, he’s also predicted a West Ham win at Liverpool (never gonna happen), and a Man City draw away at Leeds. I was at a leaving do last night for a mate who is a Leeds fan. We had a chat about the game tomorrow, and I asked him what the chances are of Leeds doing us a favour. To my surprise, he said, “You never know – it’s under the lights as a 5.30 pm kick off, we have a team of big bastards you boot people around, the crowd get massively up for night games, so there might be a chance. Or we’ll be down 3-0 within 15 minutes” – so I liked what he said other than the last bit!

Lewis Jones also said we’d draw 1-1 away at the Scum last week, so I guess his predictions are there to be taken with a pinch of salt. Chris Sutton is going with a 2-0, but his guest – some dude from Neighbours – went for 2-2, and the BBC AI-generated predictor said 2-2 as well, which I thought was interesting because most people don’t really predict Arsenal conceding for obvious reasons. But when you stop and look at 2026, clean sheets have been harder to come by, so predicting that Chelsea will score is probably not too wide of the mark. In every game in 2026, it has felt as though the opposition have one wonder strike in them, or Arsenal have a shoot-oneself-in-the-foot moment, so you wouldn’t bank on that not happening this weekend, would you?

Merse has gone for a closer encounter with a 1-0 to The Arsenal, whereas Mark Lawrenson has gone with a 3-1 Arsenal. Of all of the scores, that’s the one I feel could be on the cards the most, for the aforementioned Arsenal, conceding silly goals or worldies rule. Could also be a 2-1, but obviously, the more we score, the better, and so I’m hoping for some manifestation of my prediction.

What about those Chelsea fans? though? How are they feeling ahead of this one?

Well, the first one I came across on a forum had this to say:

We’ll have no Cucu, no Estevao, no Fofana, a seriously off form Caicedo and a poorly off form Palmer. Only way we score is if Arse sh*t the bed themselves

Yes please! I’ll take that! I didn’t know about Estevao, but apparently, he missed Burnley with a hamstring issue, so let’s hope that remains true. Having scrolled through a couple of pages of fan comments, it’s fair to say they aren’t too happy with their new manager, Liam. The crux of what I’ve just read is:

• They really don’t rate that Tosin fella at the back, and shortly behind him, they don’t really fancy Badiashile
• They fear that Rosenior will just replicate the League Cup tactics
• They seem convinced somebody from Chelsea is getting sent off

One of the forums has a poll of the score and has it as 56% of Chelsea fans thinking it’ll be a win for us, 18% think a draw and 25% think they’ll win. So the odds, even with the Chelsea fans, seem to be stacked in our favour, but they were massively against United, Wolves, Brentford and Forest, and look how that turned out, so we need to be mindful of these prediction routines. Instead, let’s look to the data on Chelsea, which again is quite difficult, given that Rosenior is still forging the identity for his new team. The stats tell us that behind City and us, Chelsea have scored the most goals. It tells us that they haven’t, however, had a ton of shots and sit fifth in the table, having had 43 fewer shots than us this season, and 13 fewer on target. They average more possession than us and sit third in the league, whilst also having attempted 1,101 passes more than us so far. The picture is starting to form on them over the whole season – they want to keep more of the ball than us for sure. They lead the league for passes per defensive active (PPDA), which means they allow the least amount of time for an opponent to be on the ball before engaging them, but only just behind us. Defensively is where they have challenges, sitting firmly in mid-table with their xG allowed, whilst also having the highest average xG allowed per shot – so in other words, of every team in the Premier League, Chelsea do give their opposition high-quality chances.

So we have a bit of a picture here from the whole season. But what has Rosenior done for himself in the 11 or so games he’s managed for them? Well, apparently, he’s given more reigns to Andrey Santos to do the defensive midfield work, which means Caicedo can go hunting for the ball and pop up across different areas of the pitch with more regularity. Enzo Fernandez no longer sits alongside him, but in the left half-space. The teams do, apparently, also have less structure about them compared to Maresca, in which it was seen as a bit of a millstone around their neck at times. They appear to be good in patches, but I found what Merse said a couple of weeks back interesting on Sky Sports – that they couldn’t string a 90-minute match together. I don’t want to say that feels similar to us, because it clearly isn’t, but at times in 2026 so far, it has felt as though we kind of just give up first halves, expecting to then do the business in the second. That’s not how you qualify for the Champions League in Chelsea’s case, and it’s certainly not how you win a league title in ours, so my hope is that we won’t see that this weekend like we did in the League Cup – i.e. a cagey nothing game, certainly in that first half.

In that game, however, we didn’t have to go for it. This weekend, if we want those three points, we really do.

Right, that’s enough waffle from me for one day. I’m off to do some work. You have a great Friday, and I’ll be back tomorrow when we know the possible team updates, as well as who we’ll have in the Champions League draw, which will happen this morning at some stage no doubt.

Arsenal is picking up all three points in the North London Derby.

I’ve woken up feeling achy, with a headache, which means I think I’m coming down with something. I really don’t want this feeling to be compounded by further disappointment as Arsenal find themselves even closer to Man City.

I’ve said it before, and I’ve been saying it for many seasons, but I hate this fixture. Every year. No matter how good/shocking we are, this fixture is always tough; it is always a horrible experience, and I’m going to hate basically all of it until the final whistle ,and if we’ve won it.

So this is my plea to those Arsenal players today:

Win. And win well. You have millions of Arsenal fans all over the globe investing themselves emotionally into you, providing us with the joy we all dream of so much come 6.30 pm tonight.

The analysis has been done. The tactics have been drawn out by Arteta and his coaching staff. The players have had their training sessions pre-game. Now it is about going out there, with that cannon on the chest, and doing the business.

I believe in this Arsenal team. I am behind these players. I think they can win today.

We have a better team. We are top of the league for a reason. Those players need to look at themselves in the mirror and look at how great they are. At how hard they’ve worked. At why they have been sat so high in the Premier League up until this point. It isn’t a coincidence; it’s because you are all brilliant, and as a fanbase, we love you. So take that love, take that support, take that collective demand and use it to fuel you to victory. The Scum have a huge injury list. They have circa 14 first-teamers fit. They are yet to win in 2026. So use that Arsenal, use a potential frailty in their mentality to start fast, quieten the crowd, make them lose their belief, because they are going to be making that stadium very loud today from kick off. They have a new manager, a guy who will instantly give their fans a boost and hope for a new manager bounce, but we have to quash that as soon as possible.

Our team will be, I think, this one that lines up from the start:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Zubimendi

Odegaard   –   Rice

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

Personally, I’d go with White instead of Timber after the Dutch international’s second-half performance (clearly brought on by extreme fatigue), as well as Trossard for Marrtinelli after the Brazilian’s disasterclass against Wolves. Hincapie was great, but I think somebody like Calafiori popping up in those inside channels when we are on the attack is the sort of thing that will unsettle a makeshift Tottenham back line. If they go with the same side that lost to Newcastle at home a week-and-a-half ago, then it will be the young midfielder Archie Gray in at right back. He’s been apparently quite good, but if you’re Leo Trossard and you’re getting help from the likes of Calafiori in that area of the pitch, you’re surely hoping that they should get the better of their opponents.

Where the game might be won is that midfield battle. The Scum will go with Sarr, they will go with Gallagher, they will go with Paulinha, and maybe Simons too. That midfield is workman-like. They will chase everything, they will hassle, they will harry, so we need to be able to move the ball quickly in the middle of the park to ensure that they are just running around without any structure. They will be intense in this game; we need to box clever in this game. They are going to move the ball from back-tofront quickly, I think. So we need to be ready for that, particularly if there is space behind. If they do, then perhaps there’s an option for Martinelli from the bench, but I don’t think you can start him based on his previous performance, and also because we don’t know what Tudor is going to do. When the first 15 – 30 minutes have unfolded, we’ll know what this Tottenham team is like.

I have watched a couple of tactical videos from neutrals and their fans, and the message they have is clear:

We need to have a go at Arsenal, we can’t sit deep in a low block like so many teams. We need to press them.

Providing we don’t go into panic stations like the second half against Wolves, that’s going to give us chances in behind if that is how the crowd and the manager demand his team drive forward.

I really hope this game is open from a Tottenham perspective. If it is, then it will be about our forward line delivering in a critical game, so we need some of those players to step up. Get chances, take your chances, win the game.

Please.

I’m not really sure what else there is to say at this point. The talking has been done for everyone. Now it is time to go out and do your talking on the pitch. With the football.

Come on, Arsenal – I believe in you.

As I’m not feeling too well, I won’t be on the Same Old Arsenal podcast after the game, but if you want an instant reaction, you can see Amanda, James, and Mervyn, who will be giving their thoughts. I’ll be back tomorrow for a debrief/post-mortem.

Catch you guys then. Fingers crossed, people.

I guess the club was also hoping that official announcements of star player signing a new deal would also appease us. Thankfully, because of my curated timeline, I have plenty of sensible people who could divorce themselves from one thing relating to another and there was plenty of love for Bukayo, whilst still being grumpy about that midweek draw to the worst Premier League Team in history.

Then on Sunday we play what some of their fans are calling the worst Spurs team in Premier League history. I don’t buy that for a second. They are better than the sum of their collective parts have shown and, with the NLD needing no motivation, they will show it against us on Sunday for sure. Perhaps Mikel can use that motivation to turn a corner for this Arsenal team? I certainly hope so. The pundits still think we’ll win, though. Sutton predicted 3-0 on Sunday, which I just cannot see in a million years, whilst his guest went for 3-2 to The Arsenal. Merse has gone for 2-1, but Lewis Jones has said 2-1 to them on Sky Sports.

The Opta supercomputer – which I’ll be honest and admit I’m starting to hate right now – is telling us that we have a 60.1% chance of winning that game. I don’t really buy that given our form, their home, as well as a new manager, bounce that has already hit us once this season with Michael-friggin’-Carrick at The Emirates.

Their fans are kind of seeing it as a free hit. I get that. They won’t go down, they’re too good I think, so all they probably ned is two or three wins this season and they’re fine. I think they’ll get that, but will one of them be this weekend? If ever there was an incentive for them, it would be to hand the title advantage to City, so I am expecting their fans to be massively up for that. That club lives for other teams; they focus on making sure we don’t win anything, as 2023/24 showed, so Arteta needs to be preparing for this game as if he’s playing a team and a fanbase who are challenging for the title with us.

So then, what about this new manager? What’s he going to do? Well, he does apparently like a bit of a ‘new manager bounce’, which I bet will be the prevailing narrative on Sunday pre-kick off. He’s been hired midway through a season seven out of his last eight times and has had success at Juve, Lazio and twice managed to avoid the drop for Udinese. He tends to go with a back three and wing-backs, so I expect that’s what we’ll see on Sunday, with man-to-man pressing. That could be interesting, because if he does that, it means there are individual battles that could be won and that will be intriguing for our wide-forwards. It’s also what completely knocked them out of the game at The Emirates, with us three-up at halftime before Frank switched to a back four.

