Not for Gabby Martinelli of course, who Arteta confirmed is out as we expected, but he was due to have a scan yesterday and I suppose we’ll get a better idea of the damage to his ankle at some stage either today or tomorrow.

There was plenty of other #Content to pour over from the press conference, however, with Mikel stressing just how much these next two games – both at home – could have a defining point in our season. I kind of get where he’s coming from because we’ve seen first hand just how much damage a lack of confidence can do to a team so conversely, perhaps an abundance of confidence that could potentially come with wins, would also have a massive impact going in to a really tough set of fixtures over the next six week’s or so. If Arsenal go in to the fourth round of the FA Cup on 23rd Jan having won six on the trot, then you could say that there will be an element of swagger about the team. But if they head in to it having been beaten by Palace and/or Newcastle at home – not exactly unexpected given our dreadful home form this season – then the questions we had before Christmas will once again be rightly raised.

The good news is that we are boosted by the return of Thomas Partey who will surely make the squad on Thursday and therefore get some minutes. Whether he starts or not, having not played any football for over a month and a bit, remains to be seen. I would think that if he does start he’ll be earmarked for a maximum of 60 minutes in the game with the hope he can come through unscathed and be ready for Newcastle on the Monday night. But we’ll have to wait a couple of days to see if that is truly the case.

He also talked about the man of the moment – Emile Smith-Rowe – speaking about how impressed he’s been, although he kind of played down the whole ‘Croydon De Bruyne’ that has apparently been circulating as a nickname amongst the players. Mikel played it down as you’d expect him to, but I wonder if selecting certain moments to really wax lyrical on players might also be something he needs to work on. He never really ever eulogises over players, does he? Perhaps that’s just his style in the press and perhaps on the training ground and in the dressing room he saves his praise – arguably where it is more important – but what all of the best managers in history have been able to do is balance between the carrot and stick of motivating their players through praise or trying to build up, so I wonder if that is another learning point for our young manager.

Mikel was also asked about Eddie and whether he’d leave this window, which he flatly rejected and I can understand why. The absence of Balogun in the Newcastle FA Cup game, plus the rumours he is on his way to signing a pre contract agreement somewhere else, suggests to me that the ship has probably sailed on that situation and with that in mind you can’t give Balogun any game time. You have to stick him back in the under-23s and let him play out the season there, I think. If he has no long term future at the club he has no short-term opportunities to play and train with the first team. That means we leave our eggs in the Nketiah basket for this season and it means Arteta has to give the young English striker a bit more game time between now and the end of the season. He will get it I think, but I do also think that we’re at a crunch point with Eddie. I’ve never been 100% convinced in him, despite how committed the player is and likeable as a charcater. But we need a ruthlessness that needs to have shone through by now. He’s 21, he’ll be 22 in May and by now he really needs to be looking like he’s about to break through in to the first team. If I was to ask you whether we could sell Lacazette and he step up in to the role, what would you tell me? I can’t see many Arsenal fans saying he could do it so I think that tells us all we need to know. He probably is just that level down to be number one and with a year left on his deal I think we need to think seriously about cashing in on him in the summer. But for now it makes sense to keep him around, give him minutes here and there and see if he can contribute with a few more goals.

One final bit from the press conference that I did note from Arteta, which was when he was asked about Runarsson. The question related to whether there was anything in a possible loan for the Icelandic ‘keeper and rather than dismiss a player who we only signed a few months ago, he said “there’s nothing there yet”. That hardly suggests that Arsenal aren’t willing to listen to offers and if that is the case it shows just how much of a gulf in class there is between him and Leno. Which also makes you wonder about the fact we even paid £1.5million for a guy who is clearly not up to scratch. Another strange decision from the football admin team and another one in which we should all be raising our eyebrows at when thinking about their competency. Perhaps we chalk it up to a last ditch effort to get somebody in at the club and it just being a body more than anything else, but it doesn’t really strike me as too clever from a scouting and ‘options’ point of view. I’d have thought the club would have ‘in case of emergency break glass’ players for every position in case a situation like the Martinez one comes up. Yet it doesn’t appear so. Or if Runarsson was one of those players, then they are setting the bar too low.

Anyway, enough pondering on these things for one day. I’ll catch thee all in the morrow. Have a good one.

