I don’t know why, but I feel like we have a rough record against them, but when you look at the recent results, that doesn’t appear to be the case. The draw last season is perhaps colouring my memory; a farcical Brighton penalty for a clash of heads that you have never seen since, and probably never will. That was one of the many draws that were the real death-knell in any hope of a title attempt, and with recent draws against Forest, Brentford and Wolves, we have to hope that tomorrow night isn’t more of the same stuff.

But as I mentioned, we actually have an okayish recent record against them. Two seasons back, we beat them 3-0 at the Amex. The season before that, it was the 4-2 on New Year’s Eve. The season before that was a frustrating 0-0 draw, but before that, we scraped a 1-0 win. So in recent times, it hasn’t been too bad there.

This season will be another really tough test, though. They were on a bit of a patchy run, but they’ve readdressed their form with back-to-back wins, and interestingly enough, the one against Forest was delivered with a lot of experienced players on the pitch. They played Milner, Welbeck, Gross and Dunk – all 34+ – and Huerzler did say afterwards that the experience of those players was what got them over the line. So it will be interesting to see what they do tomorrow. Can you send those players out just a few days after playing in this tough game?

I suspect not. Baleba, Minteh, March and Veltman were all rested for that one, which means – I suspect – that it was because they were being prepared for our visit tomorrow. Good players, Minteh in particular, are rapid players, so we will be up against a fresher Brighton side tomorrow.

There will be some similarity in the approach to what we’ve just faced against Chelsea, too. Chelsea is a possession-dominant side that likes to build up play; Brighton is arguably more adept at that, with some of the highest possession stats in the league, passing stats, and ball retention. This has been their DNA for the last few managers they’ve had, so I’m expecting them to be similar in style to that tomorrow, and Arteta hopefully has a plan for it. I’ll do more on Arsenal tomorrow when we know the team news, but I suspect there will be some rotation. Depending on what Arteta gives us as an update, it will be interesting to see who is rotated, because it sounds like there are question marks on Rice, plus I think I read somewhere that Zubi looked like he was limping at the end of the game. Let’s hope that’s just some spurious hearsay.

Brighton as a team doesn’t create tons of chances, sitting firmly mid-table for shots and shots on target, as well as xG. What they do really well – and are the best in the league – is the high press. They have more pressing sequences than any other team in the league, their starting distances for when they press are higher than anyone other than City and us (and we have that because we are a ball-dominant side), so we know what we’re going to get with some of those rotated players coming in tomorrow. What we will have to do is be accurate and quicker with the ball in transition. They played Everton a couple of weeks back and I was reading the match report. It finished 1-1, but Everton apparently had the better of the second half by being direct and moving the ball quickly in transition. You’d hope that Arteta is aware of that and is readying his players for that. Draw Brighton out, don’t make silly mistakes when under pressure, set traps, then go direct when needed.

Easier said than done, I know, but at least we have an idea of how Brighton might play. So hopefully the analysts at Arsenal are all over it.

Defensively, I’ve read some stuff suggesting Brighton has been a little shaky on that, but the numbers give a mixed picture this season. They’re fifth in the league for the most number of tackles made, along with other teams towards the bottom of the league, like the Scum and Wolves. They’re mid-table for interceptions, as well as being second-bottom for ground duels won. I wonder if this paints a picture of a team that can be got at defensively, or are they having to make a lot of last-ditch interventions? I hope so. But we do need to be mindful of those fast breaks – they’re third in the league behind Newcastle and Brentford for those.

So hopefully that paints a bit of a picture for you, based on a little bit of data I was looking at from Opta. We will need to ensure we don’t drop a ‘forced’ error clanger like we’ve been doing in 2026 a couple of times, but we also need to be ready to invite the press, before moving the ball back-to-front pretty rapidly. Then we need to rely on our attackers doing their jobs, which has been a question mark this season. As I said, I’ll do a bit more on Arsenal tomorrow and how I think we should line up, but as a bit of a sneak preview for tomorrow, I am thinking that we will need guys who can get in behind quickly if Brighton plays a high-pressing line. There could be some merit in the likes of Gyokeres and Martinelli – even if they have’t looked great together so far this season.

Catch you all tomorrow to expand on that a little.

MERRY MATCH DAY!

It’s finally upon us. We are finally rid of  international football and tonight we return to action at home to a West Ham side sitting  in 16th in the table and whose form  was a little ropey before they went in to the World Cup break. So in some senses they’ll  be more than delighted that the Premier League finished and they will be looking at this game as an opportunity to get back on track.

It’s a game that couldn’t come at a worse time for me personally though, as I have a bunch of family on my Dad’s side who are all from Stratford and big West Ham fans. My brother is a West Ham fan and so is my nephew and today I head down from Northumberland where we’ve been seeing The Management’s family for Christmas, straight in to the lion’s den of my brothers house as I watch the game with him and my nephew. Could have done without that intensity on a day in which it is supposed to be about families and live, that’s for sure!

What I therefore need, quite desperately, is for Arsenal to do the business comfortably. That’s because if Arsenal win, I won’t be rubbing it in his face. I’ll be happy, pleased we’re back up and running with a win, but both he and I will have spoken before the game about how Arsenal should be favourites so if they win he’ll be saying “well, there you are, I expected that”. But if we don’t show up today, if we let West Ham hit us on the counter and catch us cold after this restart, then he’ll be more than happy to tease and goad me. That’s because West Ham will have been under dogs and he’ll be more chirpy than you could ever believe.

In terms of team news for them, it’s all a little in the air, which must make it difficult for Arteta to try to work out the best approach. They have doubts over Michail Antonio and Gianluca Scamacca, there was also question marks over Cresswell I believe, as well as Zouma  out until later in February. That means it’ll be Dawson and Kehrer in the heart of their defence and that must surely represent an area that Arsenal should look to target.

We will need to be wary though, because even if Scamacca and Antonio aren’t fit, Jarrod Bowen has a couple of goals against us already in recent years and  he’ll probably fancy his chances if he’s playing through the middle. It would, however, represent a very different threat for whoever we have playing centre half. Scamacca is a big target man, Antonio is a strong physical presence, but Jarrod will look to use his pace to get past whoever plays in centre back for us. That’s why I wouldn’t be going near Holding today, instead shifting Ben White to centre back if Saliba isn’t available. I’d then have Tomiyasu playing right back, with Gabriel and Tierney on the left given that Zinchenko hasn’t played in any of the second pre season games so far.

Midfield is a fairly obvious one to pick for us: Partey, Odegaard and Xhaka, then it surely must be Martinelli, Nketiah and Saka.

So, how do we win this game today, then? Well, I think we have to set the tone early because I think West Ham will sit deep and they’ll not look to give too much space. They will want to build up some frustration in the crowd and amongst the Arsenal team by being  difficult to break down and then somebody like Bowen, being flanked by Fornals and Benrahma to try to hit us on the counter with their pace. We need to control ball, but not get suckered in to overly committing and  being done on the counter. The impetus will be on us to attack but that doesn’t mean throw the  kitchen sink from the first minute.

If we do score early, however, the game will open up and play in to our hands I reckon. We’ve made a decent fist of scoring early this season and that’s my hope again, but keeping that back door tight will be useful. I hope I don’t jinx us when I say this, but without Antonio or Scamacca – if both don’t play – West Ham don’t have a lot of height in their attack and so set pieces may not be as much of a problem for us, but being hit on the counter is a very real threat that we need to be aware of.

At the other end Eddie needs to be a nuisance. He  needs to pick up where Gabriel Jesus left off and put pressure on those West Ham defenders and Fabianski. He’s had a few goals over the last couple of years by doing that and if we can successful adopt a high press to force turnovers in the West Ham final third, it could be a way to keep them penned in and win this football match.

We can’t take anything for granted, this will not be an easy game and we don’t know how Arsenal will react having just had a month away from all  playing together, but if we can start this second half of the season as well as we did when we travelled to Palace on match day one, then  it could be the continuation of something special like we have seen this season. The incentive is there to go eight points clear at the top. Will Arsenal take it?

I certainly hope so.

Catch you all tomorrow with a debrief/post-mortem.

Have a great Boxing Day folks.

I hosted a few old school mates for a barbecue. One of them, unfortunately, is a Spurs fan. To try to stoke some kind of banter he showed up yesterday and when I greeted him at the door and asked him how he felt, he said “I’m fine mate, Champions League, what about you?”

My immediate retort was to tell said Spurs fan that I was great, that Arsenal had just smashed the team his side struggled against just a couple of weeks ago. Now, at this point in this little anecdote I should point out that his brother is an Arsenal fan, who I speak to quite regularly. And he’s told me that my Spurs supporting mate has admitted to him that he is worried about what Arsenal are building under Arteta. I reminded him of this and under questioning he admitted it. So whilst he got an initial cheap shot in about the Champions League, I saw that look in his eyes: He knows that this Arsenal team are looking good.

And yesterday certainly showed that.  From the first minute there was an intensity about the way we played. We were a cohesive pressing unit that put Sevilla under pressure from the opening exchanges and the fact we scored so early set the tone for what was to be a very impressive afternoon’s work for those Arsenal players. 

