That Arsenal made it look a lot harder than it probably should have been after Neto’s sending off in the second half probably needs to be consigned to history, now that the points are in the bag. But it doesn’t help my general stress and anxiety levels when we make these types of games feel like such a slog.

The chatter in the Greek beforehand was about how this game would be a really tough one for Arteta’s men. Chelsea is a decent side, a side that, as I pointed out in yesterday’s blog, hadn’t lost away in the league for nearly three months. This is a side that went to the Emptihad with a caretaker manager and nicked a point off City. So we all knew they wouldn’t be a pushover. The question was how Arteta was going to line us up, given he has a near fully-fit squad to select from. Well, all except Odegaard, whose knee problems appear to have flared up again. When I saw the leaked team news before the official stuff came out, I suspected that it meant that Eze was keeping his place on merit, but it appears it is more of neccessity, because of this injury. Let’s hope it is nothing too serious for the captain.

The return of Kai to the bench made for good vibes as the tifo explained why the world had only come to see the Arsenal, and I thought we were in command in that first half for pretty much most of it, underlying the tifo message with our ball dominance. I don’t think Chelsea dropped off, but I do think they recognised we would be the ones to drive the narrative of the day, given we were the ones at home. And we did. I thought we might even get a nice early helping hand from Sanchez, too, with his miscontrol within a few minutes, but unfortunately, Gyokeres couldn’t profit from a ‘keeper who then had the crowd making excited noises every time he touched the ball thereafter. He is really not a good keeper, and I am very glad that Chelsea places little value in trying to get good keepers, too. He complained about the second goal, for what reason I have no idea, but despite how poor he is, there wasn’t really a lot he could do with our first goal.

Somebody said to me that it was Saliba’s first goal of the season, and that shocked me. I was like “no way! He scored when we…oh…wait,” and I think my mind has just grouped our centre-halves together in terms of their goalscoring prowess, when in fact it is Big Gabi who is ‘the guy’ when it comes to the opposition penalty box. In fact, when you look at Saliba’s stats, it reads thusly:

• 25/26 = one goal, one assist
• 24/25 = two goals
• 23/24 = two goals, one assist
• 22/23 = three goals, one assist

So Big Bill is not the guy who regularly notches up the goals. When you compare that to Gabriel, it’s chalk and cheese, because this season alone, the Brazilian has four goals and five assists. The latest assist of which was, of course, his knock back into the box for Saliba’s goal, and having watched it back again, trying to find out where Chelsea went wrong, I think I’m just inclined to say it was a superbly worked Arsenal goal. We can go whipped to the near post, we can get it right under the ‘keeper, we can go to the back post; this Arsenal team has so many different clubs in its set-piece bag that it keeps opponents guessing and continues to be such a massive threat for us as a team. Long may it continue.

And overall, it was fair in the balance of play. Chelsea were content to have a bit more of the ball in that first half, but there wasn’t a ton of chances created for either side. So when they scored right on the brink of halftime, it felt slightly against the run of play to me. I know there are a few people who have said we were lucky to get away with not conceding a penalty on Rice for the ‘handball’ on the goal kick before the one we conceded, but I’m not having that. It was on his shirt sleeve that the ball hit him, and if you’re a City fan (or another fan, given that so many seem to want that financially doped football club to win the league), crying about that this morning, go have a look at the Leeds v City game and see that handball. Bet you weren’t crying over that yesterday, were you?

It left a bad taste in the mouth at halftime, but thankfully, that bad taste only lasted around 20 minutes in the second half. Step forward, Set-Piece FC again, and step forward Jurrien Timber, who not only scored the winner but also gave my fantasy team the kind of boost it needed this weekend. Double bubble delight for me. Again, as mentioned already, Chelsea players complained about a push, but that’s a stretch. In both boxes throughout the game, players were grappling with each other all game, so this one was never going to get ruled out. And nor should it. But you always have those few seconds after the goal where you’re wondering what VAR will try to see to knock off a goal. Not this time, though.

So with the lead regained, you’re looking at Arsenal consolidating for five minutes and not conceding a silly goal or doing anything stupid. Thankfully, the same needs to be said for Chelsea, who obliged us via Pedro Neto’s utterly mental lunge on the floor at Martinelli to get himself sent off with a second yellow. Honestly, how on earth can somebody be so stupid? You’re on a yellow mate, you can’t go to ground like that, but we’ll take it.

And at that point, I think most of us were pretty happy. We could control the ball, make use of the extra man, move Chelsea around, and maybe go and get one more. But not for the first time this calendar year, we seem to just retreat into our shells again. And whilst we ultimately hung on (and we really did hang on, with Chelsea having the ball in our net only to be ruled rightly offside, then that Garnacho cross saved by Raya at the death), I think we are right to be a little concerned about how we didn’t manage the game well after we went up with a man advantage. It didn’t feel to me as though we had that advantage. Chelsea held the ball; they were starting to get forward, and by the end of the game, if you look at the stats, it felt like a very even one. They had more possession than us, the xG was practically the same (1.09 to their 1.07), they created an extra big chance than us, with our goalkeeper making one more save than theirs.

At the end of the day, the points were all that mattered, and with nine more cup finals to go, we have knocked down one of the hardest. But we have to be better than what we showed in the second half after we scored. We have to manage those key moments better, and Arteta referenced that in his post-match too. This is becoming a bit of a pattern, and we need to nip it in the bud. We need to see more like the North London Derby style of game, where the end of the match is more of a slow march to the whistle, feeling comfortable.

We play Brighton on Wednesday, and it is a Brighton team who have just had back-to-back wins and will be feeling themselves on a ground in which we’ve struggled for a few years. We will have to be better than the performance showed yesterday. But above all, we have to pick up all three points.

Right, I’ll leave it there. Amanda and James did a duet on the Same Old Arsenal podcast yesterday, so if you fancy a bit more of a debrief from them, you can do so via YouTube here. Otherwise, I’ll be back here tomorrow as we prepare for the quick turnaround against Brighton. See you then.

I have concluded that the following would be rather nice:

Calafiori’s legs don’t implode

Last season it felt like every time Riccardo went away with the Italian national team, something in his lower limbs went pop. We knew when we signed him that he had a history of injury problems and, if my memory serves me correctly, he even missed the start of the season for us. Then when he went away in September he picked up a leg injury which kept him out for a few weeks, followed by a similar injury at the beginning of this calendar year. I would verily much like it if – given his superb form for us so far this season – he has zero problems and comes back in one piece.

I’ll be honest, at the end of last season, I wondered whether we’d got ourselves another Tomiyasu and the only thing that tempered my frustration (not with him, the situation) was that MLS had broken through. I fully expected Calafiori to become a little bit of a Debuchy/Bellerin situation, but that just goes to show you how – as the kids say – “I don’t know ball”. He’s looked fit, he’s looked strong, he’s not getting done by tricky wingers as much, but I think that’s probably due to the fact that Gabriel is an absolute monster and plays two positions in our defence, but also that Calafiori seems to enjoy playing as a left eight more in games. Zinchenko liked to roam forward, but he didn’t find himself in the same positions as Calafiori and once again we find that left back role re-invented with his return to form and fitness.

Come back to us Riccy…

Timber gets splinters

I think Jurrien Timber might be one of our best players right now. He’s certainly one of our most in form players, so when I was reading that his minutes were limited for The Netherlands in the September international break, I was delighted. Yes please guys, let’s have Jurrien collect some splinters on the bench, because this is a guy who has already suffered an ACL in his career with us so far and last season admitted that he was basically playing injured for the closing stages of it. We have Ben White – also not called up to the international team, which is nice for us if not for him – ready and waiting, so we have the required cover, but having Timber fit and ready to play against Fulham needs to be the priority and if that means that we see him warm the Dutch bench and get some sub minutes at best, I am 100% on board with it.

Rice and Saka have managed minutes

Declan looked uncomfortable against West Ham just before he came off and when he picked up that knock at the weekend it was right in front of me by the corner flag. You could see straight away he wasn’t happy and thankfully, unlike Odegaard, he was hooked pretty rapidly afterwards. However, unlike Chelsea players, Arsenal players report for duty and perhaps the fact Declan has reported for duty should be seen as a good sign. I still want to see Tuchel go easy on him though. Arteta spoke in the press conference about the good relationship that he has with Tuchel, about how they talk a lot and my hope is that they’ve had another chat about our England boys. But predominantly I’m looking at Rice because of his knock, as well as Saka too. Bukayo has only recently returned from injury, we could all see how Arteta has been building up his minutes, so my hope is that Tuchel doesn’t go full Southgate and just slap him on for two sets of 90s over the next few days. Arsenal wouldn’t do that, so why should England?

I think Tuchel is a more pragmatic and modern manager than Southgate and I think he’ll recognise that shocing Saka on for maximum minutes right now won’t do the player, or England, any good. Let alone The Arsenal.

Some positive Odegaard medical news

All we’ve had so far is that Odegaard has picked up a medial ligament injury. Arsenal haven’t diagnosed the ‘grade’ of it, which means it could be anything from a week to 12 weeks, but I’m sure that the roving reporters at The Athletic will get a scoop at some stage over the next few days. And when that happens, I just hope that the news is that the knock isn’t as bad as we’d feared. Havertz, Madueke, Saka, Odegaard (twice already) – we’ve already had our fair share of “it’s not good news” so far already – let’s have some positive news for a change, shall we?

*******************

And that’s all I want. That’s not too much to ask for, is it? I mean, obviously I want all the other players on international duty to come back with a clean bill of health, but given we already seem to lose footballers in every single Premier League game this season, it would be nice if the international break could not follow on the start of season form in that regard, eh?

Catch you all tomorrow.

The Portuguese manager had said there would be ‘pain’ in the opening part of his tenure and I’d talked about how he was clearly trying to remove any pressure from his team ahead of this tough task for them at The Emirates. We’d been bagging goals for fun since the international break and so he would have been very mindful of a football match that could end up with us running away with it if they were too open. So he set his team up to control more of the ball, although I think Amorim probably didn’t expect us to be as passive as we were, if I’m honest.

I reflected on this with Nick who I sit next to; we were not pressing with the same intensity as Sporting or West Ham last weekend. It was almost as if Arteta had told his team to hold back a little bit because we haven’t really sussed them out. Of course we were missing a couple of key players in Gabriel and Calafiori, but our back line in that first half largely coped fine with a negligible threat that Man United offered. This was two teams who shadow boxed with each other in that first half, which I have to admit was frustrating, because United probably couldn’t have been happier that we were willing to do that in the opening 45.

We did fashion a pretty good chance with Martinelli swivelling inside the box from a deflected Zinchenko shot, but that felt like the sum of our parts and when the halftime stats came up in the concourse that we’d had three shots and none on target and United had two (again, none on target), it felt like a bit of a nothing first half. Odegaard had misplaced a pass or two, Saka wasn’t getting enough space to run at Malacia, plus we didn’t get to see Martinelli make enough of the ‘out to in’ runs that you’d expect against a team playing with a back three and missing players.

We needed a second half reaction.

We got one.

Sure, it wasn’t from open play that we secured this victory, but they all count. If you tell me we’re going to win every game between now and the end of the season 1-0 and score a penalty in each one, I’m taking it. So set pieces were the order of the day once again and the team delivered once more, despite the absence of the main man Big Gabriel. Jurrien Timber’s near post flick was precise and no more than he deserves for what he is serving up for us each week this season. He was once again brilliant and in the second half when Zinchenko picked up a yellow for a silly mistake and was being run at by Amad on the right wing, Arteta simply pulled Timber in to play left back and Amad was pretty quiet thereafter.

The second half was a much better display and even without the set pieces, I’d wager we’d still have broken the deadline, because after the first 45 Arteta had seen enough to work out Amorim’s approach and he altered our playing style accordingly. That’s what I love about Arteta – his in game ability to change things – and he acted and we eventually did the business as Set Piece FC cranked the gears to pick up the second. In an age of so much concern, it’s nice to have something positive to chuckle about, so the fact it came off Saliba’s arse from a Partey knock back was funny and brilliant. On the final whistle you could see Gabriel having a bit of banter with his centre back partner and you could tell he was saying words to the effect of “that’s not how you do it! LOLZ”.

