But as the countdown begins, as I start to see more and more tactical preview shows, I guess it is time to put those game faces on and start to look at what lies ahead of us on Saturday evening.

It’s a scary prospect. I mean, sure, they play in a Mickey Mouse league that they’ve just won by six points and have been coasting for the last few weeks, enabling them to focus on the Champions League prep, but they are still a thoroughly impressive side. And we will – by the sounds of every European football expert out there – find ourselves as underdogs on Saturday. They have spent the season resting players at the right moment; they have the balance and blend to their season that enables them to do that, plus they have some of the most frightening attackers on the planet. In the knockout stages, they smashed Chelsea 8-2 on aggregate. They did Liverpool 4-0 on aggregate over two legs. Then there was that crazy 5-4 game against Bayern, which they followed up with a 1-1 draw at the Allianz. So they know where the net is.

But they also aren’t the tightest at the back either. In the Champions League this season, they have scored a whopping 44 goals across their 16 matches, nearly three per match. But they’ve conceded 20 – so they don’t always keep a clean sheet and they are going to leave space for us this coming weekend. We all know Arsenal’s impressive Champions League run, built on the foundations of a solid back line that has conceded just six compared to PSG’s 22, but have also ‘only’ bagged 29 from PSG’s 44. It’s also worth pointing out that we have played two games less, so perhaps that goal tally might be closer to them if we had.

What’s interesting, when you look at the numbers side-by-side, is that PSG averages a higher possession than us, which is not so surprising, but also more ball recoveries and tackles won. Because of the fact that they’ve played two games more, I looked at the ‘average per match’ on the UEFA website, and PSG averages 6.44 tackles per match compared to our 4.43. ON ball recoveries, they average 39.07, compared to our 34.86. The ‘saves’ are more similar – PSG have 2.82 to our 2.43.

So what does this tell me, the very poor data nerd in disguise? Initially, I looked at those numbers and just said out loud, “Well, they’re just better at us at most things, right?” Of course, that could be true, but it could also mean that they make more tackles per game because they put themselves in more compromising positions defensively. Teams towards the bottom of the Premier League often lead the way in things like tackles or blocked shots, because they have to do more of it by volume. Perhaps the same could be said for PSG? Or, perhaps I’m just injecting a little too much Hopium at a time in which we all might need a fair dose of it?

The number of ball recoveries, as I interpret it, could be due to a higher press from PSG. I do think they do press higher than us, and when you can force that from your opponent higher up the pitch, you get more turnovers. In the Champions League this season, we’ve tended to dominate games on possession, often just shutting down matches, so when you slow down the game, then perhaps there is a tendency to see fewer ball recoveries. I think.

There’s one more stat that I saw that I thought might be worth highlighting, which is a goalkeeping stat on the number of claims that Raya for Arsenal, or Chevalier for PSG, makes. In fewer games, Raya has made 38 claims and 19 high claims, whereas Chevalier has 18 claims and 11 high claims. Our goalie commands his box more than the PSG one – could this be an opportunity for us? Given our penchant for set pieces, I certainly hope so.

So there are a few titbits of opportunity for us, but the key will be to stop their constantly rotating and fluid front set of players. The news on Hakimi will be key, because like Calafiori (who I would play in the final, by the way), the Moroccan likes to roam and pop up in unusual places. If he isn’t available (and he’s been out since they played Bayern a month ago), then that’s a big plus for us. They also have Chevalier and Nuno Mendes, who haven’t played since then, but it wouldn’t surprise me if all of those players have basically just been given a month off to prep for this one.

So there is still a bit of team news and expected tactical set up to be concluded ahead of this one, whereas for us it is pretty much just Jurrien Timber who is the question mark. There’s no way he starts on saturday, but getting 20 minutes from him could be big, so let’s just hope for more positive updates. Apparently he was in training yesterday, so that’s great news.

Other than that, we play the waiting game as the build up to this intensifies. It was weird that Arteta did the Champions League presser last week, but I guess there will be more embargoed words that will come out from that one today or tomorrow, as the team make their way to Budapest for the last match of the season.

Right, that’s it from me for today. It’s going to be another scorcher for the UK, so I’m going to finish up here and make sure I have my set up all sorted for a day of work – outside in my garden.

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a great day.

I don’t really feel massively nervous about tonight.

It almost feels like a League Cup game.

I suspect it is because I’ve been battered and bruised by the Premier League campaign that the Premier League is the ‘one I want’ the most, coupled with the fact that our beloved football club has an absolutely shocking European pedigree, given how long we’ve been competing for European honours. The years of Arsene Wenger and the ‘get top four for Champions League and the revenues that accompany it’ have conditioned my brain to think like an accountant with this competition. It is not one to be won by The Arsenal, but merely to get as far as possible, so the bank balance and potential funding of superstars can be enhanced for the following season.

That is utterly mental. The Champions League is, arguably, for some, the biggest prize in football. It is evidence that your club has overcome all of Europe to be at the top of the tree. It has massive revenue gains for winning it, of course, but the kudos far outweigh it for so many.

And we’ve only ever been to the final once in my lifetime.

This should be a competition I revere. A competition I want more than anything. I’ve seen us win the Premier League multiple times. The Champions League is one we have never really ever had a sniff at. The final in 2006 may have seen us go a goal up, but we were already backs-to-the-wall and likely to fall short, given the opponent, but also the sending off of Jens in that first half. This Arsenal team – by getting to the semi-final two seasons in a row – has shown that they have the consistency to be one of the best in Europe. We are here because we won every game in the group stages. This isn’t a ‘plucky’ Wenger side who had some amazing results, but were never really going into games with massive expectations of victory.

But this Arsenal side has the capability.

Standing in front of us, however, is an Atletico Madrid side who want to come out swinging like a heavyweight boxer tonight. This is an Atleti team who will not dance around the ring with us; they aren’t going to spar and trade tactical jabs looking to ‘unlock’ us, like Simeone teams of old. They are coming to us tonight to land a knockout blow in the first round, and Arteta and the Arsenal players need to be ready for that.

Atleti will start with Alvaraz and Griezmann, who will rotate a lot and cause us problems with the pockets of space they take, but I wonder if Lookman is also free? He’s apparently been a bit of a revelation since signing for them and if he’s missing then that sounds like a big positive for us. They are also missing Pablo Barrios, who is a good player in the middle of that team, but other than that they’ve been coasting in La Liga; they’re pretty much secured for top four and it means they can put all eyes on this competition.

That makes them even more dangerous, because we’ve had to go from game-to-game with massive emotional effort in our matches; we are still fighting on the domestic front and there has been plenty of comments in the press about how we look ‘fatigued’. It’s easy to see why when key players like Rice and Zubimendi have played so many games, whilst other players like Calafiori and Timber have struggled for fitness.

The team news on that front is a little bit more positive, but not completely, because Timber was once again confirmed to be out. And at this stage, I’m wondering whether or not we’ll see him again this season. every week goes by and we keep getting a ‘not ready’ and now we’re at the six week stage in which he hasn’t played. Even if he’s fit for Fulham, he’s not going to be able to play much part in it, if he hasn’t trained much for over a month.

Calafiori is back, and I wonder if today is the game for him or not, given how Atleti will play. On the one hand, he will pop up in spaces that will make the Atleti players think, but on the other, given their cleare propensity to attack this evening, it leaves a defender out of position at times tonight. That could play into their hands.

That’s why I’d be thinking about Calafiori as an impact sub this evening, with a view to him being deployed from the start against Fulham on Saturday. On the other side, I’d go with Mosquera. Back in his home country, he’ll be keen to impress, and with Ben White playing a lot of football at the moment, I do worry that we’re going to get close to the point in which he breaks down again.

That back four (Saliba and big Gabi are implied) plus Raya makes up a hard-working, strong-in-the-tackle, not massively expansive, but defensively sturdy, back line. And I think that’s the right call for this match. Keep it tight, try to deny space, avoid any kind of slugfest like we saw last night. Because it is a game we would stand no chance in.

The midfield I think, is fairly obvious in two of the three, but I think Arteta might go with Eze instead of Odegaard. Martin played the full 90 against Newcastle, and he faded in the second half, so to me, this feels like a job-share situation between Eze and the captain.

Which means the left and right wings need to be reviewed too, because if Odegaard isn’t starting and Eze is positioned centrally, then there will definitely be a change from Saturday. I’d go for full change, personally, with Saka and Trossard on from the start. If Saka was a ‘maybe’ for the City game, I think Arteta and his coaching staff had him earmarked for a few minutes against Newcastle, with this game as the return date. And with him and Trossard either side of Gyokeres, it feels like we have more ballers around the Swede, than runners. Martinelli and Madueke are – as we all know by now – the wrong foil for our number 14. Hopefully Saka and Trossard can start and show that he can be useful in a game like this.

Nothing gets decided tonight, unless Arsenal fall apart, which hopefully isn’t going to happen. Let’s cross our fingers that we also see some green shoots of a good performance too. It would be timely given the remaining games this season and the importance of each one.

Back tomorrow with a post-match review. Catch you then.

Let’s start with the good news, which I think top of my list this morning, the inclusion of Big Gabi in the training session. He went off with a knee complaint against Southampton and was pictured with an ice pack on his knee. When you see that sort of stuff, you naturally feel the worst, but he took part in training, and that means he should be good to go tonight. Phew. I think for me the worry was less about this evening – we have Mosquera, who has proved to be an able deputy all season – but more about what a knee injury could do for his participation for the rest of the season. I think the club will clearly have to monitor him very carefully, but this at least means we have our best centre half in contention for tonight, and hopefully he gets through ok and his knock he sustained can be managed.

It’s the same with Madueke, who this time last week we ended up talking about how his season might end, as he was pictured walking out of Wembley with a knee brace, but he played against Southampton as a sub coming on, and he was also pictured in training. That is really good news, because the bad stuff coming out from yesterday was that Bukayo Saka is out for tonight. And once again, I have to say, to all of those tosser rival fans and media pundits who complained about Arsenal pulling players from international duty – where are you now, eh? Because Saka hasn’t played since the cup final, and there’s no way Arteta would have him in the squad tonight unless he couldn’t train and wasn’t ready. He sounded a little more optimistic about both Saka and Timber for the weekend, but it seems we’ll have to do without them both this evening.

Which is a blow, but it is why we brought in those expensively-acquired squad players, and for Saka, we will see Madueke, but for Timber, who will play at right back? I have a feeling it might be Mosquera. Ben White has played a fair bit of football of late, but he did look a little underpowered with some of his running against Southampton, so I have a sneaky suspicion that Arteta will go with the Spaniard. Either way, we’ve got two solid pros to replace Timber, and even if White does start, I’ve got a feeling we’ll see a better performance from him, because he’ll be around more of the first team.

Which for me means Raya in, Saliba in, Big Gabi in, Calafiori in, Zubimendi in, Rice in (who was also pictured in training), Odegaard in (taken off against Southampton, clearly to protect him for tonight), Gyokeres in, Trossard in. And with Madueke on the right, it makes for a more familiar first XI line-up and one that I’ll expect a little more cohesion from as well.

As for Sporting, they’ll fancy themselves tonight, not least because they’ve won their last 17 home games in all competitions. That sort of run breeds a lot of confidence, and they’ll fancy taking a scalp against us, even though we’ve either beaten or drawn against them in our last five games. They knocked us out on pens a few years back, but last season’s 5-1 win in the group stages was probably one of the best performances we had in the season. We need to take the memory of that and use it as fuel. This Arsenal team have shown they are capable of much more dynamism in the Champions League this season, as teams come at us, and I think Sporting’s home form will mean they fancy having a go tonight.

Their main strength from an attacking point of view comes via Luis Suarez (not that one), who has already bagged over 30 goals in his season. It appears they aren’t missing Big Vik too much, so he’ll be keen to remind them of what he’s capable of, and his good form going in to this means his confidence will be a helpful factor, I hope. Sporting look like they play in a familiar 4-2-3-1 formation, with Goncalves and Trincao as their main creative outlets to spring Luis Suarez. Trincao is a familiar name, as he played in November last season during the 5-1 victory, but there doesn’t look like there is a ton of players remaining from that side. By my count, if Sporting play their ‘first choice’ side, the familiar names who played in that game last season are:

• Trincao
• Hjulmand
• Inacio
• Morita
• Araujo
• Diomande

So actually, it is more than half the team, but there has also been a fair bit of churn, so we need to expect a very different game from last season, I think. That is also true because of the manager change, with Sporting having only just lost Amorim to United, before appointing Joao Pereira, who lasted just over a month before Borges came in. He’s therefore had over a year to mould the side in his image, so I suspect there will be a much tighter game this evening than there was 17 months ago.

Arsenal need to answer some questions that have popped up in our last two games. They have people who are already stoking the ‘bottle jobs’ fire, so a performance in a big European game tonight will go a long way to showing that they are ready for the remaining two competitions we are in. Ready to fight, ready to pick up results, ready to make this still a wonderful season, despite the last two disappointing results in the domestic cups.

We’re going to face a hostile atmosphere, a Lisbon side and home fans who are massively up for it after their impressive comeback against Bodo/Glimt, so those opening salvoes in which they will try to high press and probe us need to have Arsenal taking control of the game and quietening the home crowd. I am hopeful we can do it.

I’ll be travelling for the second half tonight, so I will have to play catch-up, but I will be back tomorrow with some post-match thoughts. See you then.

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

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

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

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

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Hincapie

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Rice

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you all tomorrow for the usual debrief.

Indeed, if the training pictures and video are anything to go by, we’re definitely going to get that, because there was no sign of Gabriel, Saliba, White, Timber, Zubimendi, Rice or Odegaard. All of which I don’t think you’ll find a single Arsenal fan unhappy about their possible absence today. We simply have to give some of those players a rest. And I guess there are two types of ‘rest’, really:

1. Rest from the matchday squad and playing, and going through the usual warm-up
2. Complete rest from everything – including training

I hope those players have all been given the latter. It will have meant a tiny little ‘Spring break’ for them, and if it helps them for the Leverkusen game and the Everton game next week, then happy days. I want them rested, reset and ready to go. Of course, some of them are possibly injured, with White and Odegaard sure to tick that box, but there’s a question mark over Saliba (which Arteta confirmed in his press conference), and there’s no way you want to risk him with this kind of game.

Especially with the rumoured state of the Mansfield pitch, which some of the journalists commented on in the press conference as having “not a lot of grass”. Arteta isn’t outfoxed for a soundbite to clip upin these types of moments, however, so of course he played a perfectly straight bat with his response. As you’d expect. We’re going to get a ‘good ol’ fashioned cup tie’ this lunchtime, and I’m expecting the footballing cliches to be busted out left, right, and centre by TNT Sports today. So Arsenal’s modus operandi is to be professional, control possession, not allow the game to get bogged down (excuse the pun) in a slog fest, demonstrating their quality to the Mansfield team – even with such a rotated squad.

The good thing so far this season is that even when Arteta has rotated his team, we’ve still seen plenty of professionalism on display, so I am expecting nothing less this lunchtime. But who will take their place in the Arsenal starting XI and on the bench?