I then look at some of the decision making from the manager and it makes me sad. It makes me sad that he continues to make mistakes as much as the hapless players he puts his faith in, including picking some of them last night. I get that he needs to rotate and that there will be some instances in which he has no choice, but some of those Arsenal players are so atrocious that you do wonder why ‘the kids’ just haven’t been wheeled out a lot earlier than this.

Take Mustafi, for example, who was poor all night, back to his old blaming people and shouting when the fault of some of the goals lay at his door. For the fourth goal scored he and Kolasinac just stared at two Man City players inside our box to head home and frankly it was then embarrassing to see him complaining. But then again, it is embarrassing to see him and Kolasinac even in an Arsenal shirt. The Bosnian had another crap game, summed up also in the final third when Balogun was running in on goal and just needed to slip him the ball, yet he just checked and went back. He completely avoided any kind of risk and whilst you can say that this is a symptom of the complete lack of confidence we have, it is also a cause of a player who is so technically limited you wonder how he ever made top flight professional football.

But there are so many in that team last night that you can make that case against. Take the ‘keeper, for example, who looks like he won a competition to play in goal for The Arsenal. Runarrson was a bit flappy for the first goal and his tiny little arms didn’t get to the cross in the third minute, but for the second goal that City scored, well it was a joke really. Straight at him he flapped it in and frankly we should never have to play him in goal again I’m hoping. Imagine if Leno gets ‘done’ like he did last season against Maupay. Not only would we have some clowns out on the pitch, we’d have the Clown-in-Chief in goal as well. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

But the problems are deeper than the reserve ‘keeper, as well as the fact he was even chosen to be back up at Arsenal, having won some kind of footballing lottery when he signed from Dijon. The decision making to play Mustafi, Kolasinac, Elneny, Ceballos, can only be described as sensible if those players are nowhere near the first XI on Boxing Day. All were appalling and after stinking the place out in midfield on Saturday, both the Egyptian and Spaniard were given the opportunity to show something last night. I wasn’t even worried about the result, I just wanted to see the effort and application that gave me something to cling on to, but having seen those four play the majority of the match last night the only hope I’m clinging on to is that we augment the squad with new signings in a week and a bits time and they can be out of the door quicker than you can say ‘Christmas baubles’.

It is a damming indictment on the whole regime that we have players who failed under Wenger three years ago, still rocking up in an Arsenal shirt today. And that is a blot on the copybook of the whole club, not just this manager.

But Arteta has real issues I’m afraid and as I said at the start of today’s piece, some of those issues are of his own making. The decision to keep Martinelli on the pitch after halftime was reckless and that is where you need to be strong as a manager and say “son, we have bigger fish to fry, you’re coming off”. But Martinelli stayed on for about five minutes before having to come off. Take whatever lucky rabbits foot, four leaf clovers, horse shoes and dreamcatchers and smash them all together guys, because despite what Arteta said about this kid, he was mustard yesterday and one of the few bright spots. There are players there that Arteta needs to bring together and get on the pitch and they include Gabriel, Partey, Tierney, Saka, Martinelli and Aubameyang. The sooner he can get all of those back on the pitch, the better we will look. But the fact I’m looking at just six players out of a squad of 25 just serves to highlight just how terrible things have got and how appalling our recruitment has been in recent years.

So when you can’t buy in players, how about trying others? Smith-Rowe came on and set Lacazette up within five minutes. He looked likely and was a breathe of fresh air. And you can’t say the opponent was a budget Europa League side; even the rotated City squad last night had plenty of the first team squad. But what will we seen on Saturday? Yep, you guessed it, probably no ESR and instead the ghost of Willian jogging around the football pitch at his former club. He’ll probably be telling his former teammates just how much he’s enjoying his early retirement.

It’s the same with Balogun. Given but a few glimpses last night, yet he still made a couple of good runs and could have found himself in on goal had the utter waste of space known as Kolasinac not failed to spot what was a few yards in front of him.

And this lack of trust in the youngsters has all but destroyed all of the goodwill the fans have for Arteta. It is certainly wavering my beliefe in him. His persistent faith with some of those players is going to get him the sack. No matter what the Arsenal Exec Team are saying.

Next up, an inevitable defeat to Chelski on Boxing Day. I’m at the point in which I feel

These Friday’s have become familiar to us, when we have to digest and dissect a game last night in the Europa League and thankfully, for the second week in a row, it is a victory that we are thinking about. Dundalk were dispatched with a 3-0 win at The Emirates and really if we’re honest you can’t ask for more than that. Especially given how much rotation Arteta started with and we’ll get to individual performances in a sec. But first and foremost the most important thing is the win and ultimately it was a comprehensive victory for The Arsenal. Winning is good. I like winning.