The benefit Tudor has had is that he’s had enough time to drill positions and disciplines into their team. This isn’t going to be a case like it was with Big Ange where he joined and then two days later for Forest they played us and hadn’t quite adapted to the system. There’s certainly an element of ‘you have to do it in a game’, but they will have been training their arses off this last week to be drilled well-enough to execute Tudor’s vision. We also tend to do quite well against.

The data tells us one thing, but I don’t know that it is what we’re gonna get on Sunday. It tells us that the Scum have the fourth-worst xG in the whole league. But then again, so did Wolves and they still managed two against us. They have also taken the sixth-worst number of shots so far this season. Where they are good, like us, is through set-pieces and the Scum have the fourth-best goal conversion from set pieces of any team in the league – 13 all season (we have 16). They also don’t seem to be too great when it comes to fast breaks; they’ve had 13 all season and have only scored in two – this tells me they aren’t a transitional side that will hit us on the counter again and again.

But this is where the data belies the reality, because we just don’t know with Tudor what he will do. If his previous roles is anything to go by, I’ve sort of outlined what some of what we might see above, but if they are also pressing high and with a man-to-man approach, my hope is that it will favour our increased propensity this season for going direct. Maybe, just maybe, this could finally be a ‘Big Vik’ big game? Let’s hope so, because for at least 80% of games this season, his performances have left me feeling a little, well, ‘meh’. If he is fed the ball and has enough green grass to run into with a high man-to-man press by The Scum, then he just has to win his own battle for us to potentially profit.

I hate this fixture. You’re going to hear me say that a lot over the next 48 hours. It makes me more nervous than anything and with the unknown quantity being added in here, as well as our performance in midweek, where at the beginning of the week I said this could be season-defining for us, the first part already hasn’t gone to plan, which means that the ‘season-defining’ part could be for all the wrong reasons. Let’s hope not on Sunday.

The countdown to this game is well and truly on. Let’s hear what the managers say in their press conferences today.

Until tomorrow.

We know what people think about set pieces, about how it’s “ruining the game”, but I’m not going to even remotely posit that notion this morning. Brentford have weapons, and they use them very well, not least those throw-ins, which are essentially corners in themselves. And we suffered from it with the equaliser they scored from. It’s funny because on the balance of the 90, you have to say that it was the least they deserved, but I thought in that second half we had bested them for most of the opening period and about five minutes after we scored through Madueke’s goal (which I thought took an age to actually drop into the net). So half of me was thinking that Brentford scored against the run of play, but on balance, it was just in that period of the game, because Brentford had the most of it.

It’s fair to say we weren’t really at it yesterday. The early seeds were sewn within a couple of minutes when Big Gabby passed the ball out of play for a corner. Raya had one or two wobbly moments too, including a ridiculous roll out to Rice for which Thiago nearly scored from the cross that came in. But the odd thing about Raya, right, is that he often does this – he’ll make a cock up, then instantly redeem himself with a worldie save. So you don’t know whether to be pissed off at him for his error, or delighted for him at his brilliant save. Just do the latter more than the former, mate, alright?

That first half really pissed me off, too. I’m starting to get wound up by how we just give up halves of football. It’s happened so many times this season; the first half is reduced to a kind of non-event, with the only real chance being Thiago’s header, which shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Brentford ended the first half on 0.41xG and I’ll be all of that chance creation probability came from that one effort. Conversely, we created one shot in that first half, as we just let it pass us by. That’s not what Champions-elect do. They go to a ground like last night, into a difficult night atmosphere, with the crowd up, and they bore the f*ck out of them by scoring early and shutting the game down. But we just couldn’t get players on the ball in the right spaces. Eze was anonymous. Gyokeres was okayish, with the most ludicrous yellow card I’ve ever seen in my life, whilst Madueke looked like he didn’t know how to best Rico Henry. One thing you have to say about Noni is that he knows how to beat a man, but last night I thought he struggled with Henry’s touch-tight man-marking. You have to give the Brentford left-back some props for that. The thing Noni isn’t good at is delivering end product, so it was weird that on a night in which is primary asset was nullified, he was the one who actually delivered end product. Weird. If you could just combine the two from now on, Noni, that’d be grand lad.

Brentford closed the spaces we wanted to be in, then left big gaps in the middle of the park and we just didn’t get into those spaces. I guess that’s because they go from back-to-front so quickly and they don’t really need the middle of the park because they go long so much, but you’d have thought Arteta would have had a plan to answer that. Perhaps he did and the team just didn’t execute, because for the 15 minutes after halftime and until we scored, we pretty much dominated. Most of our chances came then, except the Rice chance just after we’d scored, which he probably should have put his laces through it instead of trying to find Big Vik. Brentford defended stoutly and deep into their box as I’d said in my pre-match blog, the chance therefore went a-begging.

But after that we retreated again. If we cock up this Premier League campaign, we won’t specifically look back at this one as one in which the title was lost, but we will lament those times we couldn’t get that second goal to see off a game. We did that last weekend against Sunderland, but certainly in 2026 so far, it really feels like we just haven’t done enough to kill off a game. That leads me to another point of discussion: Our 2026 form. Brentford have more points than we do this year. We’ve drawn three, lost one, won two. It’s patchy. It’s stodgy, a bit like our football in the first half and were we a little more authoritative in games like this, I wouldn’t be as worried as I am. Which sounds mad, right? I mean we’re four points clear at the top, 12 games to go, we’re rightly lauded as the best team so far’ this season and we suffered an off night. Normally you have a game like this and you say “ahh, it happens”. But Liverpool in the second half. Forest away. United at home. Now Brentford away. It’s the patter of these performances that worries me more than the actual result itself. If we’d played last night, hit the post, ‘keeper has the game of his life, we create chance-after-chance, Brentford hang on and we are left ruing missed chances, then you can say that. But that didn’t happen. Brentford probably created the better chances than us, save for the one right at the end with Martinelli. In the moment I was like “you have to score those”, but on watching the replays, it was a good save from the Brentford ‘keeper, so perhaps you have to give it.

1,000 words in and I’m still no further in my thinking as to whether I’m still grumpy or I want to do a little ‘Perspective FC’ tonight on the Same Old Arsenal pod. Join in and listen at 6pm UK time if you want to find out.

I’ll be

But the really painful news was the Havertz stuff. Out for about a month. Having just come back and looking so slick too. We’ve seen this before when players come back; they have a few games, then pick up a muscular injury, and Arsenal were deliberately holding him back from games to avoid it. But I guess you just never know how the human body is going to react and clearly Havertz’s isn’t reacting amazingly. It’s funny (not funny) because Havertz has not had a lot of injuries in his career, but it seems like the second Arteta uttered the words along the lines of “he’s a machine” when it came to Havertz’s fitness, it feels like he’s had one injury after the other. His arrival back into the team was also co-inciding with some pretty imperious-looking performances. And now we’ve lost him again.

Honestly, are we not allowed nice things? Only a couple of weeks ago, we were saying that Arteta had a full squad at his disposal, bar Max Dowman. Now we’re looking at the possibility of not having the following available for tonight’s game to Brentford:

• Havertz
• Odegaard
• Saka
• Trossard

That’s a big chunk of our attacking threat, although what I will say is that this is a worst-case scenario, because Arteta would only say when asked yesterday, “we’ll see” about Odegaard and Saka. I suspect the “we’ll see” relates more to Odegaard than Saka, because the reporting from the sources saying they are targeting the Scum game weekend after next is usually quite accurate. So perhaps we get bolstered by Martin’s return, but given there was nothing in the written transcription on Trossard, hopefully he’s fine. I haven’t had the chance to look at any training pics yet.

So on the assumption of Trossard being fit and Odegaard being a ‘maybe’, this is what I have gone for as a starting XI that I’d like to see tonight at Brentford:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Califiori

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Rice

Madueke   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

I toyed with the idea of Odegaard coming in, but I’m thinking he’ll do a job-share with Eze, perhaps either way around. I just think that Eze is more suited to get the best out of Big Vik, then on the left flank, Trossard seems to be on a similar wavelength to the Swede (think that sumptuous ball in behind that Gyokeres didn’t quite get the shot off against Leeds a couple of weeks back). I think we need to ‘lean in’ to the good form of the Swede and I’m just not sure that has come with Odegaard. He was the one I thought would be the guy to feed our number 14, but I feel like I just haven’t seen enough of it. But we have with Eze. So let’s go with that for an hour and see if it works. Gabby Jesus didn’t do enough to win his place, Merino is out, Gyokeres only got 30 minutes against Sunderland, so he should be fresher.

Regardless of the starting XI though, Arteta has been at pains this season to point out that the finishers can also be as important as the starters and, dare I say it, they are probably more important than those who get go kick off. Just think about the Sunderland game and the impact the subs had there – they turned it from a nervy 1-0, to what in the end looked like a comfy 3-0 victory at home.

And I do think tonight will be nervy. Brentford are a good team. A solid team. A team who know set pieces almost as well as we do and in Kayode get a de facto corner every time they get a throw in. They’ll be leaning into that, as well as a rapid counter and interestingly, they also might not deploy Thiago as I was thinking they might. On my run this morning I listened to the preview section of the Beesotted podcast and towards the end they had an interesting discussion about how Thiago plays the target man in some games, but in others he’s happy to drop deeper and feed the pacey wide men. If you think about how they might sit in tonight and rely on the counter, it’s something that I think Arteta has to be mindful of.

Last night City did their bit to ratchet up the pressure. Tonight the players need to be as cool, calm and collected, as Arteta seemed in his press conference.

Fingers crossed tomorrow we’re talking about a victory – by any means necessary.

Catch you all tomorrow morning for a de-brief, then I might see if I can get some peeps on for the Same Old Arsenal pod in the evening.

Tottenham Hotspur.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

I fully realise their next game is against us. I fully realise that there is absolutely zero chance they are as dire as they have been at home all season. I fully realise that there’s no way they will be as terrible – conceding 2.48xG to Newcastle, 21 shots, five on target, two big chances missed for the Geordies – against us. I also realise that we may have to face our old foe, New Manager bounce, because Thomas Frank sounded like a beaten man in his post-match presser. But if you can’t laugh at this situation, when can you?

I saw somebody on Sky Sports say it would be so Spurs to get relegated – or finish close to it this season – and go on to win the Champions League. That made my heart skip a beat for a second, but then I had to remind myself about their ‘run’ to winning that thing:

• Woeful Man United last season in the final
• Bodo/Glimt in the semi-final
• Frankfurt in the quarters
• AZ Alkmaar in the round of 16

The Champions League will throw up tougher challenges, so hopefully they can get knocked out of that as soon as possible, and Thomas Frank remains in charge for the foreseeable future. Please.