What I liked about the high press was that it was sustained. Sure, you can’t do it for 90 minutes and in the second half we took our foot off the gas a little, but that’s ok, because the damage was done in the first half and it certain was damage that we delivered. Hunting in a cohesive press, Martinelli and Jesus followed up by Odegaard and Saka, felt right. It looked right. We looked hungry. we looked  like a team   with a point to prove. Do you know what it reminded me of? When Liverpool first kicked on under Rodgers and then later under Klopp. One of the features of that Rodgers team with Sterling, Suarez, etc, was that Liverpool came out the blocks quickly, with a high press, to try to blow teams away in the first 30 minutes. They did it a few times to us at Anfield. Well,  yesterday, that was us; we got at Sevilla quickly, we forced them to make errors, we pressured and harangued their keeper Bono in to making a mistake for the third goal, we hassled and we drove right at Sevilla and in return, they folded like a pack of cards.

Yes it was a friendly. Yes it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Yes we will face a tougher opponent away from home in the shape of Crystal Palace this coming Friday. But what you can also say is that yes, we also look like a team that is ready, is more complete, looks able to compete towards the top end of the table this coming season.

I said yesterday that I’d like to see what we do in different set ups and Arteta didn’t really change it much after halftime, but now that I’m looking back on it I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing; we have our set up,  style and approach mapped, this team has won its last two games by an aggregate score of 10-0 (I’m not counting the Brentford one as it was the squad rotation players), we can go in to the new season knowing that we can give a good account of ourselves from the first whistle. Just think about how different that was this time last year. For the first three games last year we were a shambles, it cost us a potential nine points, we were all over the shop. But this year we have the first team ready to go and my hope is that this absolute drubbing will also give those Arsenal players a massive confidence boost as the season kicks off.

I cannot tell you just how excited I am at what this team can achieve right now. Words can’t explain it. Of course that could all blow up in our faces if we get the same shellacking that we got at Selhurst Park this season. That could of course happen and the pitchforks from the media will of course come out because that’s what they like to do with The Arsenal; but it doesn’t feel right now as though this team isn’t prepared. It feels like we are ready.

Let’s also not forget that we’re carrying injuries and absentees. Yesterday’s match day squad had no Tierney, Tomiyasu or Smith Rowe. These are all players with whom we’ll be expecting to make a big contribution this season. But Arteta has found an XI right now that even with those players returning, you shouldn’t be changing the side. Saliba was imperious and looks like a mountain in defence. Ben White was getting forward and doing a very similar role to that which Tomiyasu players. Martinelli was energy, passion, drive and a complete handful for Jesus Navas all afternoon. Then on the left you had Zinchenko tucking in field at times and popping balls around. Saka and Odegaard were they brilliant selves and had massive parts to play in the goals and, wouldn’t you just know it,  but our new centre forward signing bagged a hat trick and looked every bit the mega upgrade we have been crying out for this summer. 

What’s  not to like about this Arsenal team right now? We looked balanced all over the pitch and that is fantastic to see. Arteta himself would point out that we’ve won nothing yet, but the signs are very promising indeed.

Catch you wonderful humans tomorrow.

As fans we haven’t seen us hit the back of the net in the Premier League – penalty aside – since 4th October. That is nearly two months!! And it’s been bloody depressing to watch and today we’re coming up against a good Wolves side with whom we haven’t beaten at home since they returned to the league.

This feels like a very stern test indeed and my gut tells me that it is going to make for a frustrating watch tonight. Wolves changed their system to a back four against Southampton last week but I think Nuno will go back to a back three, look to us to press and then hit us on the counter. He has the players to do it too. Traore is rapid and strong and as long as we can keep him quiet then we might have a chance of picking up all three points, but in Podence on the other side of the attacking trio – assuming Nuno does go back to a back three – they also have a tricky player with a bit of pace who likes to dribble. So when the ball yurns over we will need to ensure they don’t have too much green grass to run in to.

Which is why I’m a little bit nervous today, because I do feel like in order to break down this tough Wolves defence – similar in strength to our own – we are going to need to put them under more pressure higher up the pitch. Wolves haven’t scored many goals this season but their defence is as strong as ours has been and so I don’t know that they will look to press us high so we draw them out and hit them on the counter. If I’m right, it means that we need to be the ones to press Wolves higher up the pitch to beat them by turning over the ball in their half to retain pressure on them, like Leicester did a few weeks ago. That means our fullbacks/wing backs need to press high on their wing backs and our attack and midfield need to press high from the front. If we can force Wolves back to their own box it will ensure we keep the pressure on them and hopefully we can crack the tough nut that they are.

I was also looking at the other games they have lost this season and they’ve been defeated at home to Man City under a similar approach, as well as away to West Ham, in which the Hammers has 36% possession, which suggests to me they sat back, let Wolves have the ball and ensured their shape would remain until they were ready to hit Wolves on the counter. I just don’t see us giving Wolves that much ball though and I think we’ll look to stamp our authority on the game. That means we might be vulnerable on the counter and that’s why I would play players who can handle those individual one-on-one duels. The problem with the Villa game was that I think Arteta didn’t play the situation, he played the players who had performed for him the previous week. That didn’t work and Aston Villa gave us a bit of a pasting. I think today calls for Arteta to look at which players could do the most damage for Wolves, or protect us against that counter, which is why I’d go with Leno in goal, Bellerin at right back, Tierney at left back, but then I wonder if he’ll mirror Wolves’ back three by giving us a back three too. If he doesn’t then I think we’ll have to pick Gabriel and probably Luiz rather than Holding. I know I have been critical of Holding this season, but he has been good, although this game feels like one that isn’t quite right for him. He’s a guy who thrives when there isn’t a requirement to press higher; he is better as a penalty box defender heading and clearing balls away. If he’s in a foot race he will lose, which is why I’d go with Luiz or Mustafi ahead of Holding. 

If Arteta goes with a three or a four I think that should be his defensive selection, but if it is a four then I’m hoping we’ll see Saka left and Auba up top. There isn’t really anybody in form to play the number 10 and Pepe’s suspension probably means Willian continues to stink out the right hand side, with Xhaka and Ceballos in the midfield. But if he goes with a back three then I think it might be Tierney in at left centre back, Saka as a wing back, then Aubameyang on the left, Lacazette through the middle and Willian wide right. Whatever combination it is, without Partey or Pepe it doesn’t feel like there’s too much excitement in the team. Arteta can lean on Elneny and maybe the Egyptian will come in to midfield, but all that will do is provide somebody to cover space. It doesn’t give us that creative spark that we so desperately need.

And we do need something to go our way tonight. We need some kind of situation, incident, mistake, etc, to fall to us for us to get out of the current lack of chance creation funk. It is Arteta’s first period in which he’s faced a very proper test and so far we haven’t exactly passed with flying colours. But I still have hope and faith that he will get us out of it and I hope that starts this evening with a victory against Wolves.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I’m fine, thanks for asking, although I did stay up too late watching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly last night and my body clock is such that it doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, I’m always up around 7am.

That’s not a problem, although my mind always does feel a little fuzzy so apologies if my incoherent babble is a little more…well…incoherent than usual.

I’m certainly not up for the tickets on sale at 9am for the game at home to Rapid Vienna. I’d love to be there, but my patience levels just don’t afford me the ability to sit watching the slow loading bar of death on the Arsenal ticketing site for hours, so I’ll leave it until the ballot and hope that I get in there for one of the other games.

The good news though is that at least we’ve got some words from Arteta to over-analyse this morning, as he has been interviewed by the official site and in it he speaks about how we will approach the game. Wolves have been back in the Premier League for two seasons already and on both occasions have been really impressive and picked up draws against us, so we know how hard it will be to get the three points on Sunday night, as does Arteta. Apparently they’ve done the ol’ switcharoo on formations last weekend, which means we could face a couple of scenarios against them, but Arteta has said they are preparing for both eventualities.

I have to say I am starting to wonder where the balance is between spending all of your time looking at an opponent and just doing it your own way. I don’t think either extremes work and I think where Arteta is currently searching is for a solution that is a blend. We don’t want to have a manager and a team so worried about the opposition that they don’t impose their own approach to a game; we got that under Emery and it went south very quickly in that second game. Equally though, we don’t want the “doesn’t matter who we’re playing, we play this way until the end and never look at what they might do” ways of Arsene Wenger. By the end of his rein at the club that model was outdated and we just came a-cropper to teams with managers that were smarter and knew how to play on our weaknesses.

That’s the approach we need to find. Forget about nullifying the opposition, look at where they are weakest, then look to try to exploit it. I’ve watched a couple of videos on them where some of their fans do a tactical analysis and they joke about Nuno’s team not really turning up for the first 45 minutes of games. Heh, that sounds familiar, but it does emphasize how we need to be better at taking our chances and doing it quicker. If a symptom of the Wolves side is that they take a while to get into their stride, it is incumbent on those Arsenal players to get the ball in the final third and make decent movement to find space early on.

One of the problems they have had is when pressed high, which Leicester did with them, which meant that they were under pressure from their back three to make mistakes and the high wing backs effectively man marking their opposites, ensured Wolves couldn’t get out of their half. So whilst we like to draw teams out and then try to break their press, I wonder how Arteta might try to adopt the high press approach if we do get a compact Wolves team?