Of course there are those that feel like games like this need to have a massive asterisk put beside them because of the opposition, so in some respects, I have a bit of sympathy for MIkel Arteta and his team. I’m not sure he could have done anything last night that would have resulted in universal approval. Simply because of the opposition. If we’d have beaten a deep-lying, low-block, Dundalk team by 7-0 then there would have been people calling them a bunch of farmers. But as was mentioned on the commentary I was watching last night, this team has won their respective league something like five out of the last six seasons, they are all professionals and as such, they are not simply going to get battered.

I also think – although I admit I didn’t for the first 30 minutes – that playing against teams who are essentially there to sit and frustrate for the whole evening, isn’t a simple equation of our technical ability + your lack of it = massive win. Football is not linear and there are so many variables in a match that mean that it is never going to go exactly to plan. So with that in mind what you need to do is secure victory in this type of game and we did just that.

Arteta named an almost completely rotated side which, if I’m honest, I was delighted about. I wanted to see if some of our squad players could step up but as well as that, if they did, a big win would help them all to get a little bit of confidence should they be called upon in the ‘bigger’ games in our season. Mikel went for Runarsson in goal, a back line (I’m reluctant to say ‘three’ because we change whether in and out of possession as you know) which included Cedric, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Xhaka at times and Maitland-Niles on the left hand side, then in front of them we saw Elneny and the excellent Joe Willock, with a forward line of Nketiah, Pepe and Nelson flanking him. It was an acknowledgement that we need to conserve some legs for Sunday because the team will surely almost completely change for then too I suspect.

So I was more than happy with that, but I don’t think any of us would have been 100% happy with the first 30 minutes. We looked like we were struggling to create chances, to get in behind a very deep Dundalk back line who were packed in almost like a seven at times and I think our lack of creativity showed. What I did see was the team trying to get Pepe on the ball as much as possible and I think that was a good thing. It was a clear instruction to involve him more and he put a couple of decent balls in during that first half, but he was reduced to just that with their low block.

Normally by about 40 minutes those of us in the stadium would be starting to get a tad frustrated, so we do have a certain Mr Rogers in goal to thank for gifting us the lead. A ball swung in that he didn’t deal with fell to the feet of Eddie into the box and whilst he’d missed what felt like a gilt-edged chance moments before, he bagged the second bite of the cherry and we were one up.

And I think even then Dundalk knew the game was up. They had little of the ball in our final third and knew they wouldn’t be able to open us up too much because it would create space for players like Pepe and Nelson, so it was damage limitation as soon as that first goal went in. Then when the second goes in just minutes afterwards, you know that the game is done and again they would have sat down for their halftime oranges with the manager telling them “stay compact, stay tight, we don’t want a pasting here”.

Which is how the second half unfolded really. Aside from very early on in the half when the ball fell to Pepe and he lashed on in from the edge of the box with his weaker foot. It was a fine finish, but what made the finish was his control, little roll of the ball over his foot to create a yard of space, then with very little back lift hitting it into the top corner.

Pepe was one of our better players on the night and that he was taken off on the hour mark gives me hope that we might see him on Sunday against United. He will have more space to run in that game because he’ll be playing an opponent that will want to come out and cause us more trouble than Dundalk did and that will give him space. So I’m pleased that he will have got some confidence from that performance.

But there were a few others who will also have taken a lot of heart from the display. I thought Reiss Nelson was very good, quick, driving past his man with consummate ease at times and perhaps should have had a goal to add to the impressive performance. Sometimes he has such a worried look on his face when he plays but I hope this gives him some cause for optimism and happiness tonight because he did well.

As too did Joe Willock, who was probably our best player. He got a very good goal to make it number two for us for the evening, but aside from that, he was imperious. He was gliding past whoever he was up against, his driving runs helped to create space for his teammates and it was this kind of display that we started to see just as he broke in to the first team. He hasn’t been near the side for the last four or five months but this kind of display will have his manager thinking. He won’t have to step up like that too many times before he finds himself starting in the Premier League, that’s for sure.

