Forget about the fact that the MLS All Stars have had just a few days of training together, forget about the fact that they are a composition of the best players from the American ‘Soccer’ League, this was an emphatic Arsenal victory that is the perfect tonic for how we want this summer to shape up.

So far we’ve had two games in which we’ve drawn behind closed doors against Watford (admittedly with a very patchy looking side that doesn’t really resemble the first team too much), followed by an unfortunate draw against Nurnberg which sounded like we all the ball, were comfortable, then poor ol’ Karl Hein made a boo-boo and we found ourselves with another draw, but this felt like the first ‘proper’ outing for the first team squad and they duly showed the gulf in class and gave us all a glimpse of what could be an exciting chickens.

I know we need to temper our joy at such a fantastic win – with some fantastic goals that’ll I’ll get to by the way – but as I’ve said previously in the last week or so, the importance of the performance is more than the result at this stage, but it sounds like we got both yesterday.

Of course I say ‘sounds like’ because there’s no way I was staying up to watch The Arsenal in a pre season friendly at 1.30am UK time. Not on a school night, that’s for sure. So I’ve woken up this morning and watched the goals and I have to say we look like a team with a purpose based on the little that I have seen. Even within five minutes we’d asserted our dominance and Gabriel Jesus’ chipped goal to the back post was all kinds of naughty. There’s a little hesitation in my mind as to whether he was just standing it up for somebody to come in at the back post, but we saw him deliver a sublime chipped finish when we played Leicester at the start of last season, so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Then we had Leo Trossard banging in a sweet outside of the box finish and what I loved about it was the shift and hit he did. I feel like that too, was reminiscent of his disallowed goal away to Leicester last season but this time there would be no VAR to rule it out. Again, I must caveat today’s ramblings by saying that I haven’t had the chance to watch the game in full, but by the sounds of it Trossard really impressed yesterday and that is something that I think a few of us have been sleeping on a little, if I’m honest. With all of the furore over the new signings that we’ve done early this summer, I think many – me included – have forgotten just how good the squad already is and with players like Trossard showing his talents like he did yesterday, it feels like we have a deep squad that will help us massively this coming season when fighting for Champions League and Premier League points.

It’s the same with Jorginho. He’s a decent squad option and for the first time yesterday we saw him on a penalty, which is tantamount to a goal before the ball has even been placed on the spot. It was also Jorginho who played a sumptuous pass to Saka in for the first goal that we scored via Jesus, again showing his quality, but let’s not forget he is one of our squad rotation options!

I know, I know, I’m getting carried away. But it’s hard not to at this stage, right? We’ll most likely come back down to earth when we play Barca and United in the next week, but for now I’m an Arsenal fan who has seen his team go quick and what looks like cleverly in the transfer market, has just delivered the joint equalling highest victory over an MLS All Star Team, plus has looked like they have a purpose and drive about them that hopefully can carry us through to the beginning of the season and more. Winning is great, but if you don’t put the performance in, then it’s kind of a false economy, really. I saw that Spurs lost to West Ham in Australia. West Ham fans might have a chuckle at that result, but when you see how Spurs battered them in every metric, if I was a West Ham fan, I’d be a wee bit concerned with that. If anything the Scum can probably come out of that game feeling happier with their performance. I’m sorry to invoke that clubs name, but I’m merely doing it to show that in pre season, it is performances rather than results that matter.

And we got both yesterday. So many players were purring by the looks of it and when you look at Odegaard’s pass for Martinelli for his goal and our fourth of the night, you can’t help but get even more excited. Our captain is a genius; a master technician who applies himself to his craft like a renaissance painter looking to leave a legacy that lasts beyond his years. I love watching him and I hope to get more of that kind of football from our Norwegian throughout next season.

Then, to cap off a wonderful evening, Kai Havertz steps up at the back post to bang home a volley. It was a composed finish and one from a player with whom many of us feel the jury is still out on, but hope that we can see Leverkusen Kai rather than Chelsea Kai. If you’re going to hazard a guess, you’d hope Arteta has the keys to unlock him on that front.

And tyhe boss will be more than happy with the evening’s efforts. It’s now on to New York for the weekend where the team will line up against Barca, which I think will be a fascinating test of where we are at.

Catch you wonderful humans tomorrow.

Oooh, quick PS – if you missed it yesterday – I had a chat with journalist Charles Watts and Dave Seager from GunnersTown in our latest ‘one in, one out, one bangs’ series. Have a watch here if you fancy it.

