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

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

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

Raya

White – Mosquera – Gabriel – Calafiori

Bruno

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Gyokeres – Eze

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mikel Arteta has signed a new contract with The Arsenal

This is fantastic news. Yes, everyone was ‘calma’ about it at The Arsenal; the journos ‘in the know’ were all saying it is pretty much done, but now it is all official, and he’s signed on until 2030. That means, if he sees out his contract, he’ll have done 10 years at The Arsenal and hopefully will have built that ‘legacy’ that we are all talking about right now.

It has not been all plain sailing; we’ve had some bumps along the way, but this is the right move for the club, and I don’t think you’ll find any proper Arsenal fans who aren’t delighted with this news. The video the club did, where he stood in front of two LED walls of Arsenal fans and their messages, was absolutely lovely to see. I’m clearly biased on this, but The Arsenal has always tried to demonstrate that it acts with ‘class,’ and when we do things like this, you really get the sense that those values shine through at the club. When some clubs are intent on taking cheap shots on signing unveiling videos, or two drag the game into disrepute with their own inability to admit their dodgy wrongdoings, The Arsenal does things the right way and, in that regard, I am proud to call myself an Arsenal supporter when I see things like yesterday and all the #content that accompanied the video.

There were also the little touches that reflect, represent, and acknowledge the proud tradition of the club, like the fact that his ‘contract’ (although we all know that deal had been signed somewhere else, and this was just ‘for the Gram’ as the kids say) was delivered to him by the CEO in a box that was used by David Danskin, the club’s first Club Secretary, as a writing desk tool as well. Richard Garlick even talked about how we are connected to our history, we acknowledge and are proud of it, and that shines through with little actions like this.

I’m also proud of the longevity of managers the club has had in my time. I was born in 1982, so I’m not really going to count or claim Terry Neill or Don Howe, as I didn’t even get into football until I was six, but by then George Graham had been in charge for a couple of years, and so my experience of full-time (not caretaker) managers is:

1. George Graham
2. Bruce Rioch
3. Arsene Wenger
4. Unai Emery
5. Mikel Arteta

Five in 28 years. That is class. That is The Arsenal.

Like I say, it hasn’t always been perfect though, and I remember telling my mate Johnny from The Arsenal Opinion Podcast after the Villarreal defeat (ironically at the hands of Emery) that I thought he wasn’t going to make it. I don’t like being the guy who shouts for the manager’s head, but I was basically there in 2021, so to see how this has turned around is marvellous. And as I’ve already said in my blog in May of this year (KSE apology tour), you have to give huge credit to the owners on this too. They stayed patient; they truly did ‘Trust the process’, and in May everyone with a stake – whether physical or emotional – in The Arsenal was rewarded.

And now we find ourselves looking towards the future. I’ll save Leeds chat for tomorrow, but next on the ‘to do’ list is apparently Decaln Rice, which again, I don’t think you’ll find an Arsenal fan in the proverbial house who doesn’t want this deal done quickly and soon. He’s a key cog in the team; he is one of our best players (there’s a shout for ‘The best’ player), he’s a guy we want to be part of this ‘Legacy’ that Arteta is talking about. So let’s get him on the train/boat/bus – whatever form of transport metaphor takes your fancy.

One more final video link to show you before I pop off for the day, which is back to Mikel, and the fan sit-down that he did that the club videoed. I just think this is lovely. Yes, it is PR; yes, it is heavy on the production value, but it comes across as so genuine. There is genuine warmth from him, from the fans around the table, and it serves to underline the ‘connection that Arteta is always talking about. You see things like this, and you realise that to him, these aren’t just words at pre-match press conferences; they are real values and cultural identity that he has been despErate to build at the club since the day he walked through the door. He ‘gets it’ and ‘gets’ what it means to all of us. Having a manager like that is amazing. Yeah, he rubs up opposition fans, pundits, and the media with the most trivial of things (“HOW DARE HE STEP OUTSIDE ARBITRARILY WHITE LINES THAT ARE PAINTED ON THE TOUCHLINE!”), but you cannot look at videos like that and what his actions have shown and not convince me that every single Premier League team wouldn’t have him in a heartbeat if they could.

They can’t. He’s ours. And he’s here to stay for a while longer.

Back tomorrow as we start to preview the return of The Arsenal and Leeds at home. Speak then.

The Good Lord Giveth, and he taketh away.

The ‘Taketh away’ bit is, of course, the injuries to Havertz, then Tzolis, then Konsa too, who I haven’t mentioned this week, but of course has to be a concern. The latter is a worry, but with Christian Mosquera in the squad, we have a very capable deputy who could cover for Leeds at home on Saturday, for example, so I think that challenge can be mitigated by Arteta. In Eze, there is a guy who just got 90 minutes playing for England in a 3-0 victory, showing some bright moves in the little that I switched it on to watch (about 10 minutes of the second half). His stats are also decent too: 68 touches in total, 44 of 48 accurate passes, three blocked shots, two defensive contributions, and overall a fine – if not sparkling – performance. We didn’t need him to be. He will get game time on Saturday and, having played 90 minutes for his country last night, he’ll be in a better position to give us the best of Eze against Leeds.

The ‘giveth’ part is of course the performance of those players who might replace Kai Havertz up top, because last night Mikel Merino chucked his hat in the ring to give Arteta something to think about. I haven’t seen his first goal, but his second goal was an absolute peach of a finish. It was the kind of touch and swivel inside the box that, if Thierry had done it, you wouldn’t be surprised and would be nodding your head and explaining out loud, “that’s Titi, man”. Merino now has three goals and two assists in his four matches he’s played for Spain. But what makes it more impressive is the number of actual minutes he’s played in order to deliver that return: 109. So basically he’s played just over the equivalent of one football match and has the equivalent of a hat-trick and an assist. Honestly, this man is absolutely brilliant, and I can’t wait to see him on the pitch in an Arsenal shirt.

Who starts on Saturday, though? Because Big Vik will have his hand in the air too, given that he’s bagged four in four during this break. His goals have predominantly all been of the predatory kind, which whilst it’s great for his confidence, does make me wonder about whether it’s the best chess piece for Arteta to be placing on the board for the lunchtime kick-off in a few days. I suspect he will go for Big Vik, but Merino simply has to get game time at some point, so a sharing of minutes in that position wouldn’t surprise me on Saturday.

I guess it also depends on how Leeds are going to set up. If they are going to sit deep, be compact and tight, try and restrict space in and around their own penalty box, then having Viktor mark himself out of another match might not be the best option. Likewise, if we have to resort to a bit of a battle for some aerial dominance, then you’re picking Merino all day long for that striking slot. But as it stands, right now, the positive we have as Arsenal fans is we have a few players who have hit some form and are showing signs of knowing where the back of the net is. Good stuff.

There were also performances from Martin Zubimendi in that Spain game, for which he also assisted the goal for Merino’s winner at the death against Croatia. And Myles Lewis-Skelly, who played the full 90, had 72 touches, completed three of four successful dribbles, had a 91% passing accuracy and four of five accurate long balls. FOTMOB gave him a 7.4 (Eze got a 7.5), and at this point, if you’re Arteta, you really are spoiled for riches in the middle of the park. He’ll probably also be telling the players that it is a shame that he can’t play 13 players from the start, because I suspect he might think Merino AND Gyokeres, or Bruno AND Myles, AND Zubimendi. But hey, as a manager, you always want those kinds of headaches, so I’m sure he won’t be complaining too much.

And neither will we, because we can finally wave goodbye to this frustrating international break, and start looking ahead to the threat that a decent Leeds side and the elbows of Dominic Calvert-Lewin will pose. I’ll start to look at them tomorrow, I think, followed by the usual review of what the pundits are saying on Friday, as well as early injury news. But for now, for today, that’s me done.

Have a good one, kids.

Getting goals will definitely help that. We saw when he arrived in that cab and read aloud the message from Martin about how if thehere’s anything he could do to help him settle in, he just needed to let him know. His response was something like “assists, I just need assists”. This is a guy who essentially models his game entirely on end product. He isn’t skillful with the ball at his feet, he can’t beat a man, we’ve seen he hasn’t got the pace to get away from Premier League defenders; he’s not much of an aerial threat. But what he can do is shoot. Hard. And his goals have shown us that he can find space inside the box, so the challenge is how we do that in a league in which a lot of teams just sit deep against us. But you can’t argue with his Sweden form right now. And that can’t just be fluke, either, because he’s got 25 goals in 41 appearances, he’s scored six goals in his last seven games for Sweden. I get that there’s probably a bit more space for him in international games, and we all know how Martinelli said as much in Champions League football too, but there must be a way we can find the best out of the Swede in an Arsenal shirt?

I do think confidence will play a little part. In the Ipswich cup game he looked like he was hiding in plain sight a bit; his movement just wasn’t there, he had a couple of occasions to step in front of his marker when balls came into the box, yet he declined to do so and had what we all now know was a VERY underwhelming performance. But his recent international form will have him returning back to London with a bit more of a swagger in his step. That might give him an extra 5 – 10% edge, but he’s now going to have to deliver on Saturday in an Arsenal shirt.