The only downside – which also has an impact on the relegation situation – is that West Ham were denied a win against Man United; a Man United side who, I was reading yesterday, are quietly confident that they can make a late charge for the title. Yesterday I thought ‘stranger things have happened’ and they’re ONLY 12 points off us. It’s 11 now, but if we can beat Brentford tomorrow night, it moves to 1,4 and that should be that for any notion that they are a competitor. I’d prefer it to be City in their position and United to be in City’s position, but there you go.

There was some amusement for the Chelsea draw at home to Leeds, but with them 12 points off us, see Man United for where they are at and what their possible title charge could look like.

Tonight, our title challenge gets a little more squeaky bum as Fulham get dispatched at the Emptihad as they perennially do, but as I said yesterday and the day before, we just have to handle our business. That business will be Igor Thiago first and foremost, and whilst all season I’ve enjoyed his goals for Brentford as he’s in my FPL team, this match week I hope he is as quiet as a mouse.

That’s not how the fans are feeling, for obvious reasons, because Brentford are flying, sitting fifth in the form table guide – above us in seventh! They’ve won their last two games, which included two really impressive away wins at Newcastle and Villa. I saw some of the highlights from that game at St James’ Park and they probably could have had a penalty before Newcastle initially went ahead through some poor set-piece corner defending, but they should have been two-up before Brentford got their good first, and then their penalty, which looked a bit of a dodgy and fortunate one for me. So Newcastle created plenty of chances, and you’d hope that we can also do the same. The thing we will have to watch is Outtara. He is rapid, he’s a good finisher (as that game showed), and he is the kind of guy who works perfectly in a system where his team doesn’t have a lot of the ball and goes from back-to-front very quickly. There will be plenty of pondering over the next 24-36 hours as to who starts for Arsenal tomorrow, but with that in mind, I don’t think you can look beyond Jurrien Timber at right back. He’s the guy who is think is probably better suited to tackle somebody like Outtara.

Anyway, I mentioned their fans, so what are they saying? Here’s a few select quotes from one of their forums – Griffin Park Grapevine:

They are not going to know what’s hit them.

And:

I have a good feeling…

And:

Only Arsenal have more points than us in the last 10 games, we’re playing some of the best football we’ve ever played, we’re at home and the team spirit is unbelievable. KA is proving he can mix it up with unexpected changes so let LegoHead worry about how they can contain us.

There are other comments in there that, dare I say it, are pretty level-headed and respectful about us. I have seen none of that from Wolves, Forest, Leeds, Aston Villa threads, but the Brentford fans in the thread I watched talked about our squad depth and how we will certainly field a strong team tomorrow night. That goes without saying, but it’s interesting to see them acting pretty normal and not just chucking insults our way like most of these threads do from other teams. I’ve always liked Brenrford. Just not tomorrow night.

Bit of bonus reading that I did beforehand on the official site – nice interview with Eze talking about his first six months at the club. It’s a nice read, but a common thread for a new player, much like we heard from Rice. He talks about the level of information he’s had to take in compared to the rest of his career; he is working under a manager who demands a lot and drills so much tactical insight into his team, that we see on the pitch how versatile this Arsenal side is. I think a few of us have voiced very minor concerns about his lack of game time of late, but if you take it in the context of a player who is having to learn and adapt to a completely new way of training, playing, taking on info and instructions, perhaps it makes more sense. Arsenal and Arteta are also in a position where they have a deep squad and many players who have been in that environment for some time, so to have the luxury of being able to give a player like Eze points in the season in which he can take a beat, might be better for his long-term adaptation to The Arsenal way.

I do think he’s got a massive part to play in the latter part of this season. Not least because last season he came alive in the run-in, but also when you look at where he seems to come alive, it is in big games. He scored for Palace in the FA Cup Final and Community Shield. He’s scored a hat-trick for us against the Scum – he’s a player who relishes the limelight I think and every game is going to start getting massive if you think about how we’re now at what is known as the slightly cliched ‘business end of the season’.

I back him to get more minutes, as well as more important moments, for us still to come this season.

Back tomorrow after both press conferences have been done and we can start to think about how we might line up.

Or does it? I’ve seen times at which we’ve had an extended period in between matches because we’ve been knocked out of the FA Cup earlish like they were to Villa, but then you lose a bit of the rhythm and cadence of regular football.

I think for us it’s probably better that we’re playing later in the week. I mean, the whole ‘City could be just three points off Arsenal by the time they kick off’ adds a little bit of a psychological edge to proceedings, but given the narrative and way in which Arteta has addressed the talk of the title race up until this point, I think those Arsenal players will also be set up with the right conditions to block out a lot of the noise. The media manifesting this as if it is neck-and-neck is one thing, but those players need to be looking at the cold, hard facts and see where they have come and where they are at.

As fans, we have the licence to fret – of which we do – but those players are professionals, and they need to just cut it all out. I have to admit that I thought they were being burdened by the weight of expectation and worry after that United game, but since then, the focus appears to have returned. Of course, that means nothing if you slip up at these stages, but I have hope that this Arsenal team will do what the manager says and go into these games with a view to ‘enjoying it’.

If that is the case, then I think a tough and physical game against Brentford should be something they relish, because we know that Brentford are going to give us a run for our money on Thursday. We talked a bit about them at the end of the Same Old Arsenal pod we recorded last night, and I reeled off a few stats to try to work out what’s ahead of us for Brentford. Interestingly, they are the most efficient in front of the goal of any team in the league when you compare the number of shots they have compared to the number of goals they’ve scored. They don’t take many chances, but when they do, they have been scoring them, and we know that they are a good set-piece side. They are a clever side; they know just as well as we that the percentages when you get the ball into certain positions with corners, free-kicks, and throw-ins (of which they have a guy who has a bullet throw, as we know), then your probability of unsettling defences increases massively.

They also make some of the fewest final-third passes in the league, in the bottom half, and only Wolves, Leeds and West Ham make fewer. So this side goes back to front quickly; they are very efficient when they do, and they are very good with set pieces. I don’t know about you, but a pattern in how this game is potentially unfolding is really starting to become clear to me. They also make some of the most average blocks per game – this is a side who will be compact defensively, then look to spring traps with pacey wide-forwards and an in-form striker in Igor Thiago.

So what Arsenal needs to do is control some of the controllables. Winning the first few big battles in our box will be key, but we need to acknowledge that when Brentford are in their defensive shape, we’ll have possession and territory and we’ll need to – at times – show levels of patience. And I need to remind myself as well that we’ve started scoring more goals, whilst also keeping shut-outs, so maybe the team will lean more into their own form, rather than looking at what City will be doing.

I’m saying all of this as if we’re playing tonight, maybe because of the staggered match week. The interest tonight would be more ‘funny’ than anything else, because it would be funny to see Chelsea, the Scum and Man United all lose. Then tomorrow, the hopes are pinned on Brighton doing something at Villa, but I hold nothing in terms of hopes for Fulham at City. I watched Sky Sports last night, and the stats are shocking. Fulham have lost all of their last 19 games to City in all competitions. That includes 16 in a row in the Premier League and Marcos Silva for all the clubs he’s been in charge of in England? Zero wins from the last 13. They aren’t even picking up a point tomorrow night, so let’s forget about that and focus on the fact that The Arsenal need to do what they need to do on Thursday.

I might take some time tomorrow to start looking at how the Brentford fans are feeling ahead of this one, as well as what some of the other pundits are saying about how this one will unfold. But until then, I shall bid you a fine Tuesday and catch you all tomorrow for some more ramblings. Speak then.

We knocked him and his Palace side out already – why should City get a rule change? We’re all aware of the concept of being cup-tied, so why is it that now this rule shouldn’t apply? You knew the rules when you signed the player. We had it last season with Neto who couldn’t play the cup games. I remember when we signed Aubameyang and he couldn’t play in European competition. If you sign people midway through the season, they get cup-tied. It’s a ‘thing’.

Anyway, let’s get back to talking about The Arsenal, shall we?

What I’ve got on my mind this Thursday morning, is how Arteta has been using Havertz, because I quite like what he’s doing. Against Leeds at times it felt as though Havertz was playing as another striker with Big Vik. He was taking up positions that were closer to the Swede and I do think it unlocked something in Gyokeres. It may just be that we caught Leeds at a good time, it may well be that playing away from home affords Arsenal more space, but to my untrained eyes the closer distances between our two attackers meant that Viktor was more involved. He didn’t cut an isolated figure in between two centre halves. He was able to exchange a few more passes and although he did have a one-on-one that was blocked that he should have done better with, we are at least seeing a few more of those start to happen (think how he also got one against Forest).

I think the team are starting to realise that they need to get the ball quicker to him and in a one or two-touch move – think how quickly we went from back-to-front in the Kairat game with Havertz’s pass to Big Vik. That’s what the team are starting to do more of, and if he gets one or two of those a game, he might only bag with 50% of those chances, but if he gets a couple each match and scores at least one, we’re laughing.

I think Eze can be that direct and quick passer to Gyokeres as much as Kai. I also think we saw it for the Forest game earlier in the season. But the one guy I think maybe doesn’t suit what we need to do with Big Vik is Martin Odegaard. I’m just going on the eye test here, but we have all seen enough of Odegaard to know the player he is. I really like him, I loved his progressive passing approach against Leeds when he came on, but in recent weeks we’ve seen more of the Odegaard that drops too deep and is recycling possession, without much incision. Remember the video at the start of the season where the skipper sent a message to Big Vik, congratulating him on signing and saying, “if there’s anything I can do, just let me know”? Big Vik’s response was simple: “I just need assists”. The assumption was that naturally those two would click and that it would be Odegaard doing those balls in behind, but I think I’ve seen more in recent weeks from Havertz and Eze than I have from Odegaard when it comes to feeding the big man up top.

That doesn’t mean it can’t change, mind, and hopefully it will. Because Odegaard is going to get minutes, and he’s going to play. He’s Arteta’s ‘guy’ on the pitch; he’s the captain, so he will play more often than not. So we need him to be delivering for the strikers. I love the way he leads our press, but it’s time to step up and lean into the ‘chance creator’ role now. I think that means less of collecting the ball from deep. He needs to have a closer distance between himself and the three forwards. When he’s at his best he’s drifting over to that right hand side with Saka, but perhaps he needs to drift a bit more into central positions too?

Hey, I’m no tactical expert, I’m no genuis with data, but I am just a fan who see’s things with his eyes and I just think there’s a little more that Odegaard needs to do to foster that relationship with Gyokeres – and I say this because I think we’re going to see more of Havertz ‘AND’ Gyokeres, rather than Havertz ‘OR’ Gyokeres up top.