Yes it is a monstrosity, no I won’t be buying it, but what is done is done and I’m sure I’ll just get used to it. Heck, if we win the league or one of the ‘big’ trophies this season then it’ll matter not what the players have across their torso’s. They’re now rocking it, it was on display yesterday at the ‘all star challenge’ and it feels like the countdown to the season is now well and truly on. We’ll see ourselves play the MLS All Stars at 1.30am UK time, which means I won’t be able to catch the game, but I’ll be interested tomorrow morning to wake up and see just who played, how many minutes some of those players played, as well as how we were looking as a collective. I’d be surprised if Arteta gives too many minutes to some of our bigger players, because this game is one in which Arsenal players are up against MLS players who are halfway through their season, so from a fitness point of view they will be a little more ready than our players (the MLS season starts in February and ends in October) and I think Arteta will be mindful of that when he makes his selection. I suspect it will be a smattering of first teamers to start, with the other half of the team made up of squad players, then a changeover around halftime. That feels like the most sensible option to me.

Will we get to see Rice and Timber though? Not sure. Arteta was non-committal on that one so I suspect he’s still weighing up what to do.

What he will have to be doing in these coming weeks is talking to his team about what they can expect when they come back from the US in terms of expectations. For us as Arsenal fans I think the majority of us are realistic; City are a behemoth who have won the league three times in a row and four times in the last six. They will be just as strong next year and so for us we’ll need to have just as good a season as last season and then some more. So this won’t be easy. Of course as it stands we are stronger; you don’t spend £200million and get to tell anyone otherwise, so there will be an element of expectation that the players will now have to deal with. No longer are we the ‘yeah but’ team; last season nobody expected us to do anything and as a result we flew under the radar for what felt like two-thirds of the season, but this season the pundits will take note of us and they will be talking up that we should be competing given what happened last season and the money we have spent.

Personally, I’d love it if all the pundits wrote us off again and we could be the ‘surprise package’, but you read articles like this and you realise that it just ain’t happening, so we’re going to have to get used to journalists taking aim and poking at Arsenal any time we slip up. They were doing it last season and we’ll get even more now that we’ve made big strides forward. So we need to be ready for it. If we’re lucky then there will be a whole host of them saying it’ll be Liverpool and Man City duking it out for the title again, but I don’t think we’re going to slip past the Scousers so easy next season.

If we’re looking for an upside though, it feels – and sounds – like we have a group of players who are ready for those enhanced expectations and personally I take comfort when I hear things like this from Martin Odegaard. He’s the captain, one of the leaders in the team, a guy who seems very relaxed and ready to drive forward Arsenal this season as well. He did allude to that excellent pre season last summer and how it provided a springboard for the season ahead, so you have to think that the players are all looking at the next three games as a big opportunity to show that this young Arsenal team can handle the extra pressure. It’ll be tough games this summer though; we have Man United, Barcelona and then Man City before the big kick off. There are two ways to look at this – either that this opposition is good because it should get our team attuned to good opponents straight away, or that perhaps it could have an impact if we don’t play as well and aren’t able to get the same rhythm as we had last summer. We tonked Nurnberg 5-3, had a nice easy run beating Everton 2-0, Orlando City were a weaker opponent that we found comfortable and unbeknownst to us at the time played a Chelsea team that were all over the place. This time around we have MLS All Stars, Man United on Saturday, Barca on Thursday, before high-tailing it back to the UK for the Emirates Cup on Wednesday evening before we play Man City on Sunday 6th August. That’s a pretty busy schedule and all very good opponents, so the opportunity for confidence-boosting shellacking’s is probably quite significantly less. But the results are irrelevant; if we absolute batter United but then they end up winning with a last minute goal, I’d rather have that than the other way around. What we need to see is a ball-dominant Arsenal who give us an indication of just how we’re going to set up this season. Are we going to play different tactical approaches per game? Are we going to use more rotation? Who will be preferred in that stocked defence we now have? There are loads of questions we are all asking before Forest at home on 12th August. Let’s just see what happens though.

That’s it from me today. Back tomorrow first thing having not watched anything of the MLS All Star game, yet fully prepared to make comments on the little I do know! Tonight I’ve got Dave Seager and Charles Watts on the Same Old Arsenal pod for the penultimate of our ‘One in, one out, one bangs’ series, which you can check out here.

Catch you all tomorrow!

Certainly you can question my commitment to the cause, but I just couldn’t give up a night’s rest for a friendly, regardless of how enticing it might have been to see how Granit Xhaka and Rob Holding got on. I’ll have to defer to those who watched the game on that one, but you can read the same match report I just read on the official site, which is here.

Joel and Chuba on the scoresheet will have done them both the world of good, but whether either gets anywhere near the first team this season, still remains to be seen. There’s been rumours of Campbell being told he can ‘jog on’ from the club, to which he’s denied and said he’ll fight for his place, but I personally can’t see him getting as much game time as he did last season. It’s fairly obvious Arsène doesn’t really fancy him that much, what with the way he scored and was the best player at home to Swansea last season, only to be removed from the first team in the next game. He only really got any game time because of injuries to others and I don’t know what it is about his style of play, but I’m still yet to be convinced by his technical ability. 

Sure, he can run and run all day, but that’s the kind of attribute that is perfect for mid to lower Premier League teams. For those fighting at the top, you usually need to have a bit more technical ability about you to succeed. I know all of this sounds rather harsh, but I just don’t think he’ll be at the club if we get this mystery wide man, that nobody has talked about in.