Here’s my stab at a starting XI for Mansfield away:

Kepa

Salmon   –   Mosquera   –   Calafiori   –   Hincapie

Norgaard

Dowman   –   Havertz

Madueke   –   Jesus   –   Martinelli

My thinking here is that Hincapie has played the least of all the ‘regulars’ this season, so he might be the freshest, and with Myles suspended, it makes sense. It’s a shame because if Myles were able to start, then you could rotate almost the entire team, ready for Leverkusen. But his suspension as a result of yellow card accumulation means that Arteta has a little bit of thinking to do. I think Havertz in from the start makes sense, as the club tries to build his fitness back up, but I’d be tempted to give it just the 45 minutes, and when he gets through that, have him off regardless of the score. I think Madueke and Jesus therefore pick themselves, although I see that Harriman-Annous was training with the first team, so perhaps he can do a bit of a job share with Gabby J? Alternatively, Arteta could look at this match as an opportunity for Big Vik to bag a goal or two, although I’d be surprised if he started. Then I think you have to give Martinelli a chance to overcome his poor performance away at Brighton by getting in and amongst the action today. That’s certainly what my hope is.

The bench will, I hope, be littered with youngsters. Let’s have Josh Nicholas, let’s give Evan Mooney a place, let him sit alongside Brando Bailey-Joseph – I want to be scratching my head when I see that Arsenal bench.

Of course, I suspect there will be a few more established players ready to come on if the situation dictates, but with all due respect to Mansfield, this should be a game in which Arsenal take the opportunity to catch a breath at a point in the season in which every moment feels ultra-intense. Even last night, I woke up at 3 am and was thinking about what the psychological impact would be of another horrible home game against Everton like last season, so it shows you just how much this end of the season is hitting the average Joe fan like me.

As for Mansfield, well, even Nigel Clough (that’s a blast from my Panini sticker album past!) knows it is an uphill battle, as well as admitting that their league form is more important than this right now. Of course, their players will be up for it, and the chance to test themselves against a Premier League team is massive, but the manager has hardly sounded a rally cry for his team. He’s said he’s not looking forward to playing against Arteta, that there’s not a lot they can do other than focus on themselves, as well as the fact our squad will “frighten the life out of our lads” – so he’s hardly sounding optimistic. We have to use that. We have to make sure there are no upsets. I was nine when we lost to Wrexham – that pain of going into school on the Monday has never left me – I don’t want that again on Monday for work as an adult!

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about them tactically, but if Adrian Clarke’s words of wisdom are anything to go by, it sounds to me like another low-block afternoon might be on the cards. Who knows – they might surprise us and come out a little, but I would be very surprised if that happens, because they don’t want to be on the end of an absolute slap down.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today. James and I will do a post-match review tomorrow on the Same Old Arsenal pod, so join us then if you want a little more Arsenal in your life.

Yesterday I touched on it, but it’s one of those games in which everything – and everyone – is calling this a routine home win. The stats back it up, again, as I mentioned yesterday. Sundewrland aren’t amazing away from home. And yet….AND YET…there’s that nagging feeling that when we’ve really had the opportunity to start really – and I mean REALLY – pull away from the chasing pack, it’s felt like we haven’t quite been able to do it.

Remember the Declan Rice “every F*cking time” comment captured after Forest? Or the feeling post-United? I remember seeing a stat from Sky during the United game, which was that in 24 of our previous 24 that we’d gone ahead, we’d won – I think it was at home. And what happened? The odds went against us on that occasion. So I just worry that the data seems to be pointing in such a way that we might end up getting ‘against-the-run-of-pplay’ chinned today.

It just feels like there’s jeopardy lurking around every corner.

But I guess that’s just the nature of a title run-in. We’ve sort of been doing this for a few years now, so you’d think we’d be attuned to it by now, but it feels somehow different this season. We’ve been leading for so long. We’ve been the best team for so long. We’ve been waiting for a title as fams for so long, that we’re extra stressed about this, I feel like more than ever. In 2022/23 it was the ‘surprise package’ gig. In 2023/24, it was ‘blown it at Christmas,’ but then we went on a mega-surge at the end, so we were still underdogs and chasing. Last season was the season of injury hell and a squad not big enough to respond. This season it has – up until this point – been all there for us. And so far we’ve taken our chances. Heck, we’re six points clear as it stands. And yet…AND YET…it does feel like we’re on a knife-edge between being reeled back in.

So today’s home game against Sunderland represents an opportunity to keep on keeping on. To keep up the efforts, intensity, and relentlessness of the Premier League.

Sunderland’s game plan today will be clear: Keep it tight, congest the central spaces, look for free kicks, corners, etc, then see if you cvan ‘nick’ a goal. Arsenal – having played in midweek – may well start off with that controlled possession that so many of us worry about. you know, the stuff where Gabriel and Saliba are exchanging passes at walking pace? That may well be the first half we watch today. So as fans in the stadium, or those like me watching from afar whilst on my final day of holiday today, we probably need to, in the words of George Clooney in From Dusk til Dawn, ‘be cool’.

We don’t have to worry about Granit Xhaka, so that’s one thing we don’t need to worry about. Then there are players like Masuaku, but Xhaka being out is the main one for them. They still have Le Fee, Brobbey, Diarra, who can all cause us issues. We’ll dominate the ball, but we need to dominate more than just ball and territory, which is where picking players with incision is key.

For me, that means I think we should line up today with this team:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba  –   Gabriel   –   Calafiori

Zubimendi

Eze   –   Rice

Madueke  –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

I tinkered with the preference being Havertz up top, given that he only had a cameo against Chelsea, but he’s played a lot recently, and given the goalscoring exploits last weekend of Big Vik, I just wonder if Arteta might go for him. I personally think we might need a bit more guile, but when you have a striker who is bagging, you probably need to lean in to that a little more. Madueke for Saka is the natural replacement, whilst Leo for his close ball control feels obvious. But if Odegaard is, as we expect, still out, then you also need to lean into the ‘X-Factor’ of somebody like Eze. This game – for me – feels really similar to the one against Palace earlier in the season in the league. A good team, a solid unit, a side that will be tough to break down, in which you need a ‘difference maker’. That boy Ebs is one of those, so let’s lean in to it.

I will be watching at 9 pm local time, hoping that I have a flight home tomorrow, which is nice and not grumpy, which will depend entirely on whether Arsenal can do the business today. Let’s hope they can.

Catch you all tomorrow.

This will be a tough game. Both in terms of the opposition, but also on their approach, because whilst Liam Rosenior is new in post and will inevitably impart his own style of play on the Chelsea team, I think what we’ll see tonight will still be a team that is in the mould of Maresca, so I think we’ll see Chelsea trying to be just as physical as they were for the Premier League game in December. We’ll need a strong referee who won’t tolerate their bullsh*t.

The good news is that they are missing Caicedo through suspension, which means there’s one less clobbermeister in there, but they still have little ratbags like Enzo and Cucurella. That means we’ll no doubt have a few snidey things happening to our players tonight. I just hope that we rise above it and can avoid any kind of injury, because we’re already – once again – missing a host of players, and in defence we can’t really afford any more absences.

Team news-wise, Arteta gave an update yesterday, and it looks like there’s still no Calafiori for the foreseeable future, which I was surprised by because I thought he was close to a return. I guess we just have to accept he’s going to miss a portion of the season every season now, but I was expecting a return. This means – with Hincapie also out – that there are minutes to be had for Myles Lewis-Skelly, although I have a weird feeling he might not start tonight. I don’t know why, I have no insider info, but it ‘feels’ to me like Arteta might go White at right back and Timber at left back. Of course, if Saliba is still out, then it forces his hand anyway, so it’ll be Timber and Gabriel at centre half, which is still a good enough pairing to hopefully shut out Chelsea.

In midfield, I think it will be our first-choice XI: Zubi, Rice, and Odegaard. Although what he might do is shuffle it a little, with Forest away also on the horizon on Saturday evening, so I wonder if there’s a chance for a Norgaard, Eze or Nwaneri. Perhaps there’s an agreed-upon point, regardless of the score, at which those players get minutes? I’d certainly be up for that, because whilst I want us to get through to the final for this competition, there’s absolutely no doubt that we need the strongest and fittest XI against Forest this weekend.

Up front, I suspect we’ll see a return for Saka and Trossard on the flanks, as well as Big Vik up front. I think if Havertz was fitter, they might do a job share with Gabriel Jesus and Kai, but given the German is only just back, I think he’ll maybe make the bench at best this evening. For Gyokeres, it is coming close to crunch time, though. Jesus must be nearing the point at which he’ll be starting league games and with Kai building up his strength, I would expect that by February, he’s going to be in a position to start asking questions about starting, too. So Viktor doesn’t have long to deliver. A game like tonight, where Chelsea will push on and hopefully leave spaces, needs to have him delivering, or at least getting shots off. The questions have started to be asked by Arsenal fans and now is the time to show you are still a deadly marksman.

I think Rosenior is going to go for this tonight. He has just joined, he has an opportunity to win a trophy within the first few weeks of his reign, plus he’s testing himself against the team that are top of the league at the moment. He will want to show he can make an impact and a game like tonight will be exactly the sort of fixture where he’ll be looking at a potential statement. He said as much in his press conference, when he alluded to the fact that even before the FA Cup game they played this weekend, they were talking about – and focused on – this Arsenal match. For Chelsea it is a chance of a trophy when, realistically, they will probably feel the Premier League is a little beyond them and the Champions League/FA Cup still has several rounds to go.

So we need to be ready. We need to be up for it. We REALLY don’t want to give them a leg up and a confidence boost by not showing up tonight. It’s over two legs, so there’s a lot of football to be played, but if you’re not on it then it can make the second leg quite difficult. I think we will be up for it, but we also need to be prepared for a fast start, because I think Chelsea might want to try to blow us away early and get the crowd on side by a good early display. If we can quieten them down early, it could be a good night for us.

That’s pretty much it from me for today. I’ll be back tomorrow, as usual, for a bit of a de-brief, so I’ll catch you then. Hopefully, we’re talking about a positive night for The Arsenal.

Let’s do this.

For a number of years now, Brighton have been one of those clubs that you say things like “they play decent football” or “they’re a well-run club,” and over the years at The Emirates, they’ve given us a good run for our money, for sure. Last season, it was a goal from Joao Pedro to level things up after we’d gone ahead and then seen a ludicrous red card that we’ve never seen since for Declan Rice. That was right at the beginning of the season, I was in Portugal watching the game, and boy was I spitting feathers.

So to wash that memory clean, I’d like to see a really good display of dominance and three points for The Arsenal. We have of course, already played Brighton once in the League Cup this season, but it was a heavily rotated Arsenal side, and Fabian Hurzler also rotated his Brighton team, so it didn’t really feel like it counts.

Today it does count, though and Brighton will be at as full strength as they can, with a number of players returning from injury and suspension like Danny Welbeck, Lewis Dunk, Diego Gomez, and Jan Paul Van Hecke also returning. So despite having a bit of a stalemate against Sunderland in their last game, they’ll have a number of key cogs in the machine back today, so I’m expecting them to be difficult.

What Arteta needs to decide is how we’re going to break down an organised Brighton outfit who will look to hit us on transition. I suspect the team news will see some returning players from the bench against Palace, and so my gut feel on who Arteta puts out today includes:

Raya

Timber – Saliba – Hincapie – Calafiori

Zubimendi

Ødegaard – Rice

Saka – Gyokeres – Trossard

There’s obviously a question about Hincapie, but when I read the transcript of Arteta’s pre-match press conference a couple of days ago, it sounded to me like it was a little knock, and I think he’ll come in today. It would be nice to get the news that Big Gabi is back for today, but I suspect they are saving him for Villa at home; there’s no inside track on that, just a gut feel.

The midfield reverts to the first choice XI I think, whilst in attack, I just feel like Arteta will think that with Gyokeres scoring in his last game, he might have restored a little bit of confidence. I suspect two games in four days for Gabriel Jesus is a little too much for him right now, too. He did well against Palace, but I think his minutes will continue to be managed for the foreseeable future. Then, to complete the starting lineup, I think the form of Leo Trossard is such that you simply can’t keep him out. And against his former club, with a smattering of boos from the away corner of the ground, I think it might be the sort of thing that will spur him on to have a good game today.

Speaking of returning players, we’ll also no doubt see Danny Welbeck lead the line today, which will be a challenge because he’s liked a goal or two against old teams in the past and has done it against us whilst playing for Watford a few seasons back. He’s also in form this season, and before he picked up his recent knock, had himself seven goals in 16 games this season. To put that form into context, he mustered just 10 goals in 30 games last season, and the season before last it was five in 29 matches. So he’s picked up a bit of form this season, and as I think we’ve seen with our own new summer signing up top, when strikers have confidence, they take those chances that perhaps otherwise they might not have done.

In the League Cup, Brighton created chances, and I think they will do so today as well. In fact, I seem to recall we were slightly fortunate to go ahead in that match, as Brighton had a few very presentable opportunities that they probably should have buried. As an Arsenal fan who mainly only concerns himself with his own team and doesn’t religiously watch all kinds of football, I couldn’t tell whether or not that was the story of that particular game. Still, apparently, it has been a feature of their season. So much so, that Huzeler was asked about their number of shots versus actual goal conversions, so clearly they will get chances today. The numbers sort of bear that out; Brighton sit sixth in the table on total number of shots, seventh on shots on target with a shots on target percentage of 31.4%, which drops them down to 13th. 

So whilst I don’t think this will be a low-block game, I do think Brighton will come to sit a wee bit deeper and spring traps. We won’t see zero invention from them and they will get possession of the football at times, so it is on us to make sure that when we have it, we make it count.

I’ll be in a slightly different seat and going with the old man today, which is nice, so hoping that we get a festive win to keep us top, because there is absolutely ZERO chance of Forest pulling off an upset in the early game against City today.

Then tomorrow we’ll be back with a podcast doing a bit of a digest of what unfolds. Let’s hope it is a happy one. 

Catch you all then.

If you’re taking Arteta by his word, then you’ve got to make the assumption that it’s the same with Kai, as Arteta used the same words to describe his arrival. He spoke glowingly about how much he loves him and how he is desperate to have him back in the squad, but as he also alluded to in his press conference, this has been the worst period for injuries he’s ever experienced. Certainly in his five years in charge I don’t remember us suffering as many injuries as we have this season and whilst Arteta referenced “especially in attack”, the reality is that we’ve had players out all over the pitch. Now it appears to be hitting the defence with both our main central defenders out at the weekend and whilst I – like you – am desperate to get Bug Bill back on the pitch, I wonder if they’ll play it safe tonight against Brentford and keep Mosquera and Hincapié on from the start.

I don’t there’s many of us who would have a problem with that, to be honest, because both players have come in and looked really good every time they’ve been asked to play. For our Ecuadorean, he’s played the intensity of a North London Derby and the physicality of a Chelsea game in which he was certainly tested more and came through it. This is a central defensive partnership that is still in its infancy and that is really impressive that they went to Chelsea and were able to hold their own and I think given that context, Arteta will probably feel more comfortable about getting them in tonight, so perhaps there’s no need to rush Big Bill back and have him ready for Villa on Saturday.

It’s the same with Trossard and given we now have Gyokeres and Gabby J available from the bench, there’s no need to risk him tonight. The one question mark that emerged yesterday was the availability of Saka, because he wasn’t spotted in training or in any of the training pictures. There was no mention of it yesterday but I think that’s because Arteta wasn’t asked and given how he likes to mislead everyone (think Odegaard on team walks, or Saka turning up to the Emirates with the team in his tracksuit when he was clearly injured), it wouldn’t surprise me if Saka wasn’t available tonight. Or perhaps he’s just on the bench and Arteta gives Noni the nod in his preferred position.