It’ll be interesting to see what he says ahead of the Sunderland game, because that one represents another chance to see where he’s going with the striking options, given that we now have all three of our main guys who have recently been on the scoresheet. I mentioned yesterday that some tricky games are coming up, including a midweeker against Brentford and away at The Scum, but having all of your strikers recently score in different comps is very valuable from a confidence perspective. Let’s just hope that some of the connections I believe I’m starting to see with this side can be maintained between now and the end of the season.

Right, I’m going to leave it there. Tomorrow I’ll start to look at Sunderland and what they might do to potentially hurt us on Saturday. Apparently, they’re missing Xhaka, which is a bit of a shame given that it would be nice for him to return to the Emirates, but in terms of handing us a small advantage, it certainly has an impact to have him missing, so let’s see how they’re feeling in tomorrow’s musings.

Catch you all then.

As usual I did my habit of going to have a look at a few Forest fan forums to see how they’re feeling, which gave me a little bit of hope, because they aren’t exactly bullish ahead of this one. Some of the quotes I came across were:

Can’t look beyond a comprehensive loss where we barely touch the ball and they win by a 3+ margin

and

Hope I’m wrong but reckon we’re in for an absolute hammering. Arsenal to have 80+ % possession, we’ll barely get out of our half and will struggle to put 3 passes together

and

I will be stunned if we get anything out of this game. I’m expecting a 3 or 4 nil loss. The Win against West Ham hardly filled me with confidence but it was important.

Now, of course, you and I know that despite the 4-1 win at home to Villa, we don’t really do high-scoring games. In fact, if you ask any Arsenal fan, they’d probably tell you that, given we’ve put four past Villa, three past Bournemouth, four past Portsmouth, and three past Chelsea on Wednesday, we’re all a bit surprised we’ve suddenly come into form. That’s normally because teams sit in a low block, but none of the aforementioned sides did that. I suspect Forest will be more deep-lying and more defensively resolute than any of those teams we’ve managed to score three or more against recently. Their recent results don’t suggest that, but we all know Dyche loves a bit of low-block murder ball against us – like he did whilst in charge at Everton last season – so I am not expecting much of a game. Their form as well suggests they’ll be trying to stop the rot a bit; they’ve won three of their last nine games, losing six, with their three wins coming against a terrible West Ham, a terrible Wolves, and a terrible Scum team. Their defeats have been home and away to Everton, as well as Brighton, Fulham, City, and Villa. So it’s a real mixed bag.

They’re also a team that hasn’t exactly been pumping the goals in, with 21 scored this season, which is joint second-worst with (surprisingly) Sunderland. They’re a bit better on their xG in 13th position, which suggests that they just aren’t putting their chances away, which gives a little insight into why some of their fans are pessimistic about their ability to put goals away against us tomorrow.

What is interesting about Forest is that they are one of the top sides in the league for progressive passing, making more of those than any other team, other than us, Liverpool, Newcastle, and City. They’re also top of the table when it comes to tackles won in the attacking third, so that suggests to me that they might be a little more aggressive in the press than I would have expected. The other teams up there are Brighton, and we know how they like to press the ball high. Does that mean that we’ll be seeing a Sean Dyche side that tries to be aggressive in the press and leave space with bodies forward?

Maybe. But I do think we’ll still see that direct, long-ball, up to the target man, Chris Wood. Then, if the ball is lost, that’s when they’ll look to win second balls, try to win those tackles in the attacking third. If you’re bypassing the midfield, you aren’t winning tackles there, which I think explains a little of their approach. If you look at the total number of touches in the third, Forest are also up there, with only Liverpool, us, and Man City having more than they do.

When it comes to their potency in front of goal, they’re about mid-table on the volume of shots they have, as well as the percentage of shots on target they get, with the second most crosses into the box in the Premier League this season.

A pattern is starting to evolve here, right?

1. Direct football, find the target man
2. Win the 50-50s in the attacking third
3. Balls out wide when the ball is in Arsenal’s half, get it wide and look for crosses in to the box.

Gabriel and Saliba might well have a day of lots of headed defending, methinks.

The pundits are obviously going for us, but they are all more cautious about how tight the game will be, compared to the Forest fans, with Neville calling it a 1-0 on the Overlap, Merse giving us a 2-0, Chris Sutton going 1-0 and the Opta Analyst giving us a 66% chance of a win, with Forest down as 15% chance of winning. SO that all looks good, but as we know, this Premier League is more than unpredictable; it’s why it is the most watched, the best, and draws in the biggest audiences. I’ll do a bit more of a preview on what we need to do tomorrow, as well as team news, but this is a game in which Arsenal need to win and they need to be able to show that we can keep City at arms-length, because there’s no chance that a hapless Man United (until they play us in just over a week’s time, of course) will get anything from a game against City.

Right, I’m calling it for today. Got a day of work before my weekend can kick off, so I’m off to start it with a bit of the gym.

Be lucky people. I’ll be back tomorrow.

So why do I not feel completely sated this morning?

I think it’s probably the feeling that this tie could – and probably should – be practically over. We outshot them. We had more big chances. We won more duels. We had more corners. The only thing Chelsea had over Arsenal on the night was greater possession, but, as the eye test showed, that was a little more sterile for us. It felt like we gave Chelsea a bit of a lifeline with the goals we conceded to a Garnacho who I personally think is one of the most overrated players in the league. The goals he scored felt avoidable:

1. Garnacho at the back post, unmarked after Neto had been allowed to float the ball in from the other flank
2. A poorly contested corner that went through a sea of players as Garnacho semi-mis-hit his goal attempt.

This game felt like one that we should have taken a 3-1 lead back to the Emirates on, something I know Mikel Arteta also believed, based on his post-match comments. It felt like a game that – despite Chelsea getting a few chances throughout – was one that we were in control of. That feeling helps when you score early, and Ben White’s headed goal from one of the first corners of the game certainly did its bit to calm any initial lingering nerves I had. It was pretty shocking defending, though; if we’re going to say that we could – probably should – have done better on our conceded goals, I think Chelsea fans waking up this morning will be feeling a lot worse about the concession of their goals.

That applies to the second goal we scored as well. Sanchez won’t want to go back into the video room for this match this week, that’s for sure, because it was he who allowed the ball to slip through his palms for Big Vik to break his drought and put us two up on the night. And as I said on the ol’ socials, boy, did the Swede need that. He cut another solitary performance at first last night, and the stats guys who run the graphics on screen are never going to be his friend, with last night’s number on screen in that first half saying that he’d by far had the fewest touches of any player on the pitch.

It doesn’t matter if you score though

That’s what we’ve been saying for a while, so if I’m going to have choice words to say when he doesn’t score and looks forlorn like Liverpool this time last week, we have to hand out some flowers to the big guy when he does. Right place, right time, hopefully this helps his confidence.

And at that point, you’d expect Arsenal to shut up shop. We’ve been good for quite some time at closing down games, but Mikel Arteta will be a little disappointed in the concession of those two Garnacho goals. That’s happened a lot over the last six weeks or so. I think most of us Gooners have put it down to Big Gabi being out at the start, but he’s been back for a couple of weeks now. Yet, we’re still not keeping the back line completely water-tight, which is something I think Arteta will be looking at today and tomorrow when they do their analysis on this match ahead of Forest on Saturday.

From a tactical perspective, I really liked how high we pressured Chelsea in their half of the pitch. When Sanchez played the ball out from the back, it was never long, and Arsenal clearly knew this would happen, because there was always a guy in the midfield picking the ball up in their own half, which forced several high turnovers and presented a few opportunities. Rice, Odegaard and Zubi – all had their moments in which they did that, and you could tell it was clearly instructive. Arsenal had Chelsea’s number on the night, which is also why I guess I’m a wee bit frustrated, because it felt like we easily had the beating of them and were the better team on the night.

I definitely felt that when Zubi scored. What a player he is, eh? He does the six role to perfection, but he’s also been given the licence to go forward more than he ever did at Real Sociedad, which is resulting in goals for him too. He has four goals in all competitions this season already. Last season, he scored two. In fact, across his career, he has only ever managed a maximum of four in a season – he has only scored 10 goals in 236 games across seven seasons previously, so he’s already matched his best, and we’re only just halfway through the season. This is a guy who has very quickly become an integral cog in this Arteta machine, and you can see why Arsenal pursued him through such a long campaign as they did last year. He is a superstar, and I love that he plays in our red and white. I’ll also take this moment to say ‘props’ to the team themselves, who worked the ball really well for that goal, including Big Vik, who gets himself an assist on the night too.

The job isn’t done, as Arteta was pointing out afterwards, but we have ourselves a one-goal lead to take to our own gaff in a couple of weeks’ time, and that is good. Whether it will mean that players are rotated, I doubt, because that is quite a slender lead for you to be doing mass tinkering as we did against Pompey. But there is at least the breathing space, and Arteta was at least able to make a few subs last night too, bringing on Merino,Jesus and Havertz for Rice, Gyokeres and Odegaard. Martinelli got on too to keep his engine running as well and perhaps the subs made us a little less organised as those players came up to speed with the game, but I do just wonder if we just switched off a bit with their second goal.

Hey, I’m nit-picking though because let’s be honest, we’re in a good position, we scored three goals and should now be heavy favourites to go one better than last season. And you have to take that. All eyes now shift to Forest away on Saturday, which will be a really tricky game against a Sean Dyche who loves to spoil the mood, so let’s hope those players have those game-faces back on immediately, because we can’t afford any Premier League slip-ups, having had a bit of a hiatus from it over the last week.

Back tomorrow as we build up to that one.

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

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

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

Including tonight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I really hope so.

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief.

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

Villa are clearly a prolific team.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you then.

Admittedly they were pretty terrible against a rejuvenated Leeds United side last weekend and some of the defending was pretty budget, I have to say, but I think that was the exception rather than the norm and I think we’ll get a better performance from Palace in the cup tonight.

I do think they will rotate though. They don’t have the biggest squad in the world and they’ve tended not to rotate too much where possible in the league, but the Europa Conference League and the earlier rounds of this competition has seen Glasner shuffle his deck a little and I think the same happens tonight. And we’ve got a data point to suggest that too, because in the fourth round Palace went to Anfield and heavily rotated a team with Benitez in goal (literally never heard of him until just now), Cardines (same), Canvot (again), Sosa and Uche all coming in alongside more familiar faces of Guehi, Lacroix and Kamada. So I do think we’ll see a few more of those unfamiliar names and whilst that represents a good opportunity for us, you only have to look at the fact they smashed Liverpool on their own turf to serve as a warning if we aren’t ready.