The other goalscorer was of course Riccy Cala, who bagged one for Italy against Turkey, and he did it with just 34 minutes of football. That, for me, is great on both counts. He too will come back with a swagger to London, but hopefully in one piece, having not started the game but finishing it. It was his first goal too, from a nice set piece, so that’ll sate those of us who are getting a little sad that we haven’t been able to sing n’set piece again ole ole’ in relation to an Arsenal player.

That is something I would like to see us get back to, you know, because it is annoying me with the lazy media narrative that we only won the title last season because of our set pieces. I’m sure you’ve heard it too; a rival fan, or ignorant pundit just carelessly chucks out a comment about how the rules on hugging and grappling have now changed, which is why Arsenal haven’t been scoring from set pieces. Firstly, anyone who looks at the way we set up on corners and free kicks will know that we don’t have that most of the time. You know what I’m talking about: Our players bunch at the back post, then just before the ball is kicked they make their moves and run into their positions. Grappling doesn’t suit us; it suits our opponents who want us to be static. If you want to look at grappling, go watch that United v Everton game from last season, in which the two teams were essentially engaging in judo matches all around both penalty boxes. But you’ll never hear about that, because neither side was fighting for the title.

The reality is, I think, that teams are a little more familiar with our patterns on set pieces so far this season, but I also just feel like we’ve been unlucky on a couple of occasions. We have players who are good in the air, we will start scoring set pieces again, but there was probably an element of us running hot on set pieces for a short period of time last season, then having the pendulum swing the other way a tiny bit this season. And this idea that we get a ton more than everyone else is folly too; last season we were top with 25 non-penalty set-piece goals, but we also saw Man United get 22, so there’s hardly a massive gap.

So whilst we do have that as part of our, ahem, ‘arsenal’, I think the laziness to just dismiss us this season on those goals because of a slight rule change (which probably goes away around this time anyway) is half-arsed analysis if you ask me.

But what do you think?

Their defeat yesterday was one I watched a big chunk of, and actually I thought they played quite well until they went behind. That felt like the game was over, so I switched over, and the final result of 4-2 to #114 Cheating FC leaves them floundering in mid-table. And unfortunately, I suspect it does mean the title might be done. The challenge for teams at the top fighting for the title in the WSL is that the margin for error seems really slim. Two defeats away at perennial winners Chelsea, then last season’s champions Man City, is no massive shock, and of course there will be the home games for the ladies to get revenge, but when you look at the history of winners in this competition, it means the margin for error is tiny because of the fewer games they play.

Last season, City won it with three defeats, but they won 18 of their 22 games. Arsenal have won one of their first five. In 2024/25, Chelsea won it going unbeaten and bagging 19 victories out of 22. The season before that it was 18 wins and three defeats; the season before that it was 19 wins and two defeats; and the season before that it was 18 wins and two defeats. So when you look at historical data for the last five years, you have to say the chances of Arsenal doing anything now look almost impossible. They’d probably have to win every single match between now and the end of the season, and so those two draws at home to United and Palace are going to have huge repercussions. There’s just no margin for error in the Women’s game, unfortunately.

That’s on the women’s side, but on the men’s side, we’re waiting to see how big Riccy Cala gets on in Italy against Turkey. I hope that his time is limited and Mancini is sensible with him. He played the full 90 on Friday, and I hope Mancini takes the same approach as last week; we want to see him warming the bench and getting a maximum of 20 minutes tonight, if anything at all. In group four, Big Vik gets a chance away in Romania to bag more goals for his national side, and if he does it tonight, I’ll be happy to see him return and see if he can continue that good scoring form and confidence. We will need it, as many of us have already discussed, with Kai out for the immediate future. Big Gabi seems ok having just done a half against India, as did Bruno G, so I think we should be fine with those two. Then the final two sets of players that we’re focused on will be tomorrow night with England and Spain, and if we get a clean bill of health tonight, then we can all start to look forward to Saturday. Martin Odegaard’s Norway unfortunately lost away in Portugal, but he played the full 90, so that says to me he should be fine, and we can welcome him with open arms at London Colney probably from tomorrow, I’d expect.

To me, that’s positive, because his start to the season has been fantastic, and obviously we want that to continue for as long as possible. He’s been the centrepiece through which a lot of our creativity flows, and it is no surprise that his having an off game against Brighton was part of the reason that nothing clicked at the Amex a couple of weekends back.

Other than that, there’s really not a lot else going on, so we’ll just have to see how our boys get on tonight in those aforementioned international games; then we’ll get more updates as the players start returning to London Colney.

And so I shall take my leave again, wish you a happy Monday, then I will see you all tomorrow with hopefully news of a rested Riccy and a goalscoring Gyokeres to speak of. Until then.

And, as mentioned in my blog from last week, it means we’ll need to lean on Gyokeres and/or Merino, with my money for the Leeds game being on the Swede for sure. He played against Bosnia and Herzegovina and bagged another goal – his third in three games for his country – and, according to FOTMOB also had the best performance of any player on the pitch, which is certainly encouraging for us for sure. He played the full 90, and it looks like it was a very ‘Gyokerres’ game; he created just one chance, he created one big chance, he had two shots on target, had just 39 touches, fifve in the opposition box, but bagged a goal to get his confidence flowing even more.

What I liked about the goal, which you can see here, is that it wasn’t a scrappy poacher’s goal, but a proper strike from a guy who looks like he’s getting his form and confidence back. And just in time, too, given the Kai news. We need a Gyokeres who is going to be that bulldozer, who’s going to take on those kind of shots, lean into what he is i.e. a bit of a blunt instrument with one heck of a hard shot on him. Give him space and let him shoot. That’s it. He is very much not a complicated footballer and we need to use him such.

The other Arsenal involvement was Riccardo Calafiori, who played the full 90 against France last night, which I guess is ok and means that he’s fine in terms of injury challenges. I think of all the players currently on international duty,he’s the one most of us have our eyes on, because he’s the one who has had the most chequered history since signing. He’d be the one that, if I was a betting man, I’d be placing the most money on potentially breaking down. If you do fancy a flutter (not on injuries, don’t jinx it!), then you can access live betting tips here. And we’ve also seen him break down over international duty too whilst being an Arsenal player, so we need to see him returning in fine shape for next weekend.

He’s had a pretty good start to the season for The Arsenal, actually, and has certainly been the X-factor player that we all know and love him to be. For a left-back, getting 0.66xg in his game is nothing to be sniffed at (he’s only behind Bukayo, Odegaard and Havertz in the Arsenal team – all of whom you’d expect to be at the top given they are attacking players), and he has 0.62 expected assists as well (again, he’s only behind Odegaard, Saka and Rice on that metric). He’s played five games in the Premier League and bagged two goals and only Tzolis, Havertz, Odegaard and Saka have had more touches in the opposition box for us. He’s an integral part of the team and seeing him get through these games with 90 minutes is clearly quite important.

It’s interesting though, because if you look at his heatmap (click on the player name on the line-up to get the pop-up and see it), for Italy, he seems to act a lot more like an authodox left back compared to us. In the game last night against France he very much stayed in his left-back lane, only occasionally popping up in the attacking and central position. That might be because it was against France and so the need is for more defensive work for him, but for The Arsenal I’d expect that heatmap to look a little different. I’d expect him to have a lot more yellows and red in and around the opposition penalty area, and certainly if he’s fit against Leeds I’ll expect that to look different. Just look at the Brighton game – in which we were crap and he would have had to be a little more defensive, he still has a different-looking heatmap.

Tongiht the worries turn to England in Croatia, as we hope that Myles, Noni, Saka and Eze all come away from the latest pointless international unscathed. Then in S[ain it is Zubimendi and Merino who we’ll have our eyes on.  Given Zubi started in their last match and De La Fuente rotated a bit, I’d expect Rodri to come in tonight, then maybe Merino off the bench too. Hopefully they can both get enough minutes but come out of it unscathed. As I’ve mentioned previousy, if I was Arteta, I would be thinking about how to get Zubi involved from the start soon, because I think he’s shown some encouraging signs in the matches he’s played for us this season.

There’s also a Brazilian friendly against India at 3pm. Fingers crossed Big Gabi and Bruno play little to no minutes for that one. I won’t hold my breath though.

Right, that’s me done for the day, so I’ll leave you to get at your Saturday, as I’ll get at mine, then catch you tomorrow. Have a good one.

And maybe that’s fine for us. We don’t want him over-exerting; we don’t want him stretching, and we want him to be good for when it kicks back off proper in a week-and-a-half’s time. But I would be lying if I didn’t say I’m hoping to see some of the old Saka back soon, because we haven’t quite seen it yet. There’s no panic; he’s doing fine, but this is our marquee player. He’s the Starboy, so what I am hoping for is that we get some of that sprinkling of stardust when Leeds come to town.