I think the same goes for the other Arsenal goalscorer (I’m completely omitting the fact that Drogba did us again – can’t wait for the day that guy retires!) Chuba Akpom. He’s always had much promise about him, but it just doesn’t feel like he’s ever going to be given the chance. If Arsenal don’t sign that all important striker this summer, it’s likely Arsène would opt for Giroud, Walcott or even Alexis up top, before Chuba gets a shout. Hopefully this goal will have done him the power of good and perhaps he’ll Get another chance on Monday when Arsenal play again, followed by next Friday when they line up against the Vikings. But he’s got to do something special in those next couple of games – I think – before Arsène Anelkafies his plans so that he’s putting his eggs in the Akpom basket. When Nicholas signed for us and was given a shot in the first team at 18, we had more expectation that Davor Suker would be the big signing that would make it though, so if Arsène came out and said he’d put his faith in Akpom, can you imagine the online meltdown? 

But hey, the world was different then, and people didn’t go cray-cray at every single word someone on the board would say. The only way of abating the fans then was playing and scoring and if Chuba gets a hatful of goals in the next few games, maybe a few will come around to the idea that he could make it. 

I’m not sure that’ll happen though and I’m not sure he’ll make it. So as somebody who wants to see us as competitive as possible, I’m hoping we do go out and get that striker we need, and sharpish too.

Right, that’s yer lot from me, I go into London for a half day of work and a booze-fuelled afternoon as a staff ‘summer social’.

Usually you start to get stories coming out of Arsenal on a Thursday too, even in the pre-season summer lull, stuff always feels like it’s about to happen.

The club are playing the MLS all stars at some ungodly hour tomorrow, but I’m not going to complain, because for those Arsenal fans based in the US who are used to ungodly hours, this is a nice change to proceedings. The only drag would be if you’re a US gooner and the only time your club is in your country, you have to travel for hours on a plane just to get to a game, so ‘props’ to those East Coast based Arsenal fans who have to schlep their way to California. Still, at least you’ll get some nice weather. When I schlep my way to Newcastle for an away game I get nothing of the sort.

It’s a shame I won’t get to see Xhaka play some part live, but there’s so many replays and re-runs these days, that I’ll probably be able to watch the whole 90 minutes by the time I finish work on Friday. So it’ll be interesting to see how our new boy does.

Jack’s impressed, which is always good to hear, although I doubt he’d go on the official site and tell us all “ee’s been a bit sh*t to be honest. That’s £30mil down the khasi if you ask me”, is he? But whilst he’s going to give out plaudits, he doesn’t need to be as effusive in his praise as he did, or be as specific about how he thinks Xhaka will improve the team. I like the idea of somebody in the middle of the park knitting everyone together. I had a conversation with the always interesting Mr Leeder at the back end of last season and he told me that his problem with Arsenal was that it didn’t really look like we had an philosophy any more. Ben often sees things waaaay before me and as he explained that we just don’t seem to have the ‘cohesion’ that Arsène has banged on about, that needs to come from a better midfield. That’s why ol’ Benjy isn’t too fond of Coquelin, because he’s just one component part of midfield i.e. ball winning/tough tackling, that should be just one part of a midfielders job, not the sole remit. Why have a Coquelin and Cazorla to operate a ball winning/ball distributing roll, when you can have a Xhaka doing both, which frees up the opportunity for Arsène to try a different kind of partner alongside Xhaka. Maybe that’s Santi, maybe that’s Wilshere, maybe that’s Ramsey or maybe even that’s Elneny. The important thing is that we have options and we have an opportunity to improve the ‘cohesion’ of that midfield.

There’s some stuff bubbling under the surface about Szczesny joining Roma on a loan-to-buy deal which, if we’re all honest, is probably best for everyone. If I could hazard a guess, I’d say Cech has two more years minimum at the peak, five at the max, but by that time Wojciech will be touching 30 and I’m sure he’ll not want  to stick around if he’s not going to be given a shot. A £13million deal is probably fair given his age and the fact Arsenal will have got a couple of years as a loan fee, so he’ll eventually move on with most Arsenal fans blessings, I would have thought.

There’s plenty of other rubbish being trotted out by the papers, but I found the ‘Eddie Howe as Arsène’s successor’ stuff particularly amusing. Not because he’s a bad manager, or because I wouldn’t want him at Arsenal (although I’m not sure how convinced I’d be of it), but because the idea that the board are making any preparations for a new manager at this stage seem quite laughable. They’ve made it quite clear that they’d like to discuss a new deal with Arsène when he’s ready too – despite what can sentiment is – and I have little faith that they have any real clue when it comes to succession planning. Perhaps Ivan might have an idea or two, but Kroenke and the rest of the old boys club? No chance. 

Anyway, we don’t have to worry about that just yet, just the fact that we’re going into the new season short on players and in the midst of a bit of an injury crisis. Ahh the life of an Arsenal fan, eh?