That’s been Arteta’s job yesterday and I think he will have been stressing to those players who will play tonight, that there is an opportunity to impress this evening, because I do believe he’ll take a few players out. There are some in which it is easy I think – Gabriel Jesus, Noni Madueke, Kepa – but because of our injury problems, I do think it is difficult to see how rotated he goes for it tonight. I still think there will be one or two of the familiar names to the team. And with that in my mind, my guess at a starting XI would be:

Kepa

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Hincapie   –   MLS

Norgaard

Nwaneri   –   Eze

Madueke   –   Jesus   –   Martinelli

He could play Norgaard at centre half, then maybe have that three-man midfield with Merino dropping in to the base, but I just don’t think he will and this side enables Arsenal to have a strong defensive line up, whilst rotating in some of those forward players to give them minutes. I don’t think we need to see Zubi, Rice, Saka or Trossard and I suspect we’re now at the point in which Jesus needs to start and get 60 minutes under his belt to see how his body reacts. Perhaps there’s then an opportunity to get Big Vik on for the last part of the game, or if Merino hasn’t started, he could come on up top. But I do think we need to get minutes in to legs and this team allows that. It also pairs up Martinelli and Jesus who, when Gabby J signed for us, struck up an impressive rapport in their first season playing together.

I also think you simply have to give minutes to Ethan and Myles and so I think they surely have to be a shoe-in tonight. Then, with them comes Eze against his former club and given he hasn’t started in the last game away to Everton, you probably give him the start tonight and then have Odegaard back in for Brighton on 27th. Then, behind them, Norgaard is the one I’ve chosen to anchor the midfield and my hope here is that Arteta isn’t tempted to play him at the back and then have Zubi or Rice coming in. Given he’s already spoken about managing Zubi’s minutes, it would seem mad to get him in for this game. That’s the same with Rice too; he is so important to us that if you can give him rest by having him sit this one out, then you have to do it.

What I am hoping for this evening is to see some of those players who haven’t started really make a case for themselves. Martinelli has bagged a few goals from the bench so I’m not looking specifically at him, but Noni has impressed without delivering end product domestically so far, so I’d like a big game for him. Then, of course, you’re looking at Gabby Jesus getting on the scoresheet to show that he’s back and to have people asking genuine competition questions with Gyokeres being patchy with his form. Behind them, Eze and Nwaneri probably do have a bit to prove and so I hope we get some twinkle from their toes today. At a period in the season in which the games come thick and fast, job-sharing of minutes is crucial and we need to know that these guys can come in and deliver continuity when called upon. They are all good enough, but it is night’s like tonight that you maybe just need to remind the manager that a little.

Palace will look different tonight in personnel, but their principles will remain the same; they’ll go with a back three, they’ll look to use their wing backs to create their with and get in to spaces as we try to press them high. So if they have wing backs who perform well tonight, that might be where our danger comes from. What we have to do is ensure that if we’re going to go one-v-one with wing backs and our full backs, then we need to win those battles that happen on the flanks. If Myles and whoever starts at right back (that’s why I didn’t suggest Marley Salmon to start there tonight, because I think positionally it will be seen as an area that Palace might be the most threatening) din their duels, then I think it will go a long way to us winning and progressing to that semi final that awaits in January to Chelsea.

It’s a competition that is low on the pecking order, but with the depth we have in this team it is a great opportunity to get some rotational players some minutes, whilst also making yourselves within spitting distance of a Wembley Cuyp final if you win. So let’s hope the boys go out there, do the business, but most importantly, nobody picks up any injuries.

I’ll be there tonight, then back tomorrow morning for a Christmas Eve debrief. See you then.

One the one hand, we have had a full week of training for the players, there are plenty of training pics that show key players are back in the squad and fit for tonight, plus we got an update from Mikel that Big Gabby is ‘pushing hard’ to be fit soon in his pre match press conference. We also have the fact that Everton will be without key players Ndiaye, Gana Gueye missing due to AFCON, as well as injuries to Branthwaite, Dewsbury-Hall, Coleman and Rohl are all out for them too. So there are a few signs there of positivity we could take into this game.

But…man…it’s Everton, you know? It’s the North West. It’s a team who we’ve only won once in seven up there. It’s a side with Jack Grealish fit and I feel like he’s always had good games against us. Plus, there seems to be so much that is pointing towards an Arsenal win, that it feels like the Football Gods will invariably look to scupper our plans somewhat. It just ‘feels’ like that, you know?

That’s the glass-half-empty part of me kicking in. Because the reality should be that this is a rejuvenated Arsenal side, an Arsenal side who have been able to work out some of those bad habits Arteta mentioned in his post-Wolves conference, a side who are top of the league until at least 5pm when West Ham inevitably get beat up by City at the soulless CityBowl for this afternoon’s 3pm kick off.

Arteta did get asked about the ‘habits’ in his press conference and he said that’s what they have been working on this week and that he hopes we’ll see an improvement. I think it simply has to be and the players know that too, so I think they’ll have some extra motivation tonight, which is what we need given the context of what is 100% going to happen in Manchester earlier in the day. We have options too; from what it sounded like in the press conference we are missing Big Gabby, Christian Mosquera, Ben White and Kai Havertz from the team, which feels like the bench should certainly be stocked with options if he needs it and that is a positive. And with that in mind, what sort of starting XI will we see today?

I have a feeling it’ll look like this:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Hincapie   –   Calafiori

Zubimendi

Odegaard   –   Rice

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

I think the back four picks itself at this stage and given Hincapie has impressed, I don’t expect there will be too much shuffling going on by moving Calafiroi (back from suspension) into the middle and playing MLS. Despite having his workload managed in training this week, I think Zubi starts and when asked about it Arteta didn’t seem too fussed. Then, either side of him and just in front I think Arteta reverts back to what is his first choice midfield in Odegaard and Rice. Out of possession Rice slots in to a double pivot with Zubi, whereas in possession he is more furthr advanced occupying that space nearish to Trossard and trying to win the ball back higher up the pitch in that space just in front of the opposition D. Saka and Odegaard resume their normal partnership and I think Gyokeres and Trossard will be detailed to forge one. A few Arsenal fans have already noted that Gyokeres looked marginally better with Gyokeres on the pitch than Martinelli, but Trossard’s form is such that I don’t think you can keep him out and given that he’s had a week in training now, I don’t see how you can start anyone else. There was a question over whether Merino could be used in attack but I think Arteta will look at this game, look at the fact we’re away and there might be a bit more space than there was last weekend, then opt for the Swede over the Spaniard up top.

If he does go with that XI, the good news is that we have loads of options on the bench. We can name nine subs on the bench in the Premier League and if I roll off the names who are now fit, it looks like a strong bench to choose from if we need it:

1. Kepa
2. Lewis-Skelly
3. Norgaard
4. Nwaneri
5. Merino
6. Eze
7. Jesus
8. Martinelli
9. Madueke

You give me that bench and I’m saying “yep, there are definite options there to freshen up in the second half” and if it isn’t working, that’s what I want to see sooner rather than later today.

Hopefully it is working though. And hopefully we can get the first goal. It feels like that might be a telling sign between these two teams. We’ve conceded first in each of our last three away games and are yet to muster a win, whereas Everton have apparently lost eight of their last ten Premier League games in which they’ve been the first to concede, so it feels like that first goal might be telling in this encounter. The ending of the game needs to also not be as scary and frustrating as t’s been in our last three matches. Sunderland scored late, Villa scored late, Wolves scored late – albeit with us making an almost instant response. But those late goals are not great and if you’re doing that on a consistent basis, then there might be fair calls for some mentality questioning going on. My hope is that bad luck comes in threes and we’ve just had three of our last four in which we’ve had those 90-minute+ goals against us scored. So no more of that, please, Arsenal.

What I think we also need to see is more end product from our attacking line. The fact we are coming up to the halfway point in the season and we have our top scorers on just four goals isn’t really good enough. Yes, we have four of them – Saka, Gyokeres, Eze and Leo – but really we need to be bagging more in games and the fact that so many are predicting we win this as a one-nil or two-one tells you all you need to know about our challenges that remain in front of goal this season.

In Everton we come up against a side on 18 goals scored, which is joint fourth worst in the league, with 19 goals conceded – sitting them in a decent position in seventh, so you know that they will be difficult to breakdown, will remain resolute and I suspect given their injuries, Moyes might go for a a compact game in which a draw is a fine result. Yes they’re at home and yes, the crowd will be gee’d up given it’s the last game before Christmas and an evening kick off, but I don’t see Everton being expansive and having a go with a high press. They are a side that has six clean sheets all season and so they are well-versed in shutouts and when they have the ball in Pickford’s hands or feet, they’re going long (he launches the third most of any ‘keeper and his in-play passes have the second-highest average distance of any team in the league.

I think, having looked at some numbers on their defensive actions and seen they have the most number of blocks in the league this season so far, we’re going to get quite a difficult game to watch, if I’m honest. That’s why Leo and Saka and their tricky feet might be important today. And please, Martin Odegaard, none of those silly sand wedged lobbed passes; you seem to try them every game and they never come off.

It’s going to be tough, it’s going to probably be stodgy, but Arsenal need to find a way to get the first goal and I really hope that doesn’t mean we have another game where we essentially give up the first half to walking pace football. Given the week off for the players, there can be little excuse for ‘rest defence’ and so I want to see us moving the ball a lot quicker than we have all season.

Fingers crossed boys and girls. Because it really feels like we need this win to kick-start the Christmas period.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief.

I have to admit, I was kind of sad that I didn’t watch the batshit-mental football match last night that was Man United 4 – 4 Bournemouth. Looks like a Christmas hum-dinger of a game and one in which I saw Jamie Carragher describe it as “the best of the season”.

Of course it was. It had lots of goals, one team winning, then the other team, then the other team again before settling on a draw. For the neutral (no such thing) it was a barnstormer and for Sky it’s exactly what they want from a football match to advertise “The Barclays”.

But for both Bournemouth and United fans I bet it was a bit of a nightmare. Both teams will leave that game feeling like they should have won and both of those teams will probably come away with an unsatisfied feeling in their mouths and minds.

And I thought about our 4-4 against The Scum and I tried to put myself back in that position when it happened to us and how I felt. And it was even maddening now thinking about it. There are other matches, like the 4-4 at Newcastle, but that had the whiff of dodgy refereeing in it. There was the 4-4 at Anfield in which Arshavin but I feel like by then both teams weren’t really in the running for anything so it didn’t have the jeopardy about it. So it’s that 4-4 against Them that sprang to mind.

Now I fast forward to today and to how Arsenal really haven’t been a team who the likes of Sky Sports and TNT Sport want to hang their ‘great advert for the Premier League’ Schtick on, because other than the last few weeks, we aren’t exactly a team who are playing basketball matches are we? Last weekend had late drama, but that was because Arsenal were complacent for one moment. Villa Park had great drama and was described a ‘great match’, but that’s because it was a bit of an anomaly; Arsenal don’t usually play the way the opponent wants and Villa always want that type of game, where it’s a little end-to-end. It’s why they’re on this great run; nobody is actually low-blocking Villa from what I’m seeing. Wolves didn’t when they played them. We didn’t. West Ham didn’t. So you get those games. I think as well to an extent, it is the same with City, because Palace had a go at them last weekend, Fulham did in the 5-4, plus Leeds nearly snatched a draw too.