Individual battles might be key too. Apparently Conor Coady in the middle of their defence is the main man with ball movement from back and so whoever plays in that central striking role, if he can close down and put the Wolves defender under pressure by closing space early, it could result in more turnovers and allow us to dominate.

These are the kind of considerations I hope that Arteta is thinking of right now. There is the personnel question he needs to think of too though, with a lot perhaps being dictated on which players are available and which are not as a result of injury or COVID protocols. Hopefully we’ll get some form of an update today and my hope is that it is a positive one. We know we don’t have Pepe but it will be good to see Saka back having had a week off since the Leeds game. Likewise I am hoping for Partey to return but on Wednesday whilst the official site was clear that Saka would be back for the Wolves game, they didn’t admit the same for Partey.

I think Elneny and Kolasinac will also remain side-lined as they complete their isolation, as the Egyptian and Bosnian FA’s confirmed the positive tests on 18th November. Two weeks from then is the 2nd December so that would rule them out this weekend, meaning we have to hope that we don’t have any knocks from Xhaka or Ceballos from Thursday. Both looked ok though so hopefully Arteta has some choice.

I hope we also get more news that is positive because I was also looking at what Nuno Espirito Santo was saying about us and I didn’t realise our flight back from Norway was cancelled on Thursday, which meant we travelled back yesterday instead. I don’t think it will make too much difference in terms of fatigue and tiredness, but right now it feels like any small thing against us could turn out to be a bigger thing.

Anyway, that’s enough for one day. I’m off for a bit of brekkie and to feed the cat.

Laters people.

Of course those of you lucky devils who happen to live outside of the UK know this feeling all the time, but for me and those of us based in the UK it’s a new experience and one I’m kind of looking forward to. Of course this could all change very rapidly if we get another insipid performance from Arsenal like we’ve seen so many times this season.

What isn’t in Mikel Arteta’s favour is that we seem to be the only club cursed with a glut of absentees already. Torreira is three weeks away, Chamber sis out, Sokratis is a couple weeks, as is Soares and with Luiz suspended, Rob Holding might be called on despite being a fair old way down the pecking order. It all feels a bit of a mess at the back and that pretty much sums Arsenal up defensively over the last few years.

I also wonder just how able Bellerin and Tierney are to play today, given that both played on Wednesday and both played the whole game. They were both returnees from injuries and whilst everyone is starting off at the same fitness levels, Arteta has a serious decision to make over whether both should start today. Personally I’d be wary and so I’m wondering if we see Kolasinac at left back today, with the right side maybe even being taken up by Maitland-Niles. After all, Arteta has been positive about him over the last 24 hours and so I wonder if he’s built him up a little so he can include him from the start today. We shall see.

The midfield also worries me too. No Xhaka through injury, Guendouzi is all over the place and Willock was anonymous on Wednesday night. Ceballos is a bit of a loose cannon and has hardly hit the heights we have been expecting and with him potentially out of the door if no new contract extension has been put on the table until the end of the season, it remains to be seen whether it is even worth including him if he’s got one eye on a return to Spain.

I think he’ll play today though, simply because of the paucity of options for the manager. He’s a more creative outlet and I think better to show for the ball than Guendouzi and so I’d be surprised if Ceballos isn’t in from the start. What it does serve to highlight is just how much surgery this team is going to need when this joke of a restart is over and done with. Arteta knows that and has even said it over the last couple of days, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to get the funds he wants, and he probably knows that too.

But that’s worries for another day. I wonder if Mesut will return? There are rumours of it that i’ve seen today and it wouldn’t surprise me to at least see him in the 20 man squad. This is the type of game where his ability could be useful, but we’ve seen that in only rare glimpses for the last 18 months; I can only hope that today we might get that glimpse at some stage – even if only from the bench.

Then we have questions over the front line. I’d certainly be hoping to see Pepe today and perhaps even Martinelli might be a good shout. He has made an impact almost every time he’s played and right now we need impact players like the Brazilian. I’d still be tempted at him wide left, Pepe right, with Auba through the centre, but I think Lacazette gets the nod today and I therefore think it’ll be Auba wide left. It’s not the right play from my perspective, but we just have to accept that Arteta seems really reluctant to use him through the middle for some reason.

Brighton already have a win against us at The Emirates and yesterday I looked at the head-to-head to see that since they’ve returned to the Premier League we haven’t actually beaten them yet! We’ve had two defeats – away last season and at home this, as well as two draws – away and home too. That’s mad because every time I’ve watched them I think i’ve tweeted that they haven’t exactly been sparkling. But they seem to have the indian sign over us since returning to the Premier League so my hope is that today we can quash that.

The lack of fans in the ground should hopefully play a part in that. There will be no fervent atmosphere to impact the players, or the referee, although given that we’ve already seen Antony Taylor screw us over a couple of times on Wednesday (Garcia’s foul on Nketiah might have been a red in my opinion, but didn’t even get a foul, as well as that nasty challenge from Sterling which could have done damage to Mustafi), I’m not holding out much hope from Martin Atkinson today. I’m fully expecting more sh*ite decisions like the one not to award a goal for Sokratis against Palace that would have secured us three points at the Emirates.

But if we’re relying on refereeing decisions then it means the game is close and I would really love to see a game which isn’t close today. I’d love us to stamp our authority on a game for a change. Brighton will try to replicate their form from the Emirates, but they aren’t a high-scoring team. Don’t let’s think for a second that our car crash of a defence won’t give them opportunities though. Potter likes Brighton to be more of a pressing side and that’s what I think we’ll see from them today. They’ll try to force the errors from our back line but if we can break their press, we might find there is space and grass to run in to. That’s where picking the right pass – like when Auba is making those runs, will be important if we’re going to win.

I’m hopeful for a win today but as always with this season’s Arsenal, I’m certainly not expectant. Whatever happens it’ll be tight, because we’re just not good enough to put teams like this to the sword, but I can live in hope.

Let’s see what happens come 5pm.

Laters.

Today should be a day that this Arsenal team lay down a marker, but I am not expecting that to be honest. The positivity of the summer has all but evaporated and right now, I think most of us just want a win, because anything less is simply unacceptable. Defeat today should result in a press release by the time the clock strikes 12. This is a Southampton team who apparently, according to a Saints fan we had on the GunnersTown show on Monday night, have stopped the intensive pressing that Hassenhuttl instigated when he arrived. They’ve lost the intensity and have suffered a dreadful run of form. They haven’t won a Premier League game since 14th September against Sheffield United, but even that was with a Sheffield United team down to 10 men.

We talk about our players and their confidence at rock bottom levels, but Southampton players are also in the same doldrums, so for me this needs to be a game in which Arsenal not only take three points, but at least try to get back to winning ways with a convincing performance. And as I said yesterday, Emery admitted as such in his press conference. He admitted that this is a game in which the supporters need to feel like we can have a bit more love for the team because, lets be honest, most of us have been finding watching Arsenal a bit of a chore and quite frankly boring.

This is Arsenal though, and nobody does “give the opposition hope” more than we do, so I’m not expecting us to keep a clean sheet and at some stage in the game I’m expecting a low-on-foncidence Southampton side to probably play better than us. The pressure is certainly off them I suspect and Hassenhuttl will no doubt play on that with his team today. He’s already said that the early goal and building a defensive foundation on it is where he’d like to go, so I suspect we’ll see a Southampton team trying to take it to us quickly, take advantage of our terrible back line, then defend for their lives. Which is why I am hoping we see an Arsenal team with lock pickers like Mesut Ozil in it. This is the type of game that he should thrive on. Intricate, tight spaces, drifting across the pitch, finding those pockets with which to thread in our razor sharp forwards in Lacazette and Aubameyang, both of whom should play today.

And I hope we see Pepe too. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a front four with those guys in, then Torreira behind them, with one of Guendouzi or a returning Xhaka in it? Those are our best players and playing them on the pitch all at the same time feels like something anybody with half a brain would do. Whether Emery does the today we just can’t be sure. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if ‘Mr Protagonists’ plays three at the back with wing backs of Tierney and Bellerin. I hope not though. I want to see us front load this Arsenal team and try to do as much damage to Southampton in their defensive third as possible. We want to see plenty of movement, pulling Saints apart with it, creating gaps for plays to find pockets for us to score.

That’s what I want to see. But I’m not expecting it. I’m expecting a difficult watch this afternoon. I’m expecting the players to play the easy ball rather than the one with high risk. I’m expecting to see sloppy defending by Arsenal at some stage and i’m not expecting to see a specific pattern or build up of style. But I am hoping for a win. Any win will do. There are those that will probably think that a win gives Emery more time in the hot seat. But today isn’t about Unai Emery and whether he has a job at Christmas, it’s about The Arsenal, which should always be the focus. Sure, a defeat or draw should lead to those discussions post game, but until that has been confirmed we have to just invest all of our hope that Arsenal will get three points that we are utterly desperate for. We need it.

Injury-wise we look like we might be without Saka, Kolasinac, Ceballos and Holding, but my hope is that none of those players would have been selected for the first XI anyway because if we play the line up I think is our best right now, it probably doesn’t include any of those players, with maybe Holding as one you could argue. I’d personally go Leno, Bellerin, Chambers, Luiz, Tierney, Torreira, Xhaka, Pepe, Ozil, Auba, Laca and see what those guys can deliver.