Myles got 45 minutes, sharing the game with Eze, and Myles too looks like he did alright. A couple of chances created, a couple of ball recoveries; he won three of four ball recoveries and a couple of accurate long balls. In one half of football that’s fine, but Eze according to FOTMOB Eze had a quiet game. Nothing really in defence, but England were playing against ten men by the time he got on the pitch, so you’d expect that, so all eyes need to be on his attacking contribution. He had a couple of shots, had a 90% passing accuracy, created a couple of chances, but I suspect Tuchel might have wanted a little more from such a mercurial midfielder, playing against a team with one less man on the pitch. Again, I’m less worried at this stage, and it’s more that I just want him to get minutes in the legs, but we do need to start seeing some of the magic that his boots clearly possess, at some stage in the coming weeks.

I think it will come. At least I hope so.

A player who does seem to have got plenty of minutes and fully grasped them last night is Martin Zubimendi, who played 71 minutes for Spain in a 4-1 win over Croatia, and looks like he was heavily involved in the heart of the Spanish midfield. He had 72 touches of the ball (although, to be fair you expect that from a man in the heart of the Spanish midfield, given their style of possession-based dominance), a 98% passing accuracy from 66 passes, one successful dribble (of one attempted), three successful long passes out of three, two defensive contributions and one tackle, as well as one headed clearance. Spain clearly dominated this from start to finish, and he was in the heart of the team, delivering what he needed to. And importantly, he got minutes in the tank, which he’s found hard to come by so far this season. I like Zubimendi. I think he’s a terrific player, and I do think Mikel should be thinking about giving him a run in the team soon. Myles has been great to kick off the season; he’s looked very impressive having had a summer off and a good pre-season, but this is an experienced Spanish international we have who was integral to our great form at the beginning of last season.

I do wonder if Arteta has seen how his form dropped off a bit last season, perhaps recognised the fatigue factor, and then decided to ease him in for this season, which would make total sense for me. I’ve seen a few Arsenal fans speculating that perhaps he will be gone in January or definitely by the summer, but I don’t think it is as binary as “he’s not playing, so he’s not going to play much this season”, because I think Arteta is trying to manage his minutes because of the drop-off from last season. Perhaps Mikel is ‘doing a Pep’ with Zubimendi; we have all seen players who Guardiola left out for periods of time, then suddenly they were regulars for a big chunk of the season. Perhaps that is about to happen to Zubi. He played a lot of football in 2025/26; he went to the final with Spain, and whilst he wasn’t playing as much because that pr*ck Rodri had to be on the pitch (there’s no way he was the best player in that tournament, by the way), he was still training with the intensity of being a regular. I don’t think you can say that just because he wasn’t on the pitch, he still wouldn’t need some rest time and be eased in for a long Premier League season. So I have a suspicion that Arteta might have sat him down and told him he was going to ease him in for August and September, and whilst Myles’ form is so good, he’s going to run with Myles for the opening month or two of the season, but his minutes and starts will come.

Of course, if Myles goes supernova, then there’s nothing you can do about it and you just have to hold your hands up and say ‘sorry, fella’ to Zubi, but as it stands now I don’t think we’re quite there yet. 71 minutes against Croatia is good; he’ll maybe get a start in the away game as De La Fuente manages Rodri’s minutes, but that will also enable Arteta to consider him for Leeds at home. And that is a positive thing for Mikel when he thinks about the physical threats that Leeds pose.

Gabriel got a full 90 in Australia, as well as a yellow card, and they’re playing INdia next on Saturday, so I’m hoping he doesn’t get trotted out again for that one. But let’s see…

Naturally, Mikel Merino got on the pitch, bagged an assist, had 100% passing accuracy, created a big chance, had a defensive contribution – but that’s just our Mikel – man is an underrated output monster. And we love it.

And on that positive note, that’s me done for today. Got a conference I got to head off to, so I’ll bid you all farewell for today and be back tomorrow. Ciao.

We still discussed it briefly on yesterday’s Same Old Arsenal podcast, which you can watch here if you fancy an Arsenal lens on the internationals, as well as thoughts around #114 FC. Quite the rebrand from #115 FC, I have to say. You might want to skip the first three or four minutes, as I had some internet problems that didn’t make for good podcast/YouTubing.

Today is the start of a new week, but unfortunately, unlike normal times, in which we start to count down until The Arsenal play, we have another week of having to listen to international football, before then also watching another batch of games, whilst hoping our players can stay as fit as possible and not succumb to injury. Which feels like quite a fraught exercise. Especially when you have absolute twats like Bernardo Silva kicking their way around football matches. I mean, just look at this. That is an absolute disgrace. It is designed to ‘leave one in’ on a fellow professional, is unprofessional in itself, and just underlines what a ratbag that guy is. He gets away with murder, has done so for years, and on 9th December at The Emirates, I hope that he gets the welcome he deserves when Real Madrid visit. Let’s have somebody leave something on that little scummer. He deserves it.

As for the result, well, sadly Odegaard didn’t get the last laugh, but as much as I love the country and every year make time to visit Portugal, their football team gets no such affection. How can it be when you have players like him and Ronaldo still there? And Bruno Fernandes too!

In the only other match yesterday that we saw Arsenal involvement in, Christos Tzolis went to Germany and had what looks like an okayish game on the left wing. That’s fine – just stay out of trouble and injury, matey. Tonight it’ll be Calafiori’s go-away at Turkey, and as I mentioned a couple of days back, we could probably do with big Vik getting on the scoresheet tonight for Sweden. I had a look at when Ecuador were playing re: Hincapie, but then, having looked at who was called up on the Arsenal website, realised that we potentially have ourselves an issue here, because he hasn’t been called up by his international side. Now, on the one hand, that’s good, because it gives him recovery time. But then I wonder how bad the injury is, because the last I remember seeing was Tom Cantion explaining that he had a muscular injury before Ipswich away. That’s concerning. ‘Muscular injury’ is vague enough to mean it could be an ongoing issue, although, to be fair, Tom says that he did take part in some form of training. So the hope is that he’s at London Colney right now (not literally, but at some stage today) training and building his fitness up for the re-kickoff in just under two weeks’ time.

If he is, then it makes me a little more at ease that we’re probably going to have Calafiori play every game over this international break. If Hincapie is back and training and fit for Leeds at home, then we have ourselves the cover we need. And even then, we also have the versatility of Myles too, so that’s all good.

Other than that, there’s not tons of stuff going on, other than the fact that the ladies unfortunately lost 1-0 at Stamford Bridge yesterday. The women’s game is such that if you drop even a few points in the season, the chances of winning the league disappear a lot quicker than in the men’s game. Last season, Man City won the league having drawn one and lost three. Arsenal have now drawn two and lost one, so their chances of claiming that first WSL League trophy since 2019. It’s a long time to wait for a club with Arsenal Women’s pedigree, so the pressure looks like it’s starting to mount on Renee Slegers.

There’s some silly transfer news about players coming and going, like Haaland joining if City go down, or Eze potentially being moved on to United, but these kinds of tittle-tattle tales are best left to the gutter press to hunt for clicks on, so I’ll not bother giving them the oxygen they crave. Instead, I shall simply wish you a happy Monday in whatever you do, and I’ll be back tomorrow with some more thoughts on why Viktor Gyokeres is ‘back’ having scored a hat-trick for Sweden tonight.

Back tomorrow.

Anyway, England lost, Kane was apparently a bit crap, and Bukayo didn’t have the best game in the world, going by some of the ratings across the two or three football stats websites that I see. It’s funny because he’s delivered some end product for us already this season, but Saka has hardly been in scintillating form just yet, has he? I mean, he’s been decent; he’s looked alright, but we all know his ceiling knows no bounds, so to see him not quite hit his stride is something of a concern for me personally. What about you?

The thing that I think feels most off, which has been something that also I saw last season as well, is that sometimes his shooting radar seems a bit off. If I think about a Bukayo Saka trademark moment in a game, it would be where he picks the ball up, cuts inside, then bends one in to that left-hand corner. Obviously he’s so good he scores all kinds of goals, but it’s those ones that I normally think of, which probably have something to do with camera positioning too. If you think about where every camera is placed in a stadium, he’s always going to be on our right-hand side when shooting left to right on the screen, so aesthetically those goals are always more memorable, because you see the flight of the ball. So when I think of Saka, that’s what I envisage. But his radar has been off for a while on those shots, and I saw a very short highlight reel from yesterday’s game in which he had a similar shot that just went past the post. I need to see one of those go in.

Who knows, maybe he needs one to clip the post and go in, and “he’s back!” so to speak.

As for the rest of the players in that game, there were no minutes for Eze and no place on the bench for the called-up Lewis-Skelly, which I think is actually a shame. Lewis-Skelly playing more regularly and therefore getting that England call-up is great news, and I don’t think you’ll find a Gooner around who isn’t happy for him. So some time on the pitch, even as a sub, would have been grand. As for Eze, that time on the pitch would also have been useful, as it will have been minutes in the tank that he’s found a little hard to come by at The Arsenal.