It certainly isn’t, but nobody affiliated with Arsenal will care one jot. We picked up the three points, we were deserved winners, all of the metrics showed this was a United team who didn’t really have a sharp end and that has been something that has been the case for them all season, by the looks of it. They fashioned one chance from a free kick that David Raya made a very good save on, but that was pretty much it for them and we march on with another three points. And with Liverpool dropping two against Newcastle, it means that gap is reduced to seven points, making it a pretty positive night overall. The relentlessness of a title charge means that this win will be quickly parked as we look ahead to Fulham in a couple of days, but for now we can certainly bask in the fact that an old foe has been vanquished and we’re still up there chasing Liverpool. Chelsea have knocked us off second on goal difference after they beat a woeful Southampton down to 10 men for most of the game, but that was always going to be expected so I don’t think there’s much to talk of there. We have to focus on ourselves, we have to keep doing what we’re doing and then we’ll see how we are shaping up come Christmas. There’s a lot more work to do for this Arsenal team before we can claim that we’re clawing ourselves back in to the title race.

And to be fair to them, when you listen to the Rice interview afterwards, that’s how the Arsenal players are thinking too. They know that there’s a long way to go and a steep mountain to climb because of Liverpool’s excellent start. So talk of the title just isn’t worth it at this stage. Rice was man of the match yesterday though, which is good because a few have wondered what has happened to him this season, but he stepped up in a big way and in a big game. I thought he was great against West Ham, then brilliant last night and if we’re getting him back to his best now and for this hectic run in, then that will be pivotal for us I’d wager.

Onwards to Fulham, where we need some revenge from last season, so let’s hope the players bring it.

Catch you tomorrow.

The fact that he was able to rest a few key players should mean that it’s a relatively clean bill of health. The only question marks will be over the full backs and I suspect this will be a recurring theme for the remainder of this calendar year; no Tomiyasu and no Ben White means that at right back we have Jurrien Timber as our only real recognised right back. We all know Arteta could call on Thomas Partey if we needed to, but he’s in form and playing, so if he slots in at right back he won’t exactly be fresh. There’s also a question over his fitness nearly every season we’ve had him at the club, so to be reliant on him as your rotation option if Timber needs a rest, is quite precarious indeed.

It’s crazy to think that we lose a couple of players and suddenly it feels like we’re treading on thin ice, but I guess if you have any team in this league who lose two players in the same position, any side would struggle. If you take Walker and Rico Lewis out of the City side, they are probably playing Ake or Akanji, who whilst very good defenders, are still not natural right backs. Liverpool without Trent or Bradley are also playing a centre half in Gomez, so for us to be without White and Tomiyasu and STILL have a quality right back who can play and be a key player for us, speaks to our strength in depth.

But that means we are walking that tightrope for the foreseeable future and with Timber having been out for the whole of last season, it does feel as though Arsenal will be saying a fair bit of prayers to keep him fit. It’s not as if the games aren’t really important, either. We currently sit 12th in the Champions League table having won two, drawn one and lost one against Inter. Sporting meanwhile sit second with three wins and a draw and are undefeated in their domestic league. They have 11 wins out of 11 and we’ll come face-to-face with the most potent striker in Europe in Gyokyres, so this will be a really tough game. As an aside, is it me, or have we have we had what has turned out to be a really tough draw of fixtures? Atalanta at home are a tough prospect, we’ve played PSG, the Italian champions Inter and now an imperious Sporting side. Seems like it’s quite a tough set of games we’ve had…

A…Anyway, back to Sporting. They’ll go in to tomorrow’s game full of beans having beaten City at home in their last match. Then, it’s West Ham away next weekend and whilst they sit in 14th and look very patchy, it’s a London derby and they’ll be massively up for it. We then play United in midweek and whilst they didn’t look like any great shakes yesterday, those games are always tight and always tough whether they’re home or away, as will Fulham away be with some ex-Hale Enders looking to show the club what they are missing. If we lose or draw to Sporting then that table is going to start to look rather precarious indeed. You want to be in the top eight to qualify automatically and as it stands this match tomorrow represents what feels like a bit of a crossroads; win it and suddenly we’ve put ourselves in a good position to have a go at the top eight positions. Lose it and we’ll be looking at those playoff spots potentially.

Which brings me back to my original point and the question for today’s blog – how is Arteta going to juggle the full back positions?

It feels like at left back there are options – after Calafiori there’s Zinchenko, Kiwior, Myles Lewis-Skelly. So I think we’re pretty covered. Kiwior came on for Timber with a few minutes to go on Saturday, but that feels like an even bigger square peg in an even smaller round hole than Partey. So where does he turn to if, for example, Partey is injured and Timber is showing signs of fatigue? Josh Nicholls equipped himself well against Bolton, but that was at home, against a team two divisions below us. Every one of our next nine games taking us to Christmas – maybe Palace in the League Cup aside – feels like a match in which you can’t risk playing the kid in. Calafiori played a half at right back for us this season, but that didn’t quite feel too natural either, so not sure that’s a viable option. So that means Timber is going to need to be called on – and robust enough to stay fit – for every one of those games I suspect.

Let’s just hope that he does remain fit. I don’t want to jinx it, but so far his injury record prior to his ACL with us last season, has been pretty good. He’s missed the odd game. This season he’s missed a few already, so hopefully he’s over that now and he can get a run of matches where he’s fit. We’re going to need it.

Right, I’m going to leave it there for today I think. I’ll be back tomorrow for a preview and a look at Sporting, as well as a look at what Arteta has said in the build up to this game.

Have yourselves a good one.

Tonight the gauntlet is run by Havertz and Timber and the hope must be that Havertz is rested, given that Germany have won their group, so there’s no need for any regulars to start tonight away in Hungary. Let’s see if Nagelsmann is as kind to us as De La Fuente was last night. I have my hopes.

Less so for the Netherlands, although they too are qualified with a draw over Bosnia and Herzegovina, so maybe Koeman might cut us some slack by letting Jurrien have the night off. I won’t count on it though.

What we are all counting is how the injuries are stacking up and that’s why I’ve got everything crossed for a clean bill of health from those playing this evening. Zinchenko hasn’t been getting any real game time, but even he is somebody that it feels like we’ll need in the coming weeks. No Ben White, Timber is still building himself back up from last season’s ACL, we have no real news on Tomiyasu of late, plus Calafiori I have already voiced a nagging background fear I have that he might end up being another injury prone player for us.

So Zinchenko’s availability – ironic I know, given how he has had consistent problems himself since signing for us – feels like something we are going to need. I agree with you if you are shaking your head reading this and saying “he’s a liability with his mistakes” and yes, they seem to have crept more into his game over the last 12 months than when he was first playing for us, but I think he is still a quality player and is still somebody that can offer something to us. Especially in those kinds of games where we’re going to dominate possession. You’d imagine a game like this weekend would be the sort of game he could do well in; Forest have pacey wide forwards and like to hit on transition, but if we’re talking about them breaking with one or two rapid players, you’d think that Saliba and Gabriel have the ability to match them. Then, on the right, we haven’t see as much of Timber going forward, so perhaps he can play a bit more of a role as a strong and robust full back effectively tucking in to make that a back three when Zinchenko is moving in to midfield.

I agree that if we’re going away to somebody like Liverpool, Chelsea, maybe Brighton with the likes of Mintah or Rutter dribbling at him, that could be an easy space to catch us out and especially if we have less possession. But Forest at home – as good as they’ve been – should be the sort of game in which Zinchenko could and should be used. Forest want to give us the ball, they’ll want to draw us out and hit us on the counter, but we’ll have most of it and the emphasis will be on us in our attacking third. So that’s why I’m not completely done with Zinchenko. There’s a time and a place for him and if Calafiori isn’t quite 100% fit for the weekend, then I’d have no problem with Zinchenko getting his old job at left back again.

Of course the big question is whether Arteta has that same faith. We’ll have to wait and see with that one.

I guess the same applies to Gabriel Jesus too. When we played City at home last season we did it without Saka and there probably wasn’t a single second’s doubt in Arteta’s mind that Gabriel Jesus would slot in at left wing. But this season his performances have been such that I bet if Saka is missing this weekend, it’ll be more of a question he’ll be asking of his coaching staff than a year ago. The good news for Jesus is that the potential injury to Trossard may mean his only competition is Sterling, which doesn’t feel like an impossible battle to win given Sterling’s form so far. But something has to spark back in to life with Gabriel Jesus, because his Arsenal career seems to be slipping away from him.

He just looks a little forlorn to me. He looks lost in a sea of his own melancholy and although we all had a lovely ol’ chuckle at Andre Vilas-Boas all those years ago when he talked about a ‘negative spiral’, the reality is that confidence and morale is a big thing in elite sports and he is the sort of guy that feeds off the positivity. He also feels to me like a bit of a sensitive soul and whilst his mentality has been described by Arteta before as ‘contagious’, I wonder if he’s the sort of player who needs to have an arm round him and a show of belief to kick him on when he’s in a bit of a sticky patch of form.

The problem he has, unfortunately, is that Arsenal’s aspirations mean that it is essentially impossible to carry players through patches of form. In the latter stages of Wenger’s time at the club we saw him persist with players to try to bring their confidence back up, even though it was fairly obvious they were past the point of return. I’m not saying that is the case with Gabriel Jesus, but Arteta will not be the guy to give Gabby J an extra three or four games of 70 minutes if he isn’t able to recapture his old form. It is incumbent on the player himself to do that. Quite how he does that I’m not sure, but as fans we all have to have hope, because today’s game is a squad one in which players not in the ‘first XI’ need to play their part and be ready to, if you want to achieve any of your aspirations.

We need the old Gabby J back.

That’ll do me for today. Back tomorrow as we finally get to cast this international break back into the shadows from whence it came.

I was in a slightly unfamiliar territory in the upper tier of the Clock End yesterday and whilst that affords one the vantage point of full coverage of the game and how the match plays out (in comparison to my Block Five ‘vibes’ seat I normally have), it also made me feel a little more nervous than usual for this encounter. “We need to score early” was my request to the people around me as I took my seat; Arsenal had done it in each of our last four games and Liverpool have always taken the lead this season, barring their defeat at home to Forest. That’s where the return of Bukayo Saka came in and on 10 minutes we were ahead. It was a great ball by Ben White, Saka still had a fair bit to do when he got it under control, but we saw yesterday in that move just why it was such a big boost to see him back in the team from the off. A fine finish, a well-timed run, an Arsenal team with an early goal and hope for three points was kicked off.

It was a lead that would last just seven minutes though, as we switched off on a corner and van Dijk – who I wonder whether he could have been sent off with his kick out off the ball from Havertz before then – nodded in from a Diaz flick. It was a pretty well-worked goal to be fair, but I suspect Arsenal will be in the video room today and tomorrow tutting a bit from our defending.

That goal seemed to kick us back in to dominance in that first half and most of our play and attacking impetus was between that goal and when Merino headed us in on 42 minutes. Liverpool offered very little, I thought, with Raya seeming like a passenger and Timber and Partey keeping Salah and Diaz very quiet indeed. The Liverpool tactical game plan was fairly obvious; Kelleher to distribute long balls in to the channels to test a make shift right back and a right back playing left back who had been injured for the last few weeks. Both Partey and Timber dealt with Liverpool’s attackers quite well, I thought.

All we needed was a goal to get our noses in front. Step forward new boy Mikel Merino and as Rice delivered that peach of a ball in from the free kick, his header was true and on point. Goal. VAR tried its best to intervene, they took an absolute age for something that looked fairly obvious after one replay, but we’re used to that these days, eh?

The challenge we had was how we were going to keep Liverpool as quiet in the second half, as they were in the first, although that was never going to be an easy task and you could tell as bodies started dropping as the game started to tick towards it’s conclusion that this was going to be a big ask. The injury to big Gabi just feels like it’s us being punished by the footballing gods again. We just can’t seem to catch a break and Arteta said he wasn’t sure if it was the ankle or the knee joint, which is a real worry. We’ll have Saliba back next weekend, but I suspect Gabriel is now a doubt too, but I thought Kiwior had a great game when he came on for big Gabi and that at least was a positive.

I can’t quite work out why we were so passive in that second half though. Yes, I know we were winning and yes, I know we have a good defence who back themselves to shut out teams, but this is a good Liverpool side and we were patched up defence who lost both Timber and Gabriel in that second half; we should have been a little more aggressive in searching for that third goal, I thought. Last season we did that and our reward was a 3-1 win. This season we didn’t get that second goal and it was Liverpool who scored through Salah to snatch back a draw on our turf.