That’s what happened to us in our first season we competed for the title in 2023/24. Teams came at us because they saw a side who had two years prior been still a work in progress. Now they see a side who doesn’t let up too much, but also one that if you low block, there is an outside chance that you might be able to frustrate a draw, or score with your one chance you get. So the evolution of this Arsenal team is to take that ‘next step’ and to really push down the metaphorical boot on the neck of opponents.

I think that has to be in finding a way to score more first half goals. We’ve got 30 in the Premier League this season, with 13 of those coming in the first half. Not bad, nearly half, but City have scored eight more than us and six of those eight have come in the first half. When you score first, especially against so-called weaker opponents, it stands to reason that you are more than likely to go on to win the game (this blog is a few years old but goes into a little more detail and I still think is relevant). But Arsenal are such a good defensive unit (albeit we’ve seen some cracks appearing recently, I think we can all admit) that when we score first, the game more often than not feels like it’s almost there in terms of being won. If the psychological blow is dealt early, then it totally changes the complexion of the match. This season we have scored first in nearly half of our matches (seven). Conversely, Man City have scored in 12 of their 16 matches so far. That means the game opens up, they have an opponent who has to come out, so they get more chances to rack up more goals. This is what Arteta needs to unlock.

I’m a simple football fan. I’m not one of your in-depth deep analytical fans who can pour over hours and hours of data and come up with some hyper-intelligent answer. If you want that, check out the amazing Billy Carpenter on Substack – he’s great. I like to dabble and have a bit of a look on FBref to see if some numbers give me a bit of a story, but it’s only top line. But to my simple eyes and with my simple feelings, I do feel like the only way Arsenal unlock this league and win it the way I’d like us to win it – like Liverpool did last season – is if we find a way to unlock games. The simple eye test that I have and some of those around me in Block Five that I go to the games with, tells me/us that we start games too slow, too methodical in our build up. There’s too often that we shadow-box out opponents. It’s almost as if Arteta sometimes says “just suss the other guys out there for 15 minutes so I can see how they are set up tactically, then we’ll tweak it accordingly to see if we can win the game”. I know that’s clearly not what Arteta is telling them, but again, it’s just the way it feels as a fan when you’re in the stands watching it play out with the raw emotion and nerves of needing to win the game. It feels to me that there is an inherent caution in this Arsenal team in first halves of matches and if there’s something I’d like to see a little more, it’s that we perhaps push the boundaries of that caution a little bit more.

It won’t happen, I don’t think, because I think we would see a few more instances like that moment in the first half on Saturday when Hwang was suddenly through on goal because we had every player bar-Raya on the edge of their box. I will bet anyone hard cash (not that we’d ever truly find out) that Arteta has re-watched that moment about 50 times and will be replaying it to his team this week in training for sure. There will be a “if you feckers EVER do anything like that again, Imma whip yo’ asses so hard…” talking to at London Colney this way for sure.

The positive I did take from reading this Telegraph article yesterday was that it appears the players are self-serving now when it comes to critical analysis. Arteta will be mad, but he’ll also be internally pleased that the players know when the standards haven’t been met and reading this gave me comfort that they will all be doubling down their efforts this week to ensure there isn’t a repeat of the Wolves situation.

But that doesn’t quite put what I believe is the final puzzle piece in place to take Arsenal to the level where even City are shrugging their shoulders in disbelief that they can catch us. We had it about six weeks ago without the volume of injuries and the clean sheets were being racked up. But that was never sustainable. So I do think we need to find a way to unlock more first half goals. And that’s something I hope Arteta, the coaching staff and the analysts, are all working on trying to fix.

Right, that’ll be it for today I think, so have a good one and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

I also think that we might see Saliba too because although the boss was all “I don’t know, we have another training session” yesterday, he admitted that he will be fine for Everton and so I reckon Saliba is ok for tonight. Whether or not they decide to be 100% on him remains to be seen because, with all due respect to Wolves, it is in attack that you would expect we will be spending most of our time. So even if they also want to rest up Timber (which will bugger up my FPL team but there you go) for this evening so he can be fine for Everton away next weekend, it remains to be seen. We do have Norgaard who played admirably as a centre half in midweek and I think the guys on the Arsenal Vision Pod made a really good point that Wolves and Club Brugge are probably of the same level in terms of opponent difficulty. So if Arteta is happy to play Norgaard in that game, he may well be happy to do the same again.

Personally, I suspect we might see a line up like this though:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Hincapie   –   MLS

Zubimendi

Odegaard   –   Rice

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Eze

Here’s my thinking on the attacking side of it:

1. Odegaard is Arteta’s captain and when he is fit he plays
2. Saka got midweek rest and he’s another ‘first on the teamsheet’ kinda guy
3. Gyokeres needs more minutes and I think Arteta will want him in there tonight to get at least 70
4. Eze didn’t even get on the pitch and I think against what will invariably be a low block from Wolves, we have to have players who can dance their way around defenders.

On that last point, I suspect not getting on the pitch for Eze in midweek might also have a little something to do with his performance at Villa. He was ignominiously hooked at halftime for being asleep for the Cash goal and he had a bit of a stinker in Birmingham. If you let your foggin estandards drop then Arteta will let you know. So he saw zero minutes in the Champions League. But a home game against a team who will set up with a back five and holding midfielders and somebody like Martinelli just doesn’t really work. So I have a hunch it might be Eze asked to start from the left and drift in field to be involved centrally, as well as get shots off.

From Wolves’ perspective we got the good news that they will be missing Jean-Ricner Bellegarde through a hamstring injury. He’s been one of their best players this season and a key part of their midfield as an eight, so they will miss him, although Joao Gomes comes in from suspension, so he’ll slot back in to their midfield for sure. As I mentioned yesterday in the blog we know that Wolves will try to go long, they will try to get crosses in as their threat but we have to control everything tonight. Territory, possession, shots, the lot. This needs to be a game in which Arsenal have to show their quality. But there can’t be complacency. The longer it stays 0-0 the longer we’ll all get a bit antsy in the crowd of a smash and grab from the Black Country Boys – we’ve seen those over the years; one shot, one goal, but if Arsenal bag in the first half, the hope will be that the floodgates will open.

Wolves don’t usually park the bus, but I think they will today. I can’t see them sticking with their approach of trying to win tackles higher up the pitch and in some instances in the opposition half; if they try to do that they we will be able to cut through them so I think Rob Edwards will be pragmatic, he’ll stick his 11 men behind the ball and do a bit of “come on then – come and have a go” to us. Feels preordained that it will be the case today. So we need to find the answers, because if you want to win leagues then you have to find answers to every kind of opponent in every kind of way.

A lot of the pundits are obviously backing The Arsenal, but I’m with Lewis Jones from Sky Sports on this one. I don’t think this will be a battering – not in terms of the scoreline – because of the way Wolves might set up, but also because we always struggle to break down these types of teams. So I’d definitely plump for a 2-0 kind of score line. It’s the kind of score line you have seen us deliver already; we did it against Brentford, against Burnley, against West Ham, against Olympiajos, against Port Vale and against Athletic Bilbao. We get the first goal, we get the second goal, then that’s about it. And hey, I’d love that today because as bad as Wolves have been, they are still a Premier League outfit and they still have players on that pitch capable of causing an upset. Remember in 2020? They had themselves a victory during COVID and n February 2022 Hwang put them ahead on 10 minutes, only for us to come back in the last 10 minutes with goals from Pepe and an OG from Jose Sa. Hwang is still at Wolves and he’s still capable of magic, so we need to be mindful of that, because if we are complacent even Wolves can capitalise.

I’ll be there as usual and then tomorrow morning back on here for a debrief, as well as with Amanda and James for the Same Old Arsenal podcast. So until then, I’ll take my leave and wish you all the most happiest of Saturday’s, which of course can only happen if Arsenal win tonight.

Catch you tomorrow.

Wolves have picked up just two points this season, have scored eight goals in their 15 matches they’ve played, they’ve let in 33 and one look at one Wolves fans forum gives you and idea on what they think will happen – this prediction forum here has their fans saying it’ll be an Arsenal win with an aggregate score of 69 – 15 and an average rating of 5-0 Arsenal from 15 responses – not one thinking Wolves will win. They’re at the point where they are just happy when they score and that’s a bit sad really when the Gallow’s Humour kicks in.

You can see why – there aren’t many stats at all that are in favour of Wolves this season, albeit they aren’t comfortably the worst, so I don’t think we’re going to get the battering that many think we might dish out tomorrow. They’re in the bottom three for xG created and xG allowed, although they aren’t bottom of that one with West Ham and Burnley both delivering shockers in that regard. Weirdly too, they aren’t bottom of the shots on target faced either; Burnley take that crown with West Ham also ahead of them. Where they are rock bottom is their percentage of shots they save; which isn’t a stat a ‘keeper ever wants to see but it appears as though they don’t have a good time of it when teams get shots on target.

Their ‘keeper is a launcher of the ball from goal kicks and from a defensive point of view they top the league with the number of tackles they make in their own defensive third with 156 – no other Premier League team has to make as much. I read that stat and think that they might play in a low block, but weirdly, in terms of the average distance from their goal that Wolves make a defensive action (tackle, blocked shot, etc), it’s actually quite hjigh at 15 yards from their own goal. Arsenal are the highest with 18.6 because obviously opposition teams don’t get as close to our goal as much, so you’d think a low block team would have lower average distances (again, West Ham and Burnley are in the bottom two there), but Wolves are actually sixth in the league for average distance on defensive action. So, what does that mean? If I go amateur data nerd on you for a second (as I like to do), that tells me that Wolves are a team who play a higher line than you’d expect and that there might be some opportunities to get in behind tomorrow evening – I’d certainly hope so.

You’d also hope that defensively we’d be able to keep them quiet, because they have the lowest number of shots they’ve taken this season of any team, the lowest number of shots on target per 90 and the fifth highest distance that they’re taking their shots from at 17.4 yards. So this is a team that is struggling to penetrate opposition back lines up until this point and who don’t create many chances or shots at all. This will be a Wolves team that goes long as often as possible – they have the highest number of attempted long balls in the league – and this is a team who when the ball does go long it goes into the channels and they look to cross the ball in (they have the highest number of crosses into the penalty area of any team this season.

Arsenal will be aware of this, Arteta will be aware of this, they need to be ready for this and they need to be in the mindset of scoring early because if we do (and I’ll do more of a match preview tomorrow), then I think this game could run up a few goals.