That’s why for some of our players on international duty for the next week and a bit, I would actually like to see them get game time, as it gets their motors up and revving for when they return for us. Mikel has been giving players minutes here and there, but some, like Gyokeres, have looked super rusty. He got 76 minutes for Sweden and bagged a goal, but when you actually see the goal, he barely celebrates. It’s hardly a 30-yard rasp, but for strikers like Big Vik any goal is valuable, and that will hopefully give him some confidence going into future games. If we’re thinking that Kai is going to be out for several weeks (we still don’t know the extent of the injury just yet, then we really need to see Gyokeres get lots of minutes and hopefully bag a few goals. His Sweden side play Poland tomorrow, then Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday, before another game against Romania on Monday 5th October. If you ask me what I’d see as ‘utopia’ for him being prepared to be ready for a return to The Arsenal, I’m thinking he needs at least 200 minutes and probably one, maybe two, more goals. If that happens, he comes back to The Arsenal with minutes in the tank and a spring in his step. We need just that kind of Gyokeres for Leeds, because it feels like he is a player who needs ot be playing regularly to see a guy who will get goals. He’ll have played four games and be ready to start if he avoids injury in these internationals, and that will work well for us, we hope.

As for our other players, Bruno G got himself 62 minutes in Australia, whilst Big Gabi never got off the bench. Lovely, he’s one guy we really could do without seeing playing in friendlies after what happened just under a Year ago in a Brazil friendly at The Emirates. They play India next Saturday and I hope he also gets zero game time. There’s absolutely no need for it.

Elsewhere, Riccardo Calafiori played the full 0 for Italy, and I hope they manage his minutes properly as Arteta has done, because I think where possible, Mikel is alternating midweek and weekend games with Calafiori and Hincapie. Italy should do the same. They play Turkey tomorrow and France next Friday, followed by Turkey away on Monday 5th October, so it’s the opposite of what we want for Big Vik; we don’t want to see it for our handsome Italian. Give him a game or two off, please, Mancini.

Tonight it’ll be Tzolis that we’ve got our eyes on for Greece, as they travel to Germany, whilst Odegaard and Norway entertain Portugal at 7.45pm. Again, we have to hope for a clean bill of health, so let’s just cross everything and report back tomorrow.

As for me, I’ve got a 9.30am Same Old Arsenal podcast (you can join us live on YouTube here) that I’ll be doing with my mate Mark, before having a day of rest before a nice roast dinner later. Hope you have a great Sunday with whatever you’re doing.

Laters kids.

Yesterday I was waxing lyrical about Mikel Arteta’s new deal, and in that blog I talked about how we need to start looking at Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice next.

Well, wouldn’t you just know it, but Tuesday and yesterday’s news started emerging about just that. Declan is rumoured to be getting a £280k-per-week deal, if you believe what you read on the internet, and Arsenal are going to use this September international break to chivvy that one along. Lovely stuff. And it makes sense too; he’s at home with his feet up, with his ‘load’ being ‘managed’, so why wouldn’t he spend a day or two in a room with Arsenal reps talking about giving him a tasty new bump up in pay?

And he’s fully deserving of it too. He is a machine. A workhorse who also happens to be very good at The Football and, ever since we paid out handsomely for his services, he’s proved time and time again that he is worth every penny. Heck, his song is even about the value for money we got for him. He is versatile, having played in multiple positions for us, plus he is a model professional that basically nobody in the game says anything negative about. He is surely a shoo-in to be the next England captain, and there’s plenty of Arsenal fans who think he should be the Arsenal one too. He’s a guy who leads the team in so many metrics, and the one image I just had whilst I was writing about it was that game up at Anfield a few seasons back when we chucked a load of players high up the pitch late in the game – I think for a corner – and they broke with about four players and just Declan Rice as an outfield option. Liverpool hit the bar, but Rice’s positioning to stop it from being a tap-in was impeccable, and the memes of John Snow against Ramsey Bolton’s army in Game of Thrones. It embodied what Declan Rice is all about; at times, he is a one-man army himself and I personally feel very privileged to have him playing for my team. My brother is a West Ham fan, and when we signed him, he told me he was worth every penny. I was not so convinced. How wrong I was.

And it’s not just Rice who’s having contract chat, either, by the sounds of it. As our actual captain is in talks to extend too. I’ve always been a big fan of Martin Odegaard. I have seen him do things with the ball at his feet that have amazed. He found his home at The Arsenal after that loan spell in 2022; we got him in that summer, and he’s never looked back. Sure, we haven’t seen the best of him last season or the season before, but I do believe that has been injury-related, because what we’ve seen thus far has been certainly impressive and worthy of discussions. He’s looked every bit the central creator for which our good attacking play flows, and back-to-back man-of-the-match performances against Napoli and Chelsea have proven so.

He’s not perfect, we know that, and against Brighton he was pretty anonymous like most of our attack, but that one game recency bias will not cloud our judgement of how good he’s been. I also think he’s in a position where he could easily play well into his 30s. He’s 27 now, turns 28 in December, which I think, if you’re thinking about a four- or five-year deal, means we get him for absolute prime Odegaard years, so I hope this deal gets done with little fuss.

I think both will. Both players seem happy; they are integral parts of Arteta’s Arsenal, they’ve just won the Premier League and got to the Champions League final. Where else would they go? There’s nowhere in England you’d choose. PSG are in a tinpot league. If both were in their 30s I’d speculate that you could see them moving to Saudi for one last big payday, but that isn’t now. The Italian big clubs have no money, and that league doesn’t have the romance of the 90s when I was growing up, so that basically leaves the two big Spanish clubs. Real under Mourinho….really? So then you’re looking at Barca. I don’t think either of those players are closet Barca fans, and Barca’s usual tactic of trying to get a player on the cheap didn’t work with Alvarez, so why would it work with The Arsenal now?

So I’m pretty calma about these deals, which is nice, given we had the best part of a decade-and-a-half worrying about this from about 2005 – 2020. They are in a great City, at a great club; they’ve won things; they seem happy, and their manager has just signed a new deal, which ensures some continuity. There’s plenty to like about the ‘Project’ and I hope these can get sorted out sooner rather than later. Then we need to get back on that horse and back to winning football matches after this particular lull has done its lulling.

Here’s a nice little bit of bonus reading for you from the Standard to finish off today’s musings, as Saka talks about how important Arteta’s new deal is for the club. Lovely stuff. As for me, I’m off to do a bit of work, so I’ll be back tomorrow as usual to look at the weekend’s games tell you about which National Trust property I might go and visit given I have no interest in watching ENG-GER-LAND.

Laters.

I think the question that I, and I am sure you are, is a little more concerned with is our attacking end of the pitch. On Saturday it felt very paltry indeed; we may have created better chances than Brighton from an xG perspective, but if anything, that makes me feel more worried, because not taking them is an issue if you’re going to win the Premier League again. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to go through another season like last season, because that was torture. I think we rewrote the definition of ‘laboured’ with our end of the season until we got over the line. After four games, looking impressive, having everyone hand Arsenal flowers and telling us that we’d walk the league, I started to believe it myself deep down. And that is dangerous, as this weekend proved, because this league has quality all over it.

Even Sunderland proved that yesterday. I didn’t watch that game, but that result was mental, and looking at the stats, Sunderland were absolutely value for at least a draw. But ProRef be ProReffing, and if we don’t see another apology from them this week following what was the clearest and most obvious handball by Elliot Anderson at 3-2 to City, I’ll be very surprised. So that’s two massive calls that have gone City’s way in the space of just over a week in the Premier League. Funny that, eh? People talking about how Arsenal get all the decisions need to sit back down, because City should be nowhere near the perfect record they’ve amassed so far this season.

It is frustrating, but looking at City’s results and the way they play, I guess we can take some comfort in that. They were hardly convincing at home to Bournemouth in match week one. They certainly were against a Palace team under a new guy who is finding their feet. At home to Coventry, they scraped past a newly promoted side. They shafted Man United with a goal that should never have been, then they had their share of – shall we say – ‘fortune’ in the game yesterday. They have a 100% record; there might be people talking them up as the real deal, and they might well be, but this is what happened with Liverpool last season after five games, so I’m hoping for a similar story.

Our story needs to kick in, though, and we need to show ourselves as the imperious engine that grinds teams down, because when you think about it, we haven’t been super sparkling. We got criticism on match week two for not putting Villa to the sword. That felt a little harsh to me, because Villa are a good side; it was under the lights, and whilst their team hadn’t got any new signings in to gel, they’re still a side in the Champions League and will come good eventually. Then we beat Chelsea at home with a superb and free-flowing performance that we deserved to win. After that, last weekend, we came up against a physical Sunderland side on their own patch, and we managed to get that over the line. There have been a few ‘grind’ games already, and this weekend we just came up against a situation in which Brighton were essentially having their cup final; they had a celebratory day, they got their tactics spot on, we were the exact opposite of doing what we do best, and it all formed a perfect storm in which we got caught. I talked about this on the Same Old Arsenal podcast yesterday with Amanda, but sometimes you just find yourselves in a situation that is unfortunate for that particular moment. Against Villa, we were up against a team who had mass turnover of playing staff, hadn’t managed to bed in their team, and we probably got the benefit of playing what is going to be a tough away day trip, early in the season. Play Villa in a couple of months, and it’ll probably be different. It’s probably the same for Brighton. They won’t have this ‘special celebration day’ in a couple of months; they’ll be deep into multiple competitions, and so rotation will need to be a factor. They may have dropped a few points, and so their form isn’t what it is right now. Man City go to Brighton on 23rd January – I GUARANTEE that Brighton won’t have the same level of intensity by then, because they’ll have played waaaaay more games than they usually do in a season, because of their European participation.