It was probably deserved to be fair, because although I didn’t think they created too many chances in that second half, they had more territory and more threat than we did until they equalised. We looked like a team who were missing a few players and had suffered some in game injuries, but we could still have done better with that second half I thought. And as soon as it went back to 2-2, we started to have a go again, and probably should have had a goal too were it not for Antony Taylor seeing something that nobody else in the world could see with Kiwior winning a perfectly good header and getting penalised for a foul. Last season at Anfield Liverpool fans were up in arms about the Odegaard handball, so this time around they don’t get to bleat on about that when we have had an injustice done to us right at the death like that. It was a perfectly fine header he won and Taylor should never have called it back for a foul.

So the honours have been shared, a point a piece and as I said right at the top of today’s blog it was a point I would have taken beforehand. The hope now is that big Gabi and Timber’s knocks aren’t more serious, for which we won’t really find out until tomorrow when Arteta is quizzed by the press ahead of our trip up to Preston. Fingers crossed they are ok.

We’re podding tonight at 8pm on the Same Old Arsenal podcast, so if you fancy joining us to re-live yesterday’s action, you can do so here.

Otherwise, I’ll be beck tomorrow on here as we look ahead to Preston in the League Cup. Catch you then.

From Arteta

As usual on the injury front, not a lot really, but I think none of us expected to get any real detail to be honest. On Saka, Timber and Calafiori it’s probably varying percentage chance of availability, but I think you’d probably clearly say Calafiori is about a 1% chance of making the match day squad. It’s not 0% because Arteta didn’t rule it out and said there needs to be more tests that the club needed to do, but I suspect that’s code for “no chance”, even if he did say that they thought he had a bad injury before and he ended up only being out for a couple of days.

Next up is Timber, who you’d probably say is 50/50 for the match day squad. He has trained, but Arteta said that he’d only had one training session so far. He’s been out since the PSG game on 1st October, which is now three-and-a-half weeks, so he might need to be given a few more days of training, but not many I’d expect before he’s back and available from the start. I have a hope he might make the bench, but as I mentioned above, it feels a bit 50/50 on that one.

The one I think we can be a little more hopeful on is Saka. He’s been out for two weeks, but Arteta said he’d had a few more sessions. The benefit of his age is that he won’t need many sessions before he’s back up to speed and so my guy feel on that feels like he’s probably more than 75% likely to be in the squad. It’s a massive game, he’s a massive player for us, the chances are that unless he’s had another one of those moments like last weekend when Arteta said he ‘felt something’, he’ll be in that squad. And hopefully if he is he will also start.

He had his usual plaudits to hand out to Arne Slot, as you’d expect, plus he talked about enjoying a ‘beautiful’ day on Sunday, which made me crease my face a little for a wry smile when I heard it; I don’t know what you experience with these matches Mikel, but they don’t feel beautiful to me until the game is over and the points have been secured!

His ‘no excuses’ attitude is good though – culture is dictated from the leaders at the top of any organisation and the mindset Mikel has always adopted at The Arsenal has been that feeling sorry for yourself because of injuries, bemoaning luck, generally just being down, is not something he ever wants to entertain. That permeates down to the players and so you know their mindset tomorrow is not going to be of a team sad that they are missing key players; this will be a collective of players up for the fight.

Arne Slot

He was very similar to Arteta in giving plaudits to Arsenal, but also started off by saying he doesn’t know if Chelsea or Arsenal will be higher in the table, so I can’t quite work out if that was a little bit of a subtle dig at us, or if he was just saying nice things about how far Maresca has taken Chelsea. What is clear, however, is that he made it obvious that they have studied us. It’s not really super detailed and unknown to talk about our style of inverting full backs and having them come inside – everyone knows that about Arsenal by now – but I just got the vibe that he already knows how he is going to set his team up and he has a plan to counter us.

He also spoke about their defensive record and how a lot of that is down to dominating and controlling the ball. That’s a little insight to how Liverpool are slightly different under Slot, I reckon, because under Klopp they were back to front quickly, transition and rapid-strike football. Slot has them a little more patient in the build up. Tomorrow it will be interesting because you’d expect possession to be a little more 50/50.

In terms of their injury news he did confirm that all of those players already out will stay out, which means no Jota and given his record against us – eight goals in 15 games I think I read somewhere – that is a bit of a blow for them and bonus for us. They are missing players like we are, but their players aren’t as pivotal as ours. If Saka, Timber, Calafiori, Saliba and Odegaard aren’t playing, that’s like Liverpool missing Salah, Trent, Van Dijk. That would have a massive impact on how they play. But whilst Jota is an important player for them, they have a load of equally quality attackers to replace him. What they can’t replace is Salah, which is why we need to cross everything that Saka is fit and available.

I think I’m going to leave it there for today. Saturday will be a day of chores at home, probably avoiding football because I don’t want to see City pound Southampton, then tomorrow is the big one.

Catch you wonderful humans then.

Yesterday I took a look at our opponents and the type of game we’re likely to face, their playing style and their form, so today I’m looking at what we might do in light of Mikel Arteta’s words and comments in his press conference yesterday. As you’d expect, he hasn’t really given anything away, but for me a big question that is unanswered is on Jurrien Timber. He came off at half time and Arteta said straight after the game that he felt something muscular. I had a chat with somebody on Threads yesterday and then this morning about his availability and they seemed to think that he was out today, which might pose a challenge in the full back spot, but Mikel didn’t really provide any clarity (as usual) and simply said on him, White and Timber:

We had to modify training for a lot of players. We’ve done the same today because of the load that they had, so it’s a decision to make this afternoon, whether to involve them, yes or no. They are close, and Tomiyasu as well is quite close to being involved, so good news.

Clear as mud then. My original thought was that he’s probably ok, but then I remembered that Arteta wouldn’t even admit that Odegaard was out for the North London Derby, which he was clearly never going to play in. I wonder if this international break might have a bearing on whether he decides to delve even deeper in to our squad this afternoon, choosing to rest Timber, White and Tomiyasu, which would also have the benefits of their international teams maybe not risking them either – ensuring they stay home and have a couple of weeks off.

That may be a cynical view, but having Tomiyasu not going to Saudi Arabia and then back to Japan the next week would certainly be better for us and if he’s in the squad today then it will give Japan the excuse to make him travel and play. The same with Timber. I know these players want to play for their international teams, but sometimes you need to think longer term. Tomiyasu can’t surely be called up having not played any football at all this season, right? And I mean no disrespect to Southampton, but if we keep Timber wrapped up, we still should have enough to beat them. The question is, if there is no White, Timber or Tomiyasu, no Zinchenko or Tierney either, who is playing at full back? And isn’t it just the most Arsenal thing ever that the positions we have the most versatility and numbers in, that we’re struggling to find players!

I suspect that if all of the above players are out, he’ll move Calafiori to right back and Kiwior to left back, which really does show the depth we have in defence that we’re talking about Kiwior as a fifth choice player who might get the nod today. We all thought Mikel was mad to have so many defenders in the summer – well we were wrong about that, eh!?

Further up the pitch it stats to get a little easier and we start to look a lot strong, you have to say, because Merino came back in midweek and he’ll be in the squad, plus we have Partey now on a run of games and looking decent again, as well as Rice, Havertz, Trossard, Saka, Martinelli, Jesus, Sterling and Nwaneri all options that Mikel can select from. That’s a pretty decent group of players – ten in total to select from the midfield and attacking six; and I haven’t even mentioned Jorginho to make it 11 players to fill six positions. As he said in his press conference yesterday, of course we still miss Odegaard and hopefully after the international break he comes back in to action (although Mikel would not confirm that either), but when you look at those options right now it looks quite strong. And Mikel reflected on that yesterday too, talking about how the team has adapted our playing style to mitigate the absence of our captain. We’ve seen how Trossard and Havertz are rotating between playing further up the field or dropping deeper, or drifting wide right or left, with the result being that teams aren’t quite sure who is playing where and it left the kind of space on Tuesday for Havertz to make a good run and nod the ball home for our first goal.

People make a lot about our off the ball movement when out of possession, but the fluidity in movement of our players across different parts of the pitch is what I love; it’s so hard in football to pick up a player if they are consistently changing their position – you can hardly man mark Havertz if you’re a centre half, because you’ll be all over the place!

Hopefully that continues today and whilst Southampton are the kind of opponents that all the pundits in the media are saying will be a stroll in the park for The Arsenal, last weekend proved that anything can happen. We battered Leicester, we deserved to be two up, but they scored with their only two chances. The same could happen today. I’m pretty confident that we’ll create more chances than them, I’m pretty confident we’ll put stress on their back line, but I can’t for certain say we’ll bag a ton of goals and keep a clean sheet – last weekend was a timely reminder of the quality in this league. Plus, the returning Ramsdale will want to show his old colleagues just what he’s about, so I’m expecting him to have the game of his life today, for sure. Mads Hermansen 2.0, mark my words.

So for us it will be about being professional, keeping the game face on, taking chances and creating a lot of them too.

I’ll be there in Block Five making my voice hoarse, so let’s hope that is rewarded with that most precious of things: Three glorious points.

Catch you tomorrow morning on here, as well as on the Same Old Arsenal blog, with the gang.

I likened him to Lauren and that comparison keeps running through my head again and again. Lauren was a midfielder when we brought him and Wenger converted him in to a right back, whereas Timber as been a centre half/right back who has almost exclusively been used by Arteta as a full back so far, but that (as well as the two players’ respective passports) are, to me, some of the few differences between the two.

To me, footballistically speaking, the similarities are amazing. Lauren was an integral part of an athletic and physically dominant Arsenal side in the early 2000s. We’ve all heard the stories of ex-pro’s talking about how you’d get in that small tunnel at Highbury and you’d be up against these big, powerful, imposing Arsenal players. Lauren wasn’t the biggest of the lot, I think he was 5’11 or 6 foot, but he was arguably one of the strongest in that side. He was a hard tackler. He was strong in the duels. He could keep up with players in a foot race. And when you wanted to have a tussle with him, he’d have a steely gaze to meet you; Lauren wasn’t afraid of a scrap and we will all remember those tussles with United at Manchester – Lauren was involved in those and he was ready to fight for his team.

He also had a huge engine too. He’d be an overlapper of his wide player, he’d be able to get forward, but he was also part of a miserly back line that didn’t concede a ton of goals. I loved him at his peak and he was one of those guys you just know opponents knew he was tough to play against; he was a hard man.

I get the same vibes with Timber. When you saw him scrap in the North London derby, he just looked like one of those guys who would stand up to an opponent. He has a steely stare about him too, plus I think the engine that he’s shown already this season, covering ground and getting forward as much as he’s been compact and strong as part of a defensive regard that is already racking up the clean sheets this season.

And this Arsenal team looks physically imposing. Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Rice, Havertz, Partey – all of them are big guys. We’ve just seen the return of Merino too and he’s no shrinking violet; at 6 foot 2 he’s another big and physically imposing player; a duel winner who adds yet more physicality to this Arsenal side. Timber may only be 5 foot 11, but what he lacks in those extra couple of inches in height, he more than makes up for in his physical stature and prowess. I look at the way his body is built and he looks like quite a strong and powerful player. There’s just something about him; I remember a lad I used to go to school with. He was a centre half and he was about my height. I was a bit of a bigger lad (weight wise) than him but whenever we played football together, despite his smaller size, he was so strong. He had a strong core and every time we went in to a shoulder-to-shoulder, he’d be able to nudge me off the ball easily. Years later, as I started to go to the gym and learn about core muscle structure, I’d realise that is why he was able to do it, and it feels like Timber is the type of player who also has that core muscle structure and way that his body is shaped to make him a very strong guy indeed. Arteta brought him off at halftime on Tuesday and most of us instantly had worries; after the game he said that he felt something in his muscles and so they didn’t want to take any precautions. Hopefully that is just a bit of fatigue because with every passing game that we see him playing, we see a guy who is becoming more and more important to this team.