As for Southampton, it looks like they chop and change their formation as much as we do, because in the last three matches Hassenhuttl looks like he’s tried 3-4-3, 4-4-2 and 5-3-2, so I’m not sure how he’ll set up today. If I was to guess I’d say he’d be opting for three at the back with wing backs, particularly as Bertrand is back from suspension, so that would mean he can try to exploit space out wide when we push our full backs forward. Redmond and Ings both have pace and both will most likely play up top and if they are running in behind Luiz and Sokratis – who I’m expecting Emery to pick – then we need to make sure we’re cutting off that early ball from deep, or at least not allowing those wing backs to get into space beyond Bellerin and Tierney. If we can starve that by winning the ball back higher up the pitch, I think we win this game, but we haven’t been pressing as high and winning the ball back as much as any of us would like, so I hope that’s one of the key things Emery has been talking to his team about during the international break.

I haven’t in all my life gone into home games with as little expectation as I have this season, but the hope never leaves me, so come 3pm that’s what I’ll have for a win today.

Up the Arsenal.

Am I nervous? Of course I’m nervous! We have a team that is trying to play out from the back, a defence which is shaky and even against Burnley conceded a slightly sloppy goal and in Liverpool’s front three we will find out today just how much impact somebody like David Luiz will have on the team. Mane, Firmino and Salah will all start, they will look to exploit space out wide and hit us hard with their pace. Firmino will drop deep to receive the ball and will float around looking for it but my worry is Liverpool’s quick transition from back to front.

We all know that Liverpool’s midfield isn’t the best and so they try to get through it as quickly as possible when they have the ball. So for them they will be looking at instances where they can isolate our fullbacks and run in behind us.

They are a better team than us. We know this. If they have a good day we are probably getting beat away from home and when you then start to look at our woeful away record in the top six (over five and a half years at least since we’ve even won a game) then it doesn’t particularly look good for us.

But we are a different side to last season and the acquisitions we’ve made, as well as a couple of the younger players we have stepping up, means that at least I – and we – can have hope that we might be able to give Liverpool a bit more of a contest this evening. The reason I say this is because we look like a more athletic team than in previous seasons and with rapid players in attack we can make Liverpool think twice.

It’s why I am hoping for Nicolas Pepe ton start today. I have a feeling he might after Emery admitted that he’s ready to get more than 45 minutes in his press conference on Thursday. Ands if he does then I’m hoping to see Aubamyeang, Lacazette and Pepe as a trio up top. Does that seem a little gung ho? Perhaps. But as we have seen from a few of Liverpool’s games these season (and we have a bigger sample size because of the Community Shield and Super Cup) Liverpool play with a higher line and have continued to push their fullbacks on to attack. Don’t get me wrong, we will face some severe pressure, but let me put a scenario to you: A turnover in Arsenal’s defensive third. Arsenal gain possession and Look to quickly transition from back to front by moving the ball quickly to Ceballos, who can wriggle some space and then look ahead of him. Ahead of him he has Pepe, Auba and Laca who are all moving in different diagonals/channels ahead. Van Dijk is a fantastic player, but he can’t clone himself in to three and if that instance happen and we find ourselves beyond Liverpool’s lines as they are running towards goal, then we will get chances.

It’s why I hope Pepe starts today. If he is physically fit then he is a threat and he showed some real sparkle last weekend against Burnley. I know Burnley and Liverpool are poles apart in style and damage they can do, but last season we got smashed with a pragmatic and defensive formation, so why not ask Liverpool some questions today by being bold in our own formation?

I really hope Emery does. I hope he goes with Leno, Maitland-Niles, Sokratis, Luiz, Monreal, a midfield trio of Torreira, Willock and Ceballos, with the three forwards up top. Let’s have Torreira providing ground and cover across the pitch in front of the back four. Let’s have Ceballos picking up pockets of space to be able to get beyond the Liverpool high press, let’s have Willock show us the athleticism we’ve seen at the start of this season and let’s ask Liverpool some questions rather than be shrinking violets worrying about keeping the score down. We’ve tried that,. it’s seen us get spanked and concede 12 goals in our last three matches.

That’s a terrible goal concession; it’s what you expect from a team in the bottom half of the table, not a side with Champions League aspirations and especially not with a collective of players who have the ability that some of these Arsenal players have. Is it a psychological issue that these players have? Maybe. Maybe that’s why we go away and invariably lose or at best draw. But we have to change that. We have to start being taken seriously by the other big teams in the division, when on their own turf.

Be bold Unai. Be bold and be a ‘protagonist’. We will need to show that today.

Catch you all tomorrow.

This is about on cue I’d imagine. It’s 21st August and the European transfer deadline day is – broadly speaking as they are slightly different in some countries – about a week away from closing. That is about the time that noises start to be made and with English clubs no longer able to replace players, the only ones the European clubs will be able to pick up are the chaos who are ‘surplus to requirements’, as Championship Manager used to say.

So the tentative talks need to be in place, contact between agents needs to start and phones need to start buzzing, which I’d expect to start happening over the next week. It’s a good move for him as it will give him the chance to reignite his career and for Arsenal a loan will probably do because of the opportunity to get a bit of cash knocked off the wage bill.

I think if any deals get done it will be this one and despite to murmurings of Özil off to DC United, I’d be surprised if anything came to fruition. His wages are, and will continue to be, an issue for so many clubs and personally I’d rather have him at Arsenal than have us pay half (or more than half) of his wages and have him playing for someone else.

I still believe Özil has a big role to play at the club and whilst some people have seen Ceballos’ performance at the weekend as the potential end to Özil – because the Spaniard can play at ten – I wonder if we’ll see him drop deeper into an eight rather than a ten as the season progresses. That would potentially free up space in front and that’s why I believe Özil can still be valuable.

I also think that having watched the game live in the flesh on Saturday, Özil has an opportunity in this Arsenal team, because what I saw was a Burnley team who pressed high from the front to force pressure on us. But in defence they knew the pace of our forwards would expose them if they pushed their defence too high to cover the middle of the park. So when Ceballos started as a ten he found himself in so much room that he ended up in acres of space to pick the ball up, turn, then run at the defence.

Imagine Özil with that same amount of space. And in someone like Luiz we have the kind of defender who can just clip the ball accurately over a high press. Which is why Ceballos was able to find room.

Don’t get me wrong, it won’t happen every week and there will be teams that are better set up to deal with it, or teams that don’t press us high and remain compact in defence and midfield. In that scenario perhaps there’s an argument for playing a different way. But what I saw on Saturday gave me hope that our system of play will allow us to have players like Özil and Ceballos play together and also exploit space. You can say a lot of things about Mesut Özil but what you can’t disagree with is his ability to drift in to space and when he’s given that he can find room to manoeuvre teams about and find our attacking players in effective positions.

Call me an optimist, but I still think there’s a life for Özil at Arsenal, or at least I hope there is.

The other news bubbling along is ahead of the trip to Anfield and in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang we have a striker bang in form. He was lethal in pre season, has already scored in both games so far this season and in an interview with Canal+ in which he’s said we’ll be ready for Liverpool on Saturday. I hope so. And I hope he is. If our attack is on form then they will get us goals, which means we just need to make sure we minimise the brain farts at the back, which I’m not sure how we do that right now. Can we win the midfield battle perhaps? Liverpool’s midfield looks ok, but it’s their impressive defence and clinical attack that does the business for them, rather than that midfield. If we have players like Ceballos who can create space and be able to feed our attacking options, you never know, so as each day gets closer and I see articles like that from Auba I get a little bit more hopeful.

They say that’s what kills ya and, as a football fan, I can’t agree more!

And with that I’m offski for the day. Be good people!

It seems crazy that I’m even talking about it against a team we smashed home and away last year, who have only just started their season, who’s side collectively cost less than one year of Özil or Mkhitaryan’s salary right now and who celebrated the victory against us by going to a McDonald’s after the game.

But we are indeed here, one down and not a few goals to the good and sure to rotate, but instead having to field our best possible side ahead of a Europa League second round.

What we could all do with tonight is an Arsenal team that shows that last Thursday was just the mother of all banana skins and having fallen foul we just need to watch our step and skip around said banana skin tonight. So what I’m hoping from this Arsenal team is a dominant and attacking display that throws caution to the wind and doesn’t see us ply the kind of suffocatingly dull football that we’ve seen in away games this season.

To their credit the team has always been much, much, better in home games and so to quote a Wengerism I hope there is a little release of that old ‘handbrake’ come 5.55pm this afternoon (UEFA can ‘do one’ with that time too. Disgraceful).

BATE – as Koscielny said when sat next to a unai yesterday – will have a game plan to sit deep and frustrate and that’s what I think we’ll see from the start. Which means we need as many creative players on the pitch as possible. Personally I’d have Aubameyang, Ramsey, Mkhitaryan and Özil all from the start. If Ramsey isn’t quite 100% then get Iwobi in but his poor form should dictate a place on the sidelines.

I suspect Iwobi will start though because Emery loves him.

Behind that four it would have to be Xhaka and Torreira for me. Guendouzi has been good this season and of late but Xhaka has a better passing range and Torreira can mop up better than the Frenchman if any moves break down from our attacks.

