His finish yesterday sailed past the Leverkusen keeper Blaswich who, up until that point, very much had the feel of Gandalf and was not letting anybody pass. He’d made six saves before Eze’s rocket to break the deadlock and some of them were worldies too. The one he saved with his foot to have the ball just skip wide of the post is the first one that comes to mind. But on a night in which big shocks had happened in the other part of this side of the draw with Lisbon beating Bodo/Glimt, this was not to be another upset, as Arsenal pretty much dominated from start to finish.

One of the criticisms I think a few of us Gooners have had is that we haven’t started games too quickly. It’s felt at times – certainly in 2026 – as though we take our time to ‘feel’ our way into a game and how the opponent sets itself up. This was not the case last night. Arteta made some tactical tweaks, including Ben White, which I think worked really well, and we were pretty much on the front foot within the first few minutes. You could see that White was looking to overlap and create more space for Saka and I think he must have appreciated that, because he got on the ball and was creating chances. There were still some instances in which I thought Saka could have got a shot off a little earlier, but today is not a day to be bagging on the starboy. Sometimes, to recapture your best form, you have to take incremental steps in the right direction. I thought last night was definitely one.

But there were strides forward from a number of attacking players yesterday. I thought Trossard looked lively, popping up in spaces across the front three, whilst Viktor Gyokeres must have had arguably his best game of the season yesterday. He didn’t score, which is obviously a marker a lot of people will put down as another failing, but not me. Not today. He used his power well; he looked to be half a yard sharper. He had a few runs at defenders and a couple of shots, one of which was deflected wide. He is the sort of guy who will probably have got into the dressing room at full time quite disappointed in himself for not scoring, but I bet the manager was exactly the opposite of that.

After the dominance of the first half, things felt like they got back on to a more even keel in the second, which you’d expect given Leverkusen couldn’t just sit back and hope to counter us in transition. We had our goal, we didn’t need to press forward, so gaps started opening up and even though the game ended with Leverkusen having more possession than us, I think we created the better chances in the second half overall. The one for them that stands out is the fantastic Raya save right at the end, but other than that I can’t rememberr him making a string of saves. That was Blaswich who was in that mood last night, making a couple in the second, but not Arsenal’s second, which was another superb Rice finish from outside the box. Have that, you open play Arsenal goal naysayers.

His first touch for that goal was sublime. It meant it sat up perfectly for a second touch, then the stroke of the ball past the Leverkusen goalie to just kiss the post – *chef’s kiss*. He picked up the man-of-the-match award on the night and, once again, the cries rang out about how we’d really made a steal with him on the price. He’s fantastic. He’s all action. He’s the best player in this Arsenal team by a country mile this season. There’s talk that Bruno Fernandes should get Player of the Year – pull the other one, it’s got bells on. Rice has been the most consistently impressive footballer in the Premier League; he’s been doing it in the Champions League, and his goal last night ensured that the last ten minutes or so were nowhere near as nervous as it could have been.

There were so many positives to take from individual and collective performances last night. I thought Zubimendi looked spritely; he’s been accused lately of taking the safe and backwards options on his passing recently, but I thought he was much more progressive and willing to take risks. With the League Cup final on the horizon, it is lovely to see that we have players hitting some stride, although Declan Rice’s post-match comments about being shattered are a concern. Arsenal and England should take note; there is a period coming up here where there is an opportunity to manage his and the likes of Zubimendi’s minutes differently. I said it on social media, but I’ll reiterate it now – neither of these players should be going away with their international teams, and neither should be starting against Southampton a week after that, too. If you can wrap them up, give them rest, a kind of Spring Break, if you will, then it could be beneficial to both The Arsenal and their respective international managers.

Defensively, we looked good too; our pressing was right, we got into our shape at the right time, Gabriel and Saliba looked good and Hincapie and White both performed well. There was also enough time for a Kai Havertz cameo and I thought he also looked lively when he came on.