Since Ben White signed for us and was moved to right back, we have had a player who is so robust and able to play that we have just had to pray that something bad doesn’t happen to him, but I think it is a real testament to the impact Timber has made this season that none of us are lamenting the loss of White. We all love him, we want him to come back and there’s no way he doesn’t get plenty more matches this season, but the impact of Timber is such that none of us are worried that our season is in danger of unravelling.

You can say the same about the Odegaard injury too, by the way, because this selection of players Arteta has at his disposal has been able to cover for the absences that we’ve had. It’s phenomenal that we’ve gone through this period of the season, with injuries we’ve had, yet we’ve come out the other side and now we’re starting to see big players return for us. Merino got on the field on Tuesday, Tomiyasu is back in training, the hope is that we get Odegaard back after (yet another pointless) internal break period is over. The strength in depth of this team is real and the confidence that must be flowing through this team as a result of what we’ve been able to overcome already is amazing.

It’s exciting times right now. But complacency is something that Arteta will be mindful of. We were some injury time goals away from an unfortunate result at home to Leicester on Saturday and Mikel will no doubt be at pains to point out to his team that concentration needs to match confidence.

But when you have players as serious as Timber in your squad, then you know that you’ve got a good chance of minimising that, which is fabulous if you’re an Arsenal fan like us right now.

Back tomorrow as we built up to the Saints at home.

The Arsenal ‘squad’ are in the US now and Arteta was interviewed ahead of the Bournemouth game tomorrow, as we prepare to take on Bournemouth in the early hours of the morning on Thursday UK time, which is the first time we’ve heard the boss for a few weeks. There was a load of stuff that was added to the official site which is nice and you get the feeling that everyone – not just us fans – are really eager to get things up and running for the new season, which is weirdly less than a month away.

I liked reading and hearing Arteta speak about the eagerness of the players to get started. There was of course questions about how difficult it was to come so close and yet not achieve any trophies last season, in reference to Arsenal being so near to perfection, but Arteta and his mindset once again shone through; he simply batted it away and said “that’s what we have to do!” when asked about going that extra step. I love that. Mikel is a mentality monster and ever since he took over at the club you could just tell that. He’s constantly looking for us to evolve, to grow, to do something different, never resting on his laurels. Elite football is so much about consistently having to re-invent yourself as a team and even a few week’s ago Mikel was talking about us having to do things a little differently than last season; sometimes it isn’t even visible at first, but he is looking for any tweak that means we can change a game with the tactical approach and the quality of players he has at his disposal.

In a way having this young team out with him now might well be a good thing in that respect, because he’s going to get closer to players with whom he probably knows, but hasn’t immersed himself in their training and approaches all of the time because he’s so focused on those first team players. The opportunity for some of these young players to have the manager therefore think differently about them whilst they are in the States is therefore massive. If some of them can impress, then maybe Mikel might at least consider them for League Cup duties, or maybe even if we can get a few results in the bag and qualify for the new format of the Champions League earlier than the last game in the group stages, there’d be an opportunity for some of these kids to experience European nights too?

He was asked about Tomiyasu’s injury, which I spoke about yesterday, but you can hear from Arteta’s words that he is gutted for Tomi. We all are. We all love him as a player but, as we all know by now, his body just doesn’t seem to be as robust as we’d all wish it to be. He also spoke about Timber and not for the first time, he talked about him being a ‘leader’, which I think is interesting. Given this kid is so young, he’s barely played for us, he missed essentially the whole of last season, yet Arteta has referenced this a couple of times, I think Arteta is going to give him a lot of game time this coming season (providing he stays fit). I just have a feeling that Arteta is going to love him. Of course absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that jazz, but it just feels to me like Arteta has some big plans for him. I have no inside track, I’m not any kind of expert, but just looking about the way Arteta talks about him, about the praise he has given him about the way he trains, his eagerness to learn, plus that leadership reference I already mentioned. Of course the big challenge for Arteta is how he’s going to fit all of these players in, because if / when Calafiori comes in, he’s going to have quite the stockpile of ‘registered’ defenders. Whether he gets some of them playing further up the pitch in terms of starting XI’s remains to be seen, but I am at this point in time really curious to see in which parts of the pitch Arteta asks players like Timber to operate in. He’s also spoken of his technical ability too, so perhaps there’s some thinking that he could play a little more advanced in the team? We know Arteta loves flexibility and adaptability of his players to play multiple positions even in one game, so seeing how Timber is deployed is probably something I’m most intrigued about next season.

There was also some stuff about the Euro’s and Mikel offered some soundbites, but now that it’s well and truly over I’m not really minded to bother speaking about international football any more. It’s done, it filled a void for a short period of time, now the real stuff starts and I can’t wait to see how we start to perform in the next couple of weeks. Especially given our start to the season and it feels as though we really do have to make the most of this pre season in order to get ourselves in a position where we can hit the ground running in mid August.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today. Off to do some more tapping away at the laptop, only in work mode, rather than the more fun football mode.

Catch you all tomorrow.

We had Arteta’s presser yesterday and he seemed pretty fine and his usual self when talking about the team and player availability for Sunday, which is good. Gabriel apparent missed training since the Bayern game but Arteta didn’t seem to worried about it because he just said his usual “we’ve got one more day to prepare so let’s see” approach. We’re all used to it by now, but by now you can usually pick up on the nuances of player availability from the manager; if he’s sounding quite relaxed about it then usually it means we’re all good so hopefully there are no surprises from his matchday squad tomorrow when it’s announced around 3.30pm.

What will be a surprise is if we see Jurrien Timber. Arteta was also asked about the Dutch international and although he’s in training and is looking stronger every day, as Arteta said when quizzed, he’s still got to go through a few more milestones before he makes the match day squad. Like playing in actual games and apparently there’s a behind-closed-doors friendly that is being arranged as well as an under-21s game he’s most likely have to play before the boss drops him in to his match day squad.

I’d imagine the behind-closed-doors game will be for those players who haven’t featured as much recently and Arteta spoke about how he has to manage the player situation, rather than the personality. That question was directed at him in response to Gabriel Jesus apparently looking ‘angry’ and like he ‘had a point to prove’ but Arteta just batted away any potential issue with the kind of consummate ease that we’re now very familiar with. He talked about how it is never personal, it is always for the benefit of the team and I would imagine the fact he’s been able to get such good responses from his players really hits home just how in sync they all are. It’s so difficult to manage a large set of 25 professional footballers who are all quality, could also be playing their football and playing regularly at so many other places, yet he only gets to put 11 of them on the pitch. In a way, although the behind-closed-doors friendly feels like it would be created for Timber to prove his fitness, there’s probably a side that Arteta could put out from the players who haven’t played very much, that could be valuable for them to get actual ‘on pitch’ minutes that they haven’t been getting this season. For example, we could probably see a behind-closed-doors side that looked like this:

Ramsdale

Cedric  –   Walters   –   Foran   –   Timber

Fabio Vieira   –   Elneny   –   Nwaneri

Nelson   –   Nketiah   –   Cozier-Duberry

Of course there is the odd name in there that I don’t really know – the centre half Foran I added to make a full XI – but in terms of giving players games who haven’t really played some minutes from the first team squad, this could certainly be of value.

I know it won’t have the intensity or the exact impact of a high-octane Premier League or Champions League match, but that’s a side who Timber could definitely slot in to that would have a decent level of game against an opponent.

Arteta was asked in his presser about Villa, about whether playing last out of the three title contenders has a psychological impact and also about his reflections from the Bayern game and I thought he absolutely nailed the responses:

1. Impact and respect of Unai Emery and the consistency of Villa, even touching on the fact they played last night too. It was a clever quip which nodded to the fact that he knows it’ll be a tough game, but it will be tough for Villa as well as they have less than 72 hours later got to come to The Emirates to line up against us. So there’s nothing to be stuck up on the dressing room wall for Villa, but there’s also a little nod to the fact that fatigue might have more of an impact on them than us – I certainly hope so.
2. Playing last of the three – He just talked up the focus on doing our own job and I bet he’s been at pains to get his players focused in that regard. I often wonder what I would do in Arteta’s position; tell the players not to look at it or forbid them from knowing the results? That’s basically impossible and it’s impossible not to put players under absolutely zero psychological impact when you know what your rivals have done given all of the media coverage these days, so then the focus has to be on getting those players in such a strong mental state, that it doesn’t impact them whatsoever. In my head City are already two points better than us. we’re no longer top (they play Luton at home today). And we are already back to third because Liverpool have already smashed Palace at home (they play tomorrow at 2pm). So I wonder if Arteta is instilling that in his players i.e. “you’re already behind – now respond against Villa this weekend lads – take that mindset in and go for the jugular”.
3. Reflections on Bayern being complete done, they’ve moved on, it’s time to be laser-visioned on Aston Villa, which is spot on.

From a mentality point of view Arteta is a monster and his team feels like it embodies that too this season. But the only way to have that truly confirmed is to go out there tomorrow and absolutely go for it against Villa at home and pick up the points. It won’t be easy, but it is something that we need to do and I am hopeful that this Arsenal team can do the business tomorrow afternoon.

We’ll be talking about it on Monday at 7pm regardless of what happens, so if you fancy joining us you can do so here.

Other than that, I’ll be offski for today and back tomorrow with a little look at our opponents and how they’ll probably line up against us. Have yourselves a lovely Saturday, peeps.

arsenal posted some pictures of him on the Emirates turf and after a tumultuous start to his Arsenal career caused by that ACL injury, he will feel like he can finally get back on track and make the most of being an Arsenal player. I’m sure Mikel and all of the Arsenal staff are delighted to have him back.

I think most of us are realistic though; we know that it is unlikely that he’ll be part of a match day squad any time soon and I suspect it’ll be at least two weeks of solid training with the first team before Arteta brings him in for a place on the bench on match day. That would effectively take us up to mid March, for which I suspect even then he’ll only ever have cameo appearances until April. Nevertheless it’s a positive sign and with Partey and Gabriel Jesus back in training and with the team not playing until Monday night, you’d hope that the competition for places in the sqad – not just the first XI – are going to start hotting up.

And we’re going to need it because I bet Arteta is looking at the impending game against Porto as one in which he would ideally like to undertake a bit of rotation in the games before and after. Before that game we have Brentford on the Saturday and then after that game there is a rest, on account of Chelsea scraping past Leeds, which means there will be another extended break for these Arsenal players and I think you and I both know what we want from that:

BACK TO DUBAI BOYS!!

That trip was a successful one given the form Arsenal have shown since, but what it will also be an opportunity to do is to get the whole team prepped for the big crunch encounter against Man City on 31st March. Unfortunately there’s an international break before then, but at least Arteta will be able to prep his team before they all go away. As long as they all come back fighting fit then it will put us in a really good position to try to do something in the blue side of Manchester that we haven’t done in nearly a decade.

What these returning players ,coming back also mean is that the squad is looking in a good shape to rotate because we will eventually have to play Chelsea and that will invariably be a midweek game in April I suspect. As I’ve already mentioned earlier this week the Champions League dates are 9/10 April and 16/17 April, so if we progress that far we’ll have two midweek’s out of four that are ruled out because of participation in that competition. That means it’d have to be played on one of the other midweeks, unless Wolves progress to the next round of the FA Cup and Chelsea also progress. I would suggest the chances are quite high and that would mean we’d be kicking our heels on Saturday 20th April as that’s the dedicated weekend for the semi final. There will be space to play a few days later if both Wolves and Chelsea are in action, but I suspect you’d then be looking at May for us playing either Wolves or Chelsea (we would have to have the Wolves game moved if they progress too, as we’re supposed to be playing them on 20th April when the semi finals take place).

So all-in-all it is looking like April and May is going to get quite congested for The Arsenal, with the only up side being a possible weekend off in April towards the end-ish of it, which means getting players back to full fitness for that April/May period could be massive. If Arteta has 16 – 18 players he trusts to rotate, I think it could help us massively.