There are still plenty of decisions he needs to make though, not least up front and in those attacking wide positions. Martinelli hardly set the world alight at Stamford Bridge and as I referenced yesterday on Brentford’s playing style, this doesn’t quite feel like the kind of game he will excel in. Of course we may not get the choice; if Trossard and Saka are both out tonight, then it’ll be Martinelli wide left, Madueke wide right and I wonder if Arteta will rotate in Odegaard and Gyokeres for Eze and Merino. Both of those players have played a fair bit of football recently and so to give them some bench time might be good from a fatigue perspective. He could of course opt for Eze wide left, but given he was pretty anonymous at Stamford Bridge, my guess would be more on the Brazilian than Ebs.

Given Zubimendi came off relatively early against Chelsea to protect him from a second yellow, plus Calafiori came off at halftime because of his yellow, you could argue that both could play, but given Calafiori has been nursing an injury since the international break and there’s Villa to come at the weekend, I wonder if Myles will be given the nod to protect the Italian. I wonder if the same will be said of Saka too. 

So I suspect we’ll see a line up that looks a little like this:

Raya

Timber   –   Mosquera   –   Hincapie   –   Lewis-Skelly

Zubimendi   –   Rice

Odegaard

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Martinelli

That team is still a very strong side and as we’ve been saying all season it really hits home the depth we have, because in this scenario the bench includes Kepa, White, Norgaard, Eze, Madueke and Merino all available to be called on if needed. And I think given the load on the players there will be a few of those that will be called upon. I did wonder whether to suggest whether White might get a go, but Timber is proving so valuable and he’s so in form right now, that I don’t think Arteta drops him given there’s no Saliba or Gabriel. 

Brentford look like they have a pretty fully fit squad and their danger man is obviously Thiago with his goals, Damsgaard with his eye for that pass from deep, plus Kayode with the long throws. Brentford are a side that – as I said yesterday – will not want too much of the ball, but they will want to make the most of those set pieces, so we’ll need to be strong and physical in the duels to win this one methinks. 

I don’t think this will be pretty tonight, but you have to find ways to answer those questions asked if you want to be top of the league. City may have wobbled a bit yesterday in that second half, but they ultimately got the win and narrowed the gap to two points, so we need to be looking at getting a win here by hook or by crook. I don’t care if it’s scrappy, I don’t care if it’s ugly, we need to do our jobs against a decent Brentford side. 

Go out and prove your title credentials once again, Arsenal.

Back tomorrow with a review of what will unfold later this evening.

Arteta wouldn’t be drawn on Havertz and Gyokeres, saying that they are both close and whilst Nagelsmann’s comments the week before last suggested that Havertz would be somebody probably closer to Christmas playing for us, we’re still a little more in the dark about Big Vik. I do think it is weird; we haven’t really been told anything other than he picked up a muscular injury which was reported as a hamstring strain. A quick Google tells you that a hammy takes anything between a few days to months for a complete tear. We know it wasn’t a tear, it clearly wasn’t what they call a ‘Grade 1’ because that takes just a few days or a week or two. But there has been no mention of a ‘tear’ at all, which puts the recovery at between four to eight weeks. If we’re ok to assume it isn’t a tear of the hammy and just a strain, then as of Sunday Gyokeres has been out for essentially a month, because the Burnley game was on 1st November.

My hope is that he is surely in contention for Sunday, but I do find it interesting that nobody asked (unless they did and it hasn’t been picked up) about the two players in isolation, because surely Big Vik is more likely to be returning sooner than Havertz? I would have hope that we can see him this weekend but if not, you’d hope that we could see him on Wednesday against Brentford, surely?

In the meantime, it might mean Mikel Merino once again reprises his role in attack and Arteta was of course happy to give some flowers to a guy who I think almost all of us now are much more appreciative of than we were a year or so ago. I remember this time last year thinking we’d bought an okayish central midfielder who would be a backup if we needed it (and it turned out we bloody-well did need it). We ‘found’ ourselves an auxiliary centre forward last season and now that he’s bedded in, he’s been acting as a fantastic deputy for our injured guys. And in the meantime, we’ve shifted our playing style and I’ve noticed our Merino has adapted too, dropping on to the right at times, tucking in to midfield at times and then rotating with either Trossard moving into the central space, or Eze taking up those positions for which he scored his goals last weekend.

If Merino plays tomorrow it will be interesting to see what Chelsea do, because I suspect they might have seen how Merino is vacating those attacking spaces and they might put somebody on him to do a tracking job. I’ll save a little more tactical thinking about how the game might line up for tomorrow, but I do think this is going to be a fascinating tactical chess match between two of Guardiola’s disciples.

There was a question asked about Gabby Jesus, who along with Nwaneri played in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Watford this week (must be bloody handy to shout over a fence and see if the lads want a kick about) and whilst Arteta wouldn’t be drawn on how available he might be soon, I suspect we might see him in a match day squad or two in the next couple of weeks. If you remember what happened with Timber when he did his ACL, the club really took their time to bring him back and he only read made the return on the last game of the season, a full 10 months after he picked up his injury on the first day against Forest. Gabby J is a few years older, so the healing will take longer, but he’s done 11 months now and so I think Arteta might be thinking about maybe an additional week of training before he’s in for match day squad inclusion. He apparently came through that friendly unscathed, he’ll probably have some sore legs for a few days, so who knows? Maybe a cheeky subs appearance in midweek against Brentford isn’t off the table?

He was asked about Rice winning the Balon D’Or, which is the type of question I hate, plus about Estevao’s quality, which of course he didn’t want to talk on an individual, but I do wonder if we have a game plan for certain players if they play or not. For example, Maresca predictably said that Palmer is back in training, having said he had ‘no chance’ just over a week ago. He hasn’t played since September so it’s a little like Odegaard for us in that regard in that you wouldn’t think he could get a full 90 from Palmer, but does Arteta plan for Palmer from the start? Does he plan for Estevao from the start? Or the bench? We talk a lot about how our squad depth is immense – and it is – but Chelsea also have quite a deep squad, having spent the best part of three years stockpiling every player they could get their grubby mitts on. If you take their attack, for example, you’ve got the aforementioned two players, but also Delap, Joao Pedro, Garnacho, as well as Gittens. They’ve even been giving Tyrique George games too, so it isn’t as if they have a ‘bare bones’ team.

That’s a challenge Mikel is going to be set tomorrow but the good news is that we’ve seen how he can spot things and adapt in-game to them, evidenced by the second half against Bayern in which we just upped the gears and showed our power against the German champions. You feel like once the game kicks off and the patterns of play start to get set, we might need to see Arteta making similar tactical adjustments when he see’s what Chelsea and Maresca are doing.

But, as I said, perhaps that is for tomorrow’s blog, so I’ll leave it for today and hope you have a great Saturday and maybe we can get another splendid hate-watch day like last Saturday.

So what are we potentially in store for today then, eh?

Well, first and foremost, I think the first goal is basically everything in this game. I know I say this a lot and I know before a lot of games I talk about how Arsenal need to start early, kill the oppositions belief by getting that first goal, but based on what I see in front of me and this Scum team, if I was told I could only play the ‘first goal is important’ narrative one time in a season, it would be this one. That’s because the blueprint for this Thomas Frank side is set. It is grounded in one word: containment. Thomas Frank will want to contain this game and the way he will do this is by anchoring his side in a low block, with bodies compacting in their defensive third, two holding midfielders and a box around their own D to congest that central area. It is what he has done at Brentford that we’ve seen time and time again, it is how he has been able to deliver the success he did at Brentford and it is the narrative of the underdog. And Frank fits comfortably into that narrative a lot more than when the pressure is on to dominate a game.

That has played out for them this season; Tottenham are second from bottom for home form this season, with one win and four defeats. The Scum are a side who don’t know how to break teams down and as a result, they struggle. At home their xG is third worst, their xG against is only marginally better at fifth worst. They don’t know how to break teams down who come to their gaff and say “go on then, we’re the underdog, you impose yourself. They just can’t do it. But away from home, when they can play the ‘little team’ card, that’s where Frank thrives. They’re level on points away from home, haven’t tasted defeat, rope-a-doped Man City for their first away game of the season and have done the same against basically all of the teams they’ve played away. You can tell that in the numbers; they’ve got the best away record, but their chance creation puts them squarely mid table away from home for xG. For xG against they are only just better in ninth. They are MASSIVELY outperforming their underlying numbers (shown by the fact that on goals per shot they lead the league) and that tells me that they are a counter-attacking team who don’t create chances, but are deadly when they do.

Today they will probably only have one, two, maybe three big chances – maximum. But based on what they’ve done this season, they’ve been taking that one big chance. So if they score first, what we will get will be the ugliest, skankiest, most nauseating low block you will ever see. If they score first, then I really do fear that we might get sucked in to the horseshoe of death and us being picked off as we press high up the pitch. Think about what City did this season – yeah, that. Think about last season with West Ham, I spoke about that before that game, but in that match I think West Ham had two shots, scored two goals, won 2-0 last season but their second goal was scored on the counter. That’s what Frank wants. He wants the first goal (he even talked about set pieces too), then he wants to lock the back door. A quick check of this fixture when it is us at home tells me we have had the first goal in each of the last four, but the Scum got it in the previous four before that at The Emirates.

We. Must. Score. First.

If we do, then we have ourselves an interesting match up, because all the numbers point towards the Scum finding it hard to get back in to games. When they chase, they leave space and that could mean good things for us. If we don’t, then Van der Ven and Romero will be sitting in front of Vicario and nodding away every single ball into the box and winning a lot of tackles (they have the third most numbers of tackles won in the league).

What Arteta needs to do is to ensure that this game is controlled and that there is LITERALLY nothing that they get from our back line, which has a question mark about it with Big Gabi’s absence. I think he’ll go with Mosquera. He’s played the most football of the understudies, Hincapie has only recently started getting in to the team and I think Arteta will shift Saliba to left centre-half and play the Spaniard in a more favoured right-sided position with the protection of the excellent Jurrien Timber. I think the midfield and attack starts the same as Sunderland with Zubi, Eze and Rice and then Trossard, Merino and Saka in front and I think it will be interesting to see how Merino plays today, because his natural instincts are to drop in to midfield to receive the ball. But if Tottenham drop into a low block out of possession, the requirement might be for him to occupy those two central defenders as much as possible. Both of their defenders are good in the air, but so is Merino, so it’ll be an interesting battle.

Then, you have to look to the bench and I have everything crossed that we have at least three of those injured players back. I wrote yesterday about Gyokeres supposedly being back, btu I think I fell foul of some dickhead attention seekers posting old pictures of him, so I suspect it’ll be Martinelli, Madueke and Odegaard back. Hey, that’s a pretty good collective of players to call on and I’ll be intrigued to see if Noni plays a little more as a player who can unlock stubborn defences with his ability to beat his man.

This is a massive game. It’s going to be a really tough game. We all know what is at stake. I just pray that those Arsenal players go out there and do the business.

back tomorrow with a debrief. See you then.

Mikel was asked yesterday what he felt about the fact that Arsenal had lost 50% of their home matches to West Ham in the last few years (four losses in 42 matches, I think, was the stat that was used, with West Ham winning two of those) and he of course acknowledged that it was something they were aware of. He also praised Nuno Espirito Santo (I always feel like that is a car manufacturer’s tagline) while giving some flowers to ‘excellent’ Graham Potter; somebody who has thwarted him at more than one club during his time in Premier League management. But Mikel will know the context of those games and he will also be aware of how we need to be better in the attacking third today if we’re going to get all three points because I can see this one being a less-than-open football match. I suspect we will see exactly the kind of game we have seen against West Ham in the last two seasons; low-block football with transitional counter and a West Ham side that will most likely look to bloody our noses once again. There is a world in which I see a three-times-in-a-row scenario happen. I am not naïve and arrogant enough to think we’re going to have it all our own way today.

So what we need to see is an Arsenal team that is well aware of that. We need to see quicker movement of the ball. What has characterised our football in these low-block games over the last 14 months or so has been a slow and methodical build-up. You will be able to picture this in your mind’s eye as much as me; Arsenal have the ball at the back, Gabriel is trotting forward with it, looking for a forward pass. He lays it to Rice. Rice takes one touch, two touches, three touches, four touches. The opposition is sat in a back five with two holding midfielders. They aren’t budging. Still we edge forward. We’re in the opposition final third now. Ball goes wide left. No space. Ball recycled back to the middle. Then out wide to Saka. We’re looking for an individual bit of brilliance from him but he’s doubled up on. So he comes back inside to the centre. Ball gets recycled again.

We can’t have that. We can’t have one of those frustrating first halves where it looks like we’ve just given up a half of football for nothing (think Man City at home a couple of weekends back). We need Arsenal to start with rapid ball movement and progression from the first minute. Nuno is a manager well-known for his defensive stability. Like Mikel when he first joined The Arsenal, he will start with the back and work his way forward if he is given enough time to mould this West Ham side in his image. Whether he is there as early as today, given he’s only been in the job a week, remains to be seen. But Potter didn’t really last long enough to truly mould West Ham in his image, so the ball-playing side that he was trying to get them into wasn’t really fully there; the muscle memory of Moyes must still be there in the background of this West Ham side, even if it was over a year ago that he was manager.

I am expecting West Ham to look to use the likes of Summerville and Bowen as their rapid pace merchants to hit us on the transition, with Paquetá the deep-lying distributor to cause us issues. From set pieces they might call on Füllkrug, but we’ve also had problems with Callum Wilson over the years when he was at Newcastle, so I think there’s plenty there to occupy our centre-halves should they get the opportunity from set pieces. Indeed, it was two years ago that we suffered at the head of former Arsenal player Dinos Mavropanos from a corner, so you can’t exactly say we don’t have recent history to act as a warning sign.

Arteta will be contemplating that as he picks his starting XI today- well, not the stuff about Mavropanos, but more about how recent history has been against us in this fixture. So he needs to pick a side that can counter how West Ham will set up. I think there will also be an element of leaning in to rotation too. I fully expect our back line to revert back to the one that played against Newcastle and I expect Zubimendi, Rice and Ødegaard to be our midfield three. Rice was rested, Ødegaard played excellently, so it stands to reason those players will be given the nod. But what of the front three? Big Vik is now a regular in the absence of Kai, so that’s a given, I suspect. Then it becomes about the wide forwards and I think we all know that Saka is getting back in after only playing 20-odd minutes in midweek. So it’ll really come down to that wide left position and I have to say I’d be surprised if it is anybody but Eze. Leo played against Newcastle, he played against Olympiacos, so I think he’ll come on from the bench today if he plays. Likewise, I don’t think this is the sort of game that Martinelli thrives in, because it’ll be one in which there’s little space to run in behind, so I can just imagine that he’ll end up doing that thing where he hugs the left touchline, gets little space and is a little frustrating if it were he to start. So for me it’s Eze as the lock picker for that left-hand side. Give him the minutes, let him drift in and connect with Gyokeres and let’s see if he and the Swede can replicate what they did against Forest.

It’s a game that we have to win if we want to show that we’re serious title contenders. The big games are one thing, but you have to take care of everything else at home and if we’re going to have genuine title aspirations, these are the kind of games you just have to find a way to win against what will inevitably be a stubborn opponent.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some more thoughts, as well as with James and Amanda first thing, for the Same Old Arsenal podcast. See you then.