Overall this was a ‘job done’ performance. There’s no point talking about the debutant Runarsson because apart from a smart stop in the first half that he palmed away, he had very little to do. Likewise for the back line although I will admit to being pretty underwhelmed by Cedric yet again. I know he is just reserve choice at the club, but his signing continues to baffle and I suspect will continue to do so for some time.

But let’s not dwell on any negatives after we’ve just picked up another win in Europe and sit top of the group with Molde to play at home next week. A win there puts us in the driving seat for qualification and hopefully we can get that sewn up sooner rather than later.

Catch you all tomorrow with some early pre-United thoughts.

Welcome to Icelandic goalkeeper Runar Alex Runarsson to The Arsenal!

The 25-year-old joins us from Dijon where he had fallen down the pecking order behind Alfred Gomis and now he finds himself as the number two to Bernd Leno at Arsenal. He’s obviously delighted to have signed and spoke – very eloquently indeed – about the history of the club and how his family was so proud that he’d joined. And at £1million as a signing on transfer fee it represents a relatively low-risk deal if we’re honest. He will replace Emi Martinez as the back up to Leno and with the game against Leicester on tomorrow, there’s part of me that hopes he’s chucked straight in there because we need to get a look at him sooner rather than later.

Will he be a master stroke decision by Inaki Cana to recommend him to Arteta? Or will he turn out to be a bit of an Almunia/Ospina for us? The sooner we know the better.

My hope is that as he described – he’s a front footed ‘keeper who is good with the ball at his feet. At 25 he’s still relatively young but he’s been capped by Iceland five times and so the hope has to be that he can rediscover some of the form that got him the move to Dijon in the first place, because his form tailed off the season before last and last season he barely played any football. I can’t profess to know much about him other than what I’ve read, but his front footedness appears to have caused a few perilous situations for Dijon and that’s why he lost his position at Dijon to Gomis.

If we’re going to be kind we could argue that Dijon are a team towards the lower end of the French league and so having a ‘keeper playing on the front foot and trying to act like a sweeper is going to be less important than somebody who is a good shot-stopper. If your goal is being peppered most week’s you aren’t going to be standing on the edge of your box watching all of the play in front of you. But at Arsenal, in theory, you should be spending more time watching play and then acting on any counter attacking balls through from the opposition, so the need for a ‘sweeper-keeper’ might be a bit more pressing at a club like The Arsenal.

That’s if we’re being kind. What I think we’re all well within our rights to question is whether spending that little money on a clear number two will bring the best out of Leno. Remember when Szczesny was the undisputed number one at Arsenal and became a little complacent? I know he’s a very unique personality and I don’t expect the same from Bernd, but we have to acknowledge that sometimes more competition brings the best out of players, so whether this signing will do that still remains to be seen.

The hope I think we all have is that Runarsson has just been a bit unlucky to lose his place and that there is a good ‘keeper in there that our goalkeeping staff have identified and see in him that others haven’t, because they haven’t worked with him before. If that turns out to be true then this signing could be a master stroke because we have sold a player for £20million, signed another for £1million, which means there is £19million in the pot for any possible acquisition. That is what every Arsenal fan is hoping for at the moment and fingers crossed that’s what transpires.

Which is kind of why I hope he’s thrown in at the deep end tomorrow night because otherwise we’re probably waiting until the Europa League stages before we see him – unless Leno picks up and injury – so getting a whiff of what sort of player he is in a game that, to all intents and purposes carries little recompense for us, would be worthwhile I think.

We’ll have to wait and see with Arteta’s press conference. With a position like this that we’re in I suspect he’ll be quite open about whether Runarsson will play tomorrow. He may not give too much away for the outfield positions, but if asked the direct question by the media I suspect he might give a straight response.

Let’s also hope he turns out to be a sound number two because the one we just sold had a blinder of a debut last night. Props to Emi Martinez for the penalty save, underlying why we held out for as much as we could, as well as why in a year’s time we may be looking at him and wondering which big club is going to go sniffing for his signature. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that after a season as first choice he has a number of suitors from across Europe vying for his signature. Especially if he breaks in to the Argentinian national team. I just hope it doesn’t come around to bite us on the arse in the shape of him signing for one of the big English clubs within the next couple of years.

That’s pretty much it from me for today. Looking forward to hearing from Mikel and seeing what he has to say about who is travelling up to the Midlands for the game away to Leicester. It’ll be interesting because there are so many squad players who probably need game time and so I’m half expecting a complete change around in the players who are picked for tomorrow, which is quite exciting, actually.

Catch you all then.