But football is weird and even though there won’t be too many brave men betting on Wolves winning at The Emirates tomorrow night, I still feel like we need to be wary of any threat or potential banana-skin. You only need to look back a couple of weeks to see how Villa nearly came a-cropper; Wolves looked good, scored a good goal that was ruled out, forced Martinez into some great saves (including tipping one onto the bar) and Villa had to rely on a wonder strike from the edge of the box to seal the win. We know what good form Villa are in so for Wolves to give them the type of game they did, should serve as ample warning for Arteta and his coaching staff.

But if you want to win league titles then you have to win your home games like tomorrow, so Arsenal have a job to do and that’s what Arteta will be telling those players in training today.

More on how Arsenal will line up tomorrow, as well as any interesting titbits from the press conference today but for now, I hope you have a great Friday and I’ll be back tomorrow with more pre-match thoughts.

I thought that the catharsis of the Same Old Arsenal pod last night with James and Amanda would help me to understand my feelings over that Chelsea result, but I’m still no nearer to breaking it down. I think that’s because City ultimately beat Leeds and so it feels like they played catch up over us last weekend, but if you look at the bigger picture, we’ve stretched our lead by one point over them compared to pre North London Derby. Imagine, for example, that City would have played Leeds and won the weekend before when we played the NLD. Then they played Newcastle this weekend, lost, whereas we went to Chelsea and drew. I’d probably be seeing that as a point gained.

I guess that’s the challenge with this league and especially at this stage in the season; the games come so fast that leads can quickly erode and at a time in which City have quite a favourable run (including what I suspect will be a routine away win at Fulham tonight), we’ve had some really tough fixtures coming our way.

City fans might point to our home match against Brentford as a more favourable game too, to be fair, but looking at them this season I think it’s still going to be really tough. Their strengths lie in direct play and quick transitions with rapid players and it’s through letting their opponents have the ball and hitting them on the counter that they have had plenty of success at home all season. They’re fourth at home for home form right now, but on the road it is a very different story; they’re fourth from bottom with one win and five defeats. Having not watched as much of them as I’d have liked to so I can talk more definitively about how they will line up against us, I can’t say why their away form is so poor compared to their home form, but perhaps there is that home crowd advantage that they capitalise on. I watched the game against Liverpool at the Gtech stadium and they troubled Liverpool on the counter with longer balls in behind, as well as that impressive throw-in weapon from Kayode that they deploy frequently. If ever there’s a case for moving the advertising hoardings forward for a team, Brentford would certainly be that.

What’s interesting about Brentford from a numbers perspective, is that away from home, they have the second best xG allowed aside from us; so that tells me they sit a little deeper, more compact in shape away from home and tell teams to come at them in their low block. That bears out in the number of passes they have taken this season – only Burnley have had fewer. When you look at the type of passes they do as well, they ain’t going short much, that’s for sure. They attempt the fewest number of short passes in the league (under 15 yards) and the second-fewest medium passes (15 – 30 yards) and whilst I haven’t watched much of them as I admit today, I can already see what this game is going to shape up to be tomorrow.

Having just faced a physical battle against Chelsea on their patch, Arteta and his Arsenal team need to know that they will face the same tomorrow night against Burnley. It’s going to be long ball, it’s going to be physical, it will be a bit set-piecy and it might be a bit of a stop-start game I suspect. Arteta and Arsenal need to be ready for it. We’ve certainly show we can match teams with a physical battle and in a game like tomorrow it will be handy to have so many attacking options to call on, because I’m looking at how this game might unfold and I’m thinking we’re going to have a lot of the ball in their half and chance creation might come at a premium as they stuff their own box with bodies in order to try to shut the game down, then hit us with rapid counter and big long balls.

But that’s been Brentford’s style for a while now, to be fair, because we saw it under Frank and we’ve seen it going back to even the Ivan Toney days. Remember when David Raya was playing for them and we used to see ball after ball on to Toney to battle with our centre halves? We might see a bit more of that from goal kicks tomorrow methinks.

From a shooting perspective, it’s also interesting that Brentford have the third highest shots on target percentage in the league, as well as the second shortest average distance to goal from where they take their shots. That tells me that this is a team who doesn’t take a lot of pot-shots; when they do take a shot, it usually means that it is of sufficient quality to be on target. If Brentford get a chance or two tomorrow, they are testing Raya, so he’s going to need to be ready against his old team.

I don’t think this will be a pretty game by any stretch of the imagination, so it might be one for those attacking players who excel in tight spaces, but what Arteta will also have to contend with is the fitness and availability of players for tomorrow. We’ve been battered, bruised and injured all season and so inevitably there will be one or two that aren’t quite ready or might be feeling fatigue, but I’ll do a more in-depth look at what Arsenal might do tomorrow I think.

Until then we have to wait to see what Arteta says in his press conference today on player availability, before we can start making some decisions on who might start and how we might break down Brentford.

I’ll be back tomorrow. See you then.

So far this season, after it became clear that Liverpool were in freefall after their initial flurry of wins, all the talk has been about us. About our squad depth. About our approach. About how the title is almost ‘done’. But as Arsenal fans, I don’t think any of us have talked up, or entertained, such hyperbole. City are just four points off us and as we hit the congested December fixture period, these swings can quickly change. City are feeling themselves, Chelsea are feeling themselves, so we need to make sure we keep up the same ‘fogging estandards’ that we’ve done so far this season that has led us to this six point gap we currently have. Because as Liverpool and their fans can attest to, it can all very easily be eroded, so games like today matter.

And they matter on a number of levels. There’s the most obvious level of taking three points off a rival on their own patch. That brings the gap between us and City back up to seven points, plus it makes it nine clear of Chelsea and would be ten clear of Sunderland in fourth. But then there’s the impact it does on our players. The belief that will ooze from this Arsenal team if they complete a hat trick of wins on what has been defined as another huge milestone in our season. We’ve beaten the Scum in the NLD, we’ve scratched an itch in Bayern that has existed for well over a decade (although that still need to probably be done over two legs in a knockout competition I reckon), so a win today will send the belief and momentum of these players into the stratosphere. Then, think about the impact it has on opposition fans and the media, because if we somehow manage to bag all three points today then it will feel like we are a runaway freight train. We saw it last season with Liverpool. We’ve seen it before with City. We know what it would feel like and we know that other fans will feel a little forlorn about catching The Arsenal.

So the prize and the stakes are obvious, but how will Arteta line up today, against a Maresca Chelsea side?

Well, the data and the eye test tells me that Chelsea are a side who have a few different faces to them depending on the opponent, because they’ve dominated Liverpool, but been sucker-punched by Sunderland. The city firmly mid table for their home form with the 13th best home record having suffered two defeats to Brighton and Sunderland, as well as wins against Wolves, Fulham and the aforementioned Liverpool game. I watched that Liverpool game and the Scousers were not great at all, but they still created a few chances, which belies the numbers because Chelsea’s xG allowed at home is the third best in the league aside from City and us. But their xG at home is sixth; so they appear to be tightening up at the back based on those initial metrics. In six games they’ve scored nine at home and conceded six; it appears that teams are taking the chances when presented.

Their ‘keeper is often seen as a weak link and I remember that Sanchez sending off at Old Trafford early in the season, but he’s steadied his form out a bit of late I think I read, which means we need to be able to test him and hopefully do so with balls in behind their back line. It’s a young back line too, so if I’m in Arteta’s shoes I’m going to try to get the ball in behind that Chelsea defence. They will not sit in a low block I don’t think, so transitional counters and winning those one-v-one moments might make the difference. For example Cucurella will be more than happy to have some support one-v-one against Saka and seeing him doubled up on. I do think that Saka having a good game might be important for us today. We saw it was the Eze show last weekend, but Saka stepping up and delivering in a big game like this feels like it’s the kind of thing we need to happen to win a game like today.

I think Arteta might mix it up on the left today. I think Leo’s form has been crazy-good, in a sense you’d be mad to drop him, but I just have this feeling that because of his knock, he’s going to give the nod to Madueke or Martinelli. Both have a case to start: Martinelli has a good record of goals against Chelsea with a couple to his name including the equaliser last season in the 1-1 draw. But Madueke will fancy his chances as the pantomime villain of the piece returning to Old Trafford today, so I wouldn’t put it past Arteta to throw him in. He scored against Bayern, he’ll be buzzing after that, so now he could ride that adrenaline and good form into this game and if he’s the sort of guy who feeds off reactions like he’s gonna get from the crowd today, then we could get a very good performance from him if he starts. It feels like one of those games that Madueke will either have an absolute worldie of a performance, or it’ll be like he’s never been on the pitch. The question is whether Arteta fancies it to be the latter or the former.

The only other real questions will be over whether it’s Hincapie or Mosquera, or whether Odegaard comes in to start, which I think is probably unlikely. He got on to the pitch for nine minutes against Bayern and if he’d have played 30 or 40 minutes then I’d be minded to say he probably would start as he’s Arteta’s guy, but I think we go with the same team from last weekend, with perhaps a question over left wing being the main thing needed to be answered.

And Arsenal need to answer the away day at Chelsea question today. Can they overcome an in-form team to lay down another marker in a statement win?

Let’s hope so.

Back tomorrow for a debrief.

I was impressed with Sunderland as a side. They are well organised, they sit in a deep low block with bodies in and around their penalty area, but they also press high and intelligently. This isn’t a side that just push everyone up and press when we have the ball in our own defensive third; they pressed only at certain trigger points and it made for a frustrating first half for Arsenal for sure.

And the big worry once they’d gone ahead, was that we were going to get a ‘horseshoe of death’ game, in which we don’t create chances, we huff and puff, but the opposition just sit in their shape and head crossed balls away from their box. That was certainly what happened in the first half and with the first goal of the game it was certainly an industrial one that befitted the first half. Long ball, not challenged well by Rice, Ballard the beefy centre half steamrolls through and leathers one home. It was sloppy from Arsenal but it was the first effort Sunderland had in the game. I looked at the halftime stats and Sunderland had managed just 0.13xG from the game – practically all of that came from that goal.

The second half we were much better and you could tell instantly that it would not be like the first. We moved the ball quicker, we were finding pockets of space, we were moving Sunderland around and it was that man Saka who dragged us back level. Kudos needs to go to Rice for the turnover in the lead up to it, Merino did well to find a good weight on a pass and the finish on his weaker foot was sublime to be fair. We’re just used to seeing that from Saka but to generate that level of power and accuracy needs to be applauded I think.

And then it felt like we were on course to turn the game around. Zubimendi was unlucky to hit the underside of the crossbar, Eze had a couple of good chances, then Leo Trossard stepped up to leather his goal in from the edge of the box. I said it on my BBC Sport Fan’s Voice piece after the Slavia game last week, but Trossard has been sensational this season in terms of his output and that’s eight g’s and a’s that he’s bagged already this season. It was a finish that deserved to be the winner and as the game ticked down we’ve become used to Arsenal just shutting down matches and getting the wins, but yesterday was a weird game and of course we couldn’t hold on.