Tonight it will be harder. We don’t have our home fans behind the team, they will have the roar of the Paris locals, we will find ourselves up against a wall of noise and that always gives players an extra 10%. So I am expecting PSG to properly go for us early this evening. If the same happens tonight as happened in the first leg, this game could be over before it even gets started.

The difference between this match up and the two in the other semi final is night and day. A 7-6 win on aggregate for Inter Milan puts them through to the final, but the chaotic nature of that game and the first leg is in stark contrast to the cagey first leg, which I think will be the same tonight when our lads take to the field. PSG will go hard, go fast, hope to smash and grab an early goal and give us a few haymakers to see if they can floor us, so it’s important that we keep the guard up and try not to be embroiled in a basketball match, because if it is back to front with space, they will tear us apart.

For us we can at least draw on the positive that Thomas Partey will be back in the line up through suspension and whilst his form this season has been excellent, I think most of us Gooners would agree that it’s actually more about where it allows Arteta to position his other players that could be a benefit. Rice will move forward in to the left eight role. Merino will go back up top. But it also means we get to try to replicate the approach that worked against PSV and worked against Real Madrid.

The only difference is that PSG are a much better side than Real Madrid right now. PSG are lightning quick, they press hard and high and they will want to replicate the first part of the game last week by pushing us back and trying to force us to go long and hoof clear so they can recycle possession. After that game Arteta said that he spotted something and then corrected it and given that we were much better in the latter part of the first half and the second half, you have to take him at his word. My hope for this evening is that Luis Enrique has a blueprint, he executed it last week, Arteta now knows what it is and he has a way to counter it.

He was certainly bullish enough yesterday, talking about making history, about doing what we did in the first leg, but with a little more consistency, about how the players are very excited in training and there is positivity in the camp. All words you want to hear. But as the man himself said, now the time is to stop the talking and do it on the pitch. I feel like we left a little more of ourselves out there in the first leg; it didn’t feel like an Arsenal in Europe kind of game like we’ve seen this season. But to stand any chance of overcoming PSG, the team will have to be a lot better than they were just over a week ago. We have to take the chances presented to us. We have to get Saka in behind and we have to see more of the running power of Martinelli. Merino against Marquinhos has to be a better match up than Trossard was and for sure, more than anything else, Martin Odegaard has to turn up tonight. He was anonymous on Tuesday, so poor, which everyone has already pointed out, but we know there’s more of him that we’ve seen shine before. We aren’t getting anywhere tonight unless he steps up and gives us a captain’s performance. We cannot afford a single ‘six out of ten’ performance from any Arsenal player.

Rice was the man in front of the cameras yesterday and he was bullish too. His positive tone that he set was enough to instil a little bit of belief, but he also admitted that they have to be the ‘best version of ourselves’ to get a result tonight. As I’ve already mentioned, I don’t think that was the case last week, so unless we’re going to have this season peter out into nothing come tomorrow morning, those Arsenal players have to do everything to get the result. Throw every body at every ball, if your lungs are hurting because you’ve been sprinting too much, sprint that little bit further. Don’t wake up tomorrow morning knowing you could have done that little bit more to be in a final. It will haunt you forever.

Before the home leg I was surprisingly bullish about us winning this thing. After the defeat last week I have 180’d for obvious reasons. I still think we perhaps don’t have enough to get it over the line against what looks like the best team in Europe right now and who have a fully fit squad to call on, but I’m going to hold on to a little bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, this will be a year in which we aren’t terrible in Europe and can turn around things. Envoke the spirit of that Madrid performance, Arsenal, you’re going to need that mentality to see the final in Munich.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Fingers crossed.

• Win
• Don’t lose
• Don’t draw

The latter particularly. I’m getting pretty fed up with draws this season and whilst I know the context of some of the early ones, as well as some of the ones latterly, we really do need to pick up a couple of more wins to secure second spot. It’s a bit ‘meh’, I know, but it is a place we’ve been all season and it would just be a little annoying if we ended up third or fourth come the final day.

And if we’re out of the Champions League by next weekend – something that let’s be honest, is a higher probability than not at this stage in time – then it’s going to have a real Debbie downer by the time we have to go up to Anfield for the nothing game that is our third from last in the season (I absolutely will NOT be watching that game, I tell you that much!).

Arteta faced the press yesterday, plus he did some interviews with the likes of Sky and I love what has come out of them. There was of course the standard questions about team news, but we’ve seen things emerge from some social media sources that aren’t quite in the official club recording of his presser, so I’m guessing they were additional interviews, etc.

For example, him referencing all of the players who were in their civvies on the sideline against PSG I am pleased that he spoke about. There will be some idiots in the media and idiot rival fans that will say it’s him moaning, but you only have to watch the Sky Sports interview ahead of this evening’s game to see it isn’t moaning at all, it’s stating facts. Lots of people have lots of issues with Arteta outside the fanbase, but if they were honest they would admit that he never throws excuses around. But in the video clip I’ve watched he rolls out those names of Tomiyasu, Jorginho, Partey, Havertz and Gabriel all in the dressing room ahead of the PSG game, then speaking about how proud he is that the team has got this far. And they have. No team gets anywhere with the volume of injuries and crazy red cards we’ve had and is where we are at; there will be no medals hung around necks for the performance of the squad, the history books will show another season without that end product success, but at least us Arsenal fans know the context. I have a Spurs supporting mate who will be around my house over the summer as I bring all the lads together from my old school days. He will absolutely be crowing if they win the Europa League, but deep down, he will know that it’s far better to be in the position that we are in, than where they are, because you can see a positive trajectory for Arteta’s Arsenal. You can’t with the Scum.

We still just need to get over the line though and that really needs to happen today. Two wins. That’s the requirement. Beat Bournemouth today – and get some revenge for the joke of a game earlier in the season with that Saliba red card – and then we need just one more to get us over the line.

I think Arteta will stay relatively strong too; there’ll be Raya, White, Saliba, Kiwior, possibly Zinchenko at the back. In midfield I think he then goes for Partey and Rice, maybe with the brief that one or both need to come off after 60 minutes or so. But what to do with Odegaard? His performance in midweek was roundly – and rightly – chastised for ineffectiveness, but do you try to play him back in to form and hope he has a good game today? Or do you try something else? Maybe give Nwaneri a shot at playing there? After all, this game is one we need to win, but if there’s another draw or defeat, what does it really matter?

I think he’ll go with the former option and Odegaard will be given a chance to rekindle some semblence of form ahead of the game in Paris, then I think we’ll also see Merino back up top with a bit of rotation out wide. Maybe Sterling will eat up some minutes and it really does show what a waste of a loan deal it was that I’m using that phraseology. The guy is literally there so we don’t use up too much of Saka or Martinelli’s juice. He is the archetypal ‘body’ in a squad. He does nothing else. So maybe he gets 45 and then one of the two proper forwards get another 45. Maybe Trossard is the same too in one of the wide positions, because it means that both Saka and Martinelli can be rested for what will be a hella intense game on Wednesday.

Bournemouth will be without Evanilson, as he was sent off against united last weekend, in a game in which by all accounts it looks by the stats like United absolutely battered the Cherries. They sit 10th in the league, they can’t really get near the Conference League positions, so their season feels very much “end of season on the beach” stuff. But then again, so did Palace’s, and look at what happened to us there, eh? So there’s a need for Arsenal to be professional and do the job, but not risk players and their fitness ahead of another season definer for The Arsenal.

Just go out there and win lads. I don’t care how ugly it is.

Right I’m done for the day. It’s the mother’s 70th birthday weekend so I’m gonna go enjoy it with her.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Arteta knows he will need the home support to replicate the night just a couple of week’s ago against Real Madrid. That evening was electric; you could sense it in the concourse before a ball was kicked. It needs to be the same for the visit of the perennial French Champions Paris Saint Germain tonight; a partisan crowd and a cauldron of noise needs to envelope the pitch, the stadium, the lot. Arsenal need to show up and bring their dinner. So do the fans – I am one who needs to as well.

I’m nervous, like I’m sure you are, but there’s no point in living if you cannot feel alive. This game brings fear and trepidation because PSG are a quality side, but Arsenal need to be able to show that – despite our injuries – we are quality too.

Merino and White were pictured in training and Arteta confirmed in his press conference yesterday that they were able to train. This is good. I listened to the Arsecast on my run this morning, with Andrew and James talking about who comes in to replace Merino if he isn’t fit. The answers as they pondered them were hardly ideal. So the fact the Spaniard has been confirmed as able to play (or the closest you’ll get to Arteta confirming that in a press conference) is a huge boost for us. It means the side is probably easy to pick and will no doubt line up as:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Kiwior   –   Lewis-Skelly

Rice

Odegaard   –   Merino

Saka   –   Trossard   –   Martinelli

Bar Partey, that’s the best side we can put out and tonight I expect Leo and Merino to alternate their positions based on game state.

And the game state will certainly ebb and flow this evening. Whether or not PSG go ‘Full Gung Ho’ tonight I am not sure; Luis Enrique is a wily operator and he knows that if they leave too much space by pushing their wing backs forward when in possession, it will give Martinelli and Saka space to get in behind. Both are used to being doubled up in the Premier League every week, so if they are being given licence to roam, then that could be a fruitful avenue for us.

But we have to get the ball to them quickly, which is why the  likes of Rice and Odegaard are vital tonight I think. I suspect both need to have one of their best games of the season for us to get the outcome that we want. Any win tonight will do and with the away goals rule being a thing of the past, Arsenal just need to be looking to take something to the Parc des Princes next week. By hook or by crook.

So we might even see a bit of a cagey game this evening. PSG are a tremendous attacking outfit, they go back to front super-quick, but in Arsenal they have one of the best sides in Europe out of possession. You feel like we will have to prove that tonight because when PSG break those Arsenal players – like Saka and Martinelli and the diligent defensive work they do – will need to show how organised we can be without the ball.

Then the question becomes where we can impact PSG and cause them problems. I’ve mentioned in the wide flanks and I’m praying Saka has another awesome game tonight, but set pieces have also been called out a potential PSG weakness and Arsenal strength. We scored against Palac last midweek, but that was shocking defending and whilst it would be lovely to get that kind of time tonight, I think even against a team like PSG who have been highlighted by some pundits as not being the best on set pieces, I doubt we’re getting too much time and space in the box on them. Luis Enrique even said yesterday that of course they had been practicing on set pieces and training for them and you’d think they’ll have been mad not to put in some extra sessions to make sure they are prepped for our approach.

Emotionally I have the butterflies in the stomach, but it’s a very different feeling to the Real Madrid game. We’ve been to quarter finals before over the years. Semi final’s cut a little differently. You’re really starting to dream of a final at that stage whereas for the Madrid games I was just happy we were pitting our wits against the best teams. My expectations were low against Madrid and so it just became a glorious surprise. Now that we’ve taken that huge scalp in that competition, I’m looking at this game differently. I know that the game earlier on in the season has no bearing on what we’re coming up against tonight. I know that PSG are a better outfit who have clicked as the season goes on. I know that we’re going to face struggles and tough moments the likes of which we didn’t experience against Real Madrid or PSV at home. I’ve seen how they’ve dispatched Liverpool and Villa over both legs. All of that points towards this being a difficult and tougher game than the last round. But because we slayed that giant, because we’re closer than ever before, I am looking at this game with a greater level of expectation and excitement. Which hopefully won’t come back to bite me on the arse.

The players, the manager, everyone associated with the club has spoken about this tie with extreme excitement; these are the games that footballers dream about playing when they are kids, so they will have been uber-preparing for this game both mentally and physically. All that they need to do now is go out there and get the job done.

Half of it, at least.

Catch you all tomorrow. Fingers crossed, kids.

..Oh wait, it’s not. I love how Sky Sports have tried their best to dress this game up as having some kind of significance, when in reality:

• A win for Arsenal does nothing other than keep a bit more of a gap from Forest
• A draw does pretty much the same for us, whilst it might put United up to 14th, where they were yesterday before Everton drew at Wolves
• A win for United does nothing for Arsenal and moves United up to 14th if The Scum beat Bournemouth at home.

Today’s match very much has the feeling of a game that is getting towards the end of the season and by the time we get to 7pm tonight we’ll have ten to play and no matter what the outcome is, we’ll be in second place.

At this stage it feels like if we win our remaining five home games and pick up a couple of wins on the road – Maybe at Southampton and Ipswich – we’re probably guaranteed Champions League football and we might even stay in second or third. So what Arteta and Arsenal are playing with today is maintaining our status as runners up.

I guess a win is good because it’s always fun to beat United and condemn them to being lower-mid-table mediocrity, but there’s not really loads more at stake other than that.

That doesn’t mean that Arteta won’t be going all out for a win and as much as I’ve cut a demoralised literary figure as I type this, I really want us to continue to pile on the misery for United. They are not good – their league position shows that – but our record is woeful at Old Trafford and we need to rebalance that with more wins up there. Last season was the first time we picked up three points since Adebayor had won it for us with a dodgy goal that these days would be ruled out by VAR. That was 14 years ago and much like we’ve had a terrible record at theirs and they have been terrible, one good thing about Arteta is that he’s been able to pick up wins at places we’ve traditionally struggled. We’ve one the last three at Shite Hart Lane, for example. So despite all of our injuries, despite our struggles for goals (or lack thereof), I go in to today’s game hoping that the 7-1 smashing of PSV can have sparked the team in to more fluid movement and a better attacking threat than we saw against Forest or West Ham.

The difference today – we have to hope – is that United’s mindset won’t be the same as those two teams. Both the Hammers and Forest went low-ish block and try to catch on the counter, but the home crowd won’t stand for that against us, I don’t think. The mindset will be that “we’re Man United and we’re at home – we attack” and if they do that you have to hope that there is space for us to profit. There’s been some talk about the fact United have picked up a draw against us (which they then won on penalties) and against Liverpool, but both of those games were away from home, so you’d expect them as the away team and underdog to sit in and say to both Arsenal Liverpool “come on then, break us down”. But I can’t see them adopting the same approach today. I hope not, anyway.

What I can see is Chido Obi Martin getting some kind of minutes, playing well and probably scoring against us, knowing our luck. Apparently he’s looked good for United having poached him from us last summer and we all know what happens when ex-Arsenal players come back to play against us – even the ones that never played a minute for The Arsenal team.

We’ll probably just see him from the bench though, although I’ve seen a few United forums saying that Amorim should go all out and rotate this game with an eye on the game at home to Sociedad in midweek. I get that; we’ve been in that position before and if we were in their shoes I’d probably also be saying and thinking the same thing – rest players and make sure we are fit for a European game that is still in the balance. They are level with Sociedad having drawn 1-1 and with away goals not counting, they need to be on it next Thursday. Amorim has also said how the team was tired on Thursday and given they played into extra time against Fulham, given they also have some injuries (they reportedly have up to ten players out today including Martinez, Amad Diallo, Luke Shaw, Mason Mount, Kobbie Mainoo, Dorgu – suspension, Evans and even Maguire and Ugarte there is a question of), I wonder if Amorim might see this as a game he can throw away. I certainly hope so.

For us we need to secure our spot in second and so I suspect there is more impetus and onus on us to get a result and the news that Martinelli is with the travelling squad today (pictures emerged last night of him with the team and in his tracksuit), there’s definite positivity to be had if we get the boost of having him on the bench. He hasn’t played for just over a month so even if he’s on the bench I can’t see him getting more than 10 – 15 minutes, but any minutes at all would certainly be very welcome for a player in a position for which we really need some good news soon. It’s no guarantee though; we’ve seen Arteta get Saka track-suited up for games before to try to throw the opposition and so we can’t put it past him to be doing the same in this instance too.