Of course there are other caveats that exist; Timber might take another six months before he feels comfortable enough in his body to be the player that we saw in the Community Shield and in pre season, one of our current first teamers could go down like we had Saliba and Tomiyasu get injured last season at a crucial point. The difference I personally feel when I think about that scenario is that it feels like we’re more well stocked for options than we were a year ago. For Saliba you could put White, Tomiyasu or even Declan Rice in at centre half, each of which is a more palatable option than Rob Holding. Even if you put Rice back in, if Partey were to come in and play at the six where Rice plays, you’re talking about the quality of the team remaining high (if he remains fit!). If something happens to Zinchenko you have Kiwior who has shown he can more than come in and do a job, but before him you also have Tomiyasu and also Timber could potentially play there. If Gabriel goes down we have Kiwior who can come in to central defence and Tomiyasu plays left centre-back for his country, so we know he will be experienced enough in his role. I’ve already mentioned Partey for Rice in midfield, but in the left and right eight positions we have Kai, Odegaard, Fabio Vieira, ESR and Trossard who can all do a decent job. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nowhere near as good as Odegaard, but it’s not like we don’t have options and have to chuck a load of kids in. Then up top if Gabby J remains fit there’s him, Trossard, Kai, before we even mention Eddie, whilst on the wing we might even see Gabby J operate there if needed.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that as we reach the crunch point in the season, it feels like we’re getting bodies back, which can only be a good thing.

And on that positive note I shall leave you for today. Enjoy your Thursday and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

But let’s be thankful for the warming sensation of a bit of Arsenal #Content, as yesterday the club released footage of Jurrien Timber in Dubai lacing up his boots, then getting himself out on the pitch for some ball work. If you haven’t done so already see for yourself here.

This was enough to send plenty of Arsenal fans – yours truly included – in to excited messages online and many praying emojis and that one that looks like a whole arm doing a bicep curl. It was juicy stuff indeed. And after the last few weeks we’ve had where we’ve seen the players underperform (in terms of score lines and results), where we’ve all admitted that many of the players look tired but there didn’t seem to be much opportunity (or that Arteta was willing to) for rotation, where we’ve all resigned ourselves to the fact that due to FFP it is unlikely that there will be any reinforcements, this is a welcome bit of news.

I think most of us – despite a few people mentioning it online that he was ahead of schedule, probably had Jurrien Timber down as a guy who would probably start training in March, be up to speed in April an then maybe in May we’d see him on the football pitch. Seeing him out on the field doing ball work in mid January is a bonus indeed. So, what should we start hoping for in terms of seeing the player back again on the field for The Arsenal, now we’ve seen him doing ball work? I did a bit of Googling and found this site which talks about ACL injuries and footballers recoveries. That site suggests that three to six months after surgery footballers are running, but that regular tests have to be undertaken and a physiotherapist will want to keep monitoring. It suggests that it can take up to a year for recovery. But here’s why I’m dismissing that last bit:

1. That site is talking about the average amateur football – not a professional footballer who has medical teams on hand all the time, the best facilities money can buy and by sheer mechanics their bodies are built and conditioned for sport and physical activity
2. Timber is 22 years old – In your early 20s your ability to quickly recover from injuries is greater than mid or late 20s. I remember myself as an amateur being able to overcome knocks way quicker than I could at 30, so I would expect the commentary of ‘up to a year’ is universally applied because the context of age isn’t really given and so they’ve gone for worst-case scenarios. A 40-year-old man who has an ACL is probably taking a year. Not a 22-year-old professional athlete.

Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not suggesting that like Partey we’re going to see Timber for Forest away on 30th January. Clearly Timber will need much more monitoring and it will probably be at least another two to three weeks before they start involving him in light training with the rest of the players. He’s been out with a serious injury for five months and there is no way the club isn’t going to treat this with the extreme caution that it needs. But let me play extremely amateur doctor here for a second…

Let’s just say it’s three weeks of training on his own before he steps up and is training with the team. That takes us to week commencing 29th January before he might be in with the group. Then let’s say that before he can be in a match day squad he might need a couple of weeks of training with the group. That takes you to week commencing 12th February. Then let’s say Arteta wants to just have him as part of a match day squad but not play him – just for a week so he gets the ‘feel’ for it again – week commencing 19th February. So we could see him getting on the pitch for Newcastle at home on 24th February. That – I think – feels like quite a long and conservative timescale, but it would mean that he has March, April and May to continue to make an impact – the season is around nine months long and he could still have an impact for almost a third of it – a massive boost for Arsenal and Arteta.

And suddenly with the Partey news as well, you’re looking at the team and thinking “maybe it’s not too bad – squad depth wise”. Sure, we’ve got a few weeks in which it’s going to remain challenging, but by the end of January things could be looking up.

Of course we still don’t know the extent of the Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus injuries and if both of those players are out for a few weeks then that is a problem; we saw that Kiwior just doesn’t look as comfortable at left back and both Nketiah and Havertz are a bit (or a lot) of a downgrade on Gabriel Jesus. So short term it could be quite uncomfortable, but in a month’s time we could be shaping up a little differently. All we’d need between now and then is to ‘get through’ games and that would start with Palace at home the weekend after this one.

There’s not a lot else to pour over, really, and understandably. Be careful what you click on though; don’t want to be giving your precious time to some of the absolute charlatans masquerading as journalists. This morning I fell for the ol’ “Multiple deals expected to be agreed in the next days” click bait. The “journalist” in question got a precious 15 seconds of my time, but when I realised that the article was basically about the fact Arsenal are looking at tying up a few commercial deals in Dubai this week, I realised that this utter gutter trash journo basically had zero story and was turning it in to an opportunity to try to get a few people to click on a link which basically told you nothing. I’m not linking to it – but try to avoid ‘Football Insider’ if you can folks.

A quick ‘P.S.’ – check out the two James’ player ratings on the Same Old Arsenal last night here.

But aside from the personal reasons, it’s a tie that as Arsenal fans we can be pretty pleased about at this moment in time. Going away to an Italian team will have presented it’s own problems and the likes of Inter and Napoli would have been those ‘one paper’ tougher draws, but along with PSG we’ve avoided them and given Porto’s form so far this season, it looks like a better tie for us than the likes of the French Champions, for sure.

One of the down sides is that given the Portuguese league and it’s relative ease compared to our own, they play at home against currently mid-table and newly promoted Estrela Amadora three days before us on 21st February, whereas we have a tricky away trip to Burnley and although Burnley aren’t the same physical opponent they used to be under Dyche, they will still represent more of a challenge to us than a club who were only just newly re-founded in 2020. They also play Algarve-based Portimonense before the home game, whilst we’ll have been at home to Brentford, so they’ll most likely be aiming to rest some of their more high profile players like Taremi, Pepe, Eustaquio, etc. But having said all of that, it is the kind of tie that Arsenal should be looking at winning if we realistically want to be thought of as a side that should be going deeper in the competition. You’d fancy us at home and if Porto come at us on their own turf then hopefully we get a repeat of some of the displays we see in Europe from The Arsenal; teams have come and have a go, left spaces open and we’ve cut some of them aside. I suspect that Porto will be better than the likes of Lens, Sevilla and PSV, but they are still a side that we should be looking at as an obstacle we should be overcoming.

Of course when it gets to the day of the game itself I’ll be absolutely bricking it, but for now with enough distance of time between the draw and the match itself, I’m overall happy with that outcome.

That was the main talking point from yesterday, although the video that dropped on the Arsenal website which showed the rehab process of Arsenal Women footballers Beth Mead and Viv Miedema was also released. It’s obviously a horrible situation for any footballer to go through, but the fact that they’ve charted this journey I think is a really great thing to have done. I’ve only just started watching it, but it’s very well put together, certainly tugs on the heart strings, but it occurred to me that it’s also a really good way of educating people as to the reality of a long term injury for somebody who suddenly can’t do what they do for a living for a prolonged period of time.

I am as guilty as the next fan when it comes to injuries, because for example when Jurrien Timber got injured I was sad for him, but that sadness quickly turned to concern about what happens if we suddenly lose another full back from the first team, because we’d already spent a big chunk of cash on Timber and we weren’t going to go back out and get another one.

Out of sight, out of mind.

But the reality is that these people are humans and I think these types of videos released by the club go a long way to helping people like myself realise the mental journey that these players go through. I think it’s also educational for those younger kids and players who watch this and I hope every parent – whether they are Arsenal fans or not – shows this video – or maybe other ones like it for their respective clubs they support (if they exist) to the kids, because it is important that young kids growing up recognise that these things happen, that it can be tough, but that if something like this happens to you then you need to draw inspiration from professionals like Mead and Miedema.

And then I go back to Timber and the situation he’s been in since the beginning of the season and I can’t help but think that his own personal frustration and mental state must have been even more impacted. He’s just joined a new club, it’s a big move to the Premier League, he wants to impress, he’s had a really good start and there’s a buzz about him amongst fans (I too was very excited to see what we were going to get from this player) and then just like that, in the first game of the season at home, it’s taken away from him. And it’s not just a little knock to keep him out for a few weeks, but instead it turns out to be an ACL and that means at best he’s probably missing two-thirds of the season. At worst it’s the season. On your first competitive game for the club. So very harsh.

The good news, to close off today’s blog, is that the noises are that Arsenal are monitoring him for a possible February return and if that turns out to be true, then it’ll be huge for the kid. I doubt we’ll see the best of him until towards the end of the season but for him to be part of the squad, to be back up and training and maybe even to get some sub appearances maybe in March, would be a huge boost. We just have to hope all of the rumours are true and to be fair to Arteta, he was saying glowing things about the Dutchman only last week. Let’s keep everything crossed.

And on that note of positivity, I’ll take my leave for another day and catch you all tomorrow.

Catch you all then.

In some ways for me personally that’s a good thing. I’m flying off to Berlin tonight for a cheeky weekend away and so the fact we don’t play until Monday means I will still be able to watch the game from the comfort of my own home and my weekend in Germany doesn’t have to be worked around an Arsenal fixture. Whether or not I can slip in a cheeky Union Berlin game on Sunday remains to be seen…we’ll have to see if the Management accepts that one…

But for us it means we sit the weekend out and put our hopes on:

• Bournemouth to cause an upset at Liverpool
• Newcastle to upset City
• West Ham to step up against Chelsea
• Tottenham to discover a big sink hole at White Hart Lane for them versus Man United.

We did get Mikel’s presser though, so we can look in to where we are from a team news perspective. The downbeat news came first and Mikel admitted that Timber’s season is basically done. It is a hammer blow for him and the sympathy remains for the player as I’ve said a couple of times this week already. Get well soon Jurrien.

The question that has been raised over the last couple of days is whether we’ll go back in to the market again now, but Arteta said that he’s looking internally at solutions, which I think makes sense. We aren’t a team who can just break rules on spending like Chelsea; we spent £38million on a player that we can’t use and we can’t just drop another amount of cash on a player and so for us defensively it is back to square one. What we need, however, is for there not to be big long-term injuries – and all at once – to the likes of Tomiyasu, Saliba or Zinchenko, all of which we know could happen and so we really have to keep our fingers crossed. He was asked about KT and he kind of brushed that aside saying that “it is an opportunity for everybody”. I think we all know that it probably won’t happen and I suspect we are more likely to see Kiwior used more this season than Kieran Tierney. And if you think about it, that does make us stronger than last season. Last season we bought Kiwior in for January as cover but Mikel was reluctant to use him as he was bedding in. But as we reached the end of the season and it was clear players like Holding were being targeted, he brought Kiwior in, to which he then played really well. So I feel like we’re more likely to see Kiwior come in instead of Holding, which means if we have a situation like we had last season with Saliba and Tomiyasu both out, we have a few more options across the back line. We could play Partey at right back and White in the centre, we could play White at right back and Kiwior in the centre, so even though it’s the same players as at the end of last season, I do feel like we are a little more stronger now.

He also elaborated on the Raya arrival, saying that he brings ‘better qualities for our game model’ which if I’m honest, sounds a little ominous for Aaron Ramsdale. He tried to explain it by saying that Courtois got injured for Real and look at where they are at now, but as I’ve said before goalkeeper is a very different position to an outfield player. You don’t expect goalkeepers to be able to pick up as many knocks as outfield players and so I still remain to be convinced that having two number ones could work.

In terms of other availability for Monday, we know that Zinchenko played 60 minutes in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Luton in midweek, so my hope would be that he’s ready to play on Monday night. Those extra few days might be good for a few players, especially if the likes of Gabriel might have been carrying a knock (even though Mikel said it was tactical against Forest). And when you think about our squad for Monday, despite the injury to Timber and Gabriel Jesus, I feel like we’re still in pretty good nick. We literally have two players for every position (at least):

• Ramsdale and Raya
• Tomiyasu and White
• Saliba and Holding
• Gabriel and Kiwior
• Zinchenko and Tierney
• Partey and Jorginho
• Odegaard and Vieira
• Rice and Havertz
• Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe
• Nketiah and Trossard
• Saka and Nelson

And that’s without mentioning Flo Balogun, although I think we all know that he is essentially one foot out of the door. But we have a deep squad and although I’ve included Holding in the team, the versatility of our squad means that if Saliba is out it is probably one of White or Tomiyasu who take his place, rather than Holding.

Just one final point from me before I wrap up today, which is on the ‘do you have a 20 goal a season striker?’ question he was asked. It was answered superbly I thought and it was exactly how I feel about how teams should be lining up. Unless you have an absolute freak like Haaland, it spreads a lot more risk when you have many players who can score goals from all over the pitch. The Scum have just lost their 30-goal a season striker – how do you think they feel about replacing those goals? They can’t. They will spread the goals around a little more, but they might not have that ‘X-factor’ player who will get something out of nothing like Kane used to do. So for me I will always take a team with five players who can score ten or more goals, than a side with one or two players that gets 25 a season.

And on that note, I think I’ll leave it for today, as I have to crack on with a bit of early morning work before heading off to Deutschland.

Catch you guys tomorrow – depending on wifi signal and timings.

I’ve come down with a bloody cold, which is a bit annoying given I’m due to be flying to Berlin for a cheeky weekend away with the wife tomorrow night. Hopefully I’ve shifted it for tomorrow though. In the meantime, let’s have a pause and a sad face for poor ol’ Jurrien Timber, who the club yesterday confirmed he’d done his ACL and that means that he’s due for surgery and will be out of action for quite some time. I just Googled how long it takes for somebody to be out and this was the first response I got.

That is just for normal people and it’s suggesting six months to a year to be able to return to sport. But these players are highly tuned athletes in a sport in which every little marginal gain is everything. That means he might be able to start doing light jogging/running by about January, having spent six months with his muscles degrading, it’ll probably be another two to three from there before he’ll be training with the first team. That takes him to March this season and by the time he’s fit for matches it’ll probably be April. The season finishes in May so for all intents and purposes, his season is over before it ever really started.

I can’t even begin to imagine how gutted he is. He was doing so well, he’d got in to the first team starting XI, made his debut and looked good in that side for the first half against Forest. Now he is reduced to being a spectator and not able to help his new teammates out on the pitch. It is a massive blow for him, it is a massive blow for us, a sad incident that hopefully he can recover from.

So, what else is new then? How about this little Douzy on FourFourTwo about Flo Balogun to the Scum? Now that would be one heck of a move from all parties, but I can’t see it happening, not from Arsenal’s side anyway. The only way that deal even gets remotely considered is if Arsenal get top dollar for him – say, £60million – then we add a buy back clause ON TOP of that money. Can you imagine us doing that deal, Flo absolutely banging at The Scum, then Daniel Levy thinking he’s got himself another £100million+ footballer that he’d never sell back to us in a million years?

I can’t see it. The only way Arsenal should sanction that is if they get a cast iron guarantee that if we sell him for £50million, or £60million, that we can buy him back within three years for £65million. And I doubt Levy would do that deal. No way.

There’s a semi-Arsenal related news item doing the round with West Ham supposedly interested with Mavropanos, but I’d be looking at that with my Arsenal specs only if there’s some noises about us having some kind of sell on clause that we would get from the deal. Mavropanos was a decent player, occasionally injured, never really got the chance at The Arsenal. But we sold him so cheaply just a year ago for €3.2million, that if there ISN’T a sell on fee due to the club if he goes, then you’d have to chalk it down as another poor bit of work in our ability to sell players. If he goes for £15million, for example, you’d be hoping that we had a tidy 20 – 25% sell on fee due back to us, which would be north of £3million and better than a kick in the teeth, that’s for sure.

There’s also some noises about Nuno Tavares to Forest doing the round too, which makes sense because there’s absolutely no chance he’s forcing his way back in to Arteta’s plan. Before the Timber injury I would say that Tavares was probably sixth choice left back behind Zinchenko, Timber, Tomiyasu, Tierney, Kiwior, so it makes sense that we’d try to find a buyer for him. We bought him for around €8million (around £6.8million) and the fee that has been mooted is £7million, which I think would probably have Arsenal saying “alright then”. He started brilliantly at Marseille and was bagging a few goals, but his errors and erratic nature eventually won out – much like it did with us – and so I suspect Arsenal would be happy with a deal that washes its face. And for Nuno it would mean a Premier League club, more game time, a chance to prove himself and probably do it at a team with less expectation than Arsenal or Marseille. At Forest he probably could have a few brain fart moments as he’s prone to do. They loved Djed Spence at Forest a couple of season’s back and he was that kind of player who was raw one week, but superb the next, so I can see why this deal might be a possibility. I bet Forest fans would be happy to see a left back who can have one superb game every four if it means he’s scoring goals and adding a little flair to their side. At Arsenal that kind of inconsistency was never going to cut it. Worth a punt but just not something the club can accept, especially with somebody like Arteta in charge.

Right, that’s probably about it from me for today, so I’ll toddle off to work and catch you all tomorrow.

You have yourself a good one, ya’hear?

Oh, that’s alright then, all forgiven and forgotten. Looking forward to seeing your incompetent guys in a couple of weeks time then after you’ve been granted a week off for not doing your job properly.

Rip. It. Up. And. Start. AGAIN.

Howard Webb has had the opportunity to get to work on the disastrous regime that was Mike Riley and his Old Boys Network, yet he’s completely ignored all of that. And don’t get me started on Ten Haag. People used to take the piss out of Wenger and his “I didn’t see it” nonsense, but I hope that we can start to do the same with Ten Haag, because he spouts a lot of waffle two and has done for a while. Remember when we battered them at The Emirates last season? They got a couple of goals against the run of play and we deservedly scored late. I seem to recall him talking about how they played better than us when the reality was anyuthing but that. The man is a loon and much like last night, he doesn’t care about being up front and honest.

Anyway, enough of that lot, because we’ve got a couple of Arsenal bits that we have to get through, starting with poor Jurrien Timber. Isn’t it just the most Arsenal luck ever that he was the stand out guy in pre season, he looked absolutely mustard and was probably the one player that many of us thought might have the best season of all of the new signings. His versatility was lauded and his all-round game was something that could have a massive impact on our season from a squad depth this season. He’s also a guy who’s never missed more than a few weeks prior to joining us.

There was hope in the stands that because he didn’t need a stretcher to come off, it wouldn’t be as bad as first feared, but last night the club released a statement confirming the injury to his right knee. That needs to be further assessed and the statement doesn’t give away too much, but it does say that there will be further tests to confirm the timeframe. And of course we all went in to amateur doctor mode last night speculating that his season is over, or that he will be out for most of it, etc, etc. We don’t know yet of course, but I’d be surprised if it is anything that will see him back any time soon. If he is back by Christmas I think that will be fortunate, but knowing our luck when it comes to these kinds of injuries, he’ll probably not be part of our plans for a big chunk of this season.

It means we lose a versatile right back, a centre back, as well as a guy who has played in midfield and we’d just started to play as a left back. It puts a little more pressure on us again but the hope is that we are equipped to cover. For example, with Partey adopting the inverted right back role last weekend, could it mean that we can play him there, because we have Rice who can play in the six and Havertz in the left eight, like we did at the weekend?

We also have Tomiyasu back, although his own injury record is a concern, because in the two season’s we’ve had him there’s always been a point in which he breaks down. It is the same with Zinchenko too, although now we have Kiwior bedded in you’d probably say we should be better stocked at the back.

I do think that means that we should be thinking hard about the remaining defenders situation. KT wasn’t in the squad at the weekend and I suspect that means we’re working on an exit for him, which will come as no surprise to any of us, but the noises that were emerging yesterday about Gabriel Magalhaes and a possible move to a Saudi club seems a little strange. This is a guy who, up until last weekend, had been named in every one of Arteta’s starting XI’s. There’s talk that we need to fund an exit or two to make up for the cash we’ve already spent this summer, but I would be surprised if that’s Big Gabby. Unless this Saudi club are looking at giving us £100million for him and if that is the case then you probably have to think twice about it. But he’s been such an integral part of our team, he and Saliba have built up  such an important partnership, plus he only recently signed a new deal. The only way I see this really becoming a ‘thing’ is if the money laid down is so eye watering that no team in the world would think about rejecting it. £100million would probably be that sort of figure. I’ve seen some suggest around £60million would do it, but for a guy in prime age who is an important part of the team and who has a long deal in front of him, that seems a little low to me.

So we have to wait and see if this has some more smoke to the fire, but it would seem weird to sanction this move just as our season is kicking off.

I’m going to leave it there for today I think. You have yourselves a good one and I’ll catch you all in the morrow.

I thought it was a very interesting display in the end; plenty for us to chew over and whilst it wasn’t exactly a barnstorming game, it was a fascinating one that will have had all of the tacticos salivating over two teams who we know are starting to get to know each other rather well now.

Our pre season up until this point had been very much a mixed bag. Defensively we’ve looked shaky, Arteta had been tinkering with his line up all summer all over the pitch, plus we’d had the injury to Gabriel Jesus which wasn’t ideal. I went in to the game in the pub beforehand saying that I didn’t think we’d win. But as Dave pointed out to me beforehand – I do that every time we go to Wembley! And we – Arteta too – have a pretty decent record there to be fair.

And that record continued yesterday, with us winning it on penalties after leaving it very late to put a smile on Arsenal fans’ faces. Before we go to the details of the game though, a few penalty-related flowers need to be given out to our takers, all of whom scored and Fabio Vieira particularly bagged a very impressive winning penalty in to the top corner. Kudos to him!

As for the game itself, I think Arteta named a side that is as close to the one he’ll play on Saturday next weekend at home to Forest and thankfully what we saw was a lot more defensive solidity about us than we have shown for parts of the US Tour and back home in England. Ramsdale, White, Saliba and then Timber came in and I have to say all of them did a pretty good job of keeping City quiet in the first half. City had the first 15 to 20 minutes I thought in terms of possession, but apart from a few shots dragged wide we didn’t exactly see Ramsdale’s palms stung that much. I thought it was a cagey opening half and we grew in to it as the first half went on; we created a couple of chances and Kai Havertz – playing in that central striking role – had a good chance that was blocked and then probably should have scored when he ran on to the ball late in the first half. I was with Giles and said to him throughout the game that I didn’t think Havertz up top worked and whilst his hold up play was ok and he gave us more of a target man focal point up front, I didn’t think he was that amazing as a striker. There was one moment in the first half where a ball was floated in to the left channel and you could see that he probably could have got to it if he’d have put the after burners on, but he just didn’t bother. Then there was the couple of half chances he had and with the second one I just couldn’t help but think that had it have been Eddie, or Jesus, or dare I say it even Balogun, then perhaps we would have been one up going in to the break.

I like Havertz as a left eight, I’m just not too keen on him as our central striker.

With Havertz up top it meant Rice and Partey both saw game time and I have to say I thought it worked quite well; there were times when Rice dropped in and was sat alongside Partey in more of a double pivot, there was times when Partey pressed on a little more (although admittedly not that often) and it was a game in which you could see that Arteta wanted us to be a little more unpredictable as we shifted our approach depending on whether we were in possession or out, or depending on the game state. That’s the ‘unpredictability’ that Arteta had talked about and you could see that we had some good options. We looked to go long at times and City themselves didn’t exactly replicate their approach against us when they just cut through us with long balls. To be fair that might have been because Ederson and De Bruyne weren’t on the pitch and when De Bruyne did make it on in the second half, that is when City got their goal.

It was a very good finish by Palmer and of course De Bruyne is always going to find a player when he is given time, but Arteta will probably be slightly annoyed that Partey got robbed in the middle of the pitch and then Tierney looked a little clunky in his clearance. He was caught on his heels a little bit and it probably doesn’t help the general feeling that his days at Arsenal might be, sadly, numbered. This is especially off the back of the performance from Timber who did a superb job in at left back and I say Zinchenko has a job on his hands if he wants a starting berth back at the club right now. Timber never really put a foot wrong and although I didn’t watch all of the Monaco game in midweek, that’s the noises I had heard from friends and people I follow on Twitter too. In the stadium I said to the lads around me that I think I’m going to like Jurrien Timber quite a lot in an Arsenal shirt, you know.

We went behind and I didn’t think we’d have anything to get back at City if I’m honest, because of the nature of what looked like two teams cancelling each other out, but we have to give our props to this Arsenal team, because they kept battling even with the lack of chances across both teams in the game. Trossard came on and looked absolutely brilliant. His goal might have had a massive slice of fortune about it, but I’ll be dammed if he didn’t deserve it, given the summer he has had. I honestly hope that Arteta is thinking about Trossard in the number nine. Or I’d have Eddie too ahead of Havertz. Both offer different things but Trossard has the trickery and ability to bring others in to play and based on yesterday you’d have to say he has the form too. Eddie when he came on looked lively and was running the channels with a lot more voraciousness than Havertz. Perhaps this is just a stylistic thing but I just like my strikers to be rapid, physical and be able to be slotted in behind. Like Thierry used to do, or Auba when he was in his prime. Havertz just doesn’t do that and so for next weekend I hope Arteta goes back to Eddie or preferably Trossard up top.

So we won a ‘trophy’, it’s a nice little way to start the season and hopefully gives the players a little lift ahead of the season starting properly next Saturday lunchtime. There are still some things that I’m sure Arteta will want to iron out but we looked a lot better I thought and I was pleased at the way in which we were able to neurtalise City’s passing lanes and how we set up defensively to be more solid and less open. Let’s hope that continues next weekend and for the remainder of this season.

Catch you wonderful humans tomorrow.

Ooh, quick ‘p.s.’. Stuart Attwell – what a joker. Very City-heavy in his view, allowed them to get away with persistent fouling and there was even a yellow he offered to Havertz for a trip in the second half, for which every subsequent trip was ignored. What a piece of work that guy is. Hopefully we don’t see him too often this coming season.

Been away from the blog for the last two days on account of a case of food poisoning that I got from a restaurant in London Waterloo on Saturday night. Wiped me out for two days but ready and rocking after what it feels like some mammoth sleeps and recovery that has just taken place. The problem I have from an Arsenal perspective, of course, is that talking about the friendly on Saturday night which I would have done on Sunday morning, is a little old hat now. There’s been plenty of discussions online, in video and on podcasts, that you’ve probably heard it all already. So apologies if I bore you with this first little bit, as I finally got around to watching the game in full yesterday when I was able to get up.

I was worried before I watched the game that this was going to be an Arsenal team who had been ‘found out’ when I saw the score and nothing else. That’s the trouble with placing too much stock in friendlies though. Although last summer was great because we looked so good, I think it meant more because we suddenly saw us play a different style with the likes of Zinchenko and Gabby J, that because that was busted out and we just won all of our games, it felt so different that it felt significant. We are a year later, we played a fellow rival, we adopted a different style by inverting our right back in Timber, plus we conceded two shoddy goals. That’s pretty much it. Had we not have conceded silly goals like that, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see that we played out a draw.

We played within ourselves, popped the ball around well enough, tried to get the ball out wide to Bukayo and Martinelli, then got booted about by United. Lisandro Martinez even picked up a card and it was clear that Ten Haag United tried the ol’ “get stuck in to em lads” mantra. Well that may well happen at the Emirates in September, but they won’t have as lenient a referee and they will have the home support roaring rage if it does, so let’s not expect the exact same outcome.

Barca this Thursday will – hopefully – be a little more about players on the pitch putting in a display for the assembled fan. I would expect it to be more about technical football, ball movement, rather than “let’s see if we can go through Bukayo Saka on rotation today” football. Which is a-ok for me. Again, it is about getting minutes in those legs, of trying different combinations, to see what works and what doesn’t. We do probably need to see Zinczenko though because he hasn’t featured all tour and we’re getting close to the point in which you’d have to say that he isn’t going to be ready for the season opener against Forest. We have the match on Thursday, then Monaco next Wednesday, then it is the Community Shield, although whether he’ll be there or not I’m not sure, because there is the ‘Game 4 Ukraine’ match at Stamford Bridge taking place the day before. It’s one of those ‘former pro’s and celebrities’ matches, but I don’t actually know if he will take part in any way. Perhaps he is still involved in the Community Shield but I wonder if Arteta has said to just focus on that in case there are any distractions? It is kind of a big deal for Zinchenko to be putting on an event with Schevchenko that is going to help so many people in his homeland and we’ve all seen how much the war in Ukraine has impacted players like him. I just had a look at the teams and it looks like the only player currently playing is Mudryk, but I wonder if Zinchenko and Svechenko will also get on the pitch? If so then that would completely rule him out the next day I would have thought and it is probably better that Arsenal allow Zinny to focus on that charity game, but just make sure he doesn’t cause himself any injury concerns.

If that is the case then we’re looking at the Barcelona and Monaco games for him to get any game time in ahead of the kick off against Forest in mid August and when you think about how Tomiyasu, KT and Fabio Vieira’s summer was impacted by not playing all of the games, you have to wonder if that will impact the start to the season for Zinchenko too.

That will also leave a question for Arteta on who plays left back and given that he’s been trying lots of different things this pre season so far, you’d have to say that it all feels very up in the air so far. He started Kiwior at left back in Nurnberg, then it was Tomiyasu against United, so if he plays Tierney there from the start against Barca then it’ll really make me wonder what his plans are in that position for the season. If Timber plays again though, you’d have to say that it must be with a view to playing the inverted full back on the right hand side at the start of the season. That’s what I would do, anyway, because i’d want to get Timber as quickly acquainted with that style of play as possible. It’s great that we can opt for right or left as the inverted full back approach, but there’s no doubt that what Zinchenko gives us at this moment in time is more superior, so perhaps the plan is to give some minutes for that approach, but equally play with both White and another centre half at left back, so we have four big, physical centre halves who can win the aerial duels, have the pace and can be better on one-on-one duels with their marker. It’s an idea that we’ve seen Pep adopt and maybe Arteta fancies at least giving it a go.

It’s worth trying different things if Arteta wants different answers to questions that teams pose our defence, so I’m up for seeing some changes in the next couple of matches. Heck, even if we’re still tinkering for the Community Shield in 13 days time I’d be ok with it. So long as we are very clear in what we need to do by the following week after that and we have everyone knowing exactly what is needed to get those first precious three points.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Arsenal are – at the time of me writing this – still yet to officially confirm his arrival, but I suspect that will happen at some stage today. Probably as soon as I hit ‘publish’ knowing my luck. But that’s ok, because I have tomorrow to spend some time with some thoughts on the signing and finally wrap up this saga.

On the West Ham statement, I can kind of understand that they and Rice want to carefully stage manage the exit, which is why I understand that they wanted to ‘go first’ on the announcement. They want to be able to get the nice messages out from the fans and Arsenal and the PR team probably agreed; they want to be able to probably get a little bit of time between this announcement and Arsenal doing all of the video stuff, the behind the scenes, etc.

So I think I will leave the Rice chatter now too, because yesterday the club confirmed Jurrien Timber and if you want to talk about how to properly manage an exit with a lot of class, look no further than what they did yesterday. It was well managed, it tugged on the heartstrings, there was a clear communication between Arsenal and Ajax and the way in which it was handled made me think that we’ve got a really great kid in Timber:

And that speaks a lot to the type of player that I think Arteta wants in his team. No mega superstar that is going to swan in with a solid gold Rolls Royce feeling like he’s made it; we want players who are going to work hard to prove themselves, who are going to drive the team forward and have the motivation and hunger to improve, as well as the technical ability.

The signing is a welcome one. It isn’t in a position of the pitch that I thought we’d needed it if I’m honest, but when you look at his versatility, coupled with the fact that last season we lost both Saliba and Tomiyasu at crucial stages, then Timber coming in gives us an uplift in quality and that depth that Arteta must have been craving since we lost out on the league last season. He’ll give a different dynamic, a progressive, ball carrying, good passing, defender and I suspect he can probably expect to get plenty of matches this season.

I also think that this is the kind of move that shows that Arteta is willing – and will – be rotating a little more. You don’t spend £34million on a player and then tell them to sit down until White or Saliba are injured. I think Timber will be getting weekend and midweek minutes and I think we will need to be prepared for that ourselves. Picking a team in the morning before a game is going to be a lot more difficult than last season and the season before that and I am absolutely here for it.

I watched just about as much Timber videos and stories as possible and although this transfer is flying under the radar a bit because of the Rice rumours, the more I read about this lad the more I think this could be a very astute move by Arsenal. When you’ve got players like Van Dijk saying that Timber is further ahead in his development than he was at that age, you know that potentially you’ve got an absolute star on your hands. It won’t be easy for Timber to break in though; this is a team that fought all the way to the end for the Premier League and has been very impressive defensively. I think it would probably be a stretch to expect him to walk in at right back or centre half, but certainly he’ll be earmarking some minutes when the Champions League kicks in in the latter parts of September. Until then it is obviously all about integrating him in to the team, getting him some pre season minutes, then getting him some minutes – maybe as a sub – in those opening weeks. But I think when he does get on, there will be plenty of us who will start to realise just how good he is.

The team travel to the States tomorrow I think, so I expect the squad to all be together and ready to fly off with two more newbies in the team. There will be plenty of press I suspect at some stage today because of Rice for that reason I suspect; it’d be a bit weird if they released images of Rice getting on the tour plane before the club have event announced it. So until we see some of those confirmations, I’ll leave it for today and catch you tomorrow.

Have a good one peeps.

**Shakespearian aside moment**

Fabrizio was speaking yesterday on his channel – I think it was a YouTube recording but can’t be arsed to go hunting as I’m doing today’s ramblings on the Met Line heading in to the City so only have finite time – saying that despite some rumours that both West Ham and Arsenal are about to walk away from this deal, that isn’t the case and both parties are ‘nearly there’. So when this transfer is ‘hopefully’ complete, we really will have gone through all of the many complicated stages of any deal, played out very publicly. Even as I said yesterday that there is no mystery in football any more because there were leaks that the Rice video had already been completed, we then get stuff about the deal nearly being off, before Fabrizio steps in with a ‘chill yer beans’ moment for those Arsenal fans (Like me) currently devouring any new angle.

********************************

And it is ‘new angles’ that I wanted to touch on today because as I was saying, having listened to the chaps on the AOP this morning, I couldn’t help but be surprised that there have been these rumours surfaced about us being in for Tchouameni this summer for around the £70-£80million mark. Now, I am not going to look a delicious gift horse in the mouth and scoff at this player given his pedigree and the fact that many of us would have LOVED him last summer (I gotta mate Giles who I know was hot on him), but I just can’t see Madrid parting with a player with still so much football in his legs to be paid. To be fair to the AOP lads I think they effectively said the same thing, but it just got me wondering why we are still be linked with some of these big names. If we get a deal for Rice and Timber over the line, we’ll have hit up a cool £200million. Now, I know we have some sales to make and that could help to bring the ol’ ‘Net Spend FC’ trope back in to play, but I couldn’t see us a) prizing him from Madrid, and b) having enough cash to go that big.

It is nice to be linked to these players, but unless something massive happens in the outgoings side, then a deal like this feels like one too far for us if I’m honest.

I also think it is why I’m not sure we’ll end up getting Lavia. Great prospect, good talent, but dropping another £40million+ on a guy like that? Feels a little un-Arsenal like to me. And I think we can all see that Arteta is being backed and the club is making some impressive moves, but I just don’t see how this spending splurge continues after we’ve got Rice and Timber over the line. I suspect the noises to quieten down a little bit and whilst we’ll continue to be linked with players, I think the focus will go to moving out players.

And that could be happening sooner than we think, as yesterday it emerged that Granit Xhaka to Leverkusen looks to be entering the final stages. And I gotta tell ya, I find it amazing how we’ve gone from a guy who this time two years ago there were questions about a Roma bid for around €7million I think, to now Leverkusen stumping up a cool €25million to secure his signature. Why the inflation? Well, I guess that’s what happens when you are good. Clubs come to you and try a little bit of shifty business and you simply bat them away. Leverkusen were rumoured to be on the verge of doing a €15million deal at the end of the season if the stories were to be believed. But perhaps Arsenal have realised that if you want to be seen as one of the Premier League ‘Big Dawgs’ then you need to puff out your chest a little more and when you get the eyes from a Euro bloc club, don’t blink.