Behind that if we’re playing those players it is a back four and although Monreal is a better left back defensively than Kolasinac, we shouldn’t have to do much defending tonight so I’d be playing the big Bosnian for his forward running and overlap. And on the other side I’d stick with Maitland-Niles. Again there are question marks over his defensive discipline but he has recovery pace that can get him out of jail and tonight he should be spending more time in the final third.

Then in the heart of the defence you can take your pick but the best two defenders at the club are Sokratis and Koscielny and that should mean those two start with Cech sitting in goal behind him.

And I really hope he has so little to do that he could almost literally sit down in goal.

The emphasis tonight has to be on us unlocking BATE and to me that means we need to score early to suck any life out of them. Get two within the first 30minutes and the game changes completely because they have to come out at us eventually which leaves us able to hit them on the counter. But we have to start fast and quick and the team need to be on it from the first few minutes.

A team playing a deep defensive line and trying to remain compact in their shape means that you need clever operators when we have the ball and 11 players in front of you, but it also means movement in between the lines and that is where Kolasinac, Ramsey, Auba, all need to be able to deliver for us. I’d probably also put Maitland-Niles in that list too. Look to make the runs, look to get in behind so that it disrupts the set up of BATE, then create movement in the box to find space in tight places.

This would be the type of game that would have been good for Lacazette too as he operates well with little space in the box, but his frustration has cost his team a valuable offensive outlet and we therefor need to do the business tonight to make sure he can be used in the next round if we progress.

The players who will ‘find’ players are Özil, Xhaka, Torreira or Guendouzi to a lesser extent if he plays, but they need to have movement to be able to find those runners so it is imperative that the team are mobile this evening.

What we don’t need is a lackadaisical first half in which the intensity is not there and the players aren’t fighting to win the ball back higher up the pitch. BATE are not a technically brilliant side and so if you put them under pressure when they have the ball in their half then I think we can force them to make mistakes.

Let’s hope that happens because I really don’t want to be talking about our exit tomorrow and if I am, then we have to ask some massive questions about whether Emery is the right man, because there’s no way a team like ours should go out over two legs to a side like BATE.

Come on Arsenal. Show us that in this competition you mean business.

Tonight will be fascinating I think. It’ll be intriguing because it’s the last game before we play City next weekend and I reckon we’ll pretty much see Emery’s hand shown with his selection for the first game. He’d be mad not to. It’s his last chance so mass substitutions are just going to mean that certain players don’t get the 90 minutes that their body needs for that final bit of conditioning ahead of the kick off.

So I’m really up for this game this evening.

It’s also going to be good to see Lichtsteiner and Torreira in the side and see how they perform. The latter has a lot of expectations on his head but he’s just joined a new club, in an unfamiliar country, so I think we should all be tempering our excitement. But if he snaps in to one or two tackles then he’ll instantly be a hero to a few fans watching so I suspect we might see him get a bit stuck in today.

What I also want to see more of is a higher press. I haven’t seen it as much as I wanted to against Chelski and it was that lot from West London who pushed up higher on the pitch during the game, so I hope that we get a better intention from Arsenal as to what the press is from them.

We spoke a little bit about it on the show last night – LoveSport every Wednesday from 7pm until 8.30pm if you ever fancy tuning in – and one of the things we picked up on was that perhaps Emery is still taking a while to adapt the players to his philosophy. If you think about it Chelski change their coach every couple of seasons, so the players are more used to adapting styles, where as the Arsenal players will have been at the club for years with the same man in charge. It means it might take a while to change approach.

We don’t have all season though so I just hope I see a slightly different Arsenal to the one that started a little sluggishly against Chelski.

As for Lazio, well, I know nothing about them and quite frankly couldn’t care about how they play because this is ultimately a friendly and what we’re all looking at is signs that we can actually do something special this season.

Away from the actual game itself we had the classic Arsenal situation of another injury to curtail our start to the season. Poor old Sead Kolasinac. It was confirmed yesterday that he’ll be out for eight to 10 weeks and at a time when he was looking like Emery might give him the chance to display Monreal, we find ourselves a man light in defence, which will mean Nacho starts the season.

You have to feel sorry for the big Bosnian, but we have a good left back who was probably going to start anyway, plus the fact that Maitland-Niles got minutes in that position last season at least means we have cover. It’s a real shame but as usual this sort of sh*t always happens to us so what else should we expect.

Ramsey is also out but that sounds like a short term thing. Cross everything he signs a new deal and then is fit for next weekend.

And finally, to Alex Iwobi, who signed a new deal yesterday. This one certainly came as a surprise to me but perhaps it shouldn’t. Emery has clearly had words with certain players and given them very real assurances about their future at the club. Maitland-Niles is apparently a favourite of his, Chambers signed a new deal a few weeks back, now ‘Wobes’ and you have to assume that the manager has plans to give him plenty of game time.

The question is whether or not we’re going to see a guy whose finishing is woeful and who drives himself down blind alleys every five minutes on the pitch.

Iwobi stagnated last season and was certainly a frustrating player for us all to watch. He’s getting to an age where you can’t really call it ‘raw’ any more and the cynic in me wonders if he’s been given this deal to maintain some sort of market value for next summer if he doesn’t hit it off. That would certainly make sense to me.

So it’s really just up to him – as well as the likes of Hector Bellerin – that last season was just the funk of a dying empire that stunted their development. This season they have no such excuse and so let’s just wish them well and hope we see the best of them in the months and years to come.

And with that, dear friends, I take my leave. Laters.

The summer has been kind to us so far. We’ve done business early, the players have had plenty of time to digest and understand how Emery wants his team to set up, plus we’ve got just the one contract saga to worry about this summer. But unlike other summers when big players are on the verge of sticking or twisting, this doesn’t feel nearly as traumatic.

Perhaps it’s because we’ve all become a little more wiser to the fact that ‘these things happen’ or perhaps it’s because Ramsey spends a fair bit of time on the treatment table each season, plus the fact he’s a player who polarises opinions, but it feels like this is an issue that won’t completely derail us like some of the others did.

So where are we at? What have we learned from the friendlies that we’ve seen so far?

Well, from my perspective I haven’t seen as much of the high press as I thought I would, although I’m not angry or frustrated by that. The players have had a footballing culture defined by one man for their entire footballing careers up until this point and so completely changing that in a few weeks was always going to be an impossible task.

It feels like the start of the season will therefore very much be a slow transition from the old to the new and in that sense I think it’s fair to suggest that trepidation about the beginning of the season most certainly remains. It does for me anyway.

You only have to look at the way our back line gives away big chances to see that teams are going to get in behind us this season. With a defence that isn’t the most rapid in the world and a manager who wants to pull his back four further up the pitch, it’s going to be a nerve-wracking start to the season against the Champions I reckon. City have bags of pace and although we don’t know who will play in a week’s time, we know that Pep has enough in his whole squad to do us serious damage, so my hope is that between now and the start of the season Unai is working on a way to ensure we aren’t caught time and time again with players running in behind.

We’ve also learned that we have a lot of promise in our midfield, but by golly, don’t we all hope that Rambo, Xhaka and Torreira are all fit come the first game of the season. We’ve all been pleased with Guendouzi and Smith-Rowe has added to the promise already shown by Nelson and Maitland-Niles, but that experience sitting in front of the back four is invaluable and my hope is that we get to see Torreira and Xhaka as a base for the Lazio game.

I have a feeling that might work. Xhaka isn’t mobile, but has vision, where as Torreira looks like a terrier and that is good. Having somebody covering ground where Xhaka can’t will only provide more comfort for us in the stands I reckon.

So with that in mind, what sort of team would I pick, for that first game against City? I normally save that for the day of the game but I’m excited enough to have a stab now and I guess this is more of a ‘who do I think will play the most?’ Question rather than isolating it to the City team alone.

I think Arsenal’s best team right now is Cech in sticks, Bellerin, Sokratis, Mustafi and Monreal. I have a suspicion that Mavropanos might get closer and certainly if he’s got more recovery pace then that’s what I’d be looking at, but Mustafi gets the nod based on continuity, rather than him being a natural choice. Monreal is Mr consistent and whilst we’re all hoping Kolasinac steps it up this season and wrestled control from the Spaniard – given the respective age profiles of the players – right now you can’t look beyond Nacho.

In midfield I’d like to see the trio of Xhaka, Ramsey and Torreira. I think that offers energy, movement, goal threat and defensive cover in a more even balance. Of course what that means is that one of the front four miss out.

Which is where it gets tough.

It’s tough because I rate all of the players and I don’t know why, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Mkhitaryan will not get as much game time. If you’re talking about players more naturally suited to two wide positions either side of a main striker then you’d say Özil and Mkhi either side of Aubameyang. But I think Emery is going to push Auba out wide left, Laca through the middle and Özil on the right.

Of course I’ve given these players those positions, but if I was the manager I’d be telling those three to act as a rotating unit. If Laca drifts wide, Auba should go centre forward, then if Özil is in the middle, the two strikers should split and create a bit more width. Or you could even have two up top and Özil in the 10.

What I’m trying to say here is the key for Arsenal to be successful this season is, for me, about fluidity of roles going forward. I love movement and I love it when players are clever enough to drag defenders around to create space for others. That’s what I’m dying to see more than anything else about Arsenal this season. I hope we get it.