Team-news wise, I think there won’t be much change from Tuesday night, because we don’t have many other options. So it’ll be more of the same with perhaps a question over where you put Calafiori, because he was excellent when he came on for Lewis-Skelly, but Myles is clearly first choice at the moment and has the shirt. Let’s see what Arteta does with that one.

We’ll be going live straight after full time on the Same Old Arsenal podcast so if you fancy joining us from about 6.30pm then it’ll be over on the YouTube channel here.

Have a good rest of your Sunday peeps.

Strap yourselves in, boys and girls, because it’s North London Derby day. Or night.

I always say that I absolutely hate this fixture and whilst that is true, most of the time I’m talking about the away fixture on their ground, but perhaps this season it is different. Perhaps I’m suffering from recency bias because this is upon us, but I think this is a game that I hate more this season because of where we are at. For the game at the Toilet Bowl I was nervous, I hated it, but because it was still so early in the season, any defeat is easily recoverable if you go on a long run. I fear that unless we get a win tonight, we might be in a spot of bother. And that’s because of that recency bias of what has happened in the last week; I don’t need to remind you because you already know on our last two games and I’d rather forget about them. But if Arsenal want to stand any chance of catching a fallable Liverpool side, there can be no more slip ups when they do. When they dropped points at home to Fulham in December, we dropped points at home to Everton. When they had their game against Everton postponed and we had a chance to catch them on points if not games in hand, we drew to Fulham. When they drew at home to United, we drew away at Brighton. Quite simply, there have already been opportunities for us to play catch up and we haven’t taken them. Tonight represents another one and if we don’t take it, I think most of us will feel that it is just not going to be one of those season’s.

But on the eve of a North London Derby, negativity or pessimism is not the Soup de Jour. Right now, all of us, need to be manifesting as much positivity and hope as we can. I’m nervous, I will be throughout today, but I’m going to try to think as positively as possible today. Sure, we have a bit of an injury crisis, and sure, we have been firing a few blanks lately in attack, but if you take a glass half full mentality, we have been creating chances. We’ve been getting in to the positions. What we need to avoid today, if we can control the game as we have done with our last two opponents, is to make sure they don’t score with basically their only chance of the game.

In Tottenham we do have a side who do create chances though. They are some of the leading chance creators in the Premier League and that means they will get their opportunities. It’s how they play (mate). So we need to be prepared to have our hearts in our mouths at times and we will need our back four to deliver an assured performance. No silly goal kicks out, no sloppy errors, just bring the same resolute defending that we saw at The Toilet Bowl earlier in the season. And if we do that, then it is about our misfiring attack to start firing.

And our attack will get opportunities. For all that the Scum create, they also leave the pitch open, which is not what most teams do when they come to us. We see it every week usually; low blocks, deep lying defences, telling us to break them down and hitting on the counter. The Scum won’t do that. They want an open game and they will give us that. We have to be able to take advantage of that space. That’s where I think somebody like Martin Odegaard needs to be pivotal tonight. If he is given time and space to pick the right passes, he usually does it. There’s been plenty of talk about his form dipping of late, but I put that down to illness recovery more than anything else, so tonight will the real Martin Odegaard please stand up.

And will Arsenal’s forward line do the same too, please, as we will need you. If Martinelli gets space, exploit it in behind. If Kai is given time in the box by Tottenham’s makeshift back line, act on it (and bring your shooting boots). The Scum have as many injury problems as we do; they are missing Van de Ven, Romero, Udogie and Vicario. Werner comes out of the side from the weekend (although that’s no major loss) and they also don’t have Bentancur anchoring their midfield. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t without threat. They still have Sarr, Bissouma, Son, Kulusevski, Solanke and that kid Bergvall who appears to have stepped up for them. They also have Maddison for them too and they welcome back that rat bag Richarlison. So they have their attacking options and they will cause us problems. We just have to cause them more.

There’s always goals in a North London Derby, so I’m expecting to see us concede, but what I want t o see more is an Arsenal team coming to make a point. The confidence may have been hit over the last couple of games, but as Arteta said this game might be a perfect time for the team. The Arsenal players will be massively up for this. They will give everything, I am sure, so motivation won’t be an issue. We just have to hope that some of those players in red and white put the ball in the back of the net a few times. Their net, not ours!

Right, I’m going to leave it there for today. Off to work to spend the day thinking about tonight. Catch you marvellous humans tomorrow and hopefully tomorrow we are singing the loudest in North London.

Fingers crossed folks.

This is going to be hard today.

Fulham are decent at home. Four wins, one draw and two defeats to Villa and that weird one against Wolves. It was weird because Wolves scored four goals from five shots on target, had way less possession, way less attempts on goal, their xG for four goals was as low as 1.3 which tells me they wonder-struck their way to a bit of an outlier result.

At Home Fulham aren’t the best in terms of their xG creation and they sit 11th in the table on home form xG, although the goals they allow is a little better – they’re seventh lowest in the league. They’re averaging almost two a game on their own patch, but they do give up chances and have conceded 12 at home. I watched some of the highlights from the Brighton game and Brighton will probably feel like they should have done a bit better than the score line suggests. The first goal the Seagulls conceded was basically a gift of a pass from their own ‘keeper, for which Iwobi duly obliged, so as long as we avoid silly advantages like that, you’d hope we should have enough firepower to create chances. We’ve conceded eight away so far this season but when you think that we’ve played Villa, Chelsea, City (in which we were down to ten men), an in form Bournemouth (in which we were down to ten men), plus that weird game last weekend against West Ham, it does feel like if we have our first choice back line in there from the start, we can hopefully keep Fulham a little quiet. That means we have to see Big Gabi and Calafiori back and whilst Arteta wouldn’t be drawn on Friday about their availability, as I said yesterday I think at least one will be back. I suspect that might be Big Gabi, but hopefully Calafiori is back too because as decent as Zinchenko was, at home and against a United team who offered little threat going forward for most of the game, it feels a little different than today. That’s because whoever plays left back will probably be up against Iwobi on that right hand side and having bagged two on Thursday night and five so far this season, he’s going to be going in to this feeling pretty confident.

Marco Silva actually deployed him centrally against Brighton but broadly speaking he’s played wide right and I think that’s where he’ll be today. They’ll line up with Bassey and Diop as their centre halves, Robinson (who I’ve always been impressed with when I see him) and Castagne on their right hand side. And that’s where I think we need to see some joy. Saka against Robinson doesn’t always result in Bukayo coming out on top, but whoever plays wide left I’d fancy against Catstagne. I’d still go with Martinelli despite the fact it didn’t quite click for him on Wednesday, but if Trossard comes in then I’d be fine with that too. He had a bit of an off patch pre the international break, but I thought he was great against West Ham and then looked bright when coming off the bench against United.

You could argue that the rest of the team picks itself (Raya, Timber, Saliba, Rice, Odegaard, Havertz), but there might be a question in Mikel’s mind about who plays in that midfield. Fulham are a side who the stats suggest don’t launch it from Leno, but they do go long – they’re second behind Everton for long passes attempted over 30 yards, so that says to me they build from their defence and they look to get the ball long through willing runners – probably in to wide positions. Would having a Merino to press higher and try to win the pitch work better than having Rice in the left eight, so you drop Rice back in to the six? Fulham are also a side who sit third behind West Ham and Liverpool for having shots that have come from a defensive action by their own team. So in other words they create a far bit of their opportunities from defending, then moving the ball quickly – through longer passes – that lead to shots for them. It makes me wonder whether Arteta might opt for Partey and Rice as two players who will cover ground and breakdown those chances.

What we do need to see today is Arsenal showing intent and also having last season’s New Year’s Eve debacle not being repeated. We can’t have Arsenal looking like they’ve eaten too much of the left over Christmas pudding like last year. We have to control possession, we have to take chances, we need to build on chances if we do manage to go ahead. We went ahead on five minutes and it felt like it was going to be a nice way to round off the year, but we got sloppy and Fulham punished us with a quick transition and goal from Jimenez, then a pretty poor corner that we just didn’t deal with secured them the points. It was one of those games in which Nketiah started up front and basically didn’t do anything and I thought Rice had a poor one too. You’d hope that today it will be different with Havertz up top and one of Partey or Merino joining Rice and Odegaard in midfield and that extra bit of quality will – fingers crossed – prove that we can be better.

And we need to be. Margin for error is zero, we can’t afford to be dropping any points at all on this run and this need to be an Arsenal performance that builds on our last four games since the international break – all of which have been wins.

Let’s hope today is win number five.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief.

We should beat them. We have a better team, we are playing well, we are at home and although they have a new manager bounce, there will still be plenty of learning and adapting they’ll be doing to their system and set up under Amorim. Even he has said that difficult days are ahead and a ‘storm’ will be coming to them soon. That’s clever management if you ask me. He is laying the foundations for a defeat tonight, whilst at the same time probably laying down the gauntlet to his team, as well as taking off the pressure. The pundits are already saying that they don’t expect anything from United, so in a way, the pressure is off them.

It’s on us though. Liverpool keep on winning and they’ll beat Newcastle tonight, of that I’m sure, so it means nothing other than three points will keep Arsenal chasing. Defeat to the Red Devils and we’re probably done for the title race. You don’t come back from 12 points with over a third of the season gone.

Then there’s this, which I agree with, from Yankee Gunner:

We’ve faced a lot of very bad United teams the last several seasons and I’m not sure we’ve produced the performances to properly punished them. Really does feel like the cliche of “playing the badge.” Hopefully this time we just play the team in front of us.

— Yankee Gunner (@yankeegunner.bsky.social) 4 December 2024 at 04:24

I totally agree with this and it’s why I think it is going to be a tight game, probably decided by just one goal. Whether they score and we have to get a couple to win, I don’t know, but I don’t think come 85 minutes I’ll be patting my fellow block five residents on the back and saying “job done, lovely stuff lads” by any stretch of the imagination.

Arteta’s press conference was standard Arteta fare yesterday; he gave nothing really away and he wouldn’t be drawn on the availability of Partey, Merino, Calafiori and Gabriel. By them all being lumped in to one question by Sky Sports Gary Cotterill, he didn’t have to though. So all he said is ‘we’re going to have a meeting this afternoon’. My gut feel is that most of those players will be available. But I don’t think it’ll be the same team as West Ham. I think he rotated very much with this in mind, so I suspect we might at least see Gabriel, Calafiori and at least one of Partey or Merino. If I was given a freebie pound to place a bet on which one, I’d say Merino over Partey; if Thomas has a muscular injury and he’s borderline, better to not risk it. The absence of Tomiyasu and White means that the Ghanaian is our de facto back up right back, so risking him would be dangerous.

In Mikel Merino we have a guy who looks to be finding his feet too and I think he’s been good when he has got on the field. He played the full 90 minutes against Forest and was good. He only got 20 against Sporting, then wasn’t in the squad at the weekend against West Ham and with the players that United are likely to play, having him on the field feels like the right move for us. His high pressing, winning the ball up the field and going up against the likes of Casemiro and Ugarte feels like an approach that would work for me. Then behind him you have Rice in at the six and right at is Odegaard. With Amorim likely to go with a back three, it feels like this is a game that Martinelli might get a bit more space – or at least we have to hope so – and with him having been rested against West Ham, surely he’s ready to be unleashed?

I don’t really need to draw out the rest of the Arsenal team because everyone else’s positions should be pretty locked down.

And then we need to go out there and deliver. Last season we went behind in what has become an annoying consistency as Marcus Rashford bagged yet another goal against us, before we hit back immediately through Odegaard and then won it in stoppage time. The season before that at home it was Eddie Nketiah’s heroics on 90 minutes after Rashford had again opened the scoring. The season before it was Nuno Tavares, the Saka with a pen, before Ronaldo brought it closer to us but ultimately Xhaka finished it on 70 minutes. So basically in everyone one of the last three games this game has been tight by halftime, so I’m expecting the same today.

United are going to look to soak up pressure against us and hit us in counter. They’re going to look to use the pace of Hojlund and Rashford and move the ball quickly from back to front. So our back line absolutely needs to be prepared for it and for a change I’d like us to keep Rashford completely silent. Then, if we do that, it comes down to what we do in the sharp end of the pitch and if you listen to some of their fans (like that Goldbridge fella, for example) then they’re expecting to see Luke Shaw in at left centre back. That would be a shrewd move in my opinion, because he’s a left back who can operate as a centre back and so him up against Saka with Dalot also dropping in means that United can double up on our Starboy. So many teams have done it but that’s two defenders who are actual defenders doing a number on Saka. Which is why I am hoping that we get a good game from Martinelli, because if they are occupied on our right hand side, maybe Martinelli can have some joy?

Whatever Arteta goes with, our margins are so fine that we have to respond, from the off. We need to be at them and put them under pressure.

Finger crossed it goes our way. Back tomorrow for a match review.

two.

On expected goals this season they’re sixth, so they are creating good chances and decent chances, but in the Premier League on actual goals scored they sit in 14th. They’ve scored eight goals this season in seven matches, but six of those were against teams expected to be in relegation dogfights: Everton and Southampton.

So today I’m thinking we’re going to have to expect them to create chances, but we need to be able to get back to defensive shutouts and clean sheets after conceding five goals in our last three matches (something Arteta was also asked about in his press conference yesterday). From a defensive look, Bournemouth sit mid table with 10 goals conceded in seven games and they are yet to keep a clean sheet this season, so you’d hope that we’d have enough to avoid being completely shut out, but as usual Arteta wasn’t minded to give too much away.

The good news seems to be that Saka is fit. Martinelli’s situation is a little up in the air so I suspect this might mean an alternative option found, so that question could be solved with Trossard easily enough, but Sterling and Jesus could still be putting their hands up to get a start too.

I have a weird sneaky suspicion he might put Sterling in there toda, you know. Here’s my thinking on that:

– I think he likes that Trossard and Havertz are interchangeable at the moment and so they both play in the eight and up top at different stages of each game

– I don’t think we’ve seen enough from Gabriel Jesus to suggest he’ll get a start and against Southampton I think him and Sterling together didn’t work, so I suspect it will be a case of one or the other if they are going to start

– Gabby Jesus loves the Champions League so I suspect he would be saved more for that in midweek than today

There’s also the fact that Ødegaard still isn’t fit, which I suspect means that Partey is the deepest lying midfielder and Rice will cover left eight. He could of course surprise us with Merino, but I think given the opponent, we’ll see Partey in there with Rice and his engine to cover when Bournemouth attack us with their high press and committed bodies. Merino is a duel winner but from what I’ve already seen and we know from his time at Sociedad, he does that higher up the pitch. I haven’t seen enough to tell how big his engine is when Bournemouth hit us in transition and start to flood forward. Because that’s exactly what we’re going to see today; they are high energy, high press, bodies forward and try to stress their opponent with numbers in the final third.

That’s why I’m thinking Partey from deep, because if they are doing that, he has the vision to execute line-breaking passes and if there are gaps to be found, he should be able to do it. In a way it’s a real shame that Ødegaard and Martinelli aren’t available today, because I can picture in my mind’s eye Ødegaard picking the ball up from deep and sweeping a ball to Martinelli after we’ve won it off Bournemouth to set him off in to space. Without them, somebody like Partey and his passing range over middle distances should be important today. Sterling is a tricky dribbler and whilst he won’t have the same burst as five years ago, he’s still got a bit of pace about him and he might find himself with more space today if he plays wide left.