And all of this means that Arteta has options for Sunday, too. In the pub before we were talking about where we were going to have a drink on Sunday and a few of us joked that we were overlooking Leverkusen. That wasn’t the case for those Arsenal players, who will also have the big confidence boost of knowing they are into the quarter finals with a great chance to progress there too. But before that, it’s all eyes on the League Cup now, and a showdown with 115 Charges FC. My hope is that they are licking their wounds and feeling a bit sorry for themselves this morning, having just been knocked out to Real Madrid last night.

More on that tomorrow as we begin the countdown to the first trophy attempt of the season. Catch you then.

This is a weird fixture for me. When the draw was announced, there was relief about a possibly easier passage through the competition. WhatsApp groups were awash with ‘take that’ and ‘lovely’ comments. Then you get to the first leg kick off, and you’re thinking, ‘hopefully we can make a statement tonight and put one foot in the final’. Then at the end of the game, after Arsenal haven’t been great, Leverkusen have shown a blueprint on how to counter and hit us on the break, the mind thinks ‘got away with that one, but we have the home leg to finish the job’, as well as ‘the game at home now becomes a one-off cup tie – lovely’.

And yet, here I find myself, Tuesday morning, apprehensive about the match. Yes, it IS a one-off cup game, for sure. And yes, we WILL be heavily favourites to go through, most definitely. But all it takes tonight is one good low block, one transitional counter, and we could find ourselves out of a competition that so many Arsenal fans have coveted for years. We’re all looking over at City’s daunting tie at home to Real Madrid, but if we aren’t careful, we could have our own psychological blow tonight against a Leverkusen side who drew with Bayern at the weekend. Of course, the caveat remains that they played over half the match against ten men, but they still got a draw, and that will still fill them with some confidence, I would have thought.

Arteta did his press conference, and the bad news is that Odegaard and Timber are out. The good news is that it sounds like Leo is back, and whilst Arteta confirmed White is back up and in full training, I’m not sure whether he’ll start in place of the absent Dutchman. Mosquera was preferred against Everton, and I suspect it might be the same tonight. Of course, it may be that Arteta selected Mosquera for that game because he knew he could only get White playing the majority of one match out of these two, so he’s prioritised the Englishman for his overlapping runs today. Maybe I’m talking myself into something that won’t happen, but that does make sense to me, especially after Saka’s performance in the first leg. He wasn’t great; he was hooked on 60 minutes in favour of Noni, but if Arteta wants to create more space for Saka up against Grimaldo tonight, then playing a guy with whom he has a clear connection would make sense to me.

The rest of the team picks itself largely, I think; Raya, Saliba, and Gabriel will all play. I suspect Hincapie comes in at left back. At the base of the midfield, it’ll be Zubi, with Rice on the left and Eze on the right. Up top, I doubt they’ll risk back-to-back starts for Havertz, so it’ll be Gyokeres, with possibly Trossard and Saka flanking him. I certainly think that dynamic works better than Martinelli wide left, plus I’m not sure that Noni on the left really worked against Everton. You could ask the question about whether he deserves a start on the right, but I think Arteta sticks with one of his most trusted players in Saka tonight, so for me, it should be Trossard.

The game plan has to be about control tonight, which I suspect makes for a tetchy start to the game, probably a little shadow-boxing from Arsenal as they look to maintain the control of the ball, with Leverkusen tucking in deep and maintaining a tight shape throughout. They want to hit us on the counter and get a goal up so they can sit deep and see us deliver the horseshoe of death aka The Arc of boredom, so if we can score in that first half, maybe it draws them out a bit, and a little more space opens up.

I suspect patience will be the name of the game today; it is not going to be a pretty one, unfortunately.

Leverkusen will look to Grimaldo to find space in that left-hand-side pocket, and particularly with Timber out, they’ll want to see if they can stress either White or Mosquera, so if we can keep them pinned back as much as possible, then I think we can nullify him somewhat. They have Schick back, which will be a different kind of physical threat, but I wonder if they look at the likes of Kofane as a viable option, because he really tested our two centre halves all game last week, so it will be interesting to see how the Leverkusen boss goes about his starting selection dilemma up top. Of course, if they are behind in the tie and he needs to throw a Hail Mary, then both Kofane and Schick up top could be an option. We need to be wary and ready for that possibility.