I’m not trying to excuse Arsenal, I’m not lamenting our luck, or take anything away from what was an excellent Brighton performance; I’m just saying I can’t see them playing like that all season and if they do, then they will be title challengers too. Ask Brighton fans if they believe they’ll play like that every game. I don’t think you’ll get many who will say ‘yes’.

As for us, I’ve seen a few people online suggest that our lack of pace up top is a worry. Perhaps. But we had pace in Martinelli last season, and when he played, we hardly saw a guy who was rapido and getting in behind defences, did we? That’s because most teams don’t play like Brighton. I agree, having Martinelli yesterday might have been a better out-ball than Tzolis, but I think that kind of game happens maybe two or three times a season. Most of the time we’re facing compact sides who won’t press so high. I can tell you this for free: Leeds won’t press us as Brighton did on Saturday in our next game.

So whilst I get it, and I do think we do lack a little bit of pace, I don’t think it is going to make too much of a material difference too many times this season. The difference will be the defence not having brain farts, the tactics perhaps being tweaked for an opponent like Brighton (which I don’t think Arteta did on Saturday), and the key cogs in our machine dictating play, like Odegaard, Havertz, and Saka.

That – the attack and how we make the most of what we have (including what to make of our rotation options) is probably a blog in its own right, so I might keep my powder dry on that one for now, then write something over this extended international slog we now have to endure. So I’ll park any further thoughts until tomorrow, then be back tomorrow with some more musings for you. Catch you then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raya

Timber – Konsa – Gabriel – Calafiori

Bruno

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Tzolis

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

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

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

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

This is what happens when The Arsenal play – and play well – in midweek. The weekend comes around, and you’re like, “blimey, that hit us quick, eh?” I guess we’re also at the stage in the season where it isn’t a grind. The season is still fresh, young, in its infancy, so having three games in a week (or thereabouts) is kind of novel and exciting. IT’s just a shame that after tomorrow, they take it all away from us again, with a horrendous international break that I think lasts until 2038. I do feel like they probably should have let the proper football get a little more into the season before doing this; why not have this window in mid-November, for example? But her we are.

And tomorrow there we are, because it’s another away day – the fourth in a row for The Arsenal – as we visit Brighton at the Amex. As a little aside, I used to have a Sega Mega Drive II and played FIFA on it. I remember having FIFA 95 and one season when I was Arsenal, there must have been a glitch in the way the console set up the fixtures, because I played the first half of the season completely away from home, before playing the second half of the season at home. Kind of how it feels right now, eh?

Anyway, back to more relevant and current affairs, and it’s that trip to the Amex that looms on the horizon. And it’s definitely the toughest one we’ll face this season I think. I know I know, that sounds a little Wthe next one is the toughest” cliched bullshit you get from football managers, but I do think this one will be a lot harder, because:

• Coventry were newly promoted
• Villa were still unsettled, having been decimated
• Chelsea at home gave us an advantage, and I think we all suspected that their ‘title-winning form’ might just be a bit of a misnomer
• Sunderland were good, but they are not as good a side as Brighton are

That’s me showing my workings, but what do the pundits think on this one, eh? Lewis Jones has us at a 1-1, which I could very much see, although Chris Sutton thinks we’ll edge it 2-1. Sports Mole go for a 2-0 Arsenal and given that Huerzler hasn’t tasted victory against us, you could see why you’d say that as a neutral party. Of course, from our perspective, we can never even think about it. There’s also this analysis that I thought was particularly detailed and quite liked how they broke it down via some numbers. Again, I could see a draw for sure tomorrow.

What of the Seagulls fans though? Given their start to the season, their performances (I thought they were unlucky against Chelsea, even though they started terribly) have their fans a little more excited and one thing they are talking about is the depth of their squad, given that they’re currently missing Evan Ferguson, Mats Wieffer, Jack Hinselwood, Karou Mitoma and Tankuba Mintah. That’s a fairly lengthy list, but until we hear from Mikel on ours with the likes of Mosquera, White and Timber all uncertain, we can hardly get too excited. And they have the impressive Malick Yalcouye who has looked really good so far. They keep busting out these good players, do Brighton.

But they also have some returning heroes too, and I watched a Brighton fan channel called Seagulls Social in which they were extolling the virtues of Pascal Gross, who is having a bit of an Indian Summer at 35. Will he be able to keep up the momentum tomorrow, having played against United in midweek? They’re saying things like “bite yer hand off for a draw” and that YouTube contributors there were saying that they fancy a 1-1. An interesting thing that one of them said was that they would have preferred this to be a game late at night, as the atmosphere could have an impact. I can kind of understand that, and hopefully the fact we’ve got it as a 3pm kick off on a Saturday can help us out, if not the ability to actually watch the game.

I would like to see what Huerzeler says about Arsenal in his press conference though. I thought his antics for the game there last season were really weird. He spent the pre-match talking it up, clearly trying to get the home fans riled and booing every time we had a dead-ball situation, then he doubled down on time-wasting afterwards, which is ironic because I wouldn’t have to look too far to see how he has his players time-waste too. In fact, just to prove it, how about this from midweek, in which one of his players was booked for…*checks notes*…. time-wasting. Funny that, eh?

That’s pretty much it for now until we get to the game tomorrow, in which I’ll do a bit more of a deep dive on how Brighton play and what the game could look like, having also been armed with information from both managers. The only other thing I’ve seen that is worthy of mention is that Jurgen Klopp is apparently only calling Kai up for two out of the four matches over the international break. That’s great news. If he can stay fit for the start of it, then come back for some rest, I’m sure all Arsenal fans will be more than happy with that outcome. Let’s hope Tommy T is as accomodating for some of our England boys too.

Back tomorrow with another match preview. See you then.

As for us, in the next round, it’s a relatively kind away one at Fleetwood Town. Got to be happy with that.

I see that a few people have said that he ‘isn’t the one’, but I still think his ceiling and what he could bring to this Arsenal team is more than what we’ve got from Gyokeres. Maybe not last season, because Big Vik, to his credit, bagged 21 goals in all comps, and it was great to see him on that final day doing his ‘carry the trophy and whistle’ thing that he’s become quite used to over the last few years. But Tuesday night’s performance had me the most worried I’ve been since he joined the club. For the Napoli game, you can sort of dismiss it; it’s Champions League, they were low-blocking us, it was tightly congested spaces, and he didn’t get much of a sniff. But on Tuesday night I saw a guy who didn’t seem to be on the same wavelength as his teammates, was flat-footed on a few occasions, wasn’t making those runs in front of his marker in the box, and pretty much didn’t look too engaged in the game at all.

At some stage in a player’s Arsenal career, when they don’t make it, I usually find myself having a game in which I think, ‘that was the one’. It’s a game in which my unwavering support finally goes from “come on mate, I trust and believe in you”, to “this isn’t going to work. I can’t remember the exact game, but I remember that happening with Henrikh Mkhitaryan when he joined us. I’d seen him at Dortmund and thought, “what a player he’d be at The Arsenal”. He went to United; it didn’t quite work out, so when he came to us I thought, “Wenger will be able to help him rediscover his form”. And I think it started well enough. But slowly over time it became clear that it wasn’t working, and there came a point in time in which I just switched and started writing about how we just couldn’t have him in the team any more. He became a hindrance rather than a help. His output dwindled, and then your heart would sink when his name was on the teamsheet.

I think that Ipswich game on Tuesday might have been the beginning of the end for me, in terms of Big Vik, sadly. And I don’t want to be saying this, by the way; I want him to be a viable option in attack. But his contribution on Tuesday was so paltry that along with the Napoli game, I’m now seriously worried about our reliance on Kai. I guess if you’re going to take the ‘rough with the smooth’, you can say that Merino looked fabulous and maybe we have him as a viable backup option, but Gyokeres just feels miles off it at the moment.well.

It’s still early days, maybe if he gets a goal his confidence can build up, but the numbers don’t make for good reading. He’s only played 190 minutes in four matches in all competitions, but he had 18 touches against Ipswich, I think it was nine against Napoli, and he’s mustered just one shot I think. I’ve seen people suggest that he might be a guy who is a bit like a diesel engine, i.e. that he takes a while to get up to speed, but if you’re Arteta, you’re not going to hang around and give him half a dozen games to get his shooting boots on. This is elite competition; time waits for no man.

And that’s probably where my biggest worry comes from. If he were coming on for 15 minutes, getting in and about teams, having runs at worn-down defenders, maybe even bagging a scabby goal, then I could see a future for him as an impact player. But his cameos so far have just been…well…a bit ‘meh’, haven’t they?

Who knows, maybe this weekend will give him an opportunity off the bench. Brighton like to be ball-dominant; they like to win the ball back higher up the pitch and press, which will create gaps for our attacking players. And if we’re entering the last 15 minutes, maybe there’s more space for him to be put in behind. But as it stands today, Thursday, I’m not wholly confident that he would take the chances offered to him.