And if we do I think we’ll score goals. Lots of goals. By the bucketload. So it then becomes about making sure the defence is as least rickety as it can possibly manage.

The Premier League is now within touching distance. And I can’t wait.

Much like Aaron Ramsey should be embracing a new deal. He was interviewed yesterday and unsurprisingly he was non-committal about his future, giving the usual non-confrontational “my agent and the club are talking” nonsense.

Of course this is all just part of the game and we know that, but I just hope that Arsenal aren’t playing the game the same way we’ve played it in the past. If Ramsey and his ‘team’ are trying to leave it until the last minute to see if the club will give him more cash then there needs to be a stop point at which both decide that there should be a parting. I don’t know about you but quite frankly, I’m done with ‘sagas’ and I don’t care how good a player is, if he doesn’t commit by a specific point in time then we should offload him.

So to me that means a decision one way or the other should be made soon. The season starts in just over two weeks time and thankfully the transfer window closes by then too. That means that if he doesn’t sign up within the next week – in my opinion – then the moves need to be made to sell on. Ideally that would be abroad but the worst case scenario would be to a Premier League team with the intention of a massive premium.

Of course the problem Arsenal have is that there isn’t any real noises that I’ve seen around him. There aren’t clubs hovering to pounce like there were with Alexis, van Persie, etc. So Arsenal would have to drum up the interest by touting Ramsey to the rest of the world and to do that they’re going to need a bit more time.

I haven’t even talked about finding some kind of replacement.

So that’s why I’m hoping that Arsenal are saying to Ramsey that he’s got until the middle of next week and then moves will be made to offer him out if he doesn’t want to sign a new deal. Make a final offer, stick by that final offer, get a resolution, or get him gone. As a fanbase we’re all pretty fed up of having to do this every season and so some decisiveness from the club would probably be met with warm applause from most of the people I speak to.

But before all of that unfolds we’ve got the small matter of another game against Atletico Madrid in Singapore and this feels like the first proper indication of what ‘Emery’s Arsenal’ will look like.

I’ve gotta tell ya; I’m excited. Way excited. Excited at the prospect of a team pressing high and trying to force the opposition in to errors. Trying to catch teams cold. I love a high press and have always hated seeing teams do it against us. I remember seeing Barcelona come to our gaff a few times and hitting us with a high press that was really quite scary to be on the receiving end of. So to have a Manager – sorry, ‘Head Coach’ – who has that as his modus operandi in his previous team’s makes me positively salivate at the prospect.

Quite how we’ll line up will be interesting too. I’d love to see Laca, Auba, Özil and Mkhi in a line up together, but I doubt that will happen when the real stuff starts. So for me it’ll be interesting to see which partnerships can be forged in games like today’s and Saturday’s.

I’m also interested to see what the set up is defensively, because as we talked about on last night’s LoveSport Arsenal Fans Show, it looks like he may be favouring Chambers and Sokratis. That for me is fascinating given that everyone thought Chambers might be out of the door to Fulham this summer. Yet it appears Emery has come in and decided that he has a very big role to play at the club. But we also have Mavropanos, Holding, as well as the question marks over Mustafi and whether he’ll be moved on.

It’s all up in the air and the unknown feels so exciting. Let’s just hope that whatever the result today we can see an Arsenal identity that we can believe in, understand what Emery is trying to do, but also that the players look like they’re buying in to.

This is another start in the new era. And I can’t wait to see what happens.

Laters.

That’s obviously physically, but it’s also tactically too, and I wonder if this has been a deliberate ploy by everyone to give more time to Emery and his team to set out their style of play. I mean when you look at what he’s said about the team working harder to win the ball up higher on the pitch, it seems to make sense to suggest they might need more time at London Colney. If you think about the number of years they’ve spent coming back to pre season training to be greeted by Arsène and Pat Rice/Steve Bould putting the cones out, there was a familiarity there that was perhaps not a good thing from a tactical and new season perspective, but it did enable the team to slip back into their pre season routine.

That’s not what we want now though. Ten to 15 years ago it was fine because the club was in a better position, but the familiarity that bred contempt had well and truly set in from a fans perspective in the last couple of years, and now we find ourselves with the need for players to do a heck of a lot of re-learning in order to fiction under Emery’s system.

I do wonder if there will be some behind-closed-doors games though, because it’s only within match environments that you can truly start to adapt your approach and develop your style. Perhaps that’s what the club are looking at as we speak and there are games behind played over the net day or two. It’s not as if there isn’t a Premier League team next door that you can’t go round and knock for to see if they fancy a kick-about after all.

I suspect this next week might drag though. The transfer gossip has – thankfully – ground to a halt and with no games on the immediate horizon it feels like the Arsenal news that comes out will be of little significance to first team operations.

A bit like the Thierry Henry news. He announced he’s leaving Sky to do more on the coaching and football side and whilst that could mean a player revered by us all has a shot in future at the manager’s post, in reality his announcement has little to do with us at this stage, because I doubt he’ll be joining backroom staff at Emery’s Arsenal.

In truth he wasn’t a great pundit on Sky anyway and the only thing that kept any of us Arsenal fans interested in what he had to say was his immaculately groomed beard. The rest of the time it felt like he was being manipulated to say negative things about an Arsenal team that were clearly in a declining spiral. Personally I started switching off to the pre, halftime and post match punditry when he was on. I want his legacy to be of the amazing goals he scored for us and not how he doesn’t understand why Arsenal can defend so badly.

But I think until we get some of the games coming thick and fast we’ve got probably more inconsequential stories like that coming out so we probably just have to deal with them.

So on that note I’ll be done for another day and catch you all tomorrow.

I’ve been asked that by quite a few people and when I give my response of “I don’t know, I just know the type of football I think Arsenal should play” I get the occasional nod, but I can see behind the eyes there is a slightly frustrated person I’m parlaying with because I can’t give them a definitive answer.

Then you get the non-Arsenal fans that make comments like “you wanted him gone, but you don’t know who you want in to replace? Pfffh” type of response. Well, to those people I say unto thee:

1. I have no influence on the decision anyway
2. I am not paid to make that decision – paid handsomely too
3. I know football and love football but I’m not in football

What’s the point in speculating on a specific person and then being disappointed when they don’t walk through the doors at Highbury House when the appointment is made? What is the point in already assigning a black mark against a new manager, just because it wasn’t ‘my’ choice?

So no, I don’t know who I want and no, I’m not sure I’ll every give a name as my definitive answer. What I just hope is that Arsenal are going to get the right person who can play the right way with the players we have.

The right way of course being the winning way. But there are lots of different ways of winning and then it becomes a discussion about which style one believes will fit our team.

And we do have to select a style to fit a team, which also means we need to fit a style for our manager because let’s all be honest with ourselves here, he’s not going to be able to bring in five or six £25-£30million footballers in multiple positions, is he?

We’ve just spent north of £110million on players in the last 12 months, plus bumper contracts for some players, so any new manager coming in is going to have to work with the existing team, maybe with one or two players in key positions.

For me that means less of a root overhaul and more of an evolution in the style and structure of our team.

So what should the new man do? How should he change things?

Well, for me, I want to see a high pressing Arsenal team. I love a high press, me, and I love when teams are put under pressure high up the pitch and turnover the ball in their own half. Defenders by their very nature are risk averse and so if you’re a high pressing team then you can either force errors by getting them to panic and cede position, or go long and turn over the ball.

It also means we play on the front foot and quite frankly, it’s the only way I see this current crop of players being able to play. Imagine relieving Mustafi of last ditch defending because we’re adopting the principles of a high press with Lacazette and Aubameyang up top and Ramsey pressing too?

Of course under a high press the key positions for me then become a better ‘keeper in the Ederson role of ‘sweeper/keeper’ plus better central defenders with more recovery pace. Think Koscielny but five years ago.

The high press is easy to teach as well. It’s about knowing your zone, having the fitness, but also pressing as a unit. Alexis was a classic example of when that doesn’t really happen and I’m sure we can all recall the countless times he pressed a defender, only to look back and see nobody else had, which meant massive gaps had opened up around the pitch.

The high press is also exciting. It’s energetic, it’s what gets fans excited as teams like Barcelona hunt high up the pitch as they used to and at a time when we’re all pretty bored with the way Arsenal play, wouldn’t it be nice to get back some of that excitement?

I know I’d be keen. Sure, it’s a little more risky, but just look at our back line as it is. We’ve been kamikaze all season anyway so imagine how good it could be if we have a structure and a style designed to be disruptive higher up the pitch and keep the ball as far away from that back line as possible?

I don’t pretend to be a tactical expert in football, I’m not a stats person, nor do I know the European leagues and every manager under the sun. But I know the type of football that I think will excite us and I know that there will be plenty of suitors who can deliver it, whilst still not ripping apart the team and also potentially giving some of our young players a chance.

Some Tuesday morning thoughts for you to all ponder.

No siree.

I’m looking at that first fifteen minutes and hoping that Arsenal can just stem the tide, weather any initial pressure, then grow into the game. Because I think there will be pressure. CSKA officials will have seen how Liverpool wobbled a bit with an early goal by City, even if they eventually went on to win, as well as Barca and Real both seeing pretty unassailable leads somehow become eroded in a second leg, then they’ll be looking at our propensity for brain fart moments and be hopeful that they see the same.