The good thing is that if Leverkusen go down that route, then it means they are behind, and in that situation, we would all back our defensive line to be able to hold out.

We’ve gotten used to this season – and particularly ‘The Business End’ of it being quite uncomfortable, nervy and at times downright stressful. But Arsenal keep finding ways – even when leaving it late – to win these football matches. Nothing is guaranteed; those ‘finding ways’ could very well end tonight, but we’re in a good spot as it stands and I am hopeful that we have the players to see us through this evening. Fingers crossed I’m right.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a debrief, as always. Catch you then.

We touched on this a bit yesterday in the Same Old Arsenal pod, but I wonder what the psychological impact of the recent results might be for those two respective teams in this title race? When Man City scored those two late goals at Anfield, the prevailing media narrative was that this was the momentum shift. ‘City were coming’, ‘City have done this before’, and ‘this is the moment they crank up the gears’ were what we heard. That match was on February 8th, and since then they’ve beaten Fulham at home, Newcastle at home, Leeds away, drawn with Forest, and drawn with West Ham in the Premier League. That’s not the same City as we’ve been told about, and certainly sides like the one that we faced in 2023/24 wouldn’t be at this stage in the season dropping points. I wonder if the psychology of dropping back-to-back points in the league, whilst we have picked up back-to-back wins, will impact them? Likewise, does a probable exit this week to Real Madrid (barring some almighty Madrid collapse with them 3-0 up) do more damage to them yet as they prep for us on Sunday next week?

Conversely, we have just gone and got a last-minute winner, before seeing City drop those points away. Does that point the dial in a positive direction for the psychological boost of this Arsenal team?

Maybe, maybe not. The fact that City have been patchy since that Liverpool win shows that things can swing very quickly in this league. Arsenal have done nothing yet, they’ve won nothing yet, but we are in a fabulously commanding position from where we sit. We can all continue to hope that this team drags itself over the line.

It’s weird, though, because we’re at the ‘business end’ of the season now, with seven games left to go, and yet we don’t actually play any Premier League football for just under a month. It’s the Champions League tomorrow, the League Cup on Sunday, then an international break, then the weekend after that is Easter, before we kick back up in the League against Bournemouth on 11th April. There’s a lot of football that will be played, but Premier League football takes a bit of a back seat. Which I kind of like, to be honest with you, because it feels like a little bit of a rest. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be nervous again tomorrow, but despite never having won the Champions League, and it being a massive trophy to win, it’s the Premier League that gets me the most. It’s the one I want to win the most, and if that meant sacrificing everything else, I would gladly do it. So whilst I would be sad to go out tomorrow against Leverkusen, whilst I want us to go deep and maybe even win it, I’m kind of looking at everything other than the Premier League as a bit of respite.

Mikel Arteta will have no time to dwell on such things, such is the hectic schedule. He’ll have given the lads yesterday off, then today it will be back in light training as they prep for Leverkusen. He’ll also have his press conference this evening, and I hope that we get some good news on the players who have question marks over them. I think, particularly, I’d like to see Trossard fit, not least because I had a weird dream about Martinelli last night. The Creative Services Manager who works at my company was playing on the opposition side, and Martinelli – clearly rattled by him – decided to come from behind, grab him in a wrestling sleeper hold move, then drag him down to the floor. He got himself sent off, and we were on the back foot from there. I hope that isn’t a weird sign or premonition for tomorrow. Mikel – play Trossard or Eze on the left – trust my spidey sense…

Other than that, I guess there’s not really much else to do today other than re-live that wonderful moment in which Max Dowman scored to secure the win. What a day for him, his family, the Arsenal players, and Arteta. I’ve watched clip after clip of that, with particular rewatching of Peter Drury’s beautifully hyperbolic commentary. When it is for your team, it really does feel like a work of art.

Right, I’m going to call it there, I think. Have yourselves a great day, and I’ll be back tomorrow as we do a match preview ahead of that Leverkusen match-up.

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

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

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

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

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Hincapie

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Rice

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow for the usual debrief.