Something else I think I’ve noticed, but I’m not 100% confident in as a working theory: I don’t think his teammates want to pass the ball too him. I kind of get it, particularly if you know it isn’t going to stick, you’re going to pick a safer option. But there were times on Tuesday when he was open for a little ’round-the-corner’ progressive ball, but instead the midfielders just chose other options. And quite often when you see players do things like that, it kind of tells its own story. If players aren’t playing the ball to you, they’re letting you know what they think with their feet.

Let me be clear once again: I really want to see Big Vik get goals. If that’s what is his super power, then let’s have it. Let’s have him not involved in games, but making runs and getting into space. I feel like last season we did see some of those runs, but often he just wasn’t being found. Has he given up making those runs because he thinks his teammates won’t play him in behind? I’m not so sure. Bruno is brand new, and if you make a run, he’s the kind of guy who would rather game with that progressive pass than not. But I didn’t see too much of that on Tuesday. Tzolis, too, looks like a guy who is always looking for that pass and he’s made mutiple assists already this season. But he too hasn’t really been finding the Swede. Perhaps we just need a bigger sample size, but at some stage, we’re going to see more from Gyokeres.

Catch you all tomorrow as we prep for Brighton.

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

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

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

Kepa

Salmon – Mosquera (if fit) – Gabriel – Hincapié

Zubimendi

Merino – Eze

Dowman – Gyokeres – Madueke

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back tomorrow with a match review.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So how do we beat them?

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

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

Raya

White – Konsa – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Tzolis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10 months ago we went to Stamford Bridge, and we saw Cucurella go in on Saka time and time again. We saw Fofana leave one or two in on Arsenal players. We saw Enzo and Cucrella going in hard on Madueke and then screaming in his face. We saw Caicedo behaving like a man possessed and eventually getting himself sent off for a reckless challenge on Merino. And yet here we are, less than a year later, and I’ve read:

The fact that they’re celebrating this dirty play that led to their goal should tell you everything about them. They’ve gotten so used to cheating & referees favouring them that they all laugh thinking this is normal.

and

Last time I checked closing mouth in an argument with opponent is a red card offence.

and

I thought this decision was crazy added to Gabriel booting Martinez in the face And Arsenal seem to repeatedly get away with it

and

Not only that Pedro got hugged while chasing the ball, Rogers got body slammed, Martinez got kicked in the eye… that game was so dirty.

If you ever wanted an example of the myopia of football fans, you have it there in a very small sample size. And I don’t think I want to single out Chelsea fans, because fans of every team will do it. What’s happening with us right now, a little bit like what was happening last season at times, is that because we are so good, we are the target. The dominant United team of the 90s was the same; Chelsea under Mourinho in the 2000s was the same; City under Pep was the same. Everyone thought they got all the decisions, or they didn’t like the style of football, or there was just something wrong with the club for some reason. It is just the way football fans are programmed.

So I take it as a compliment. What it means when you get ickle Chelsea fans bleating on with comments like “everyone in the league hates them for a reason” is that you have a team that looks to be the dominant force this season. And nobody – Arsenal fans aside – wants that to happen. Heck, I said the same about City when they were in the middle of their dominance under Pep, winning the title five times in a row. I think it was probably the 2020/21 season when I bet I could go back through the SuburbanGooner archives and find a few blogs I’d written where I say comments like “this league is boring and I’m not even paying attention to the top of the table”. City won the league by 12 points that season, and there was never really any competition. I don’t think we will do the same this season, but if we do, I will expect very similar comments from fans, maybe the odd pundit who has a leaning (in support) away from The Arsenal. Yesterday afternoon I spent a bit of time playing catch-up with what the media are saying and they are all saying things like “unbeatable” and “could they go unbeaten?” and “Is this the most complete side?” etc, etc., blah, blah. Before the Chelsea game, we had Gary Neville telling us that Arteta would gladly swap the Arsenal front three for the Chelsea front three, which of course, is complete nonsense.

Of course last season Liverpool had the same stuff from the media at the beginning of the season. They were five wins in a row at the start of the season and all we heard was whether they were ‘inevitable’. We had some Liverpool fans chirping, although the reall hard-core ones knew that everything was not rosy in the garden. And I guess we all know that everything isn’t perfect, either. Just look at the Villa game. We weren’t sparkling on the day, but we did manage to do what was needed and keep Villa at bay. I guess my hope for our situation being more sustainable than Liverpool’s last season, is that old footballing cliche:

Goals win you games. Defences win you titles.

You can’t argue that we don’t have the defence to mount a good…erm…defence of our title. But as always, people are questioning the attack. They can do that if they like, but having seen Saka start the season in sparkling form, Havertz playing well and looking fit, as well as Odegaard flying and Tzolis impressing, I think we’re in a good place from a creative point of view. That’s without mentioning Merino, Eze, Gyokeres and Madueke, either. Oh, and we’ve got Dowman, too…

So we’re in good shape, but the key to succees will be avoiding injury as much as possible. And with Napoli on the horizon tomorrow night, rotation is something I think Mikel needs to think about even now in the early stage of the season. Personally, and I said this on the post-match review show on the Same Old Arsenal last night – I would be thinking about two or three coming in to protect those who had long spells on the sideline. Maybe we could give Eze and Gyokeres a start, for example? Or bring Bruno in for Rice, or Zubi for MLS? These are all options I think Mikel might consider. You don’t want to mass-rotate your team, but one or two changes tomorrow, then perhaps one or two again on Saturday evening? We have a great squad, we need to start getting minutes into legs, and with the midweek games now popping into the diary, it feels like finding the right rotational balance would be important as we set ourselves up for a long season.

Right, that’s for today – there’ll be a press conference later no doubt as the Champions League kicks off, so let’s see what Mikel thinks about our opponents tomorrow evening. Catch you all in the morrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raya

White – Konsa – Gabriel – Calafiori

Bruno

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Eze

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

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

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

I enjoy change. I work in marketing and ‘doing new stuff’ is something I always try to adhere to as a work principle.

Not when it comes to football, guys, not when it comes to football. Give me a good ol’fashioned 3pm kick-off any day of the week. But we are where we are, and it’ll be Chelsea tomorrow at 4.30pm that we’ll all be either in the ground or tuning in to see if we can overcome what I think is quite an unknown quantity in Chelsea. I mean, we all know what they are – the most reprehensible football club in the history of the world (The Scum are Scum, City are cheats, but Chelsea are just despicable) – but under Xabi Alonso they have done a full 180 (based on two games) in terms of playing style and approach. I don’t know if it was just game state, but in their first two games they’ve basically just not wanted the ball, which was the opposite of what Maresca was teaching them. Under Xabi Alonso, they don’t want it, happy to let their opponents have it, and want to win games in transition with rapid counters. I’ll do more of an analysis on them tomorrow in the match preview, but that as a teaser sets us up nicely for today’s focus – Mikel Arteta’s press conference and what fans/pundits are saying.

First up, Mikel, and the not-so-surprising news from Mikel’s press conference is that we’ll have to wait until after training to know exactly who is available for Chelsea, with Bruno assessed after his knock against Villa, while Timber is back in full training and sounds to be in a really good place – although he wouldn’t be drawn on whether he’ll make the squad. Mikel did what he always does with opponents: complimentary about the job Xabi Alonso is doing, admitting that signing Emi Martinez was a “really smart decision”, but he also pointed out that their fast starts in the opening two games have heavily influenced how those matches have played out (kind of why I say they’re a bit of an ‘unknown quantity), so he’s expecting a side capable of adapting depending on the game state. There was plenty of chat about our own squad too, with Mikel making it pretty clear that he’s very happy with the attacking options we have, insisting that the club “100% ticked” the boxes it wanted to tick in the transfer window and that he’d rather focus on the players we do have than the winger we didn’t sign. He also backed the academy, praised the different midfield combinations available to him and described Monday’s win at Villa as a genuine squad victory. In other words, the window is closed, the excuses are over, and Mikel’s message is pretty simple: this is the squad we have, he likes it, and now it’s time to get on with the football.

Whether all of that is true remains to be seen; after the Champions League Final, we all know what Mikel said about acting fast, and I think the actions in the attacking spots suggest that perhaps that wasn’t the case. Let’s not re-litigate the situation, as everyone has spoken about it already, but Mikel has to put on a brave face and smile for the cameras – I think we all know that. I do believe him when he says he is happy overall with the squad depth, and it’s something I’ve also been talking about this last week – we’re well-prepared for every eventuality, and when you see quality players not even making the matchday squad, you know you’ve got a great team.

But we need to show it on the pitch tomorrow. The pundits, unsurprisingly, are going for us. We’re the Champions; we’re there to be shot at, we’re the ones wearing the crown, and this will happen for most of these opening months of the season, I suspect. The only way it starts to turn is if we start to blip, like in games tomorrow. Personally, I feel like this could easily be a score draw. Still, Lewis Jones on Sky Sports is calling it a 2-0, Shearer says ‘Arsenal win’, Sutton goes 3-1 to The Arsenal, and the guys at Sports Mole have us at 2-1, saying that “if ever there was a match that screamed ‘defence versus attack’, Arsenal vs Chelsea is the dictionary definition”. They also say our current shut-out of two clean sheets will end this weekend. I make them right, to be fair, but although they’re calling us ‘defence’ versus them ‘attack’, they still think we’re outscoring them and winning. Work that one out, eh?