There had been warning signs before they scored their goal, which was a series of probably fortunate events that the ball seemed to land exactly where a Sunderland player was. Raya made a bit of a mess of the situation for the equaliser in stoppage time, but he’d also made a couple of really smart saves before then to keep Sunderland out, so we can’t say that the pressure had led to absolutely nothing for the home side. I was talking to The Management’s cousin who was at the game yesterday (Sunderland fan) via WhatsApp and he was obviously happy with the win, but he also said it’s possibly the best Sunderland side he’s seen – certainly in decades – so this isn’t a newly promoted club who are gonna go straight down. It’s a good side, a well organised side, a side who have already caused a few teams problems and did so for us. But I’m not quite sure I’d agree with some Arsenal fans and sections of the media that said it’s probably a fair result. We pretty much dominated from start to finish with a couple of pockets of time in which Sunderland took advantage of the little chances they had. We dominated in nearly every metric and should be speaking about another three points on the road. I think there’s a fair few of us who are quite sanguine at the moment because we’re still a bit of daylight between most of the clubs below us, but after the international break we have some really hard games that could easily see that lead at the top erode away.

The good news is that we’ll be getting back our attacking players after the international break and given where we’ve been this week with the lack of options, I think that’s cause for optimism, because yesterday showed just how unlucky I think we’ve been. Whilst Saka and Trossard were both there for us with end product, i thought Merino had a poor game. Hey, he’s not a centre forward and whilst it’s useful to at least have him able to fill in like he did in midweek, that sticking plaster only lasts so long and I think we had that last season after the initial goals against Leicester last season. He doesn’t provide the same running power, he doesn’t stretch defences and I didn’t think his overall link up play was that great, other than tee’ing up Saka for the first goal. But such is our lack of options, there wasn’t really anyone else to come in, unless you’re going to throw a Hail Mary and chuck Harriman-Annous in there. That’s just not feasible to ask a kid like that to go up against Sunderland’s robust defensive three and so I can understand why Arteta was reluctant. My hope is that after this current international break, we get a tone of good news, because it would be good to see some options for the North London Derby.

That’s just under two week’s away though, so for now let’s just take stock, accept the limitations of the draw and how impressive we’ve been with so many players out, then go again for the big one at home in 13 days time.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I think we’re getting a Mikel Arteta press conference this morning ahead of the Sunderland game and I don’t know about you, but the main question I’d like answered is:

How long is Viktor Gyokeres going to be out injured for?

The talk is that it’s after the international break, as well as a few players expected to be back, but if you think about how long Havertz and Madueke have been out for, it would be a surprise to see them walk straight back in to the first team. They will need to have their fitness built up and therefore whilst it will be good to have them back in training, I do hope that Big Vik is going to be fine after this weekend. Let’s hope the plan is to keep them all at London Colney, get them a full week of training whilst the internationals are on, maybe even a behind-closed-doors game or two, before being ready for the North London Derby.

The fixtures get scary after the break, but Sunderland away has it’s own treacherousness about it, because they have played well all season and will also be buoyed by the fact that we are running low on attacking options. The game is still two days away, but given there will be a press conference today I thought I’d start taking a look at what we’re up against from a team perspective and Sunderland at home have played five, won three, drawn two and lost none. They’ve scored nine at home in that time and conceded three, although their xG is 5.1 so they have been scoring from less than likely situations (that figure puts them 15th in the league). They have been good defensively though – as the three goals conceded suggests – and they’re one of the teams towards the top of the league when it comes to tackles won in their own defensive third.

From an attacking point of view they’ve had the fewest number of shots on target and they’re in the bottom half for total number of shots, which tells me they are a side who have been taking their chances – but is it sustainable over the long term?

Without wanting to jinx it too much (which I may well be doing here but I’m going to say it anyway), I think Sunderland will probably revert to the mean and they won’t sustain a European spot place for the entirety of the season, mainly based on some of these underlying metrics, but unfortunately for us we’ve caught them when they are riding high and we’ve got a bit of an attacking injury crisis, despite the two goals and good form of the likes of Merino for club and country. So some early thoughts for me ahead of this game are that I think we’re going to get a very tight encounter, because of a) their confidence and home ground advantage, and b) our attacking challenges in having to play a central midfielder up front.

And hey, I hope Merino does well and I hope that we get a good game and some goals out of him on Saturday evening, but whilst his goalscoring has been great overall in 2025, I do think we all need to remember that he isn’t a striker. He doesn’t make the kinds of runs that our actual strikers make, his inclusion means we’ll have to adapt our playing style and when he came on against Burnley on Saturday last weekend I think we definitely didn’t look as potent as we were in that first half against the Clarets. I’m not trying to bag on Merino here by the way, I’m just saying that I think we’re probably going to be saying we missed a striker of a certain style on Saturday, by the time the game ends. Last season when Merino had the role over a number of games it worked some of the time, but at other times it kind of felt like we were lacking a little bit. I had a quick look at the end of last season when he played up front and his stats were:

• Southampton away = drew a blank
• PSG at home = drew a blank
• Real Madrid away = two assists
• Real Madrid home = scored
• Fulham home = scored
• Chelsea home = scored
• United away = drew a blank
• Forest away = drew a blank
• West Ham home = drew a blank

So it is a good return to be fair, but I seem to recall in some of those games we really struggled to knit together any kind of attacking link up – like United away and Forest away – and I think what this small sample size tells me is that over a short period of time I think Merino up top is fine, but over a prolonged period, it isn’t really ideal.

And that’s why we went out and bought Big Vik in anyway, right? I listened to two of the prominent Arsenal podcasts over the summer and they both said “the Merino experiment was fine, he’s a good player, but we don’t really want to see that too often” and I don’t know about you guys, but I really didn’t think we’d be seeing it as early as the beginning of November in the season, but here we are. So for me if we can get some kind of words of comfort from Arteta that after the international break we’ll have some players back for that big NLD clash, then that will at least mean that we just need to use our ‘break glass in case of emergency‘ approach just the once more.

A final note from the game this weekend, as I try not to sound too down on Merino (honestly, I am genuinely not, I feel like he’s been really good in filling in and has scored some vital goals for us) up top, is that I looked at the stats on what teams do against Sunderland and Sunderland have had the third most crosses in to the box that they’ve faced of any team this season. What do we all know Merino is good at? Heading in from crosses (think Newcastle away). If we’re going to play to his strengths, I think Leo, Saka and our full backs, as well as the likes of Rice or Eze, need to be looking for that barnet of Merino’s in the box – it might be a secret weapon.

Back tomorrow with some post press conference thoughts. See you then.

An away day low block.

It used to be a tenet of Premier League football that when teams are at home, they are a little more expansive; their fans urge them to drive forward, the team responds and sometimes as a team like Arsenal that is positive because it affords you more space with which to create openings. That isn’t really the case any more and today’s challenge of overcoming the 2025 Championship Champions is going to be quite the tricky one I suspect. Scott Parker employs a back five and he’ll do so today, with the hope of frustrating us and hitting us on the counting with rapid forwards like Jaidon Anthony. Burnley’s game plan today is to let us have the ball, stay in shape, narrow the pitch and ask our lads to do something special to beat them.

We have to be ready for that as much as the players do, because I don’t think this will be a classic for the ages, not unless we score first and early and that forces them out to us. No, instead, I think this might be a bit of a tough watch and whilst I promised myself to have a non-boozy Saturday today, depending on how turgid the game feels, I might find myself reaching for the Admiral Old J.

Their fans don’t think so though and one forum I had a look at had something like a 90% expectation of a beat down for them, with a couple suggesting there could be a five-niller on the cards.

There’s absolutely no way that happens today. This Burnley team are too well drilled and they will deny Arsenal any space at all in their defensive third of the pitch. It’s why I do wonder if, like last weekend against Palace, we’re going to need to take advantage of a moment of magic to pick up the points.

In terms of team news, Arteta wouldn’t be drawn on Saliba, but given how well Mosquera has played for us this season, if there’s even the slightest of doubts, I think he plays and I am thinking that will be the case today. The rest of the back five picks itself with most of them having been rested from the start in midweek, whilst in midfield I’ll expect to see a return for Zubimendi and Rice. Eze playing 83 minutes in midweek would normally have me thinking that he might get a rest, but given Odegaard is out, Nwaneri played the full 90 and so did Merino, I suspect Ebz continues in that midfield and hopefully he can continue his goalscoring form from last weekend.

Then, up front, it has to be Saka, Gyokeres and Trossard, because with Martinelli, Madueke and Havertz all out, it’s pretty much the only first choice options we have. Even if Martinelli were fit though, this feels more like a Trossard one than one for Gabby. Tight spaces, little green grass to run in to, the need to get into central crowded areas and be dangerous, it feels like that’s what is needed and with Saka and Trossard you have those players.

From a data point of view, the numbers only serve to underline how this one won’t be a classic and will very much be an Arsenal possession-dominant football game. Burnley are bottom of the league for xG, meaning they don’t create many chances. But if we can have some hope, it’s that they do concede goals too, having the fourth worst goals conceded record and the lowest xG differential in the league; so despite me thinking this is going to be a torturous low-scoring affair, by the sounds of it Burnley will give us chances if you look at the numbers. I guess I still have that game against Liverpool at Turf Moor in my head and how Burnley just retreated in to the lowest of blocks. Perhaps in most of their other games against opponents that they fancy their chances with, they’ve been more willing to have a go. But this Arsenal team have shown just how miserly they are and so Parker and his coaching staff might be looking at that and thinking that the best option is to try to low-block the sh*t out of today’s match.

So, what, other interesting stats are there that inform how they will play? well, they’re lowest in the league for crosses into the box, so we don’t have to expect tricky wingers getting in behind their full backs, but they’re top of the league for big switches, so when the ball turns over at the back in their half (they are top of the league in blocks and mid table for winning tackles in their own defensive third), expect them to look for that switched out ball to one of their forwards. But for us I think the aim has to be to try to get more shots off today. That might mean a few more pop shots from the D than we would be used to; feels like a Saka and Eze opportunity, maybe with Trossard too.

There was plenty of other stuff that he said in his press conference that I’ll let you peruse at your own leisure, but I’m also interested at what the pundits have been saying, as well as the Burnley fans and as you’d expect there’s pretty much a full house of Arsenal wins. Sharer has gone for the win for us, Jones Knows has said 2-0 to The Arsenal, Merse has gone for 2-0 too, whilst Sutton has gone for a 1-0, which I’m more inclined to go with.

And hey, that’s all we need right now, because despite some of the media narrative, this is an Arsenal team that have been getting the job done, despite all of the injuries. We need to see this one through and then next weekend away to Sunderland, then as Arteta was talking about returning players after the international break, if we can get some of those attacking players back and firing on all cylinders then I think we can start to look to attack the busy December and Christmas period with some gusto.

Catch you all tomorrow for a de-brief.