This morning I am thinking about Pierro Hincapie, who got on the pitch this weekend, after Trossard’s injury, to help us win at Mansfield and get our name in the hat for tonight’s draw. I’ll give some thoughts on the draw in a minute, but back to Hincapie for now, who yesterday we had a kind of ‘worst-kept-secret’ announcement from Fabrizio Romano, that Arsenal would trigger his £45 million loan clause to buy, meaning he’ll be an Arsenal player next season and sign a five-year deal.

We all knew that was the case; we knew that it was very much like the David Raya deal that took him from Brentford to us, but ol’ Fabrizio just wanted to rubber-stamp it by making his announcement yesterday. And I don’t think there’s an Arsenal fan around who wouldn’t say “good stuff” on that deal.

I don’t think that’s always been the case, though. I think a lot of us were wondering why we’d signed a deputy left-back/centre-half when we already had Myles Lewis-Skelly and Riccardo Calafiori, with a few fans I know jokingly suggesting that it was because Mikel collects left-backs. Forget collecting Gabby’s, it’s in that side of the pitch that he has a real penchant for…

But the Ecuadorian has grown in stature in 2026, to the point where I think a lot of us are wondering who, when fit, is Mikel’s first choice left back. Calafiori kicked off this season in fine form, even scoring on opening day, but as per last season (and pretty much his whole career), injury has hit him, and as a result, Hincapie has been able to get himself successive minutes for which he’s been able to establish himself as a regular.

I think it’s an interesting profile in the way in which he plays that position, too, because it isn’t the same as Myles and Riccy. He feels very much like a ‘defenders defender’; he doesn’t invert as much, he fits a more traditional position on the pitch for a left back, plus I can picture him in my mind’s eye as he overlaps his man, trying to get down the wing to put a ball in. Of course, that isn’t always the case, and his goal against Wolves shows that he can pop up in that insight channel at times, but to me, he offers a different way of playing that left-back role, and I wonder if Mikel is preferring that right now. I saw one of his press conferences recently in which he talked about how difficult the Premier League is, about how three to four years ago you could invert your left back and that would create space, but that space isn’t there any more, and it makes me think about the role that Hincapie is playing and how he has the starting jersey as it stands. Football is constantly evolving, tactics ebb and flow throughout the season as teams learn to adapt and shift their approach based on the opposition. Teams know about the inverted fullback approach Arteta brought with Zinchenko, so they have countered it, so perhaps we are shifting back to a more traditional look at left back?

Of course, this could all be nonsense on Wednesday or Saturday next week when Calafiori starts (hopefully his knock doesn’t keep him out), and he goes back to being that dynamic left-back who pops up in central midfield. But I just think it is an interesting talking point when thinking about Hincapie and how well he has done in this latter part of the season. Will he now go on to stake his claim like Timber has done on that right-hand side? I’m not sure about that, because I do think Arteta loves a bit of Calafiori, but Hincapie certainly seems like he’s in the driving seat right now.

Which is also interesting and timely, given who we play on Wednesday in the Champions League, as the Ecuadorian returns to his ‘old’ club Leverkusen. I would imagine that the reason he didn’t start on Saturday was that Arteta has him earmarked for that midweek fixture. I suspect it will be weird for him, though; just one year ago, he would have been pulling on that Leverkusen jersey and heading out in front of them to play Werder Bremen in a 2-0 defeat (technically, he was an unused sub, but you get my point). Now he could be up against them in a red and white shirt as Arsenal’s starting full back.

It’s not just him, though, as Kai also will be returning to a familiar haunt, as he had four years at Leverkusen before moving to Chelsea in 2020. So he will also be keen to get on that pitch I suspect. His 60-odd minutes on Saturday has hopefully given him a platform to get more minutes, but I suspect it will be Big Vik who starts in midweek, given that he didn’t get on the pitch on Saturday. There will no doubt be a role for Kai at some stage on his old stomping ground, but if I’m a betting man, I’m thinking that Arteta and his coaching staff are looking at that Everton game as one more likely to feature Havertz from the start.