That’s what it sounds like has happened here and the result could be that we’ve bagged an extra €10million based on what we thought we’d get, for a guy turning 31 in a few months time who only has one year left on his deal. It still has to happen, but if all of these details play out, then you have to tip your hat off to Edu.

It also should make us a bit more bullish for the sales for the rest of the summer. You want Balogun? Sure thing – drop £50million on our laps. Oh, West Ham, you want Eddie? No probs, but that’s a minimum of £40million I’m afraid. Sambi Lokonga to Burnley? Go play with Vincent, Sambs, but Burnley need to give us the £17.5million we paid for him when we signed him.

These are the kinds of moves that I want to see us making. I want to here more stories like the Xhaka one and given we are only just at the start of the summer with clubs having players return to training now, the signs feel good and bode well for us.

Despite all of this though, I still don’t see us making another big money move. And for me I feel like anything over £40million is pretty big. So whilst I’d love us to keep our eyes open for a good deal or two, I’m going to be happy with our lot providing Rice and Timber get over the line in the next week.

That’s be the lot for me today. You guys have a good one and I’ll catch you all in the morrow.

Peace out.

And so back I am tapping away and starting the day with the usual bloggy goodness, except it is a little quieter right now than last week. Last week we had the back and forward on what was happening for the Rice deal, which was a rollercoaster in itself. Then we had the Kai Havertz signing confirmed as our first ‘big one’ of the summer, before the end of the week brought new noises about Jurrien Timber and the fact that we’re pretty close to a deal being done.

Oh, and Elon Musk ruined Twitter for us all. So a pretty interesting few days whilst I was sunning myself in the Algarve!

I know Cesc Fabregas retired and so there was a lot of chatter about that over the weekend, but I’ve never really been that fussed about talking about retirement of players. They played for us, some did better than others, but ultimately he went on and did other things; it is not as if he stuck with us his entire career and did a Tony Adams, is it? Then the whole discussions about whether a player was a ‘legend’ or not. Meh. Who cares? It’s just a word, and a subjective one at that, so what does it really matter if one person says they are and another doesn’t think so? Everyone has the right to feel how they feel about a player. Then we move on with our life. The only consistent is The Arsenal and the Arsenal of ‘now’ is the most relevant.

I suspect the week ahead will be the culmination of some of the discussions that have happened in the last week. The latest titbit of information was that the Rice ‘video’ of his arrival was done yesterday, which suggests that he’ll be announced either today or tomorrow I suspect, once the editing has been finished and all of the finalised bits of info confirmed. Arsenal always like to get their ducks lined up on the transfer announcement stuff and so often it can feel like it has been put on a bit of a delay. But the reality is that this deal looks to have been all done and so now we just play the waiting game when the official announcement is made. I tweeted last night that when even the details on when the announcement video get leaked, we’re now at the point in which there really is no more mystique in football transfers, aren’t we? We know so much about every deal that by the time it happens we are already the salivating monsters ready to devour the next transfer gossip morsel. And as a result it doesn’t matter how significant the player, so many people are just never satisfied enough. Bit sad really.

But that is the world we now live in. Access to information is so readily available (unless you’ve ‘exceeded your rate limit’ of course) that we get data and intel so quickly and drip-fed that it doesn’t ‘bang’ like it used to. We have to accept that the world has changed and you adapt or die, as they say.

But what I think will happen, when all of this transfer dust has settled over the next week, is that we will hopefully have our business done early and therefore have our new players well embedded by the time the season kicks off in….amazingly…about a month’s time. That was one of the cornerstones of last seasons success i.e. getting business done so the players could start working on tactical set up and approach as a team and if we head to Germany on 13th July with our new players all arriving to meet their new teammates, that is going to be massive in terms of an acclimatisation process. Fingers crossed.

Other than that there isn’t really a lot going on as we all wait patiently for the club to make some big announcements. Hopefully sooner rather than later!

Back tomorrow with some more ramblings. Have a good one guys.

Have you ever seen this much noise around Arsenal’s summer dealings in recent memory?

I don’t think I have. I mean sure, we’ve had loads and loads of rumours over the years, that have been spread out over the summer and happened multiple times every day. But we haven’t really had credible sources dropping as much noise as they usually do. Rewind ten years and it was 2013 and we had Arsene Wenger telling us repeatedly that we’d only look to bring in a player if the opportunity arised. He loved a delayed transfer, did Arsene, and ten years ago we all knew what we needed but it wasn’t until right at the end of August that the deal for Ozil got done. And just before that we also signed Flamini up on a free transfer for his second spell at the club. Even that was a situation where he was out of contract at the end of the 2012/13 season, yet we still didn’t get him signed up as a squad player until 29th August!

So to have us making all of the noise that we’ve made – albeit admittedly without anything official yet – happening before the 1st July is refreshing to say the least!

It’s also how we should always operate. This faux idea that waiting until the end of the transfer window as we used to do, so we could pick up bargains, was fraught in danger and often meant we had no real time to pick up any bargains in the first place. Remember us trying to sign Thomas Lemar from Monaco for €90million? Crazy.

But as it stands we’ve got the very reputable David Ornstein dropping a “second bid in to West Ham” yesterday morning, then the Timber noises, which appear to be gathering pace as more emerged after I was commenting on it yesterday morning, then yet more emerging around Thomas Partey yesterday evening as Ornstein confirmed that both the club and the players representatives are exploring the opportunity for a potential transfer. I said it a couple of days ago and I’ll repeat again now: I think that would be a mistake. Gutting our midfield by exiting both Partey and Xhaka would be crazy and a huge gamble for Arteta this summer. It would be a massive loss of experience and would mean a fair bit of pressure and risk placed on news players’ shoulders. With no Partey or Xhaka the essential nature of needing Rice plus others to come in and be excellent by hitting the ground running would be a huge burden that, frankly if I was in Arteta’s shoes, I wouldn’t be too keen to do.

Having said that, if this explosion of Saudi cash is part of the reason why Arsenal are suddenly interested, I can at least empathise and try to understand why they might want to sanction this. We aren’t a nation state-backed club who can just drop £100million without blinking an eye. We also aren’t a private equity-with-obvious-links-to-Saudi-Investment run football club, like some other team in London. If we were then it would be Pepe, Tavares and Cedric heading to the Middle East for a combined £100million to bankroll a Rice signing, for example.

So if the only real play Arsenal have to Saudi intrigue is Partey and if there is an expectation that we would get more than the £45million we paid for him, then perhaps you can at least understand why Arsenal would be looking at the exit as a possibility. But if I’m in Arteta’s shoes I’m thinking “there is no way you are going unless we get £50million and that £50million funds a replacement. And that replacement isn’t Declan Rice”. Because that’s how you get stronger and build more depth. By adding extra quality in numbers on what you’ve already got. It isn’t Rice for Partey, it is Partey for one other IF there is a stupid offer that comes in. And at 30 year’s old, with two year’s left on his deal and with some challenges over the year’s at Arsenal because of some of his injury problems, £50million becomes a pretty crazy fee that you can’t turn down.

So here we have it, having written about how crazy it would be to let Partey leave this summer in the last week, having started this blog off talking about how I don’t think it is a sensible move at all, here I am having talked us in to selling one of our best players!

(And yes, he IS one of our best players. Alright, he didn’t have the greatest finish to the season, but there is a few players who you could say that about, plus people are forgetting just how good he was for 75% of the season).

I think i’ll leave it at that for today. I’m jumping on a pod this evening with Paul and Mike from GunnersTown, as we do our latest episode of the ‘one in, one out, one bangs’ next season. If you want to have a listen we’re going live on Twitter and Facebook, as well as YouTube here.

However, I did see that once again Bukayo Saka stole the show bagging himself a hattrick, man-of-the-match performance and demonstrating that we really do have a starboy ready to hopefully go supernova next season. Harry Kane continued to stat-pad his England career by bagging yet another penalty too, I see. I think I read somewhere that a third of his goals for England come from the penalty spot. Says a lot really, doesn’t it?

But I’m not going to talk about one of theirs when I can wax lyrical about one of ours: Declan R…..

Saka is utterly brilliant, he is getting better and better and given he was able to put together a performance like this after playing 58 games this season and probably being quite knackered, I think it bodes well for us for next season. Every Wednesday we do our ‘one in, one out, one to ‘bang’ next season and although we’re only two episodes in (third one tomorrow night here), I wonder whether we’ll get anybody talking up Saka going to another level above what he’s already delivered for us in his short time in an Arsenal shirt. I hope somebody does, because I do think he will be a player with whom we’ll be talking about alongside the De Bruyne, Salah’s, Henry’s and Bergkamp’s (who signed for us back in 95 on this day, by the way. Thanks for at least that, Bruce Rioch!) if he continues this meteoric rise that he’s been on.

More of the same please B!

There was even a cheeky little Instagram post to get everyone putting two-and-two together and coming up with 200 when he responded to Declan Rice’s Instagram on an unbelievable way to end the season with a red and white heart reply from Saka. No doubt that was a cheeky little nod towards what might potentially be happening and no doubt there will be quite a bit of boiled p*ss in East London as a result, but hopefully Arsenal are going to progress that now that the internationals are done and we can see some movement in the next week.

There was a time in which I’d have just said “we’ll maybe see you in mid-August”, as was such our way when it came to any transfer, but just based on the noises and rumblings we’ve had in the last couple of weeks, it does feel like Arsenal, Arteta and Edu don’t want to mess around and have anything dragged out. With the Rice stuff I think West Ham will inevitably look to drag it out to instigate bidding wars, but if Arsenal can keep the relationship sweet then perhaps they can chivvy this along before moving to their next target.

Which we all thought would be Kai Havertz – and it may still be that, but David Ornstein has been busy again and late last night he dropped another Ornbomb about a player from Ajax called Jurrien Timber, with our opening bid of €30million apparently going in. Ajax apparently want closer to €50million but Ornstein says that there is a good feeling on both sides that a compromise can be met.

My first reaction – after I’d googled to see who on earth the young player was – was to wonder why we’d picked him specifically as a player we wanted to go for. But you only have to start reading about some of his profile to see exactly why. He is a young, versatile central defender who has played 166 times as a centre half, but crucially, he’s also played 49 times at right back. Apparently he’s a guy who is good bringing the ball out from the back and at Ajax their playing style has apparently been to have their two outer lying defenders tuck in to bring the ball out from the back more. Starting to sound a little familiar? He is apparently a guy who also travels with the ball in to the midfield to form a midfield three and at this point I think every Arsenal fan reading this is starting to see why we appear to be heavily linked. Last season it was Zinchenko doing that for us and then right at the end of the season Arteta started to experiment with Partey at right back in the absence of Saliba. Some of us – me included – thought it was just square pegs in round holes but even though the Everton game was a dead rubber, we could all see that Partey was basically doing what Zinchenko does, but on that right hand side. Now think about how we could have the flexibility with a player like this to play different ways from the start, or even change in-game to be able to switch tactics on our opponents when one way isn’t quite delivering.

And I think this is what this summer is all about for our acquisitions. I think the Rice move is about finding a player who can play as a lone six or in a duet, but I think the Havertz and Timber moves are designed to give us a level of tactical flexibility the likes of which we have ever seen. Arteta talked about his plans being in five ‘phases’ and that we were in phase three last season. Phase four, I am assuming, is tactical flexibility and his ability to change things around on a game-by-game basis, whilst competing on all fronts. I have no idea, but I’d assume that phase five goes from competing and being tactically flexible, to being dominant and winning multiple trophies. Which is a very exciting prospect indeed.

And perhaps it is because of that, as well as the fact the club appear to at least be trying to make moves quickly, that I feel a little more at ease about the moves compared to last week. This time last week when the Havertz stuff was coming out I wondered what the heck we were doing, but if we’re looking at him differently i.e. not a number nine and something else in the team, then perhaps they can unlock something in Havertz that Chelsea simply could not. That’s the hope, anyway.

We still need to get these deals over the line though before we can really start to speculate about our set up for next season. As it stands we still don’t look to be too close to any deal and given that we went quick for Martinez last season but ultimately lost him out to United, should show us all not to get too hung up on specific players, because their end destination could always end up being quite some distance from London Colney and the Emirates.

That’ll do me for today I think. Have a good’un guys and I’ll catch you all in the morrow.