On the other side we all know what Starboy can do, but who will be behind him to support? It won’t be Tomiyasu, who Arteta also confirmed will still be out for a while yet, but it will be one of White or Timber, I’m sure. My gut tells me it’s going to be Timber, because he’s played – and played so well of late – and that White is going to be eased in after his absence, but I also feel like Timber might be a better one-on-one dual merchant. Iraola himself has said this week that the games they win are when it is more open, they get to exploit space and have more one-on-one actions, so that is what they are looking to do. We have to be ready for that to be the game they want and so we need players who are good at defensive duels. In an ideal world you’d say a back four of Tomiyasu left, Gabriel, Saliba and then Timber, but I did see Calafiori win a few against Southampton so maybe he’s got more in his locker in that sense that we thought, but I’m more thinking about pace coming up against you and we have already seen that Riccardo is not the quickest in the world. He’s no slouch, but he’s not as rapid as some of the wide players in this league and we saw how he got done by Savio, then also how Hakimi roasted him two on a couple of occasions, says to me that he’ll need to be on form today and hopefully he has some support for teammates that can double up.

Alternatively we’ll just do what we have been doing and let him roam, then see who Bournemouth fancy putting on their right to go up against Big Gabby!

Whatever the approach, however, one thing is clear, which is that this has to be a ‘must win’ today. City will beat Wolves and Liverpool should probably overcome Chelsea at home, so anything other than three points puts us further away from them and makes life all the harder. The reason the Premier League is the best in the world is of course it’s unpredictability, but Arsenal and Arteta need to minimise the chances of that by playing our game, not Bournemouth’s high-intensity, open one, today.

back tomorrow with some thoughts on how it all played out. Catch you then.

Yesterday I spoke about the positives from Mikel Arteta’s press conference , but today all of that hope and positivity is washed away, replaced by nerves and more nerves. This fixture has – again, as I mentioned yesterday – been kind to us in the last two season’s, but over a 10 year period it has not, with us winning just the two in the league and losing six, with the rest being draws. For many years that’s what the NLD brings up – home team victories – and the Scum will be hoping that today does the same for them.

They are right to be a little more bullish; we’re going to be missing at least two – possibly three if Merino establishes himself as a first choice – midfielders and ‘Big Ange’ was able to confirm that basically they have a full fit squad bar Yves Bissouma. But in his place they will have Bentancur and he’s a decent enough replacement who will hold in that six role and look to allow Maddison and Sarr to express themselves. And it’s that midfield battle that will probably be key today, because if we had our first choice out there I’d really fancy our chances, but in the absence of Rice and Odegaard, we are significantly weakened and Tottenham will look to exploit that. They are a possession-based team who for the first three games of the season have had all of the ball and they’ll want that again today too. Last season they had most of the ball as well, but I think a lot of that was to do with game state, because we were three up at halftime and were always going to ‘have what we hold’ in that situation. But if you look at how the Scum have started this season, it has been through controlling the ball and looking to dominate the chances. Against Newcastle they were the better team and got smash-and-grabbed, it was a similar story away to Leicester, but at home to Everton they had an easy afternoon, smashing them 4-0 and the game basically looked done by halftime when they were two up. That day they played Son through the middle but he’ll play in his more favoured wide left position today I think, which means Ben White has some work to do. Solanke will – I am sure – be deployed centrally and he’ll occupy Saliba and Gabriel with his physicality, but they will look to set Son in behind today and so my hope is that Ben White has his footrace boots laced up, because I think he might get a few.

Last season Tottenham were a side that gave up a ton of chances and created a ton of chances too, it’s only been three games so it’s hard to judge but they have started off by being the third highest shot takers in the league behind Liverpool and, weirdly, Nottingham Forest. They’ve also faced the third lowest number of shots behind Liverpool and City, so whilst the initial data suggests they’ve improved on the volume of shots they’re conceding, you have to take in to account opponent and game state, as well as the quality of shots too, for which Tottenham’s opponents have an xG of 3.8 – the eighth best in the league. That tells me that they are still giving up chances and last season it was set pieces that did them over – also in this game at the Toilet Bowl.

So perhaps that is something Arsenal will look to exploit again? Maybe. We haven’t really kicked off our goalscoring this season from set pieces, which was such a big factor for us in the league, so perhaps today could be the day? I’ll take anything to be honest with you, because I’m not 100% confident in today’s game. Our absences are big losses, plus we don’t really seemed to have ‘clicked’ yet this season. Our victories have been functional, not spectacular, then we had the disgrace that was the Brighton refereeing, so it’s been difficult to see whether we are fully purring yet – it doesn’t feel like it to me. But despite our injuries, when I map out a possible starting XI, we still have plenty of quality to call on. So here’s what I think Arteta might do from the start:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Timber

Partey

Jorginho   –   Havertz

Saka   –   Jesus   –   Martinelli

I’ve gone with Jorginho because that’s what I think he might do, rather than my preference, but also because I remember that Jorginho played against Liverpool and City at home and I remember him pressing a little higher in the team. So I wonder if Arteta will do that again. Jorginho is not a man who works well when running back towards his own goal, but if the Scum are to have plenty of possession, then perhaps he won’t be asked to? Perhaps there will be times when it is all out in front of him? Or perhaps he will be a higher presser in the team to occupy space and we will be a little more compact in that midfield and defence, which means Jorginho and his passing range will be used as a ball retention tool. I mentioned it yesterday that I don’t think we’ll see Nwaneri from the start and despite me calling for Zinchenko earlier in the week, I don’t think Arteta will do that either, so that’s why I just think it will be Jorginho who is asked to do a job. The interesting thing about that, however, is that we have Atalanta in midweek and City next weekend and Arteta surely won’t use Jorginho and Partey for all three games, right? Maybe he will, but it feels like given our injuries right now, that’d be a big gamble.

I’ve seen some suggest that Calafiori should come in at left back and were he not injured for Italy I’d be ok with that and maybe even think it myself, but I just suspect that because of that injury Arteta will hold off bringing him in just yet, so Timber gets the nod.

And so here we go. Strap yourselves in Gooners, because unlike last season when we were fully fit and on form, it’s going to be quite a difficult afternoon I think. I just hope we can come out of that horrible part of the world with some sort of point(s).

We’re going live almost straight after the whistle on the Same Old Arsenal podcast here if you fancy joining us. Other than that, I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

I have to tell you, I know this feeling well from many years on this planet and many times experiencing this s well as getting to go to The Arsenal on the first day of the season, but this feels like the most excited I’ve been of what’s to come. I think it might be ever.

And I find myself thinking “why?”

There’s a multitude of reasons.

1. We are really good – The last two season’s have shown the kind of growth and evolution in this squad that has seen us move from a side with which we ‘think’ might do well, we ‘hope’ will have their potential realised as a young team, to we ‘know’ that they are. Every year those players have gotten better and better and as a result I find myself projecting glory – even though yesterday I made my predictions and talked about my inherent pessimism as a kind of defence mechanism to protect myself from getting too carried away.
2. We have a really good manager – I think I’ve said it on here a couple of times, but as we signed Mikel, my mate Dave told me that somebody had been speaking to ex-Arsenal midfielder Paul Davis, who had been doing doing his coaching badges at the same time as Mikel. Davis had said “he is very special” at the time. Now we are seeing this. In his five year’s at the club he’s taken us from some of our lowest ebbs to a stage in which plenty of pundits are predicting we can topple the immovable object that is City’s Pep. The fact we are even in the conversation is amazing.
3. The squad looks balanced – Whatever outsiders want to say about ‘they need a striker’, the fact is that this is the most balanced I’ve seen an Arsenal team look in – arguably – decades. We have a player for every position and last season we hit 91 goals, so if we do that again and spread that across the team (which in itself is a bit of a risk mitigation in case of injury), then I am hopeful that we will win ourselves some shiny silver trinkets. It used to be a cliché that as Arsenal fans we’d always opine for ‘just one or two more players and we’ll be ready to compete’ but I believe – and have seen a fair few other Arsenal fans say the same – that we could sign nobody else this window and we’ll still be competing for the league.
4. Our form and the mentality sounds spot on – this is a bit of a ‘vibes’ riff, but just listening to the players from last season, plus the winning run they went on at the end, as well as the manager and his press conference yesterday, makes me think that the hunger has even been dialled up a notch from last season. Arteta spoke about it specifically in his press conference yesterday and as opposed to Ten Haag talking about not being ready, Arteta seemed very steadfast in his view that there are no excuses. This is a tough league, the hardest in football, but this Arsenal team are ready for the challenge.

That press conference has been buoyed for today. Wolves are a good team, they will pose us a threat no doubt, but if this Arsenal team and Arteta are focused enough, then you’d hope that they have enough across the squad, to get the three points. The team news is that Tomiyasu and Tierney are 100% out as we know, but Timber and Vieira are back, which means we’re going to have good first team squad players who aren’t even going to make the bench. You can name up to nine subs on your bench, so a bench of 20 players and I was looking at what we could see today, which I think will be:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Zinchenko

Partey

Odegaard   –   Rice

Saka   –   Havertz   –   Trossard

The bench could then include:

• Ramsdale
• Timber
• Kiwior
• Calafiori
• Jorginho
• Fabio Vieira (who Arteta said is being assessed)
• Gabriel Jesus
• Gabriel Martinelli
• Eddie Nketiah
• Reiss Nelson
• Ethan Nwaneri (Arteta confirmed will train with the first team this season
• Aiden Heaven (as above)
• Myles Lewis-Skelly (as above)

That’s 13 players to pick from for the match day squad. IF KT and Tomiyasu were fit you’re talking 26 players at Arteta’s disposal and given the form of the younger players this summer, I wouldn’t have a problem seeing any of them at some stage. You can talk about a marquee wide player all you want, but the fact we’ve got this many options now is pretty good if you ask me.

Arteta did admit that we cannot expect to keep White, Saliba and Gabriel fit for the whole season though, so I think he will still be looking for more and that’s why we’re so close to Merino. If he comes in that’s 27 players with three impressive youngsters who are waiting in the wings making up those slots and that’s why I think I am feeling like we’re ok in terms of numbers and quality. Would I like to add a quality forward who can play across the front line? Of course I would. Do we all think Mikel would? I think so. But whilst we all think Eddie and Reiss probably need to move on for the sake of their own careers, I have no problem with them being here come September 1st if we haven’t been able to move them on. Providing Gabriel Jesus and Martinelli stay fit, they will be third choice options anyway and when you are talking about players like that as your third choices, that ain’t too bad if you ask me.

In terms of today’s opponents, let’s not sleep on them, eh? Last season they gave us a scare after we went comfortably 2-0 up but managed to hold on to that 2-1 win at the Emirates and I think they’ll be up for a spoiler today; they’ve apparently had a good pre season too and have beaten both West Ham and Leipzig. They’re missing Neto of course, who has gone to that horrible club in West London, as well as Cunha, who is a threat in their attacking third. Nelson Semedo is also a good player for them but he was sent off in the final match of last season, so he’s out too. They also sold Max Kilman to West Ham so they’re without one of their main defenders from last season. All of this combines together to suggest to me that Wolves will be aiming to frustrate and contain us this afternoon, which might mean a back three instead of his usual 4-3-3 approach. I think they’ll rely on the counter and tuck in and so keeping players like Hwang quiet will be essential for our back four. Last season they struggled to create chances and I read something this morning that they had the fourth lowest xG last season, only just above the three relegated teams. Let’s hope that lack of chance creation continues today.

I’ll be there this afternoon signing my heart out, then tomorrow morning we’re all back for the Same Old Arsenal podcast, so join us at 9.30am if you fancy a bit of a debrief. Otherwise, I’ll see you here in the morrow.

Let’s foggin’ go guys!

It’s kind of maddening that no matter how good or terrible United have been, they’ve always seemed to do us at Old Trafford. I’ve only been there once and it was the game in which Arshavin was taken out in the box by Darren Fletcher in the most obvious of fouls you’ll ever see, only for Howard Webb to wave play on. He scored but a few moments later, but we ended up losing it because Abou Diaby put his 50p head on to a Giggs cross to leave me, my mates Johnny and Frankie feeling mighty sad and wishing we hadn’t agreed to stay overnight in Manchester after the game.

That was a very different United side to the one we face today, however, because that was a United side at the top of the division. This United side is very much far from that. Their last game was a humbling at Selhurst Park and although at the time it was hilarious and made me think that we shouldn’t have too many problems this weekend, when the time actually comes to face up against this familiar foe, my feelings are somewhat different.

Some of that is history, some of that is because they have some returning players and Ten Haag said on his press conference on Friday that Bruno Fernandez and Scott McTominay were both back and in contention for today. I expect both to start to be honest; McTominay will line up alongside Mainoo to provide them with cover and a screen in front of a beleaguered back line, with Bruno in a more advanced position and looking to hit us on transition when the ball turns over.

And that’s where the big Man United threat lies. Fernandes is an absolute Bar Steward, but he has decent distribution and they have fast runners who can get in behind, which is exactly what I expect them to do today. They aren’t stupid and they know that if they try to give us a football match by coming at us then we’ll be able to play through them. They applied this tactic at the Emirates and it nearly worked earlier in the season too. Ten Haag can bleat on all he likes about the injustice of that game, but we were the better team – and ARE the better team – but that don’t always win you football matches, as you and I both know.

And Ten Haag is probably hoping that to be the case today, much like when they faced Liverpool, in a game in which Klopp said that if they play like that against us they’ll get beat. That’s absolutely true and it’s for that reason that I think we’ll see a conservative United  who will let us have the ball and look to spring traps.

I think from a team perspective we will stay the same as last weekend, so it’s going to be more interesting to see what United have got planned today, rather than how we’ll line up. Ten Haag said that Lisandro Martinez wanted to play this weekend but that he wasn’t ready, but I’m not sure I’m ready to believe that just yet. They have a dearth of centre halves and I just wonder if he’ll chuck him in, because he’ll be keen to avenge a perceived injustice at the Emirates. There’s probably part of him that wants to make sure he has players ready for the FA Cup final of course, but I just have this weird feeling that there will be some players fit that we thought wouldn’t make it.

If, by the odd chance, they don’t have players fit and they are playing Casemiro and Evans at centre half, then we simply must take advantage. One is an extremely ageing footballer and the other is Johnny Evans, who is 36 and looking his age, so we have to take advantage of that and get at their back line.

But this is Old Trafford and for some weird reason, it ‘does something’ to Arsenal. Our record there is shocking and if you take out the COVID season with no fans, you have to go back 16 years to find and Arsenal win in the league. That’s mad because I feel like in that time 12 or 13 of the other teams in the Premier League have picked up wins other than us. But if I can off a modicum of hope, it’s that Mikel Arteta and his team have made a habit of knocking down historical legacy issues; we’ve won at the Scum, we’ve beaten Liverpool, we’ve avenged games like St James’ Park a few seasons back, etc. Arteta and his team are good and I of all people need to keep reminding myself of it.

I am still sceptical that we will win this league and I have still resigned our fate to being the bridesmaids again this season, but what  I do hope is that we can go up to a traditionally very difficult game for us and get a statement win that represents another milestone in the evolution of this Arsenal side.