I do think we will score; I also think this could easily be a draw – as I already mentioned – but this is going to be really tough. It’s funny because as good a time as it was to face Villa last weekend, it’s probably not the best time to face them this weekend; they’ll be bullish, buoyant and will no doubt fancy an upset. We have an amazing record against them – 16 games undefeated I believe – and that will come to an end. Could easily be this weekend given their firepower, so to work out how they’re feeling, I did my usual behind-enemy-lines stuff and had a look at a couple of fans’ forums. The first ten comments on one thread of match predictions read:

• Arsenal win = 3
• Chelsea win = 6
• draw = 1

Another site had a voting buttons thing going on, which had 19 calling Arsenal, eight calling a draw, and seven calling a Chelsea win. I gotta be honest, I thought they’d be more bullish than what I’ve read, but they’re really worried about their defensive issues. I think they sorted one out by signing Martinez, but they still conceded three against Brighton last weekend, and even though a couple have said they fancy themselves to score, they also think they’re 100% conceding. One person even said if we don’t score two or three, we should be automatically relegated! They’re saying things like “too early (in the season) for us” or “I hope we give them a good game,” which really surprised me. Maybe it can give us a little bit of confidence in a good game and a victory tomorrow, but let’s not forget just how good their attack has looked so far.

More on that tomorrow, as I try to do a “what Chelsea might actually see” preview, having looked at a few numbers on them so far. Until then, we sit back, watch the games, hope that Forest make it three defeats in a row for the Scum, and wait patiently for our turn tomorrow.

Catch you then.

And we all knew that he possibly wasn’t going to be part of the team this season, too. His output domestically had fallen off a cliff; many people – me included – had questioned his longer-term future, some had lamented why he was still here during last season, and I think all of us thought at the start of the season he would make way for a star left-wing signing if we could get a good deal. As we all now know, that ‘big signing’ never happened, but what has happened is that Arsenal have got a club-record transfer fee for a guy who has been at the club for seven years man and boy, joining for £6million and leaving for £60million. It is, as they say, “pure profit”.

But it isn’t pure satisfaction for his exit, from my point of view. Yes, it was probably time to move on, and yes, it was right for all parties. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt a bit. This was a guy who burst onto the scene as a kid, scored a couple of goals early on in the Europa League, at one point we thought he might evolve into a striker, but beyond his sparkling form in the first title charge of 2022/23, in which he nabbed 15 goals and six assists in a brilliant season, it never really materialised the way we thought. Regardless of that, he still proved his worth. Energy, effort, pace, and a willingness to adapt to Arteta’s style of play is what has seen him become one of the last survivors of Mikel Arteta’s original side that he took control over back in 2019. That, in itself, is testimony to the player, but also his willingness and ability to adapt.

I loved the farewell video the club posted here. Had me a wee bit choked, if I’m honest, because he’s grown up so much and it really is sad to see him go. He’s always maintained he never wanted to leave the club, he loves the club, the club and the fans love him.

But it was the right thing to do. We needed to move on from Martinelli and Trossard and I think, if you asked every Arsenal fan at the end of last season what the one position was we really needed to go to the next level on, 90% of them would have said ‘left wing’. The only problem is that we haven’t really done the incomings that we expected. Indeed, I even said 11 or so days ago that I’d be fine with keeping Martinelli if we couldn’t find a replacement. But I don’t think it’s right that you essentially tell a player his future lies elsewhere, he prepares himself mentally for an exit, he gets on a plane to Saudi, then gets called back because Arsenal haven’t brought in cover. Martinelli would deserve more than that, he doesn’t want to be the dad that is still at home just because the parents are paying the mortgage and doesn’t want to upset the kids.

So the move had to be made, and whilst I do agree with those who suggest we are now short there, I do think Arteta will need to lean into Eze on the left. What it also means is that those Sky Sports and Football365 articles talking about ‘net spend’ and having us as the fourth or fifth biggest spenders, actually need to drop us down to around about the middle of the table now. And yet we’re STILL favourites for the title, and we’re STILL looking good right now in terms of our squad depth and strength. That also should mean that the ‘PSR headroom’ (or whatever they call it these days) that we have gives us room either in January, or to go big in next summer’s transfer window.

So whilst we can be sad that we’ve loved a guy who has been with us so long, whilst we can have fond memories whilst at the same time realising it was best for everyone for him to move on, we still need to be mindful of making sure we address this issue in the medium or the long term. For now though, we have to wish Martinelli well on his new adventure. Personally, I think he should have gone to a more competitive league than the Saudi Pro League, and I think he’d have smashed it in Italy or Spain, but I guess those clubs probably don’t have the cash funds to pay what Arsenal wanted – which also includes his not insignificant wages too, which are rumoured to be close to the £180k-per-week, which we also have to factor in to any accounting situations. Last summer I wondered on here how Arsenal have stockpiled and got so many players in, but I wonder now if some of the knock-on effects have been felt this summer? If that’s the case, the balance has been re-addressed, so let’s just see how the football shakes out in the coming months.

Right, I think I’ll leave it there, because we have a Chelsea game coming up, but there’s always tomorrow for us to do the match preview for that one, as well as Sunday morning too. So I will take my leave for today. Wish you and yours the best, then catch you on the socials and on here tomorrow.

It’s funny because I’ve spent many a summer transfer window over the years feeling frustrated with our business – or lack thereof – and have written about that on many a post-Transfer Deadline Day lament. “We always leave ourselves one player short” I feel was the mantra every season. And whilst I think all of us can appreciate that the left-wing spot that we all wanted feels like it is just one player short again this summer, I really can’t get myself worked up at all.

As a bit of an aside – I really like this “Who won the summer 2026 transfer window?” piece on the Cannon Stats site. Adam, who wrote the piece, is a very level-headed Arsenal fan from the States and I echo his sentiments exactly.

It’s the reason why, for this summer right now anyway, I’m kind of happy with where we are at. It was perfect, of course. But you can’t say we aren’t well-equipped to have a proper go at both the Premier League and Champions League. Look at all of our domestic rivals; they have all had quite a bit of upheaval, and you can’t tell me that every single player they have signed is going to absolutely ‘bang’ – it just doesn’t happen. In fact, to assess that, I had a quick look at the transfers from Man City, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Man United, Chelsea and The Scum from last season, to see which ones were successful. I’ve decided to – completely subjectively, I’ll admit – group them into ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in my opinion:

Apart from United, who didn’t make many deals, you can hardly say that’s been a glowing rap sheet from any of the so-called ‘big clubs’. So getting worked up over the volume of signings is just not something I can get behind. Would I have liked us to get that winger in? Sure, but not any old blagger; we are not in that space right now.

I certainly think Berta has some questions to answer, however, but that is more about his ‘plate-spinning’ style that I think a few of us are a little concerned with. And I think that is right; there’s a very real argument to be had that the reason we lost out on Morgan Rogers was that we didn’t strike super-quick. The noises that I heard were that Arsenal were led to believe that £80million gets him. If they’d have acted sharpish and gone for him before the Anderson deal became the yardstick by which every club measured their big players, I think we’d have seen him in an Arsenal shirt. But we waited, and the result was that Rogers now rocks up at that reprehensible club, Chelsea. Anderson signed for City on 23rd July – that is more than enough time to move for the player. But Berta’s approach has always been more measured, and perhaps that has had an impact.

But I’m nitpicking here, because you can’t argue that our squad isn’t deep and strong. Even in that left-wing position, we’ve lost two players, but we still have Eze and Madueke as well as the new boy Tzolis. Plus, with a September extended international break which goes on for three weeks, then by the time the season starts going you’re in to October/November anyway. The January transfer window then becomes a few short weeks away and if the need is really that pressing by then, you can pull the trigger. I know it sounds very ‘The Neverending Story’, and it used to wind me up when Wenger would give us the ‘Judge me in May’, then we’d finish fourth, and repeat the cycle in that summer, but I do feel like this team were judged last May, as Champions, and they are now stronger in the areas of our team that really made the biggest contributons to our title defence – at the back and in midfield.

As a reminder, our signings last summer were:

• Zubimendi – success (despite the end, he was brilliant for 75% of the season – so that counts for me)
• Eze – success (just – he got important goals and contributed to some big games, including the two NLDs)
• Gyokeres – success (just – we all know he’s a bit of a wardrobe, but still bagged 21 goals, even if he probably should have had more)
• Madueke – success (just – I think the jury is still out)
• Mosquera – success
• Norgaard – failure
• Kepa – failure (based on the League Cup final
• HIncapie – success

So I think our recruitment was pretty spot on, and I think this summer’s additions will only demonstrate that further, which will ultimately mean we are in a stronger position than we were last season – where we finished as Champions.

Honestly guys and gals, I’m not drinking the company Kool-Aid here; I think we’re in a great position, a great squad, we’re set up for success and now it is about delivering it on the pitch. So let’s all get back to focusing on that.

Catch you all tomorrow as we start to look ahead to Chelsea and the weekend’s fixtures.