We’ll know more tomorrow when Arteta does his press conference, but for today, all eyes are on that FA Cup draw tonight. The games are due to be played over the Easter weekend of 4th and 5th April, and given the upsets of Southampton and Port Vale yesterday, I’ve got a hankering for a return to Vale Park. That probably won’t happen, and it does feel as though we have a big tie coming up in the next round; Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City are all still in it, and it feels to me like we’re getting one of those away. I just have a feeling about it, you know?

If we’re mapping out a preferred/least preferred list, mine would be:

1. Port Vale
2. Southampton
3. Leeds
4. West Ham/Brentford
5. Chelsea
6. Liverpool
7. Man City

You just know we’re getting City away, don’t you? It feels almost destined, given we’re in a title race with them. We’ll know by 7.30pm this evening though, so I’ll come on here tomorrow and give some initial thoughts on that when we speak next.

And so for now, for today, I will wish you and yours a great day and I’ll catch you tomorrow. Ciao.

Tomorrow the team line up against Leverkusen in our penultimate friendly before the season kicks off properly and it’ll be the return of Xhaka who I’m sure will get a good reception. I suspect Arteta might do something today, maybe not a press conference (or maybe he will?) but maybe a video or something ahead of the game. It’ll be interesting to see where his head is at in terms of how ready the team is physically for the season start. All players are back now and in training mode and we’ve been treated to some training ground pictures back at London Colney. I suspect there will be a glimpse of Calafiori tomorrow, maybe from the bench or something like that, but it’ll be interesting to see how we line up in general because it feels like this is when we’ll get the closest thing to the starting XI for the Wolves game, although I suspect Lyon in the Emirates Cup will be the proper dress rehearsal.

There won’t be any new signings to speak of I don’t think (check my reversal psychology going on here…), but maybe by the weekend Merino is moving along. It all seems to have stalled based on the news that is being drip-fed to us, which makes me wonder if Arsenal are going to drag this out a little bit. If their valuation is closer to £20million+ and Sociedad want £26million+, you could probably save yourselves a few million by entering negotiations towards the end of August. Sociedad have a player who is free come next summer and if they have him in January then Arsenal could probably negotiate a free transfer anyway, so if we’re getting to late December and a deal hasn’t been done, that’s my feeling about this situation, that Arsenal are trying to save a few bucks, as the Americans would say.

I’m sure there are a few that will take the view we should just “pay the damn money” but £6million is no small chunk of change. Sure, for these clubs it isn’t as much as that sort of money would mean to you or I, but Arsenal has always prided itself on being a financially well-run club. We don’t need shady sponsorship deals, selling of property to ourselves or two do weird and inflated transfer sales of our academy players to other clubs who are also operating in the murky grey world on the edge of the rules. So £6million – if my speculating is correct and that is what Arsenal are doing, is worth holding on a little longer for.

We’ve also got a very good team who you’d hope are all able to survive without the likes of Merino for the first few weeks of the season. A lot can change of course with injuries, etc, but we seem to have a pretty fit squad – poor old Tomi aside – to start the season, so Arteta has plenty of very good options in almost every position as it stands. We need reinforcements for a busy season, for sure, but the first few week’s you’re only playing one game a week anyway, so there’s no need to press the panic button just yet.

The Eddie news is still rumbling along too. The noises I’m reading on the socials are that Arsenal are happy to use him should the valuation we have not be met. Which I think is fair enough really. Would I like to get a good fee and look to get a player in Arteta is more willing to use? Of course I would. I know we used him more at the beginning of the season, but towards the end he really didn’t get a look in and never made it off the bench for the last six games. In fact, after Fulham away on 31st December he never started a game again last season and only racked up 86 minutes in total for the last 15 Premier League games of the season.

But Arsenal do need to stand firm. If Marseille really want the guy, then they have to pay the asking price and I think if Arsenal a playing a little hard ball here, it’s a slightly different situation to Merino. That’s because his contract runs until 2027 and so even by next summer he’ll still have two year’s left to run. Arsenal don’t need to sell. They – we – probably think it’s best for all parties, but if a club wants to play silly buggers and leave it until deadline day with us given no chance to get a replacement in, you’re better just keeping Eddie as a squad player. Our forward three has Martinelli, Trossard, Havertz, Jesus, Saka and Nketiah in it, not to mention Nelson and Vieira has been trialled wide left this pre season, so we are pretty well stacked. Perhaps we could try to shuffle the deck a bit with an Nketiah and Nelson exit, but we aren’t desperate for that and so I think we’re in a strong position. So ‘good for you’ I say to Arsenal for holding out. get closer to €30million/£25million and a deal is there to be done guys.

I feel like i’ve been talking about Eddie and Merino for the last week and I’m getting to the stage where I might be repeating myself, so it is perhaps quite merciful that we have the friendlies to get a look at the team tomorrow and Saturday. Then we can start to get back to the real football in 11 days time. Can’t wait.

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a good one.

A BIDDING WAR!

So waking up this morning to noises that Bayern – and maybe even Dortmund – have sat up and taken a bit of notice of the fact that Granit Xhaka is available, is music to mine ears, that’s for sure.

I’m sure Leverkusen were more than happy to have a lovely ol’ chat with the player, Arsenal, agree the details and get this done quickly. But if there’s a few more interested parties then that’s a-ok with me, because it might chuck a couple of extra mil on the price tag and that can be dumped on the ‘transfer war chest’ pile we need to get our incomings done this season. If Leverkusen want to follow this through then let’s move the goalposts like so many teams have done to us over the years. Unless of course they want to flash a Moussa Diaby in front of us for a decent price.

I’m not sure how realistic this interest is, or maybe it is just newspapers trying to fill column inches, but from an Arsenal fan perspective if Xhaka can give us one final parting gift of having his price driven up as a result of the great season he’s just had and we can get closer to £18 – £20million, that would be lovely.

And this is what should be happening with our players now. We’ve just come off the back of a very good season in which we’ve finished second in the Premier League with the second youngest team in the league. We are – at this moment in time – an employer of choice and whereas a year ago if you’d have said Declan Rice is interested in Arsenal, for example, I’d have told you that there’s no way that’s happening, that he’s an ex-Chelsea academy kid, that they throw money at signings like him and we simply do not. But here we are this summer and every day there is more talk about him being an Arsenal player by 1st September. But I digress away from my original point, which was that we have had the kind of season where teams look at the Arsenal squad players and say “they’re good. Let’s see if Arsenal are interested in selling” and I am a-ok with that.

Let’s drive up the prices and bulk out those Arsenal coffers.

So when you hear stories about how Newcastle are confident in getting Kieran Tierney for £30million, let’s turn those tables:

“You can have KT, sure, but you come back to us when your offer is more serious, guys. Try getting close to £50million and we’ll talk”. That’s what I’m hoping we’ll do.

Whether or not that actually happens remains to be seen, however, so we just have to wait and see what the deal is with the rumoured interest.

I do wonder if we’ll make some under-the-radar moves first though. There’s all the talk about Rice and Caicedo but these moves tend to be a little more complex given the money involved, so I have a feeling that we might a move or two for a player that nobody is expecting. I doubt anything will happen in June as I suspect most members of the club are taking a well-earned holiday. There isn’t much in the press about where anybody is but I suspect it’s only a matter of time before there’s a BBQ-cigar-smoking image of Edu with a big pair of tongs!

There’s not a lot else going on to be fair. Yesterday was the FA Cup final so that’s taking most of the column inches and I suppose the only interesting thing about the result from an Arsenal perspective was that we’ll get a day out at Wembley for the Community Shield on 6th August. I know it is a glorified friendly, I know it doesn’t really mean much, but it’ll be nice to have a day out and hopefully in the sun so that’s cool. I’ve not been to many of them since we won the FA Cups a few years back, so getting along to wembley for that is probably one I’ll have a go at and see if some of the lads I go to football with are interested in getting along. It’s always a nice day out and unlike getting to the Emirates, it’s over my side of the world so will only take me about 15 minutes to get there on the tube – bonza!

Right, that’s it from me today, on account of there being little else on. You have yourself a good one and I’ll see thee in the morrow.

Fast forward to this week and the confirmation via multiple media sources that Arsenal had all but finished the touches on his move back to Germany after nearly 300 appearances for The Arsenal, and I think it is fair to say that the number of people who are delighted with this move has most certainly dwindled.

That’s because this season he has been excellent for us. He has switched his position to play in a more advanced number eight, we have made the most of his strengths through passing, control of the ball, as well as adding what I believe is the most goals and assists in a season for us, with seven and seven to date. He’s turned around his Arsenal career from a guy who was booed off and flicked ‘v’ signs to the Emirates crowd, telling us to ‘f*ck off’, to a guy who only really this season got his name sung with any kind of gusto. He is a player who until the last 18 months has divided opinion, but I think when he says his farewells on the Wolves game in 11 days time, will get a rousing reception and will go with pretty much all fans’ blessings I think.

And I think to those fans who couldn’t stand him at one stage, who didn’t see his value to the team, who didn’t rate him for so long, will all ultimately have a positive feeling towards a player who has pretty much always been available, who is clearly an important guy in the dressing room and at a time in which we’ve had one of the youngest teams in the league, has been a mentor and a positive influence for so many Arsenal players in our current squad. When he gets his send off, I hope he gets one of the biggest cheers.

Of course none of this has been confirmed by the club, but pretty much every major media broadcaster, transfer specialist, etc, are all reporting it. And there is no smoke without fire, as they say. Apparently Xhaka himself spoke to Arteta about wanting a new challenge, Arteta accepted this and the wheels were put in place to make this transition. I suppose this has been in the pipeline for a while though. For all of the details to emerge now about Leverkusen and a €15million bid coming out now, surely means that this will have been sorted weeks ago. Which then leads me to think that this is probably something that Xhaka and Arteta have had planned for a long time. He got a new deal last summer which extended him for another season and I think a lot of people wondered why we would do such a thing. But now it feels pretty obvious; Arsenal wanted to retain a little bit of value on the player, the player himself gets a bit of a buffer in terms of his contract, but as well as that it means any transition in to life without Xhaka can be well-planned out and all set up as part of the evolving process of this squad.

He will leave a hole in terms of a first team spot, but also in terms of a great personality in the squad, which I’m sure Arteta is mindful of. However, in the fullness of time, I suspect it will work out for everyone in the end. We get a bit of cash in to the coffers, which will also be boosted by the increase in Champions League revenue and better placed finish in the Premier League, as well as the probability that we will also get a bit more in through player sales through a number of players expected to leave this summer. And it will need to be a busy summer indeed.

What I do think is interesting, however, is the talk that I have certainly played down in terms of signings. I am of course referencing the fact that I did not expect us to go for both Caicedo AND Rice this summer. It very much felt like one or the other. However, having seen this news about Xhaka emerge yesterday, it seems like this could be a reality after all. I think we all knew that we needed somebody to eventually take over the number six spot and I think most of us thought that would either be Rice or Caicedo. But perhaps the reason Arsenal wanted to move quickly for the Brighton player in January was because they wanted to get in there with him in January, before going after Rice in the summer. What I suspected was a ‘play your cards close’ as well as a ‘red herring’ in the shape of talking up Rice in the summer but actually go for Caicedo now, appears to not be a smokescreen at all.

Perhaps Arsenal’s ambitions are a lot loftier than I gave them credit for.

Of course we’ve already started to see the annual ‘war chest’ stories start to emerge as our season peters out, but I’m not engaging with those. I already did a piece mapping out what I thought would be some of our revenues generated and this ‘war chest’ will simply amount to money already coming in to us, rather than any kind of mega injection from KSE, so there’s no point going over it again, but suffice to say I think Arteta and Edu will need to move quickly and demonstrate how we are looking to step up with the summer additions. And I hope they can get all of this sorted early in the window so we can see what shape we go in to the new season with sooner rather than later. That hasn’t historically been our style though, so I’m not quite holding my breath just yet.

Right, I think I’ll leave it there for today. Have a good one and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.