In terms of a tactical approach, I have kind of touched on it already, but let’s re-iterate to be really clear: United will want to counter us. That is what they are good at and with players like Rashford and Hojlund they have guys who if we are pressing high and leave enough green grass to run in behind, will capitalise. So we need to be good at the back. Duels will need to be won today because they’ll want to get Bruno on the ball and distributing so defensively we have to be ready. And then we have to take our chances. We got ‘done’ last season because United hit us on the counter and rope-a-dope’d us; we can’t let that happen today.

This is yet another cup final. We have to win it to make sure that we take this Premier League to the final day of the season. Cross everything folks. It’s gonna be a tough one.

Amanda, James and I will be on the Same Old Arsenal at 8pm to dissect the game if you fancy joining us, which you can do here.

The big question for us will be how fatigued the team is after expending a lot of energy on Wednesday and, if we’re honest, looking a little knackered out in Germany. I’ve seen a couple of bits online about Liverpool last night and apparently they too looked like they were showing signs of fatigue, which is understandable given the volume of games that they have played. We’re in the same boat and had we have had the same amount of recovery time as Wolves (their last game was a 2-2 draw at Forest last Saturday) then I’d probably be feeling a little more bullish about this game. That’s because Wolves are comfortably mid table, they are in no danger of relegation and their form has been patchy, having drawn with Forest, lost at home to West Ham, drawn with Burnley and lost to Villa before that. IN fact their last win came at home to Fulham on 9th March and so with that in mind you’d exp[ect they would be a little more wounded and potentially there for the taking.

But as I said on yesterday’s blog, I do worry about what psychological damage has been done and how the players are feeling having gone out of the Champions League in midweek, where Arteta admitted afterwards that it was a ‘gutted’ dressing room. Last season after a few draws to Liverpool, West Ham and Southampton it all began to unravel and we lost to Brighton and Forest in the dying embers of the season. We’ve been saying all season that this team feels like it is built a little differently, but the Arsenal PTSD remains for me as a fan and so I am still feeling the nerves that we might have players who can’t get themselves out of the funk.

Of course I hope they prove me wrong. But in our last two games we have faded in the second half and that gives me some concerns that the team is running out of juice. It feels like we need to score first and so me being the person I am, I decided to go hunting on the internet on when Wolves get their goals in terms of distribution across first and second half. This webpage suggests that it’s the second half for them and if that rings true, then you do wonder about how important the first half might be. Wolves have scored 17 times in the first half and 29 times in the second half this season. They’ve conceded 21 times in the first half and 30 in the second, so if that rings true and we do indeed start to fade in the second half, that is when Wolves are more vulnerable and that to me could potentially be a worry. Against Villa and Munich it looked like both second halves could have been played forever and we still wouldn’t have scored.

Of course the flip side of that is that when you look at our record, we score more goals in the second half than the first, so perhaps there are some solace in those numbers we can take. But I just worry that this gruelling season is starting to show patterns and I do not like the patterns they are showing. Hopefully I’m wrong.

Wolves’ home form is patchy; they don’t tend to draw games, they tend to win or lose having won seven and drawn five this season on their own patch. They don’t create many chances at home either, having the third worse xG on their own turf, level with Palace. They’re also in the lower reaches of the league on number of goals scored, with 46 this season, which puts them 15th in the League, fairing a little better defensively with 51 goals scored, which has them in at ninth. So what I infer from that is that at home they don’t score loads (they also don’t take loads of shots – they’ve recorded the fourth fewest number of shots attempted in the league this season), they concede a middling amount, so we should get chances, but it won’t be raining shots on their goal I suspect. Nor it will ours.

Which makes me think this might be a cagey game. We will be mindful of two defeats in a week, they will be mindful of us, so I am thinking this might be one of those tight affairs that will make us all hella nervous. Not what you’d be wanting to read, I’m sure, but that’s what the numbers suggest.

They also suggest that it won’t be a long ball game, but it might be played in Wolves’ defensive third. They have the second highest number of tackles in their own half this season and they seem to take most of their touches in the defensive third of the pitch. That tells me that Gary O’Neill wants them to keep the ball and not launch it, they play possession from deep, then they also try to take on players whilst dribbling with the ball (they have the second highest number of take on dribbles in the league). The absence of Neto in that regard is therefore a blow to them and something that we can all be a little bit more pleased about. They will still have Cunha who likes a dribble, as does Semedo, so we’ll need to be mindful of that too. Last week Hwang was back in training so we might have to contend with him and he’s bagged a few goals against us in recent year’s, so there’s food for thought there.

It’ll be a tough one, I would be lying if I told you I was confident, but there is simply no margin for error this weekend. Or any weekend between now and the end of the season. So let’s hope the lads have it in them to go up to the Black Country and get a result.

Back tomorrow with some thoughts post-Arteta’s presser.

Have a good one.

Arsenal travel to Manchester trying to do something we haven’t managed to do in nine previous attempts in all competitions. You have to go back eight years to 2016 to see Arsenal get anything other than an ‘L’ at the Etihad and you have to go back even further – one year in fact – to see us pick up all three points.

We have a wretched record at the Etihad, which is why I predicted we’ll most likely lose by a single goal today, when we had a chat on the Same Old Arsenal podcast on Friday.

And although I have still woken up this morning feeling like that is still probably the most likely outcome, I still feel like this Arsenal team are going to show up today and show that we at least deserve to be in the conversation at the top of the league. On Friday Arteta talked about the buzz around London Colney and then this morning when I woke up I listened to Declan Rice’s interview on Sky Sports ahead of this game, and what struck me was the confidence and calmness about how he talked about the way the players are feeling ahead of this game. In a way that is giving me hope; in previous years I’ve written this blog ahead of this game and pretty much said “standard fare when we go to City. We’re getting tonked today”. But I don’t feel like that will happen today. Not at all.

As I e already mentioned, I have a feeling this game will be decided with just one goal. At the Emirates earlier in the season both teams cancelled each other out. On that day it was the finest of margins and a deflected Martinelli shot that wrong-footed Ederson to give us our first win at home in years. One feels like today will have to be something similar for us to get any kind of victory.

The good news is that there are enough data points to point towards to suggest that – assuming our first choice back line are fit and we aren’t missing anyone, especially Gabriel – we can go there and try to limit City’s chance creation. We won’t be able to stop it, we might need a little bit of luck along the way, but if our back line is there and ready to take on the Champions and treble winners, then as a Gooner you must be feeling the same as me: we’ve got a chance.

A victory would be amazing, but given I’ve predicted we’ll probably lose 1-0 to make us think we’ll never beat City away ever again, I’d absolutely bite yer hand off for a draw. A draw means we’ll secure a valuable point and although we’ll relinquish top spot (Liverpool are 100% beating Brighton at Anfield today, boys and girls, we all know that), it would mean we can keep momentum and would only be two points off the league leaders having gone to the hardest ground in the country and gotten it out of the way. It will install more belief for these Arsenal players and as we head in to what feels like the most deadly April we’ve faced in around 20 years, we’d be well placed to tackle it, confidence and morale wise.

As for what team gets put out by Arteta today, I keep flip-flopping on what we should be doing. A lot of it is of course predicated on who is fit, but some of the questions I’ve been asking myself are:

• Do we continue with Kiwior at left back? He’s been fantastic so far in this run in, but he hasn’t played in any of the big games in that position just yet, so City could look at that as a weakness.
• Should we bring in Zinchenko instead? Not sure. Is he fit enough to start? Would City target the space he vacates as he moves in field when we are in possession?
• Jorginho and Rice to play in the base of the midfield? This feels like a safe option with Pep surely going to try to put as many attacking match winners on the pitch as possible. If we play those two deeper, it affords us protection. But Arteta could look to deploy one of them in the left eight position like we did at home to Newcastle, for example, maybe even having them alternate in that role.
• Is now the time for Gabby Jesus to return to the side? I’ll spare you the Easter puns on that question, but do we need to find a way to get him back in? If Martinelli isn’t fit then I wonder if it’d be worth getting him in there on the left wing; I thought he was excellent playing right wing when we played them at The Emirates and he’ll certainly have a lot of desire to show his former employers what they are missing since they sold him to us.

It’s a tough one and whilst I’m delighted that we appear to have so many options (might also keep City guessing too?) I think it serves to highlight what a chess match we’re going to be watching today. Well, assuming there isn’t some kind of match-affecting incident like a sending off or a big injury to a key player that changes the game-state. Football is a game of variables and if something like that happens then of course all of the above assumptions have to have a line struck through them, but based on as I sit here and type this in the morning of the game, it feels like it’s going to be very tightly contested. After about 10 minutes City and Pep will know what we’re set up to do and Arsenal and Arteta will know how City are set up. So the structure of the teams will probably change five, six, seven, eight times as both managers manoeuvre their players to try to counter what the other manager is doing.

Expect cagey, expect Galaxy brain football, expect jabs and counter jabs rather than haymakers.

City will want to ‘do’ us early and keep control of the game. We have to be prepared for that and keep it tidy. Every time we’ve been battered it’s been because we’ve conceded early. Don’t do that today, Arsenal. Please…

Right, that’s about enough of my waffle for today. I’m off for a run to stretch off the stress, then it’s a big Easter lunch before I watch the game from behind my hands.

Have a good one folks. Let’s hope us Gooners are happy come 7pm tonight.

Tonight’s only rotation will be from players that aren’t fit and yesterday Arteta confirmed that there are still some he is not 100% sure about. On Declan Rice, for example, he was quick to point out that he has been in training, but not as much as some of the other players, so he’s not a 100% confirmed ‘okay’ for tonight. If I was a betting man, however, I’d be expecting him to start. Thomas Partey will still not be in the match day squad and whilst Jorginho has looked better in the last few months when fit, a midfield of him, Odegaard and Havertz does slightly worry me for the lack of running power back towards our own goal.

Perhaps that won’t be as much of an issue this evening though? After all, Forest make the fourth highest number of long passes over 40 yards in the league and 67% of their goal kicks are launched, so it’ll be an aerial battle that we can expect for most of the time. They also make the third least number of key passes in a game (passes leading to a shot) and so I think their plan for this evening will be to try to contain us and then hit us with longer balls for our defence and their attack to chase down. They make a lot of tackles and have won the second highest in the league with the highest number in the defensive third in the league; Forest will absolutely here for containment.

And so Arsenal need to be able to respond. We need to be able to find a way unlock a Forest side who have conceded 23 in 11 matches at home. That means it is incumbent on our forwards to be doing the business and so my hope is that the 5-0 win, coupled with more recharging time of the batteries, will enable these players to come out at Forest and properly take the game to them. The last two defeats we’ve had to them have come through sloppy defensive errors and that is what Forest will want tonight. Last season in the league it was Gabriel who just couldn’t get his toes right as the ball (admittedly somewhat unluckily) rebounded off the Forest attacker and in. And the season before we were out of the FA Cup after a Lewis Grabban goal towards the end capped off a pretty miserable evening in Nottingham for me, I have to say. So as long as we don’t do anything stupid from set pieces, or through individual silly mistakes, my hope is that we create chances and keep them out at the back.

Forest themselves have questions over a number of first teamers, with Awoniyi back in after injury and Elanga also joining their first team training in the last few days. If you recall it was those two that combined for Forest’s goal at the Emirates earlier in the season and I suspect Nuno will look to have them on from the pitch to see if they can stretch us in the closing stages of the game. Whether they can do from the start remains to be seen. They’ve also got Nuno Tavares out as he can’t play against us, as well as Origi out and with Forest having sent six players to the AFCON (Serge Aurier, Willy Boly, Sangare. Niakhate, Kouyate all having been in action recently, there might be a few questions as to how strong this Forest team will be if those returning injured players are free. I don’t know enough about Forest to know about how many of those players are important cogs in the team, but with so many players missing of late, I’d be expecting Forest to have fielded pretty strong teams in their recent FA Cup games and given there was a replay for Forest in there too, perhaps we can benefit from an opposing team feeling fatigue for a change?

Regardless of that, we need a win tonight, because the Scousers and City will absolutely beat Chelsea and Burnley at home respectively. So it feels like anything else other than a victory will almost certainly feel like any title hopes are starting to fade. But win this evening and we go in to the game against Liverpool on Sunday knowing a win cuts that gap for sure and puts us right in the mix again. But you have to do the business on a ground that will be rocking tonight because of their recent history against us. It’s time for us to correct that.

If you fancy checking out some preview podcast action, then James hosted the latest Same old Arsenal pod yesterday evening which you can listen in to here. Otherwise, I’ll catch you all tomorrow for a debrief of what transpires in the Midlands this evening.

Have a good one folks. Up the Arsenal.

I don’t know why, but whilst I do have the normal butterflies ahead of a big game, I’m not feeling the usual stresses that I would a normal knockout tie. I would also go as far to suggest that I might be feeling more nervous about the league game against the Scousers than I do today. I’ll let you know if that rings true at the beginning of February when we play them. But…I dunno…I just don’t feel the same. I don’t feel it’s as much of a ‘free hit’ game as the League Cup is, because those are fun and just an opportunity to see rotation and just be a bit ‘meh’ when you get knocked out, but this game feels just a couple of notches up the nerves ladder for me. It isn’t dialled up to ten or anything. I guess that’s probably because we’ve won it in recent memory (four year’s ago) and because we’ve done it so many times, but probably because it’s the third round of the competition and before I get my away day out at Wembley for a semi final, there would still be another three rounds to get to. It’s sort of like when you have an amazing holiday planned for about six months time; you know it’s happening, you’ll be super excited when it draws nearer, but right now you’ve just got to get on with school/work and wait for the day to come.

Of course this isn’t the mindset any of us want Arteta and his team to have and I absolutely don’t think they will do. They’ll want to win this and set us up for a warm weather winter training session in which the players are bouncing. And that is the up side of such a tie as this one; if the players manage to get over the line and beat Liverpool, then the Christmas malaise that set in after two back-to-back defeats will feel a little less dramatic than it did on New Year’s Day. In his press conference Arteta spoke not of confidence being lost, but of momentum, so now he must know that a big way of building that back up, is by getting a big win and a scalp like Liverpool.

Team news wise I think we’re all still sweating on what happens with Zinchenko. We know there won’t be any other changes to the injury or absentee list and with Tomiyasu out at the Asia Cup the option will Be Kiwior or the Ukrainian. I actually think that Kiwior would be better than he was against Fulham if he played though; he’s clearly a better defender than Zinny and against Fulham it was our ponderous build up and attack that was the issue. But against Liverpool we’ll almost certainly have to be better defensively to keep them out and so my hope is that if Zinchenko isn’t fit, then we get a fine performance from Kiwior. He kinda needs it.

The rest of the team will almost certainly be ‘as is’ I would have thought. Perhaps we might see Ramsdale come in and I think Arteta probably should do that given the lack of games that Rammers has had, but if Raya starts then it’s just another example of how Arteta’s “I have two number ones” was clearly hollow words. I’ve accepted it’s Raya and whilst I haven’t quite moved on, I’m not going to be mega frustrated as I was at the start of the season. As for the rest, like I say, I think it’ll be ‘as you were’. The players have had a whole week since the last game, we have a week off after this game at least, so it is an opportunity to go strong, see if you can win it, then jet off to Dubai. So for me that means Rice, Havertz, Odegaard, Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Martinelli. I’ve seen some suggest that Jorginho might be an option in the base of the midfield and I’d probably have no issue with that if we’re talking about most other teams, but Liverpool are a back to front team in transition and they want to break on you in numbers. If Jorginho is broken against, then it’ll be a car crash, as we all know he doesn’t have the pace, so for me I’d stick with the same side that played against Fulham. Plus, Arteta can tell them to prove they deserve to start given such a shocking performance against the Cottagers.