Ethan Nwaneri has gone on loan, which I think most Arsenal fans are happy with, because we want him to come back having done (hopefully) a season at Dortmund and played plenty of football. If he has a good season in Yelow and Black then maybe he can come and challenge for an important squad place. I also think that, if Madueke hasn’t kicked on, we should be looking at him again as a wide forward.

So let’s break this down into the individual deals – including Martinelli – then finish off with fan reaction and where I’m at today, right?

Fabio Vieira

Probably the easiest and quickest one to get through. He had been on loan to them last season; he’d been on loan at Porto for the season before. He never felt right for our league and always struggled to really make an impact. I remember when he made what I think was his first start for us against Brentford, because Martin Odegaard was missing, and I thought that he might well go on to be a superstar at the club. But it never really happened, and I don’t think that is down to his size. A lot of people talked about how he wasn’t physical; he was too slight, he needed to bulk up, but I never really truly bought in to that. Bernardo Silva isn’t a big bloke, David Silva wasn’t, Tariq Lamptey is small, so there’s plenty of examples of players who can go on in the Premier League despite a smaller and less physical frame. I just think that, ultimately, he never really kicked on and showed the promise he did at Porto and then in the initial time at his career at The Arsenal.

That being said, I do think we’ve been shafted a bit on the fee, which is supposedly £8.6million. TransferMarkt has his value at €18million (£15.43million), he played 31 times, got seven goals and six assists for Hamburg last season, playing nearly 2,500 minutes. He was a regular for Hamburg and they’ve lowballed us there, so the only hope we have to have is that Arsenal got a chunky sell-on fee to ensure that there might be a bit more cash coming our way in the future.

Slight aside – Flo Balogun’s collapsed move to Everton was a bit of a pain in the arse for us, we apparently have a 17.5% sell on clause, which would have netted The Arsenal £7million, so that’ll be a bit of a kicker for the club and the coffers.

Gabriel Jesus

It’s funny how the impact of the details around a transfer can affect your mood on it, because I think most Arsenal fans are happy with the £8.6million we received for Gabriel Jesus from Barcelona. Bearing in mind how much Barca as a club are pretty much arseholes to deal with (think Auba transfer for free a few years back, or Cesc, Petit and Overmars, etc, etc), the fact that they’ve given us ACTUAL MONEY for Gabriel Jesus feels like a bit of a touch from an Arsenal perspective. We know the club were touting the whole “£15 – £20million” at the beginning of the window, but that was never realistic, and I think most Arsenal fans would have been happy with any fee. So in that respect, you have to give some kudos from the club for getting what they got. But it’s not just that, because the rumoured £265,000-per-week wages are also now off the books. If that number is true, then keeping Gabriel Jesus would have cost the club £13.78million for a year. Admittedly, we’re in September, so maybe it would have been close to 44 weeks wages they’d have had to pay, but that’s still £11.66million. So to go from that as a cost to money coming in for that fee is a £20million+ swing for the club. That’s not an insignificant amount. And for a player who has missed 80 games for us since he joined, and found himself a peripheral player this last season gone, you have to be happy with that.

Gabriel Martinelli

Whilst this hasn’t happened yet, I think we all know it probably will, and at £60million I guess that’s decent enough. The hyperinflation of the Premier League and dodgy dealings of some of the clubs in this league has distorted the pricing for players, because before all of this nonsense kicked off with Elliot Anderson, you’d have probably have said £60million for Martinelli is good work. He has served his time, we all still love him, he was a hard worker, but his output in domestic competitions fell through the floor last season and I think that’s why the club have decided to take this deal, despite it clearly leaving us short in attack. Which brings me to the final discussion piece for today…

The transfer window as a whole – for fans and for me

Personally, I’m quite chilled about everything. I think we’re stronger in defence with the arrival of Konsa, I think we’re stronger in midfield with the arrival of Bruno, so it is just that attack that might be problematic. The options on that left wing are the biggest challenge and risk, because in total when you look at the numbers from last season, we have Martinelli and Trossard’s minutes that equated to a combination of 5,306 minutes across all competitions, 19 goals and 18 assists across the two players. That’s what supposedly needs to be found, but I don’t think it needs to be as analogue as that, because whilst Tzolis and Eze will share those minutes, we are all also hoping that Havertz, Saka, Madueke, plus Merino, can all contribute more than they did last season. If you take the attacking group as a whole, and just those players who played in the main attacking positions (so I’ve included Martinelli, Trossard, Saka, Havertz, Jesus, Gyokeres, Merino, Madueke) – you’re looking at 16,347 minutes, 72 goals 40 assists. We have to better that. If you’re moving Eze to that left-wing position, he’s got to better his seven goals and two assists last season. I think he does that, easily, but I also think Saka – if fit – beats his seven goals and five assists, too. I think Havertz – again, if fit – beats his seven goals and five assists. I think Tzolis should at least be able to match one of Martinelli or Trossard’s outputs, plus we have Merino who – again, if fit -will surely better his four goals and three assists. I haven’t even factored in that Max is a year older…

The point I’m trying to make is that whilst we all know we need to strengthen, whilst I wanted a high-profile left-winger to come in, I am not minded to spend cash on players just to make up numbers – Fofana, as an example, probably would have been that guy.

We have a talented squad that can cope with the new season. They just need to stay fit. I’m hopeful many of them will.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Quick PS – we did the Same Old Arsenal pod last night, which you can re-watch on YouTube (or wherever you get your pods) here if you are so inclined.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raya

White – Konsa – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Rice

Saka – Havertz – Tzolis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We kicked off with a lovely, comfortable, impressive 3-0 win at home to Coventry on Friday, then yesterday were treated to Man United losing the early game of the day to Hull. Lovely stuff.

I hope this doesn’t come back to bite me on the arse, because hopefully we beat Hull home and away, but losing to them and having their fans do that embarrassing ‘mauling’ gesture has to be the footballing equivalent of having your nose rubbed right in it. What the hell, man, that’s just cringe on levels that I didn’t think of before. And seeing Man United fans having to endure it is absolutely amazing.

On the pre-match preview of the season pod we did on Thursday, Cookie talked about United coming second. Yesterday the guys did a post-match pod to discuss the Arsenal win, but if they’d have waited a few hours longer and not podded in the morning, they could have had double-bubble fun, both celebrating our win, as well as laughing at both United and The Scum. You can check out the pod here though if you’re looking for something Arsenal-related to consume.

Our attention now turns to seeing what’s going to shake out in terms of transfers this week, and you’d have to think that there will be a Martinelli exit and a left-wing incoming. I have to say I agree with what Wrighty was saying on Friday night about the respect needed to be shown to Martinelli. Here we have a Brazilian international, somebody who scored a winning goal to put them through to the next round of the competition in the World Cup, who has bagged important goals for us and been a brilliant servant for many years. Yet he’s not even making matchday squads. Hey, we didn’t need it on Friday night against Coventry, but you can’t convince me that we won’t need him this season if we’re not signing a replacement. And if that happens, I’m fine with it; Martinelli is a good player. Yeah, he’s had a bad season from an output perspective last season, but he’s also had good seasons too. We know the type of player he is, we know his limitations, but we also know that there isn’t exactly a wealth of options out there at left wing. Julian Alvarez has played as a left winger six times in his whole career, so he isn’t that guy. Plus, I don’t want a guy who is only interested in Barca; stick around at Atleti, mate, if that’s what you think about The Arsenal. We’re nobody’s second choice these days; we’re champions of England and Champions League finalists. We need players who see Arsenal as a dream move.

So for me, like I already said last week, I’d be more than happy to keep Martinelli and have him and Tzolis – who everyone is rightly raving about – share the minutes on that left-hand side. But to basically ostracise him from the group is a strange one, because Arteta has always loved to use Gabby, he’s always been appreciative of his work rate, so I would have thought he’d be happy to have him in matchday squads as an option.

Perhaps it’s a diktat from Berta and the club? I know Arteta is the main man, that whatever he decides, he can have, but if Berta has told him he’s going out and getting him a left winger, but we can’t risk a possible injury to Gabby Martinelli, so to just leave him out of the Community Shield or the first league game of the season, maybe Arteta is complying on a short-term basis. Because if we can’t get a player in, I find it hard to believe the club won’t integrate Martinelli back into the team when the window closes. You’d have to, because the other options away from Tzolis are all square pegs in round holes. He’s been reluctant to use eze there, Madueke has failed to impress and it’s not his favoured side, Ethan seems to be no longer seen as a wide forward, and Max is probably too young to be fast-tracked into a position he hasn’t played there yet as, either.

One way or another, at least we’re coming to the end of the window this week, the end of the nonsense, so we can focus on the proper stuff that happens on the pitch. Maybe we get some noises todday about some movements, but I’m happy enoough to see us easy winners, see those Spurs and United fans unhappy, and we can all just drink it in knowing that we’re looking like we’re in good shape.

Right, I’m going to call time on today, I have to get out into the Portuguese sun and enjoy some R&R. catch you all later.

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

Welcome to the NBA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raya

White – Mosquera – Gabriel – Calafiori

MLS

Odegaard – Eze

Saka – Havertz – Tzolis

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow for a review blog.