So for Arsenal tonight is about concentration. It’s about structure and belief and also taking chances, because we will get chances, I’m sure of it. The quality of our opponents in the first leg was poor – especially in the final third – but we need to ensure this doesn’t turn into a basketball match. It’s simple enough to do; keep the ball, simple passes with a high percentage rate of success, nothing sloppy across our goal. Then when a chance opens up look for the willing runners in Ramsey, Welbeck and Lacazette.

Tonight’s game feels like the kind of game we need Mesut Özil to be at his absolute ‘eye of the needle’ best. It feels like we need to see him picking the ball up and playing that channel ball to one of our forward-lying players because if CSKA play with the same back line as last week we will get chances. It isn’t the quickest defence in the world and so if CSKA are going to go for it tonight they’re going to need to press us higher up the pitch and that will either create gaps as the defence push forward in a high line, or it will create space in between their midfield and defence and that gives an opportunity for Özil to have more freedom if he then needs to push forward. The opening skirmishes of that game will determine where we need Mesut to be and I think he’s intelligent enough to know that too.

But it isn’t our attacking play that will be under the biggest scrutiny today. It will be that rickety old back five. Cech and Mustafi were culpable for the first goal on Sunday and that kind of lack of communication between ‘keeper and centre half will kill us tonight. The good news is that we have Koscielny and Monreal back but with the way any of our back line have been playing this season that hardly fills me with much reassurance.

The bizarre thing is that we know they have the wherewithal to put on good defensive displays. Before last weekend’s calamity corner of a performance we’d kept a few clean sheets. Yet I can’t really see us going the whole game without conceding tonight. I just don’t see how it happens. But there’s an entire universe of difference between conceding your first goal in the first minutes and the last minute and the whole complexion of the game will change if we concede in that first 15.

Conversely if we get through the first 15 without conceding then I think we’ve got a shout of growing into the game, frustrating the home fans and turning the tide in our favour.

I do believe we have to score though and I think doing it in the first half has a big impact. If it’s level at 0-0 and we get the first it takes the stuffing out of the home side. If it’s an equaliser then it doesn’t really change too much.

This is Arsenal and although this game should be dead and buried I can see the momentum of the game shift at least a couple of times. The first goal for CSKA will give them the impetus, anything for us wrestles it back, but if it gets to two or three goals up to them and its advantage to the Russians.

In terms of the team I think we can all take a decent guess at most of them. Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Xhaka, Ramsey, Özil, Lacazette, but then it’s two from three of Wilshere, Iwobi and Welbeck and despite the fact I’ve lamented Iwobi’s form all season, from what I saw of Jack on Sunday I’d be severely tempted to go for Welbeck and Iwobi either side of Özil and behind Lacazette. If Arsène does that it gives us more counter attacking pace and also gives Moscow more to think about in terms of pressing higher. If they don’t press high as a team as I mentioned above, it leaves pockets of space for creative players, which is why I think a good performance from Özil is so vital tonight.

Let’s see how this unfolds. Hopefully in our favour.

Right, I’m off, so I’ll catch you tomorrow for more of the usual post match thinkings.

Our game at 1.30pm holds little significance in reality, other than to hopefully edge Stoke further towards the drop, so that’s what I’m hoping we are treated to and it’s why I hope that Arsène picks a relatively strong team. If you’re a betting man/woman you can have a look at 1xbetreview. I don’t know why he wouldn’t. We have four days after today before the players play again and with it also being a home game one suspects that we should have enough and any kind of murmurings of ‘fatigue’ are quickly dismissed.

In the reversal of this fixture last season we saw an Arsenal team that went quite some way to out-crap a very average Stoke City side away from home in what is a traditionally horrid place for us to go. We were turgid but the difference between them and today is the location and whilst we’ve become accustomed to defeat away to the Potters, we’ve also become expectant of victory at home.

It’s pretty much a clean bill of health for our team – Santi aside (small weep as I still say that every week) – and so Arsène will have some decisions to make as to who lined up from the start. Personally I’d be looking at Cech in goal, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Xhaka, Ramsey, Özil Mkhitaryan, Lacazette and Aubameyang, but that’s because I want to see those front two together to see what they offer. However, that’s me with my 90s Champ Man hat on and given Lacazette needs to work his way back to fitness it’s probably better to have him on for the last 20 to 30 minutes this afternoon.

If that is the case, then the question is whether Arsène goes for solidity with Elneny, drive with Wilshere, Bambi-on-ice with Welbeck or blinkered faith with Iwobi. I just pray it isn’t the last of the options. I know Iwobi isn’t first choice when all are fit but he still shouldn’t be anywhere near the first team. Next weekend, after we’ve played CSKA on the Thursday and then play Southampton on the Sunday, I’d say it’s worth rotating the team and then maybe Iwobi gets some minutes. But this game today feels like one in which we don’t really need to rotate too much. So let’s not see the blind-alley-bandit take to the field this lunchtime, eh Arsène?

So given I’m probably not going to get my first choice I’d probably look towards Welbeck ahead of the others. If he’s given the option of playing in the three behind Auba then we will see a willing runner who will press the Stoke defence higher up the pitch and hopefully force errors. I think Stoke will try to sit, be compact, frustrate Arsenal. So the more we put them under pressure by their own goal the more we can potentially force mistakes to capitalise.

Perhaps I should be choosing Jack ahead of Welbeck but sadly I think we need to start phasing Wilshere out. He’s clearly not signing a new deal, which means he isn’t the future of the club, so Arsenal should be more concerned with the options we already have in the squad for next season. These games are practically dead rubbers and so we need to start putting faith in other players. It would be a sad way for Wilshere’s Arsenal career to peter out but we need more ruthlessness from the club.

That’s also why I hope that Arsène names a young bench. Let’s see if Arsenal can get a few goals up and then give players like Nelson a start today. He’s the sort that should be being told that Wilshere’s potential absence is to find a place in the team for him. He has question marks over his contract and we need to convince him he’s got a bright future. I hope between now and the end of the season he gets enough minutes to convince him to sign up.

As for Stoke today, well, they are missing that horrendous sh*tbrick Charlie Adam trough suspension, so there’s less worry about ankles as there would have been if that clobbermesiter had been available. They still have Shawcross though so Arsenal players aren’t completely safe. Crouch also seems to have won a bit more favour under Lambert and despite the fact he’s about 48 now, he has still been a thorn in our side up until recently. It was last season that he handled the ball into the net at The Britannia, so we need to be wary of his cheaty aerial and elbowy threat.

We should have too much for a team that has just one win for Paul Lambert since he took over. We have a good record, better players, we’re at home, plus the team should be rested.

Then again this is The Arsenal so who knows what we might be treated/subjected to today.

Here’s to a happy Easter Sunday.

Catch you all tomorrow.

It’s safe to assume that I’m not particularly confident about today. If I was a betting man I certainly wouldn’t be chucking the house on Arsenal, but if you do fancy some kind of flutter and are a bit of a betting person you can get your top free bets here so fill yer boots. There are a few decent ones to be had on there.

Sadly I can’t see how we win today. Chelski look good. We have looked shaky. The victory against Bournemouth was great but this is a whole different ball game. Chelski will press us all over the pitch. They will move the ball quicker than Bournemouth did. They have better players on the ball.

What I would love to see is the same level of pressure that we applied to Bournemouth’s team all over the pitch when they had possession. You know, like closing down the ‘keeper quickly, hassling the defenders on the ball, nicking the ball back off the toes of midfielders, that sort of stuff. If we did that for 90 minutes then we might stand a chance of picking up something, but my worry is that despite what Arsène has said about there being no difference between home and away, we all know that psychologically the Arsenal players are already one down as they take to the pitch.

In terms of who plays though, as I said yesterday, I would give Welbeck and Alexis the nod either side of Lacazette and see if the pace of that front three troubles Chelski’s defensive line. This game just never seems to be one in which we get the best out of Mesut Özil, so why not just leave him out, then bring him back for West Brom in a week?

So my preferred line up would Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Big Per, Koscielny, Kolasinac, Ramsey, Xhaka, Welbeck, Alexis, Lacazette. I think the BFG is better at marshalling our defence, he has cover either side of him that can negate his lack of pace, he could probably also give Ramsey and Xhaka a bit of a talking to about their positional discipline.

What will need to happen in midfield though, is that Xhaka is given options, because any Premier League worth their salt will know to press him hard and quick and I think Kante will do just that. He’ll be on Xhaka like a rash and if he wins the ball back in our half from Xhaka, you know we’ll be in trouble. So Ramsey’s role in being disciplined and supporting his midfield partner is key today. He needs to not be a dick and think he’s a number 10. He needs to get his head screwed on and when needed, sit and protect our back line, because Chelski will have times when they have a lot of the ball.

When we have the ball, we have to be better in using it, because in these types of games you get one or two key chances. The hope is that those chances fall to either Lacazette or Alexis, assuming the Chilean plays, which I hope he does because he will be itching to get out there having started his season off finally with a goal in midweek.

Chelski’s threat comes in Morata, but he’ll be fed by that man Fabregas and what I’ve noticed the last couple of times we’ve played them is that it’s the Fabregas/Costa diagonal that has undone us at times. What we need to do is to stop that from happening. So if Fabregas is sitting deep, one of the forward players neee to be on him to stop him from looking up and spraying those long passes.

I don’t hold too much hope on a victory today, but a draw would be a dream come true, so let’s hope that the team show up and give us something. After the Liverpool debacle I feel they owe us. Let’s hope they feel like they owe it to themselves too.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Don’t get me wrong, I was nervous and much like the crowd and its hushed tones up until the second goal went in I was feeling like we could easily eff it all up, but in the main I really enjoyed watching that game. That’s because of the way Arsenal responded from the shocking performance at Anfield. The players genuinely did respond and you could see that in every single one of them and their performances.

Of course it always helps when there’s an early goal to settle the nerves and when Sead Kolasinac exchanged a one-two to get himself in behind the Bournemouth right back, even at that stage I knew that something would come of the chance. The Bosnian is already proving to be quite an astute signing and his ability to pick out a good ball when in the final third is something i think we’re going to see lot more of. And so it was that Danny Welbeck nodded in the first goal off his shoulder, with the most Welbeckian of finishes. To call it unorthodox would be an understatement and given that he seems to have problems with finishing most of the time, I started to wonder if he should be throwing anything other than his head or feet at the balls from now on, because he seems to have more joy with other parts of his body or mis-hitting it more than anything else.

To be fair to him though, in the second half he surprised us all again with a quite majestic finish to slot ball in to the far right corner with his left foot and once again confuse everyone by looking like one of the world’s deadliest finishers with that strike. Dare I say it, almost Henryesque sort of finish and once again I find myself saying something we’ve all thought: if you could do that every week Danny boy, you’d be an England regular and a £100million striker.

But this wasn’t just the Danny Welbeck show, because there were good performances all over the pitch, including Mersut Ozil who dictated the flow of the game and showed some great vision not with the ball but without. He must have driven in behind the Bournemouth defenders at least five times during the game and was a constant threat, giving them something to think about, as well as most of the other offensive Arsenal players yesterday. So we had Ozil on one side popping up and causing problems, Welbeck’s goals and closing down on the other side – which also nearly led to a goal but certainly led to a flat ball – as well as Lacazette looking busy and bright through the middle. He too closed down the Bournemouth defence and that’s something i’ll come to in a minute, but his finish was an example of somebody who is a natural born killer in front of goal. A touch to get the ball out from his feet and then a perfectly weighted finish in an area that Begovic could get nowhere near.

I think he’s going to prove very valuable for us and I certainly think he might prove valuable in the bigger games too when you don’t get many chances. If he gets just one or two big chances in a game, I think he’s going to take them; you only have to look at the big chance Welbeck missed at 0-0 against Liverpool to know how goals can change the complexion of games and so I hope that Lacazette is given his chance next weekend.

Midfield worked well too and I thought Xhaka was able to dictate the game, as well as Ramsey who, for two of our big chances and the third goal, didn’t do that most Ramsey of things and have a shot from outside of the box but instead faked to shoot and slid the ball to Danny who was in a better position. Maybe this is Rambo realising that he rarely scores wonder strikes any more and so sometimes there’s a better option than taking the glory oneself? We can only hope.

There will be sterner tests than Bournemouth though, who we must admit are abject, but what I am really praying we start to see more of that we saw yesterday, is the pressing without the ball. That was what impressed me and more of that will see us win more football matches. The players hunted for it. They closed down space with whichever Bournemouth players had the ball and it’s no coincidence that the third goal was entirely made because of that desire to win the ball back quickly and higher up the pitch. If we win the ball higher up the pitch against Cologne and Chelski, like we did yesterday, I think we win both of those games. It’s about that drive and determination to catch teams on the back foot. I don’t like mentioning them in my blog but that’s what those Tiny Totts are expert at – winning the ball back quicker. We know that we’re rubbish in the defensive transition from when a move breaks down, but if the team work hard to win the ball back as soon as they’ve lost it in the final third, that is a massive marker to lay down.

That’s what we’ve got to see from now on. This game can’t just be a one-off. We can’t go back to giving teams more space and we certainly can’t be having the kind of lazy tracking and pressing that we had at Anfield. Yes Bournemouth were poor yesterday, but our industry and effort without the ball made Bournemouth look poor. As good old Benjy said to me from inside the stadium (I wasn’t there because I’m doing the Great North Run today) we look like we had a better balance about us. We looked like all of the pieces were in the right place and it’s crazy that it seems like when you play all of those players in their natural positions it works. Maybe we could try that for the rest of the season, Arsene?

Right, that’s it from me for one day, as I’ve got some prep for a crazy half marathon.

catch y’all later.

I am. Despite the inevitable tired eyes that threaten to derail my sunny disposition, I’m feeling chipper, most probably because my first game back watching The Arsenal since visiting Wembley happens to be another trip to Wembley on Sunday. Sure, it won’t have the same expectation, nervousness or intensity, but it will still be a nice way to slide myself back in to full-on Arsenal mode. Love it.

I’ve been watching the preseason friendly games from a far at this point and, whilst trying to look at how we might fare this season, I’ve also tried to see how Arsène might have changed his team approach to games. After all, 12 points difference over Chelski isn’t going to be overhauled just because the players have had a summer together, is it?

I’m not sure it is. So I’ve been trying to watch the friendlies as objectively as I can, to see if we’ll see signs of any tactical approaches, which is difficult when the football is so disjointed as a result of the many substitutions that are needed whilst the whole squad gets back to match fitness.

I’m a pretty simple football fan, not pretending to be any kind of tactical nous or ability to spot the minutiae of a way an Arsenal team – or opponents actually – are set up. But having watched us over the last couple of weeks, it does look as though we seem to be adopting a little bit more of a forward-looking and expansive style of football. I thought I started to see the framework for this in Singapore with Santi deployed as the deepest lying midfielder. Santi! A guy who three years ago was our most creative player, pulling the strings as a quarterback. I loved it and then, at The Emirates Cup at the weekend, the way in which we overloaded Lyon with our football just before half time, meant the French team had no answer. Wolfsburg were a bit more composed, which meant we reigned in our natural intent to drive forward those quick bursts and overload on all sides, but the goal that Theo scored was still an example of our pace and ability to stretch teams on the counter.

That pace that we now have in abundance is a weapon that I hope we see plenty of this season. When we’re deep in our half and under pressure, I hope we have enough outlets to sucker-punch teams with lighting response and accuracy. Theo, the Ox, Welbeck and Alexis all have it and with Mes able to pick a pass along with Santi, they can find him.

But I also saw one other flash of something that I am really hoping we see more of this season: the high press.

It was in to the second half, relatively early on, in which the Wolfsburg left back was fed the ball from his centre half. His actions were to lump the ball out of play, but that was only because a swarm of Arsenal players led by Arteta closed down the space and his immediate options. It was a classic tennis ‘forced error’ and immediately gifted possession back to us. To me it was majestic and for that very quick moment I was reminded of the Barcelona that came to the Emirates and drew 2-2. That team I saw that night were an exhibition of the high press. They gave Arsenal little time on the ball and closed down defenders so high up the pitch it ‘forced error’ on our back four on a number of occasions as I recall.

I love the high press. It’s how you can sustain pressure on teams and keep them camped in their own half when they have possession, then when the ball is in your half it is usually at the feet of one of your players. I’d love to see Arsenal adopt the high press this season.

It has its drawbacks, I’ll admit, particularly if your side isn’t 100% switched on for the whole game. A high press against teams with cultured and mobile players is risky. You can’t afford to have your forwards pushing from the front and the midfield and defence not closing the spaces in between the lines of players. If you are not organised when adopting the high press you will get caught out if your opponents have a good enough pass-master and quick centre forwards.

But it is exciting to watch and if executed properly, can be exhausting for defences, which is why I love it. A bit of risk for awesome rewards. And the thing is, we have players who can help to press from the front yet still track back. Alexis is the perfect example, but Welbeck and the Ox do the same, so there are players in that front three who will cover ground to help the team. Ramsey too in the middle of the park will press from the front, but in order for us to be deadly, we need to have him busting a gut each time to drop deeper if we don’t have the ball.

Whether or not Arsène wants to adopt the high press I’m not sure. I’m sure I read somewhere a few seasons ago – possibly from Arteta I believe – that the coaching staff had realised that we don’t have the personnel to press high up the pitch for the duration of the whole of a football match. So the team devised a way in which it could press in patches, perhaps in certain zones. Certainly this represents the more prudent approach to pressing an opponent. But to me, having seen that Barcelona team all those years ago, I can’t shake the idea that with better and more intelligent players that we have now, ones that have the pace as well as ability to cover a lot more ground in defence and attack, we should think about trying to suffocate opponents when in possession whilst adopting the high press.

Perhaps it’s a pipe dream – that Barcelona model I saw a few years back – and not really viable in the Premier League in which players don’t get as much opportunity to ‘go easy’ before big games like Barca probably did with whatever opponent they faced before they rocked up at The Emirates that night. But to me, with the players and the ability we have as a team, I just feel we’re in a good position to be able to have a go at it, without having the same response as we had last season away at Swansea where Flamini decided he’d press high up the pitch, which didn’t quite work so well for us.

Come on Arsène, give it a go, let’s have a try and see if we can rack up some big scores this season.