As for Liverpool, they have their absentees – Salah, Endo, Szoboszlai through injury – to add to the existing absentees of Thiago, Matip, Robertson and Tsimikas, but from the sounds of it Klopp won’t be rotating much this afternoon against us. He even said in his presser that now is not the time for it, so I expect them to be very strong and their squad is certainly good enough even with all of those absentees. I’ve read a few of the Liverpool fan site expectations and their mood is fairly even from what I can see. One guy I watched predicted a 1-1- with a ‘I’ll take a draw’. I guess you’d say that when you’re away from home. They reckon they’ll do a fair bit of rotation and the guy I saw a video of was even suggesting no Alexander-Arnold, which I can’t see happening at all. He’s the guy that makes them tick, is their quarter back from deep and if we go as strong as we all think Arteta will, it’ll leave a younger player up against Martinelli.

The other wing will be interesting because Joe Gomez had a good game against Saka and I suspect Saka will want to correct that today. I feel like he hasn’t always faired well against centre backs playing as full backs; I remember thinking last season that he’d roast Dan Burn when we played Newcastle and it never really happened, plus we had the games against City away in the league and cup where Ake seemed to keep him quiet all game. Perhaps it’s just me extrapolating based on some very small sample sizes, but I do think we need to see a game in which Saka has a blinder against a makeshift fullback/centre half.

We are going to need to be on it in defence though. They have an array of options including Darwin, Gakpo, Luis Diaz and then of course, that curse that is Diogo Jota. The man has six goals in his last seven appearances against us and I am in no doubt that Klopp will be getting him on and wanting him to be front and centre against us today. Saliba and Gabriel need to keep him quiet, but also be mindful of their two other forwards as well. Any of those guys are capable of bagging goals and last season Nunez did, so whilst some Arsenal fans chuckle at how many chances Darwin Nunez does miss, you can bet your bottom dollar he won’t miss if being given the chance today.

We could do without a draw, Liverpool could do without a draw, so I’m hoping that we don’t get that because it’ll cut the mini winter break down and we could do without that. Plus the chances of us winning at Anfield are always slim. So for me I am hoping that Arsenal go hard at this and try to regain some of that lost momentum Arteta talks about it. It kind of feels like we need it more than Liverpool right now.

I’ll be doing a Same Old Arsenal show with Amanda this evening at around 8pm I reckon, but if you fancy a little more listening ahead of today’s game, the two James’ did the preview show midweek which you can hear here. So I’ll catch you all then. Have a good one.

• 0-3 loss last season in the Premier League
• 1-3 loss last season in the League Cup
• 1-2 Loss in 2022 in the Premier League
• 2-0 win in 2021 in the Premier League
• 1-2 loss in 2019 in the Premier League

It’s quite a startling record for us as the home team. In fact, if you didn’t know how it was and you read those results above, I bet 95% of Arsenal fans would tell you it’s Liverpool or Man City at the Emirates, if they were qasked to give a quick-fire response. But no, it is in fact Brighton and under Roberto De Zerbi they have a guy who has come in and continued to revolutionise the club. I mentioned it on yesterday’s blog but I think it is worth re-emphasising because it shows what an amazing job he has done – Brighton are a very good team who have lost a big chunk of their midfield, yet still are competing well in the Premier League, have just topped their group in the Europa League (which included Ajax and Marseille by the way), plus they’re continuing to bang goals in for fun. In the Premier League they have 33 goals in 16 games – they’re basically averaging two per game and that is an impressive number they’re putting up. They play a fluid and attacking style of play, they create plenty of chances (currently sitting fourth in the league behind Liverpool, Tottenham and City with Brighton having taken 246 shots to our 237) and they will come to the Emirates today and have a go at us.

And that might make it one heck of a cracking game.

That’s because most teams we come up against play Low Block FC football and that’s why we’re sitting in mid table for non-penalty goals and xG this season. Teams don’t want to be open and expansive against us and those teams that have have tended to be in the Champions League, where we scored 16 goals in six games; teams don’t want to afford us the space. But I think Brighton might do today and they might give us opportunities; the reason they aren’t in the top four right now with their goal scoring exploits is that they’ve also conceded 28 goals this season – that’s the sixth worst in the league. If we are on point and aren’t profligate with our chances like we were at Villa last weekend, we should be able to get goals. The challenge might be keeping Brighton from getting some of their own.

That’s where the hope also remains, because along with Liverpool we have the best defence in the league. We’ve conceded 15 times this season and it is because of our improvement defensively that we’ve been able to not be as impressive as last season at this same stage, but still very much in the running towards the top of the table. We are a good team, with a strong spine and today I’m hoping and expecting that we get the confirmation that there are no more injury problems and we can continue with the strongest XI we have available, which to my mind is:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Zinchenko

Rice

Odegaard   –   Havertz

Saka   –   Jesus   –   Martinelli

There might be one or two people looking at Zinchenko and feeling a little nervous against a Brighton team who will like to exploit wide areas and will lean on Mitoma and Adingra, but what I hope to see is that Ben White steps up more than Zinchenko this lunchtime. Remember last season? White had a torrid time against the Japanese international and his pace is going to be something that White needs to be very wary of against a side who are going to come to play and will use the wide spaces well. Some of the goalscorers from last season’s 3-0 win might not be available today for Brighton through injury (Enciso and Estupinan), but they have plenty of firepower in the likes of Ferguson and Joao Pedro, who will cause us problems, not to mention the two wide forwards I’ve already mentioned.

I do have one hope of an advantage though, which is that Brighton played a number of first team players on Thursday, whereas we were able to rest and rotate on Tuesday, so we’ve had more rest, as well as fresher bodies going out there, so hopefully that gives us an extra yard on them when it gets to the latter stages. We were able to rest up Rice, Odegaard, Saka, Martinelli and Jesus for most – if not all – of the game and so I want to see them firing on all cylinders come kick off.

This will be a ding-dong battle I think. I predicted 3-2 to The Arsenal but that’s going with heart above head, because it could very well go the other way. The hope is that the control that Arteta has emphasised in his team from a defensive side this season will enable us to keep Brighton at arms length. I’m not sure how possible it is, because the threat comes from multiple angles in this Brighton team; they have 33 goals but they spread the goals around the team with Ferguson on six, Joao Pedro on five, Adingra on four, Gross, Mitoma and March (injured) on three, so Arsenal and Arteta will be very mindful of that I suspect. But we have the capability, we have the players, we have the spine and backline – aided massively this season by Rice – to hopefully keep them quiet.

A win today would be a huge result as we go in to Christmas, because I’m not expecting anything from Anfield away next Saturday, so we really don’t want to go in to that game at Liverpool off the back of two defeats or without a win in our last three in all competitions. Time to get the business done today lads.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief. Have a good’un.

And it’s a tough one to get us back in to the swing of things, as I think this Chelsea team will be bang up for an upset this evening. Their season started off with a respectable draw against Liverpool at home and I watched that game. It was a classic ‘start of the season’ affair and neither side really got in to their stride, but I did watch a few periods in which Chelsea caused the Scousers some worry; they had 65% possession, they out-passed Liverpool with 645 to 316 in completed passes and they force Alisson in to three of our saves. Their starting line up that day was almost the same as we’re going to expect it today and although they’ve had some pretty poor results at home (Forest defeat at home and Villa defeat at home) in both of those games I think they came up against clear underdog teams they were expecting to beat who were able to sit back and absrob pressure a bit more. In the Villa game they had Gusto sent off so Villa were a man up for the last 35 minutes which obviously also impacts the game too. So I don’t think that this will be a game between a title challenging side and some mid-table side that we should be expected to win comfortably. These teams all sat off and let Chelsea have the ball, which is something we aren’t going to do. We aren’t going to low block our way to being difficult to break down; Arteta will want to have a go at Chelsea and he’ll want us to impose our game and that will suit Chelsea because when they have teams that want to play against them, they are able to create more space.

Chelsea have also just started to hit form with three wins in a row and they have players that are starting to click. They are starting to find their goalscoring form and players like Nicholas Jackson is looking like he’ll be good, with Sterling also realising that he was, once upon a time, a world class footballer. Last season their Achilles heel was their lack of goals but they have the pace and the players who can catch us out and we need to be really mindful of what is in store later this evening.

Having said all of that, if you really want to compete for the title these are the types of games that you need to go and win and if we really do have any ambitions of standing any chance against the juggernaut that is Man City, this is a game that by hook or by crook we have to get a result in. We still have to go to Anfield, The Etihad, St James’ Park and also the Toilet Bowl stadium and each of those will be really tough grounds to get three points on. So a team like Chelsea, with players only just returning from injury, has to be a game that you look to pick up points in. So for us it is all about the personnel that are available today. As predicted the training ground pictures published bt the club yesterday were all carefully hand-picked to ensure that nothing is given away; so we got plenty of shots of players that we all know are fit and available – Martinelli, Ben White, Smith Rowe, Elneny, Odegaard and Thomas Partey to name but a few. There was no Saka, no Trossard, no Saliba to see but as I mentioned yesterday, Arteta has alluded to them training yesterday so the hope is that they are back for this match. We will need as many of those first teamers available as possible.

So who does Arteta go with today then? Does he bring Havertz back in to the fold against his old club? If so, where does he play them?

I think this all depends on the fitness of Saka. If he is only good for the bench, I would have no problem seeing Havertz up top with Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus out wide. Last game in the second half we saw that and it was Havertz who played a big part in the goal to win us the game against City. He would form a decent focal point and I think it would be the best placed to play him. Whether or not Arteta wants to risk him in an environment where he’s getting a fair bit of hostility, however, remains to be seen. The other option if Saka isn’t quite ready to start is to have Eddie through the middle. I don’t mind that as much either to be fair; he will get space to run in behind with those Chelsea defenders and he’s also been to the Bridge and scored before, so he will remember what that feels like. But clearly the preference for us all is to finally get to see our best front three, which would be Saka, Martinelli and Gabby Jesus through the middle. That trio starting would give us all a real boost and I’d certainly have hope that we stand a chance of causing those Chelsea defenders problems; Martinelli up against a returning Reece James could be interesting, as would it be if he was up against Cucurella. Then on the other side Colwill is a good defender, but he’s a centre half and you’d hope that Saka could have a good go at him if that is the match up. I do have a slight concern in that when Saka has been up against centre halves playing left back, he hasn’t always faired great against them (Ake and Dan Burns come to mind), but hopefully if he’s fit and with two weeks rest under his belt, he can come out with a bit of a spring tonight if he starts.

The biggest battle of the day is the midfield though. That could be where this match is won or lost and it is where Chelsea are at their strongest. We all know about the qualities of Caicedo, but Enzo Fernandez has shown just how good a ball player he is and with Conor Gallagher providing more legs, this is a midfield that will run all day and all night. Which is why I am hoping we go with our smartest midfield of Partey, Rice and Odegaard. That trio has the craft and guile, but they also have great work rate too and if we match up in distances covered, then you’d hope we have a little more craft about us compared to those in blue this evening.

I think this is a lot harder a match to call than the pundits are suggesting. Most of them are predicting an Arsenal win and off the back of the home victory at City then you can understand why, but we know we have not clicked loads this season and if we are going to get anything today then we are going to have to be at our best I think.

I am hopeful, but as usual with these types of games, I’m not expectant. Fingers crossed the boys do the business and we can continue our good form away from home.

Catch you sexy bitches tomorrow on this platform, or if you fancy it, we’ll be doing an ‘after the whistle’ at 8pm on the Same Old Arsenal podcast this evening. Hopefully it doesn’t turn in to a rage fest.

If you want some bonus listening, Cookie did a good show on Thursday with a Chelsea fan to preview the game. Have a listen here.

Bukayo Saka is deemed fit enough to play and Arteta said he’s fine after hobbling off against Bournemouth. I’m sure he’ll start tonight given that admission from the manager, but I think there’s probably plenty of us wondering how many times we can see him hobble off before he eventually succumbs to injury. It is a fairly redundant statement to make (but I’m going to make it anyway), but Saka’s importance to this team cannot be underestimated enough. He has nine goal contributions in all competitions this season for us and he’s scored or assisted just over a third of ALL the goals we’ve got so far this season. And he’s missed the Brentford League Cup game too. He is our Starboy, he is a guy who makes things happen, he’s even supposedly not fully got going in to his stride yet and still we’re getting end product. So having him fit is vital and if he truly has no ill-effects from the last couple of weekends where we’ve seen him pick up injuries, then cool. But if he is carrying any kind of problem in to this game, don’t inject him, patch him up and send him out there; this game is important and we want to win it, but that Man City game on Sunday is basically going to need every single one of our best players fit and available if we want to stand any chance of getting anything against them.

And speaking of having your best players back fit, we’ve also welcomed back Thomas Partey to training this week, with Arteta admitting he’s been in training for a couple of days and should play some part tonight. My hope is that he can get a solid 20 – 30 minutes and providing all is good with him there, then we should be also looking at how much involvement he can have for the City game at the weekend. Another massive boost for us.

And my, how things can change around quickly within a week, eh? This time last week we were going in to the Brentford game with Partey, Rice, Saka, Trossard all as doubts, but now it looks like all might be fit for this evening and that is huge for us. Huge because it affords Arteta a bit of rotation with some of the ‘big’ players who he wants to find spaces for. You never know, but we could see Tomiyasu come in this evening, for example, instead of Zinchenko or one of the other defenders. We could have Rice start the game, but Partey finish the game, giving both much needed rest and minutes ahead of the weekend. Trossard will fancy a start and in the absence of Martinelli I suspect Arteta will grant that wish; maybe we see Trossard wide left and Gabriel Jesus through the middle, like we did against PSV?

I do think Arteta will do a bit of rotation, but I doubt it’ll be in goal. Raya appears to have secured that number one spot so I suspect he starts again tonight, with Saliba, gabriel, Odegaard, Saka, probably Havertz all getting the nod too. Maybe he could give Fabio Vieira the left eight spot as reward for his decent performances this season, but I could just as easily see him keep Havertz in there in the hope to kick-start his Arsenal career after his goal at the weekend. And I wouldn’t necessarily be averse to that. He’ll be riding high off the back of that goal and the overwhelming groundswell of away fan support he got on Saturday and he’ll know that all any of us want is for him to be a success at the Arsenal because if they’re all successful then we all get to celebrate that glory.

As for Lens, their league form is pretty patchy, but I’ve seen a few stats floating about that it is belying their actual qualities. The noises are that they are a good defensive outlet and that perhaps their goal concessions have been a little unlucky. They are certainly missing Fofana in midfield and Openda in attack is a big blow; last season he bagged 21 goals in 38 games and that is a big chunk of goals missing from their team that they need to fill. It doesn’t look like they’ve been doing it so far this season but that can all change under the lights and with the impetus of Cha,pions league football getting their team excited. They got a credible draw away at Sevilla in their last game and looked like they made a decent fist of the game, so I’m not expecting this to be easy, but it is a game that we should be looking at as one that we should be getting a result of some kind in.

Mindset has to be right though, application has to be right and we need to be taking our chances. Fingers crossed we do.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief.