I watched the United/City game, and I just assumed United would be pants and City cut our lead, not the other way around, so by the time kick off came for our game, I was buzzing.

There’s nothing like a Sean Dyche mid-block slog-fest to quell any excitement, though, eh?

Let’s do some real talk here, though, because I don’t blame or accuse Forest of anything in terms of the game. They are sitting in 17th, they need to pick up points, so having the visitorsto their gaff who are currently top of the league right now was always going to mean they would have to grind something out. So in no way do I mean my Sean Dyche comments as a slight on them. But we’ve seen him do this to us before, and we really should be able to have an answer for it.

When I say “do this before,” I mean Everton at home last season, in which Everton kept their shape, kept their discipline, said to Arsenal, “go on then, see if you can break us down,” and we had no answer that day.

And it appears we had no answer yesterday, although I think that is more on us, than it is on Forest. Because you look at all the data points, you look at the eye test on some of the chances we missed, and this was a 1-0 / 2-0 game in which we were once again profligate on goal.

• Martinelli missed an open goal
• Zubimendi puts wide with a half-cross, half-shot
• Gyokeres put in behind, and Murillo blocks
• Rice hits a shot into the tur,f and Sels palms it wide
• Sels makes a wonder save from a Saka looping header
• Merino heads a Rice ball into the box just wide

By the end of the game, depending on which statistical model you use, we’d created enough xG to bury two chances. But we come away with a big, fat, zero, and I have to look at our attacking display and say it feels like it was just all wrong yesterday. I said pre-game on social media that I didn’t think that Martinelli is quite the right choice for what I suspected Forest under Sean Dyche would do. Here are my words in the morning on the blog:

Martinelli is fresh off a hat-trick last weekend, so he might be a good option, but if Forest sit in a compact shape when we have the ball, Martinelli might be reduced to that kind of game we all dread for him: hugging the touchline, no space to run in behind, touch-touch-touch-byline-cross to nowhere.

As it was, he wasn’t reduced to hugging the touchline, but he didn’t have a great game, wasn’t involved much at all, and when his big moment came to make himself a match-winner, he fluffed his lines at the back post. It was really poor from a guy who is our top scorer this season. But herein lies the problem; Martinelli, as our top scorer, shows that sometimes, we just lack that clinical finish in front of goal. Games like yesterday showed this. We score goals, we all know we do, and we’re one of the top scorers in the Premier League, but games like yesterday are where you go from being in a title race to shutting down a title race. Last season, Liverpool had the likes of Salah, who would just bag in a game like this. Haaland tends to do that too, and that’s also why City won the league two seasons ago. We’re in great shape, we’re seven points clear (although that will be reduced to four today with Villa sure to beat a pretty average Everton side on their own turf), but if we had a monster in front of goal, I think that lead would be so unassailable, that we’d all be wondering what we were going to be wearing to the victory parade in May – even by now.

As it is, because of games like this, as well as the failure to capitalise and frankly, just be better in that second half against Liverpool, we find ourselves seven points clear and not able to really pull away from the chasing pack.

There is, of course, some introspection needed. We ARE seven points clear. But it just doesn’t ‘feel’ to me like we’re acting like champions-elect. Yesterday, we had so many players who were off the pace. We slowed everything down (and not for the first time this season). We allowed Forest to keep in their shape because of the way we slowed everything down. Odegaard dropped an absolute stinker, and, as somebody who is supposed to be our cornerstone in this team, we can’t be having that. I thought the balance of the attack was wrong, and having Gyokeres playing with Martinelli and Madueke on either side just feels pointless. Gabriel Jesus offered nothing when coming on either, so he’s hardly the answer, so perhaps having Merino in there would have been a better call. Certainly, at halftime, you can make those changes. Odegaard dropped a stinker, was hooked before the hour was off, but I think the move was to swap him for Eze and then Gyokeres for Merino. Merino played well when he was on. He offered more threat than Viktor, but giving a player like Eze 11 minutes plus stoppage time to do something isn’t enough. He’s the kind of guy who needs to ‘feel’ his way into the game.

Arteta got his approach all wrong. His assertion that Saka was carrying something doesn’t wash for me. If that’s the case, don’t play Saka in midweek; the Premier League is more important than the League Cup, and Arteta played his strong hand then when he should have been playing it today. I’ll tell you one thing right now, I REALLY hope he doesn’t go strong again for Inter. We have daylight in the Champions League, we have another home game against a Kairat team at the bottom of the whole league, and we can rotate heavily and still should be beating. And if we do that, then that’s 21 points confirmed, even if we lose to Inter and it confirms a top-two spot. There should be no reason for playing a strong team in midweek. Manchester United is priority number one, and seeing them with their new manager bounceback yesterday, we need to make sure we are ready, because they will have a whole week to prepare for us.

I’ll say a final word on the penalty incident. Firstly, you can’t be relying on the referee to get you out of games like this. We needed to have taken our other chances, and then this would have become an incidental situation. But that’s a penalty. I’m not sure how you can cup the ball with your hand to try to keep it in play inside the box and it not be a penalty. When VAR looks at that and says, “It came off his shoulder first,” I have to just laugh. He LITERALLY tried to keep the ball in play with his arm. You can’t say that hitting the shoulder should have any distance. No doubt we’ll have some Dermot Gallagher gaslighting on Ref Watch tomorrow, but it’s a penalty; we’ve been shafted a bit there. But we shafted ourselves by not taking our chances.

Unfortunately, I’ve said I’d do a post-game show with Amanda and James in which we talk about this game, which was hardly a classic. But if you want to join us, you can do so – click here at 1 pm, where we’ll be going live.

This is a Forest side who currently sit 17th in the table, who have lost 12 of their 21 games this season (one being a 3-0 to us at the Emirates during the disastrous Postecoglou reign), who – as I pointed out yesterday – are in patchy form overall of late, and given our current form (Liverpool draw aside), you’d hope this is one in which Arsenal could win and win comfortably.

But you and I both know that is not how we roll. I am absolutely convinced that this will not be comfortable today – Sean Dyche wouldn’t allow it – and so Arsenal are really going to work hard if they want those three points this evening.

By a weird quirk of fate, we also have a pretty poor recent head-to-head versus Forest at the City ground, too. Last season was a draw 0-0, lumped in with about a billion other draws we picked up. The season before that we did win 2-1 around the same time as now, with goals from Gabby Jesus and Bukayo Saka in the last 20 minutes. But before that we played them in May as our title run essentially came to an end with a 1-0 defeat there, then the year before that I was up at the game as we lost 1-0 in the FA Cup, with the time before that being in 2018 in which we lost 4-2 with a rotated Arsenal side that was pretty terrible defensively on the day I seem to recall. So that’s one win in five, which means there might be some Forest fans on their way to the game tonight thinking that maybe they could give us a bit of a chinning this evening.

Hey, it’s the Premier League, so it’s not outside the realms of reality that it could happen. City went there, relied on a late goal, should have had a man sent off and really, were a little fortunate to get the win overall. So we can’t be too arrogant to think that form and the league table set us up for a nice evening. As I mentioned yesterday, Forest will go direct, they will attack our defensive final third, they will be aggressive, and we need to be ready for it.

That’s why I think Arteta will keep the same side as he did for Chelsea. He would have expected the aggression from Chelsea in the same way he will be expecting it from Forest, so for me that means you have to go with Timber left back, White right back. Arteta hinted at a return for one of Dowman, Mosquera or Calafiori, for which I think it might be Mosquera today. I don’t know why, but I just get that feeling that perhaps he’s back. If that happens, it is good news indeed; we’re playing both of our right backs if we go with what I have suggested, and Mosquera can fill in there, so if it means we can get one of them off – or maybe even both if the scoreline is favourable for us with 20 minutes to go – then that’s what we have to do. We have INter in midweek and I think Arteta simply has to rotate one or both of White/Timber for that one, because we don’t want to risk both of them, which means a return of Mosquera could result in him able to fill in there for INter, as well as MLS on the left, which allows for that rotation and rest we would need ahead of a big game at home to United.

Which is why I think he’ll go strong in the back four today.

I don’t think he changes midfield either for this one. Zubi-Rice-Odegaard feels like it’s a must for a midfield battle that I think will include Andersen and Sangaré, fresh from AFCON, so we need those first-choice players to be ready and willing to go for this one. I hope that Yates doesn’t get on, because every time I’ve seen him, he’s a clobbermeister who would happily leave one in on a player to pick up a yellow, so hopefully, if he plays, it is for the dying embers of this one.

Up top, again, I think the only question mark might be left wing, because I believe Saka is obviously locked in for this, with Gyokeres up top, having scored in midweek. Hopefully, Big Vik is given a little more space, too. He’s up against some burly defenders in Murrilo and six-foot-five Milenkovic. He’s not the quickest in the world, whilst Murillo is a little bit more of the muscle and apparently does have occasional lapses in concentration, so if Viktor can find a way to get some space against those two, who knows, maybe he can drop back-to-back goals?

So, who plays in that left-wing spot? You could argue the toss over some players, I think, so it’s tough to call. Do you go with the trickery and form this season of Trossard? Maybe. But he hasn’t been sparkling in the last couple of matches. He hasn’t been poor by any stretch of the imagination, but I just haven’t seen him in the same scintillating form he showed a couple of weeks back during the Christmas period. Martinelli is fresh off a hat-trick last weekend, so he might be a good option, but if Forest sit in a compact shape when we have the ball, Martinelli might be reduced to that kind of game we all dread for him: hugging the touchline, no space to run in behind, touch-touch-touch-byline-cross to nowhere. I think that space on the pitch will be taken up by Ola Aina, who is quick and good at ball recoveries, so it feels like you might need somebody good at beating the man today. I wouldn’t mind seeing Madueke in that regard, because he’s probably the best at beating a man in the whole club. Trossard, too, has the trickery more than Martinelli, so that’s another option. An outside bet might be Eze, but I just think Arteta is going off the idea of using him there, with the last time we saw that for any length of time being in the Villa loss at the beginning of December. So there are at least two options for Arteta, depending on how he thinks Forest will line up, which is a real positive in an attacking sense.

I do think this one is going to be a bit of a slog, though. The Forest fans will be raucous; they’ll have had a few beers, so it’ll be a lively atmosphere, which means we need to get on the ball and impose ourselves early. WE tend to start games slowly and control the ball, and given we played in midweek, I bet we try to slow this first half down with possession, whilst Forest might be more of aggressive at the start to try and get ahead and get the crowd on side. If that happens, we have to find solutions to just keep control of those first 30 minutes. Do that, then build on our game, and hopefully we can get the win.

We’ll need to, because City will have beaten a ragged United side who have only had a few days with Carrick in charge. I might watch the start of that one, until City score at least, but I’m not holding out much hope. So we need to do our job a few hours after that has finished.

Back tomorrow for a pod with James and Amanda, as well as the usual blog on here. Catch you then.

As usual I did my habit of going to have a look at a few Forest fan forums to see how they’re feeling, which gave me a little bit of hope, because they aren’t exactly bullish ahead of this one. Some of the quotes I came across were:

Can’t look beyond a comprehensive loss where we barely touch the ball and they win by a 3+ margin

and

Hope I’m wrong but reckon we’re in for an absolute hammering. Arsenal to have 80+ % possession, we’ll barely get out of our half and will struggle to put 3 passes together

and

I will be stunned if we get anything out of this game. I’m expecting a 3 or 4 nil loss. The Win against West Ham hardly filled me with confidence but it was important.

Now, of course, you and I know that despite the 4-1 win at home to Villa, we don’t really do high-scoring games. In fact, if you ask any Arsenal fan, they’d probably tell you that, given we’ve put four past Villa, three past Bournemouth, four past Portsmouth, and three past Chelsea on Wednesday, we’re all a bit surprised we’ve suddenly come into form. That’s normally because teams sit in a low block, but none of the aforementioned sides did that. I suspect Forest will be more deep-lying and more defensively resolute than any of those teams we’ve managed to score three or more against recently. Their recent results don’t suggest that, but we all know Dyche loves a bit of low-block murder ball against us – like he did whilst in charge at Everton last season – so I am not expecting much of a game. Their form as well suggests they’ll be trying to stop the rot a bit; they’ve won three of their last nine games, losing six, with their three wins coming against a terrible West Ham, a terrible Wolves, and a terrible Scum team. Their defeats have been home and away to Everton, as well as Brighton, Fulham, City, and Villa. So it’s a real mixed bag.

They’re also a team that hasn’t exactly been pumping the goals in, with 21 scored this season, which is joint second-worst with (surprisingly) Sunderland. They’re a bit better on their xG in 13th position, which suggests that they just aren’t putting their chances away, which gives a little insight into why some of their fans are pessimistic about their ability to put goals away against us tomorrow.

What is interesting about Forest is that they are one of the top sides in the league for progressive passing, making more of those than any other team, other than us, Liverpool, Newcastle, and City. They’re also top of the table when it comes to tackles won in the attacking third, so that suggests to me that they might be a little more aggressive in the press than I would have expected. The other teams up there are Brighton, and we know how they like to press the ball high. Does that mean that we’ll be seeing a Sean Dyche side that tries to be aggressive in the press and leave space with bodies forward?

Maybe. But I do think we’ll still see that direct, long-ball, up to the target man, Chris Wood. Then, if the ball is lost, that’s when they’ll look to win second balls, try to win those tackles in the attacking third. If you’re bypassing the midfield, you aren’t winning tackles there, which I think explains a little of their approach. If you look at the total number of touches in the third, Forest are also up there, with only Liverpool, us, and Man City having more than they do.

When it comes to their potency in front of goal, they’re about mid-table on the volume of shots they have, as well as the percentage of shots on target they get, with the second most crosses into the box in the Premier League this season.

A pattern is starting to evolve here, right?

1. Direct football, find the target man
2. Win the 50-50s in the attacking third
3. Balls out wide when the ball is in Arsenal’s half, get it wide and look for crosses in to the box.

Gabriel and Saliba might well have a day of lots of headed defending, methinks.

The pundits are obviously going for us, but they are all more cautious about how tight the game will be, compared to the Forest fans, with Neville calling it a 1-0 on the Overlap, Merse giving us a 2-0, Chris Sutton going 1-0 and the Opta Analyst giving us a 66% chance of a win, with Forest down as 15% chance of winning. SO that all looks good, but as we know, this Premier League is more than unpredictable; it’s why it is the most watched, the best, and draws in the biggest audiences. I’ll do a bit more of a preview on what we need to do tomorrow, as well as team news, but this is a game in which Arsenal need to win and they need to be able to show that we can keep City at arms-length, because there’s no chance that a hapless Man United (until they play us in just over a week’s time, of course) will get anything from a game against City.

Right, I’m calling it for today. Got a day of work before my weekend can kick off, so I’m off to start it with a bit of the gym.

Be lucky people. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Arteta’s starting line up cause a few raised eyebrows amongst the fanbase, with Declan Rice rested, but with Bilbao in midweek and City the week after, he’d clearly looked at this small block of games and decided that rotation is needed. This is new for him. This is an evolution. I – maybe like you too – have long thought that he doesn’t trust enough of his squad to rotate, but yesterday proves he now feels like he can and the result was a victory that I have to say looked very impressive from where I sat (I had to watch the first half on a plane!). The fanbase has long told him “if you’re going to have a squad, use it!” and he definitely responded yesterday, playing Merino in back-to-back games, which he admitted afterwards had something to do with his impressive form for Spain and his goals over the international break. Perfect – meritocracy – that’s what we all want.

The rest of the team was as most of us expected and in came Eze for Martinelli and in that first half I thought Eze was quiet. He showed some flashes of quality with his turn of pace to beat a man a couple of times, but most of our play came down the right hand side, where Noni Madueke was absolutely terrific I thought. He is a nightmare to deal with for defenders because he has a very quick stop-start turn of pace and he had whatever full back Forest played on toast all day. He beat his man time and time again and whilst the end product wasn’t always there, what his performance did for the team yesterday was start to commit more Forest players over tot hat side and I noticed towards the end of that first half that Forest started doubling up on him to try to stop him. But he just kept on beating his man and for a guy who I didn’t understand why we bought him, he’s absolutely proving me wrong and honestly I couldn’t be happier about it.

400+ words in and I still haven’t mentioned the first goal. That is very remiss of me because it was a peach of a finish from Zubimendi and I tell you think right now, we’ll have ourselves a candidate for goal of the season when we get to May, that’s for sure. On the volley, swerving finish, Sels with no chance, it was of the highest quality and I saw an interview afterwards where the interviewing confirmed that he only scored two goals in the whole season last season. Welp, he’s equalled that already because his second and Arsenal’s third to seal the game, was a really good one from a guy who isn’t that tall and yet leapt like a slamon in the box to float the ball over Sels.

That third goal came on 79 minutes and as I mentioned before, if you’re going to plot out the ‘perfect’ 3-0 victory, I think you’d probably pick similar times for the goals we scored. Almost – I’d probably prefer an early goal, maybe on 15 minutes, but around the half hour mark is also fine. Then, you’d definitely pick a ‘straight after halftime’ and that’s what we got with Big Vik’s third goal of the season. It felt somewhat similar to his first goal at the start; a long ball from Calafiori down the left hand channel, only this time it was Eze sprinting down that left hand side and then when the Firest defender didn’t win the header to let the ball bounce of his shoulder, Ebs needed just one touch to instantly cross the ball over to the Swede to tap in from inside the six yard box. It was a classic poacher/striker finish and it’s exactly what we brought the Swede for. Power, positioning, box threat. He is not the most skilful player in the world, there were a couple of times in which his touch went awry, but there were more times in which he linked up with his fellow attackers and other times in which he made an impact with his power running; I’m particularly thinking about the effort he had that cracked the top of the post in the second half.

The relationship between Eze and Gyokeres was interesting. I think a few people have speculated that Eze would enjoy playing with Gyokeres like he enjoyed playing with Mateta, but yesterday we got visible evidence of this with the second goal, but also with some of the connections between the two and I think it’s no co-incidence that both players improved after halftime. This was the first time they’d properly got minutes together and with Gyokeres being a guy who naturally favours that left hand side, you could see the connections starting to form.

That’s really positive as well because if you think about how on our right hand side you have Odegaard (really unlucky to get injured on the same shoulder again but Ethan came in and did really well I thought) and Saka who combine, it’s good to see that Eze and Gyokeres might be starting a good connection with each other. Of course yesterday it was Madueke and with Odegaard going off he was isolated, but what we saw is that he’s fine being a lone wolf on the right hand side; Arsenal players can feed him the ball with little support and he will action it. Of course he did get some support and I noticed Timber overlapping on a few occasions which was positive, but in the main Noni is happy to get the ball and go at his man and at a time in which we have Saka and Odegaard out, his form is a welcome one. He got a deserved standing ovation and I loved what I saw.

But that goes for most of the team. We reduced Forest to basically nothing and the fact that their best chance came through a bit of a spawny whack off of Wood’s chest to deflect the ball towards the crossbar, shows just how controlled we were defensively, where we have now conceded just one goal all season and it has come from a wonder strike free kick at Anfield. I’ll take that for our opening exchanges.

And I’ll take the three points for the weekend to take us temporarily top. Liverpool will batter Burnley today I suspect, but at least we are doing our bit.

Now, on to Bilbao. Catch you all tomorrow.

P.s. I didn’t even mention ‘Big Ange’s return. Props to the home fans for singing “Are you Tottenham in disguise” yesterday. I liked that.

Oh how I have missed them. The nerves, the anticipation, the apprehension…it’s all here. Except…I’m at Heathrow as I type this, about to board a flight to Greece, which doesn’t touch down until the game is about 25 minutes in. First world problems n’that, I know, and I recognised I’m fortunate. But at 7.25am on a Saturday when all you can think about is what the hell are Arsenal going to face up to today in Postecoglou’s Nottingham Forest (feels a bit weird saying that still), the benefits of going on holiday feel a little bit detached from my current reality, if I’m honest.

What the hell are we going to see from Forest today? Surely not a high pressing line looking to win the ball back high up the pitch and dominate possession? These players have spent the best part of 18 months drilled into a compact, low possession, rapid transition, counter-attacking side. Surely they’re not going to “just who we are mate” it after two days with the Australian on the training ground. Are they?

We obviously all hope so, because if there is going to be green space for Arsenal’s front line to run into, it could be a fun day. Think Madueke against Serbia for his goal. Think Gyokeres for about a third of his goals last season for Sporting. If Forest go ‘Full Ange’ then we’re in for a treat.

What we’ll actually get, I suspect, will be Nuno’s Forest with Ange getting a VIP seat to watch. I think they’ll sit in, I think they’ll low block, I think they’ll use the likes of Ndoye and Hudson-Odoi to be the rapid counter options. Chris Wood will provide the physical threat for our two central defenders.

One of which might be Big Bill Saliba, who Arteta confirmed in his press conference yesterday has trained, which is great news. I think if he’s fit he plays – no ifs, no buts – he’s a mainstay in this Arsenal team and if he’s fit then Mosquera takes his place on the bench. But if there’s even a hint of him not being 100%, I say you rest him and give Christian the nod. He did so well against Liverpool that there’s a weird part of me that thinks he deserves another start. But if you’re Arteta, you’re thinking about getting the best team out there and that has Saliba in it. He has a better passing range, he’s a good progressive passer and carrier of the ball out from the back and on a day in which we’re up against a probable low block, a good one-on-one defender and if we find ourselves transitioned on, it would be more comforting to know we have a guy who is a good duel winner.

The rest of the team is probably quite easy to name. It’ll be Raya, Timber (with White only just back in training), Gabriel, Calafiori (I think), Zubimendi, Rice, Ødegaard, Madueke, Gyokeres….and…Eze?

I think most of us ‘think’ Ebs will play, but you just don’t know. If we’re going to get a low block Forest then Martinelli is effectively redundant, so it has to be one of Eze or Trossard and I suspect Eze gets the chance to make his home debut. And he has to make it count because I think there will be a congested final third and players with that little bit of trickery will be important. This feels like a game in which Martinelli doesn’t even go for a token warm up. He’s more than likely a candidate for Bilbao in midweek, but I wouldn’t put him in today, because I just don’t think there’s a game there for him. Maybe if Eze starts and doesn’t have any luck you ask Leo to show his stuff, because he’s better in small spaces, but not the Brazilian.

I think this is going to be a tough watch today. Forest will make this bitty, they’ll come to frustrate, they’ll defend everything from deep and they’ll contest that part of the field where they’re defensive ‘D’ is. We need to be ready for that and we need to move the ball quicker. The last thing any of us want to see is a slightly sleepy early kick off Saturday performance. We need to start off quick. I don’t want to be stepping off the plane with 25 minutes gone and firing up my phone to hear the commentators talking about how Arsenal have been sluggish in the opinion exchanges between the two sides. Last season we showed too much of that in too many games – especially home ones – so we need to lay down an early marker and I’m hoping we see that.

James is doing a post match review on the Same Old Arsenal pod at around 4.30pm today I think, so look out for that (I can’t link as I’m on the iPad and it’s a bit of a pain in the arse compared to my laptop), but otherwise I’ll be back tomorrow from Santorini giving you some thoughts.

See you then.

It’s Forest at The Emirates, it’s Arteta’s press conference this afternoon and yesterday we heard from ‘Big Ange’ talking at his press conference ahead of the game. He once again talked about winning trophies his whole career and to be fair, he’s shown that he can do that, but this will be one heck of a challenge to deliver for Forest, with that challenge starting against us. As you’d expect his press conference didn’t really feel as much about the game tomorrow and more about what he’s going to do to Forest with his stylistic changes, but he did admit that it was only yesterday that he had his full squad together. They’ll most likely be travelling today so I suspect what we will see tomorrow is still a defensively structured team set up to contain, although he did repeatedly say he would attack, so maybe we’ll see some of that tomorrow?

As for Forest fans, well, as I do like to do I decided to go behind enemy lines and have a look at how they’re feeling ahead of this one. I found a decent site that had a poll on how they think the game will go and you’ve got just over a third thinking they’ll lose, a quarter thinking they’ll win and just under a third thinking that it will be a draw. So that’s a bit of a mixed bag. I guess they are as unsure what to make of Postecoglou and the way they will set up as we are. One fan suggested that if Madueke plays like he did against Andorra they’ll win, but that thread obviously aged like milk after what he did in Serbia, so that’s good to know. As for how they’re feeling about Age, well, it was hardly universal appreciation that’s for sure. Most of them – before the announcement – were advocating Pochettino, with comments like “it’s going to be that fraud Postecoglou, isn’t it?” or “If it was to be big Ange, sacking a manager who took you from 17th to 7th and hiring one who took a team from 5th to 17th, we’d be a f***ing meme.” – so I’m guessing some of those people from earlier in the week aren’t too happy right now!

I get it though; they’ve gone for a diametrically opposed manager, one who may have won something, but who did so with one heck of a fortunate set of teams on his way to winning that Europa League, whilst the Forest fans will have watched and laughed – like we did – as the Scum spiralled down the table with suicide football at times. All the while they were seeing Nuno deliver result after result which had them chasing Champions League spots for a big part of the season. So I can understand why some of them are a little miffed at what they might perceive as a downgrade.

The pundits are on our side too, with Jones Knows saying there will be some cards and a 3-1 for The Arsenal. Merse has gone for a 2-0 Arsenal and the most cantankerous man in sports broadcasting Chris Sutton has gone for a 2-0 win for us, saying that he doesn’t expect a big change and that Arsenal will probably need to grind out a result. It’s hard to disagree with that; Nuno’s Forest were built on defensive solidity and not the most expansive football and dropping in to a low block will not be a problem for those players at all. Then, with their rapid forward line they can counter at pace and that’ll be something we’ll need to be mindful of in transition, because there will be traps they’d like to spring on us I suspect. I’ll do a little more on the game and how it might play out tomorrow I think.

With that in mind, Sports Mole is usually the place that I often think is the most realistic – and detailed – in their previews and I tend to think that the way they’ve set it out is probably the most accurate as to how the game might go. They’ve said a 2-1 win to us, citing our lack of xG so far this season, which I think is a little bit of a misnomer. We’ve gone to Old Trafford before they’ve had the chance to look a little stodgy and with the home fans full of voice and hope. I’m convinced that if we were going there in a few weeks time the game would be very different. We’ve smashed a Leeds team who were newly promoted and who barely laid a glove on us, then we’ve gone to Anfield in which Liverpool created less xG than we did. So I think there’s some context to be had here. Having said that, if we’re getting Nuno’s Forest rock up tomorrow, they will be compact and make it difficult for us to create chances, so a narrow xG game and also hopefully an Arsenal win albeit by a narrow one, feels like it’s most likely to be on the cards for me.

The big decisions will be coming tomorrow morning as Arteta decides who is going to start and thankfully, unlike last season, the manager has a ton of different options and playing styles to pick from. More on that tomorrow after he’s said his piece in today’s press conference.

And I’ll be back tomorrow with some thoughts on what I would do if I was Arteta too. So I’ll catch you then.

That makes them a little more dangerous to us because as much as I’ve talked about us as an unknown quantity this season because of our different tactical approaches and personnel, it feels like Forest are – as of now anyway – also an unknown quantity.

It must be so hard for managers and coaching staffs of opposition players when this sort of stuff happens once the season is underway. All of the analysis your team has done could potentially be thrown out of the water and whilst the phrase ‘new manager bounce’ has tended to be referred to in the context of a squad of players all going that little extra mile to impress the new manager, I think these days it’s probably more about the tactical side of how the new manager will line his side up, that causes the most issues. The Premier League has become such a chess match league over the last five years or so. The kind of inspirational ‘vibes’ managers who would have existed ten years ago just simply wouldn’t cut it any more. You have to be able to forensically analyse your opponents every weakness and then deploy your best team to amplify those weaknesses, whilst playing to your own strengths. When you can’t do that because you don’t know what the strengths or weaknesses are of an opposition because their tactical set up might change, it becomes a little more difficult to really know if your game plan will be the one that plays out on the pitch. I remember – I think it might have been David Luiz who said it – when Mikel first took over and we won the FA Cup, the comments were along the lines of “he knows exactly how a game will play out – to every detail. It is more a case of us as players being able to execute it”. Apologies, I can’t find the exact quote, but I know that it stuck in my head. But what do you do when you have no idea whether a team is going to rip everything up and try something new?

I wonder if this might be a game in which Arteta – being the obsessive that he is – mocks up two different scenarios. Option A is we see a team that Ange has said “look, we’re going to change things, but it will be a gradual change over time, so I don’t want to tweak it too much”. The thing about that, however, is that the entire coaching staff has been changed and he’s got his own guys in already. So what are they going to do? Say to the players “can you remember what was being talked about last week when Nuno was in charge? Keep doing that for a bit”. I think that’s a little less likely more that I think about it, but Mikel still needs to think about prepare for a low block on Saturday I think. Option B, which from an Arsenal fan perspective is what we hope will happen, will be more what we’ve seen from ‘Angeball’. High line, high press, commit bodies and create overloads in attacking space, whilst relying on your core defenders to cover greater ground as a result. If that happens, then Arsenal’s ability to get out of high pressing situations might work in our favour. Ironically, whilst we’ve all been talking about how Martinelli is out of form and should probably be sat down for a bit, a game like Option B mentioned above would suit him waaaay more than option A. The archetypal Martinelli goal is like the one he scored against Brighton a couple of season’s back, or the one he got against Villa when he walked it in to the net. It’s like that one against Chelsea when Kante slipped, or when he was put in behind by Merino in the Bernabeu. Martinelli is a green space running; he wants to have plenty to run in behind on and a Forest side going with Option A means that Martinelli should be nowhere near the first XI for it. Equally there’s the whole form and confidence thing, so I do wonder if it matters what Postecoglou goes for, because Martinelli will most probably be sidelined. But it goes to show you just what difference a change in manager and philosophy can have. I’m just a lowly Arsenal blogger with very limited tactical knowledge of the game and I’m thinking about it, so you can bet your house that Mikel and his coaches and Arsenal analysts are doing it to a much larger degree.

We might get a little more insight tomorrow when ‘Big Ange’ speaks to the press ahead of the game, but he won’t want to give too much away I don’t think. He’ll give soundbites, he’ll be fun for the media and he’ll talk about how he ‘is who is is’ mate, but that Europa League final showed that if he needs to tell his team to low block the sh*t out of a game, he’ll do it. And with Forest I suspect the expectations aren’t the same with The Scum, so they won’t be as expectant to play free-flowing football I don’t think, which means I do wonder if we see a more pragmatic Postecoglou for this stint at his latest club.

We shall soon find out. Back tomorrow with some more thoughts ahead of the game and the press conferences, but I might do a little bit of stooping around on Forest fan forums to see what vibes they are giving off. Catch you then.

I have this thing during matches in which The Management asks me what my heart rate is. That’s because usually it jumps to 110+ beats per minute when Arsenal are playing. It’s the nerves that kick in. Last night my heart rate never got above 85. I looked on four separate occasions.

I just didn’t have it in me to be nervous. There was no fear. There was no jeopardy. The title talk was lost and kudos to Henry Winter for calling it out last night – it’s not a ‘title race’ any more. It’s a procession.

And I think it’s been like that since Arsenal went away to Dubai. The domestic season was done when those players got back from their warm weather training; we all knew it, it’s just that none of us wanted to admit it. The failings of last summer have been compounded by the failings of January and as a result that’s where I am right now. I just want us to fast forward the season and get to the end. I’m done with the sh*t refereeing for another season, I’m done with the bad luck, I’m done with looking at sports media cream themselves over a Liverpool side who have had it their own way all season; last night after they went up against a Newcastle side who didn’t have Isak fit (having played against City without a fully fit Haaland), I realised that there’s no point looking at the table and there’s no point worrying about the final few months of the season. Our season was done when Kai Havertz stretched for that ball in Dubai and Martinelli did his hamstring in the North East.

I think what’s also compounding this feeling of “just fast forward to the end” for me is also that there isn’t really a lot that can change in the next month. Saka and Martinelli won’t be ready until after the international break, which will be April. That means we have a whole month of huffing and puffing like we did last night. The Leicester game gave us all false hope; I think deep down we all knew that playing a central midfielder with no experience as a centre forward would not cut it. Not in a title race, not even in a top four race. But his two late goals gave a false dawn that we could all look to. And now the chickens have well and truly come home to roost.

Last night we were toothless save an unlucky Calafiori shot off the post and it says rather a lot when on my social media timelines I saw Arsenal fans genuinely wondering if we should keep the Italian up top. He’s got a good shot, he’s good with the ball at his feet and given that Hudson-Odoi absolutely did him in that first half on a number of occasions (so much so he had to come off at halftime as he was on a yellow), the view was that sticking him up top might work better than Merino.

That’s not a slight on Merino by the way, because I think he’s doing his best in a position which isn’t one that he’s at all familiar with. We have a 17-year-old who is expected to work wonders, a central midfielder up top, Trossard dipping in and out of form and a captain who is painfully out of form too. Defensively we did what we usually do and reduced Forest to very little chances save a couple of Raya saves, but that isn’t where the problem is. The problem is at the sharp end of the pitch and the fact I need closed down my iPad when I saw Sterling coming on last night should tell a story in itself. An absolutely trash loan signing that at this point feels like we’re giving him minutes so he can secure some kind of testimonial at the end of the season.

In a couple of WhatsApp groups i’m on I’ve seen people turn on Arteta. Saying that this is on him and he’s peaked already. I can’t be having that for a second. This man has been clear as day that he wanted reinforcements. But of all of the footballers on this planet, of all of the options and with the scouting network we have, we couldn’t find one that would have been better than the broken shell of a Chelsea player and one of our midfielders who is being asked to do an impossible job.

I’ve barely talked about the details of last night’s drab 0-0 with Forest because, frankly, there is no point. There was very little to bother talking about. It played out with two teams who have good defences and whilst Forest had their counter-attack and long-ball first teamers out, Arsenal dealt with them well I thought. But it means nothing if you only have one half of the horse working. And that has been us since we came back from Dubai. Leicester was a horrendous performance until the late show from Merino. West Ham was the same. Forest last night. And we’ve got another month of this. But even then, pinning your hopes on a Martinelli who will have been out for six week’s and a Saka who will have been out for three months, is rather fanciful.

We are a ‘score first’ team because when sides come up against us and get the goal like West Ham did at the weekend, they retreat in to a low block and we have no answer. That would have been the same last night, but our defence stood firm. Our attack did little.

I find myself in a position where I’m glad we’re not playing this weekend. It gives us respite from what has become painful to watch. Next up it’s PSV. I may or may not take a brief hiatus again on blogging until the lead up to that game. Feels like I need it.

Laters people.

Pre match talk was of how impressive Forest have been this season; they know their strengths and they play to them with rapid forwards, a defensively organised side, who can rope-a-dope you if you aren’t careful. But Arsenal were ready for whatever they could throw at us and you could sense within the opening minutes that we meant business yesterday, even with Arteta rotating the team, which raised a few eyebrows. In came Calafiori, Jorginho, Trossard and Jesus, with Havertz, Partey, Martinelli and Rice all dropping to the bench. I’ll admit that made me slightly more nervous before a ball was kicked because it kind of smelled a little like we were de-prioritising what was on paper a tricky encounter. But if you think about how many games we have coming up, about the fact we have to play Sporting on Tuesday and how busy the schedule gets now, it makes sense in hindsight. Some of these players need to get minutes so they are ready for being called upon and so Arteta made the call and ultimately it worked perfectly.

And within five minutes we thought we were ahead through Timber. The free kick in to the box was good, the ball spilled out towards Timber as it came back across goal and he knocked it in. To be fair, although the VAR took a bit of time and it was a very tight offside, because the lino had his flag up in the stadium I personally didn’t feel like it was a goal taken away from us. Instead it kind of felt like a ‘oh that will be nice if we get it’ rather than the disappointment of it being chalked off if the linesman hadn’t raised the flag.

But the fact we’d opened them up within the opening few minutes was positive and it was a sign of things to come, because we only had to wait until 15 minutes before we were ahead. Step forward that Starboy, who really is something special, eh? In true Championship Manager 97/98 style, I am running out of superlatives to describe this kid. I’ve seen the Forest Fan TV channel talk about how bad their players were, but I think they just came up against an Arsenal side ready to prove a point and Saka did it emphatically with his finish. It was a rocket and it was worthy of winning the game of its own.

But 1-0 always feels like a scary score line, so when in the second half Partey made it two with his “you only get one of these a season, guys” moments, I started to feel much more comfortable. That is very much a trademark of his; edge of the box, the way we shapes up to hit it like he did, then whipping the ball with top spin – delicious stuff. And now, with the benefit of hindsight I can say, it was comfortable and ‘job done’ from thereon in. To be fair, in the first half Forest had offered little anyway and in the second they had a few half-chances including a looping header from Chris Wood that I thought Raya had pretty much covered, but other than that it was pretty much all us and the stats showed it too. 67% possession, 19 shots and seven on target (where Forest had zero on target), 18 key passes to Forest’s five, 587 passes to Forest’s 295, 91% passing accuracy – whatever way you look at it this was a dominant Arsenal side that were thoroughly worthy of all three points.

And we were treated to a first Premier League goal from the wonder kid himself, Ethan Nwaneri, who came on and once again looked imperious. Arteta referenced it afterwards, but his first action was to pick the ball up and drive at Forest players. His goal was accurately and expertly timed and it was even nice to have Raheem Sterling pop up with an assist too.

That match yesterday was Arteta’s 250th game and it went probably as perfectly as Arteta would have wanted it to go. Goals, clean sheets, dominance of the ball, control, all doing it whilst rotating the team so we have players fresh for Sporting on Tuesday and then West Ham next Saturday. In his post match presser Arteta also referenced that for the first time in months this last week we’ve been able to train with 19 first teamers out there rather than 12 or 13 and that he’s been working with. That is, I think, a really important quote because it shows you how we’ve been operating with one hand tied behind our backs. But now we are hopefully starting to see the real Arsenal and hopefully just in time too, because City’s defeat yesterday has narrowed the gap to them to one point and although Liverpool will go back to being nine points clear of us when they beat Southampton today, I think we have an opportunity to build some momentum and test them over the coming weeks if we can get in to our rhythm.

I don’t think I’m quite in the place where I’m willing to be bullish about the title being ‘back on’, but this was a very positive baby step in the right direction.

I’m also delighted in some of the performances of some of the rotated players. I thought Jorginho kept things ticking over in his 45 minute opening half and it was only his harsh booking that had Arteta bring him off at halftime for Partey. The referee felt rather trigger happy with his cards in that first half, so it made total sense that Arteta would do that. Trossard too did ok I thought and much better than his form has been recently. It was, of course, our big players who stepped up though. Saka was brilliant. Odegaard absolutely ran the show. Saliba and Gabriel ensured Forest never got a sniff and Awoniyi – who can be quite a handful for sure, never really looked like he was getting any change all day. And to have Calafiori and Timber doing their bit and looking strong was great too. Both were subbed – although Timber’s was in the 88th minute – but both will absolutely be needed on Tuesday and next Saturday.

Let’s hope this is the start of things kicking off for The Arsenal now. Enjoy your Snday.

Bonus content – we’re going early on the Same Old Arsenal podcast if you fancy joining us – we’ll be on YouTube from 9.30am UK time here.

Back tomorrow as we look ahead to Sporting.

For this game Arsenal are the favourites, but it seems quite universal that these pundits are all predicting a tight game, which I think it will be, because Forest are a well-drilled, well-coached side who will look to be compact and give us little by way of space. They’ll sit in a mid-block and they will look to hit us on the counter as I mentioned in yesterday’s musings. They have a couple of players out in Danilo and Sangare and, perhaps unusually, they also have to consider players who went away on international duty too. Murillo was off with Brazil and Gibbs-White with England, so whereas in the past this sort of fixture will have seen Forest with a side who have been rested for a couple of weeks, they have similar challenges to us in terms of managing players coming back from international duty.

The good news from Arteta’s press conference is that we have some players returning and as opposed to what I think most of us would have expected, which was that Arteta would say there are doubts over a wealth of players like Trossard, Calafiori, Saka, Rice, etc, yesterday he seemed quite open. He seemed really buoyant in the press conference and you could tell that there is some relief kicking in after what feels like the whole season so far being without a number of players. It will have felt to him like one problem after another; as soon as one player comes back, another goes and even yesterday’s news wasn’t plain sailing with the news that White will be out and still no Tomiyasu return date (I’ll come back to White in a bit). But for tomorrow there are some good news with the likes of Calafiori for starters. The Italian is back, trained the last week and was with the physio’s last week too so I’d expect he’ll be in on the pitch from the off today. So too, I expect, will Rice and Saka be there, because they are two players that Arteta plays every minute he can. Trossard provides depth from the bench and I think that’s where he’ll be today, because it will surely be a front three of Martinelli (having scored in his last game), Havertz up top and Saka wide right. With Odegaard not playing for Norway you’d expect him to be fit and firing today and as already mentioned Rice’s availability means that Arteta’s main question from midfield will probably be who plays in that third position.

Does he go with Rice further forward and Partey in the six? Does he drop Rice in to the six and play Merino left eight? Regardless I will probably be happy with whatever Arteta goes for if it is one of those two combinations; Partey has been in superb form and Merino – having looked at the Chelsea game again – showed some really positive signs of progress as he beds in to the team. If I had a gun to my head I’d probably say he’ll play Partey because of form, which would mean Rice further forward.

The back five (including Raya) I think picks itself I think, because Timber Arteta said was doing fine and we know that White is out for what Arteta described as ‘months’. The initial rumours were an expected six to eight week period. So if Arteta is saying ‘months’ he’s not technically lying and that ambiguity probably buys him some time to not be asked about it. I have no intel, I’m not a doctor or sports injury specialist, but I suspect they’ll be looking at a mid-January return for White. Which means Jurrien is going to be needed for the immediate future and I think we will also need to see Tomiyasu return at some stage soon. It doesn’t sound like it by all accounts, so the ‘Partey at right back’ experiment may not be fully dead, unfortunately. I think Partey has equipped himself fine in that position, but his form has been such that having him at the six feels like we are a lot better in our functioning, than him in in the back four.

Nuno was asked about set pieces in his press conference, which makes sense given our potency, but he didn’t really give much up. He did talk about the fact they need to use their speed and the wide areas to hurt us, so that’s a clear indication again to what we’re up against. Forest to be compact, to try to frustrate, then to spring traps rapidly from front to back. So the name of the game today cannot be to push too hard, too fast, for that opener. But, also, we can’t commit too many forward if the game is goalless after a period of time (say 60 minutes, for example). If you’re Nuno or Forest fans today their blueprint is clear: get to halftime 0-0, or, if we can, a goal on the counter. Then frustrate Arsenal, then as the game starts to reach it’s final 15 – 30 minutes, look to hit on the counter if Arsenal are frustrated and pushing for goals.

That’s enough to make me nervous and I am well aware this will be a tough game today, especially seeing as what they did against Liverpool away, but there can be no excuses for an Arsenal team with lofty ambitions. It’s win or bust today. Let’s hope we don’t bust.

Back tomorrow morning for the blog, plus I think we’re gonna do an early morning Same Old Arsenal pod, so look out for that one from 9.30am.

Catch you then.

On Forest, well, you only have to look at the stats to see how they are going to set up; this is a team built to ‘rope-a-dope’ on the counter. Think how Leicester City won the league way back when – That’s what Nuno Espirito Santo has been serving up in the first 11 Premier League matches of this season.

And it’s worked. They currently sit level on points with us, they’ve conceded two less goals than us, they have an in form striker in Chris Wood on eight goals and he is their target man who has been in surprisingly predatory form. He’s a big unit, we all know that and I’ve just watched his goals, which are a mixture of rebounded second shot, headed goals, penalties, but there are some smart finishes in there. Forest have certainly benefitted from his form and they’ve played five away games so far this season without tasting defeat, so if we’re going to win tomorrow, it’s going to need to be by doing something nobody else has so far. Their away games have been at Leicester, Chelsea, Brighton, Liverpool and Southampton and each has been a close affair, with the win at Leicester and draw at Brighton seeing more than one goal scored by either team. So Nuno clearly has his team set up to play deep, to sit in, then spring the traps.

And as I mentioned, the numbers support this. Forest have the second best defence in the league, most of their tackles they make are in their defensive third (they make the third least attempted tackles in the attacking third, so they aren’t a side that turns the ball over high up the pitch like we try to), they have the third least amount of touches of the ball in the league behind Ipswich and Everton and they launch the ball from their ‘keeper a lot. Behinf Brentford and Everton, Forest launch it from goalkeeper the most in the league.

They are also offside a lot, which says to me they have pacey players out wide (because it’s clearly not Chris Wood) who stay high and react to Forest’s ‘keepers launches. The blueprint for their game is there and we have to be ready for it tomorrow.

And to be fair it is clearly working. They beat Liverpool. They got a draw at Brighton. They’ve drawn away at Chelsea. This is a team that knows their roles, knows their strengths and is leaning in to them for sure. And their fans appear to be a bit split on this too. Lots of them going for a draw and a few predicting either side winning, but it isn’t an overwhelming majority expecting victory like when I travelled to the Villa or Scum forums. I think they know the threats we possess and they know exactly how they will set up, which will rely on us giving them few chances but them needing to take them. I’ve watched one video in which a guy talked about them needing to change because they are becoming predictable in the way they play. The guy I watched talked them up as a mid-block side, which is the type of sides we’ve struggled against this season and last, so that’s something to be mindful of. They have been relying on the likes of Hudson-Odoi, Gibbs-White and Elanga. Apparently he’s out of form at the moment but he’s got the most pace in their team so I don’t know whether they’d do that. What I think they will try to do is to replicate what they did with Liverpool at Anfield.

That’s perfectly feasible to be fair, because we only have to look at last season to show us that they are a threat on the counter. It was the most comfortable of 2-0 leads, which we looked to be cruising towards, before a corner we had broke down and immediately led to a swift counter which ended up with Awoniyi bagging a goal with eight minutes to go and leaving us going a little backs to the wall for the final minutes. Game state obviously dictated that one when the rest of the game we’d dominated in every single stat on the day, but that’s the beauty of the Premier League; it’s a league that feeds from emotion and that results in the kinds of swings and ebbs and flows that we saw after Forest halved the deficit.

I’ll talk tomorrow when we know the team sheet a little more and who might be available. Arteta won’t tell us, obviously, but you normally get an idea or a little hint in his facial expressions, or sometimes the odd little words he says, that gives you a bit of a hint as to how might be available.

I’m starting to get the nerves on this one, which I guess is healthy, because nobody wants to be overly complacent, but as I said on the socials yesterday, this HAS to be the start of a winning run. Another slip up tomorrow and it will 100% be curtains for any title challenge. City don’t slip up five times in a row and Liverpool are in the kind of form that they won’t be slipping up away to Southampton – not a chance in hell.

Time to step up, Arsenal.

Catch you all tomorrow for a pre match musing ahead of the game.

Yesterday evening it was that Eddie has agreed personal terms with Forest and whilst we’ve known this might be in the pipeline for a few days (the old ‘cleared out his box at The Emirates’ picture doing the rounds was the first hint that this is reaching its conclusion), this does sound like we’re at ‘end game’ here. The Tweet he posted with regards to the Forest terms being agreed wasn’t particularly interesting to me personally, but the message that followed – that Feyernoord had rejected a €26million bid from Forest for Gimenez, who plays as a central striker – suggests that Forest have pivoted to Eddie and that has to be a good thing. If Feyernoord are hoping for the sort of price that TransferMarkt are talking about (€40million), then Arsenal wanting £25million for Eddie with some add-ons, represents a lot less of a risk for Forest and I suspect that deal will be done over this weekend at some stage.

The discord online amongst some of the Arsenal fans was whether we would in fact replace him. Some believe that we won’t, some believe we have to, I think I personally lean towards the latter, but to be honest, I still think this team is good enough to compete for the title even if we only do the Merino deal. Arteta has a balanced and settled team and if we can pick up at least 15 points from our first six games (had some thoughts on that here yesterday), then I think most of us will be fine cashing in on Eddie even if we haven’t signed anyone. By then January is only three months away and we’ve always got the option of a Trossard-style signing in January if we can find one (and the Belgian’s arrival 20 months ago shows that we have the ability to find these players).

The fee must surely be one that Arsenal are going to stay strong on. Armando Broja is on his way to Ipswich for an ‘all in’ deal of £30million. He’s had 171 games and 44 goals, which works out as a one-in-four ratio for the Albanian. Eddie has 89 goals in 247 games, which works out in a one-in-three. You look at those numbers and it’s no wonder that Arsenal are holding out for £30million ‘all-in’. That seems perfectly reasonable to me, I mean they signed Omari Hutchinson for £20million having had one season in the Championship, so Eddie must surely fetch close to that £30million mark, right? That’s what Arsenal will be pointing to and in Eddie there is more of a guarantee that he’ll deliver for his club than those other players mentioned going for big cash.

The other outbound player is Charlie Patino to Deportivo for £1million, which feels like a very low fee given the expectations that existed for him in the last couple of seasons. He was a guy who I think a few of us thought would potentially make the grade and I know my old mate Dave Seager was fond of him and had gotten to know him over the years. It’s a shame but I think this is where the value of the loan market has to be looked at; Patino had a good one at Blackpool a few season’s back, but his last couple of loan spells have seen him not hit the same form, with manager’s coming and going at the clubs he’s been at also impacting his game time.

Arsenal have a sell-on clause and clearly the hope is that it’s a significant one and if he can smash it at Depor (with Lucas Perez in the squad too – a familiar ex-Arsenal name indeed!), clearly the club are hoping to get closer to the value that they’d have hoped for in a few years time. If he bangs in Spain and is sold for £10million in a couple of year’s time, with Arsenal having inserted something like 33% or 50% in to the clause, then you’d have to say they did get the right fee in the end. But a lot will depend on what happens in the next couple of years and hopefully he goes on and has a good career.

This sell-on stuff is something that that we’re hearing more and more of and clearly Arsenal have cottoned on to this as an opportunity to have a regular income of revenue coming in. If you’re moving on players each year with sell-on clauses included, then you’re also going to get the knock-on effect of goodness coming your way even when you don’t have players going out the door. A sensible strategy that I definitely have to applaud, because let’s face it, very few players actually ‘make it’ at Arsenal from the youth team. So with that being said, to at least protect yourself somewhat from the worry that you let a gem go and they bang elsewhere, this at least softens the blow.

As for the immediate Arsenal attention, that now switches to Villa on Saturday, which will be a tough game. It will be one that we will have to be at our best at and as I have already mentioned this week, we can’t be as profligate as we have been against them in the last 12 months. More on the game and general thoughts tomorrow and on Saturday.

That’s it from me today. You have yerselves a good’un and I’ll be back in the morrow.

The fact that Ornstein said the clubs are still talking suggests to me that there’s a deal willing to be done and given that there was then rumours circulating yesterday that somebody had posted a picture of Eddie’s box being cleared out of the Emirates yesterday, suggests that all parties probably feel this will get done.

Us Arsenal fans though, eh? We are undefeated when it comes to obsessive tracking of situations revolving around our club.

This deal – if / when it goes through – will surely mean Arsenal need to dip in to the market within the next week-and-a-half. This is a guy who made 37 appearances in all competitions last season and bagged just under 1,400 minutes. Those minutes will have to go somewhere and whilst Gabriel Jesus managed 1,900 minutes last season due to injuries, I don’t think you’ll find many Arsenal fans who think that he’ll stay fit for enough of the season to take all of Eddie’s minutes and combine them with his own. If he manages that it’d be well on to playing nearly all minutes of most of the season (3,100 minutes is circa 37 90 minute games). Given he’s picked up injuries essentially every season he’s been at the club, I just don’t see that as a feasible option.

This move will surely make Arsenal dip in to the market for a player that can play across the front line. We have all heard the rumours that Arsenal have that in their mind to do something like that all summer and whilst Sesko was a speculative effort because of his contractual situation, I do wonder if Arsenal will think about moving fairly rapidly should the Eddie deal get sorted out. From Arsenal’s perspective they’ll probably be saying that to Forest too i.e. “here’s the deadline because we don’t want to be waiting around trying to find a forward with hours of the transfer window to play”. This is where the relationship between clubs is important. If Forest and Arsenal have a good working relationship (no reason to think otherwise given Matty Turner and Nuno Tavares have joined them in recent seasons – so it shows they have experience working together), then they should be able to have frank and honest conversations about deadlines, payment structures, fees and add-ons. If Arsenal are telling Forest to come back to them to get closer to £30million ‘all-in’ on the Eddie fee, not only should they want an answer on whether they’ll pay the fee sooner rather than later, but they should also be telling them they need to make a decision one way or the other this week so we can start planning Eddie’s replacement too.

It’s a really tough one though, because although you’re joining a club that has a lot of positivity right now in where we are going under Arteta, you’re also asking a player to be a squad member. That’s a tougher sell. It’s not impossible though and the story of Trossard should be one in which Arsenal use to attract any incoming player. Leo was brought as what most of us thought was a rotation option the season before last, but towards the end of last season found himself as a regular starting. I’m reminded of that Ramsdale quote from a season or two ago as well; he said that Trossard’s mindset was not that he was coming in to be a squad player, but to take the place of somebody else. That’s the mindset that Arteta will be looking for and I think that’s what we’ll be looking at in terms of an incoming.

Who that might be remains to be seen. I can’t see it being Ivan Toney, as a few people have suggested to me on my social media, yesterday. That feels like there’s never been any major interest and although he’s a good player, he’d probably want big cash, plus to be a starter, which he just isn’t getting in this Arsenal team. There’s also the fact he’s 28 and can only really play in one position; we know how Arteta loves his versatility and to me it feels like that’s what we’ll go for again if we start to make moves.

More will start to become clear as the Eddie situation crystallises a little more and I suspect we’ll start to have some names starting to be leaked out over the next week if the Eddie stuff reaches a conclusion.

The other one mentioned was Ramsdale and apparently both Bournemouth and Wolves want him. Arsenal would prefer a permanent deal as we all know, but as we get closer to the end of the window I suspect they’ll settle for a loan fee; he’s on a decent contract, he’ll play more and hopefully up his value, plus his wages would be paid for by those clubs as well as a loan fee. Kind of works well for all parties providing Ramsdale can keep delivering on the pitch, which I’d be fairly confident he would. He’s a good ‘keeper, we all love him and if / when that deal gets done, then we’ll all wish him the best.

Other than that I think we’re pretty much done for today’s musings. It was fun watching Jamie Vardy get that equaliser and then banter off those Tottenham away fans last night, but I’ll keep that to no more than a footnote, which is all that club ever deserves. And Vardy too, to be fair.

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a good one.

I’m not expecting Forest fans, players and the manager to suddenly decide that they wanted to adopt a high-pressing, possession-based, high-tempo game trying toi pin us back in our own half; if they did that then with the way we like to invite pressure on to us, we’d have ripped them to shreds. But I didn’t expect them to show absolutely zero ambition to get forward and in that opening 45 minutes it was a painful game to watch. I saw some of the stats which I won’t bother reeling off because if you watched the game then you know too hour one-sided that first half was, but as a game in itself it wouldn’t have been one that the ‘neutral’ (whoever that is) would have enjoyed. Arsenal retained possession of the ball almost exclusively in the first half; Forest were content to sit almost on their own six yard line at times and lump the ball away. And to be fair to them, it was a tactic that worked. At halftime they had congested the middle of the park, they had forced us to play our football with them able to completely face up to us, they had allowed little space for through balls and you could see that it would have been frustrating for those Arsenal players. There were times at which it felt like we were playing at walking pace; one touch, two touches, then three, four, sometimes five, all by one player before releasing the ball. We didn’t seem to have any cutting edge and the result of that was the manifestation of a slow-tempo game in which it felt like we wanted to walk the ball in to the net.

I wonder if that a consequence of the low block – one of the lowest I think I’ve seen all season – was that our players felt the need to thread the eye of the needle with the passing in the final third. Get beyond that low block with the right move and you’ve basically got a tap in against Turner. Regardless of that, there wasn’t much variation in our play and Forest at times were happy to push us out wide and have their centre halves nod away every ball in to the box. For big, beefy, centre halves, that sort of stuff is meat and drink for a Premier League level defender.

There were a few lively moments I thought; Saka and Smith Rowe combined well and were unlucky when a deflection went the other side of the post, plus we had ESR looking more like the guy who brought us back to life in that December 2020 period in Arteta’s second season – he was looking for options, gliding across the pitch, keeping possession well and linking up play with Martinelli and Zinchenko too. But it wasn’t that middle third that was the problem, it was the final third, so when the halftime whistle went the online discourse was very much of frustration and angst. Is this going to be another one of those games in which we dominate everything but get sucker-punched? The story sounded familiar. After all, Forest did just that to us last season at the City Ground when they beat us 1-0 with a counter in which Awoniyi got a little fortune by Gabriel kicking the ball off his shins for it to make its way past Ramsdale. 

There was indeed a whiff of historical familiarity in the air, but thankfully it wasn’t in Forest’s favour and instead in ours, as the second half showed. Much like the game at The Emirates, we continued to be the better team, but in the second half more space began opening up. Whether or not that is because Nuno on the sidelines had told his team to stay compact in the first half and focus on nothing but defence, then in the second half he gave them more licence to roam I don’t know, but what I do know is that in that second half Forest became a little more ambitious and – perhaps spurred on by the home fans who had seen little to excite them in the first half, the players felt a little more empowered to come at us a bit.

But that’s exactly what we want with teams. It may feel uncomfortable for us to see opposition players venturing forward in greater numbers, but I think that element of jeopardy for this Arsenal team is what we need. Trust in the defenders to be able to deal with a greater level of attack and then spring surprises in transition. 

We started to find space. Gabriel Jesus probably should have scored with his shot off the post, certainly Saka and Odegaard should have done better with a couple of efforts, but as soon as the breakthrough came, you knew the match would open up. It was a smart turn to shield the ball away from the defender from Gabriel Jesus and perhaps Turner could have done better, but sometimes the ‘keeper just isn’t expecting that kind of quick reaction. Still I think he’ll be disappointed. 

From there it forced Forest forward a little more to get something from the game and that gave us more transitional chances, of which our second goal was one. Odegaard to Gabriel Jesus to Saka, all within about 12 seconds I think. It was rapid, the passing was crisp from both Norwegian and Brazilian and the outcome was a doubling of the lead that we thoroughly deserved.

I tweeted after that goal that I thought we should be able to open them up now, but it sort of sucked the life out of the game for about 10 minutes and we just kept the ball and made the game seemingly safe. 

Or so we thought.

And this is where it felt like a little bit of history repeating itself because Forest had basically offered nothing at the Emirates and then got a counter goal towards the end of the game through that same man Awoniyi who in yesterday evening’s game was able to use a bit of strength and then slot home tidily enough to make it 2-1 and set up seven minutes of injury time in which we as fans were all biting our nails down to the stubs.

But had Forest have actually got something against us it would have been a bit of a travesty of justice really, because they’d offered little until that moment. Sure, there was a couple of scary corners and a little bit of goalmouth action, but we saw it out and thoroughly deserved the three points.

And here we all sit this morning knowing that we can look at that Liverpool game now and see it as a massive opportunity to be back in the running at least for the league. It still feels like we’re just waiting on that City ‘long run’, but all we have to try to do for now is keep pace and that will hopefully continue this weekend. Fingers crossed for Sunday.

Right, that’s me done for the day – you have yourselves a good one and I will catch you all in the morrow tomorrow. 

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.

We’ll get our opportunity this weekend though and we simply have to take it. I have been listening to a lot of Arsenal pods, watching a wee bit of video and reading a couple of bits online, where there has been a few people looking at that Liverpool game as a potential season-definer, but right now we just need to hurdle the current obstacle of Palace before we get to thinking about whether Liverpool could end or kick start our second half of the season.

We’re hoping to do some podcasting tonight by way of a preview with a few Palace fans tonight on the Same Old Arsenal podcast this evening, but I’m not sure if they’re confirmed yet, so keep your eyes peeled if you fancy joining the team to discuss what’s going to unfold at the weekend. without wanting to go too much in to a match preview though, I do wonder what Palace fans make in general of their season. They’re in 14th position, they’ve won five from 20, losing nine and drawing six and they have a man in charge who even last time he left them it was because they thought his career was pretty much done and he was in retirement mode. Roy Hodgson comes across as a likeable football man, but his time as an elite manager is drawing to an end and Palace and their fans must be thinking about how long they are going to be able to keep him around keeping them from out of trouble. They’ve tried other managers either side of Hodgson’s stints in charge and whilst Paddy Vieira looked good at the start, they quickly panicked and went back to Roy when there was an unfortunate run of games. I wonder what they think ahead of games like this? And I wonder how they will set up missing a few of their big players like Ayew and Olise. They have the impressive Eze and that’s somebody we’ll need to keep an eye on, but I also wonder what Roy will be thinking ahead of our game, because Palace have an FA Cup replay this evening away to Everton.

In some respects that’s quite beneficial for us because it means the Palace players and coaching staff have their focus on tonight’s game and trying to get through it. So it becomes interesting to see how Roy approaches the game this evening. If they rotate their team then it probably doesn’t go down too well with the fans; they are in the competition and a cup run excites every fan who dares to dream, so going back to my other point with Palace sitting in 14th they are currently five points off the relegation places, it doesn’t mean they are fully comfortable. We know that money talks and there is money in the Premier League ahead of a cup run, but if Crystal Palace can’t dream about getting deep in the competition, what can they dream of? Their fans are surely not sitting at work today ahead of the game thinking “can’t wait to see us avoid the drop by getting to 40 points”. It’s cups that excite and so my hope is that they show little sign of rotation tonight.

Because if that is the case, then Roy will be taking a team to the Emirates that played on Wednesday, got back in the early hours of Thursday, probably has Thursday off and then is training on Friday ahead of a 12.30pm kick off on Saturday. You know how Klopp has talked about how harsh it is to be on the 12.30pm kick off time on a Saturday having played midweek? Well let’s hope that Palace have the same issues. There will be some people saying “why are you hoping for Palace to be fatigued? We’re The Arsenal and we shouldn’t need a leg up” and I understand that point of view, but I’m a marginal gains man and if you offer me any advantage for The Arsenal in every game in a season, then I’m taking it all day long. I want Palace to play tonight, I’d LOVE it if it went to penalties, then I want a rested Arsenal team to rock up at the Emirates wanting to correct the errors of the Christmas period and early new year.

And in that vein I also want to see Forest progress to the next round of the FA Cup too, because if they beat Blackpool away this evening, then they will be playing the weekend before we play them on Tuesday 30th January and again, if that means Forest have had less prep time and less time to recover for the visit of The Arsenal, then all the better for me. It feels like we’ve been unfortunate with some of the situations we’ve found ourselves in of late (teams scoring with minimal chances, or fortune going their way through deflections or own goals), so if we get a little bit of an advantage by playing a few fatigued teams and if that enables us to get three points by any means necessary, then that’s absolutely fine by me!

So tonight i’ll be keeping an eye open on those games and hoping they go the way that benefits The Arsenal.

Catch you all tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You have yourself a good one, ya’hear?

I didn’t get around to penning any thoughts yesterday about the game, on account of the stinking hangover, followed by having the parents over and then trying to trudge my way around a golf course first thing yesterday, so I thought today I’d reflect a little on the weekend’s action.

From a Premier League perspective, I don’t think you can read too much in to opening day results. The Villa tonking they got against Newcastle was perhaps somewhat of a surprise, but at home and with a renewed sense of vigour on Tyneside, I’m not surprised that Newcastle were able to run away with their game. That Isak fella is going to do well this season if he stays fit. The two Desmond’s yesterday were a little more of a surprise; I thought the Scum would probably beat a Brentford side sans Toney and Raya, but they looked ok and the Scum without Kane have shown that they will score. But it’s difficult to really tell based on one game. Likewise in the Chelsea/Liverpool game; I thought that Liverpool are going to be back to their very best when I saw them go two up against Chelsea and so actually switched off the TV to go and sit in the garden for a few hours. Then blow me if I don’t read online that Chelsea were 2-1 up, that the second goal Liverpool had scored had been ruled out and the game had turned!

In comparison with some of the results over the weekend, from an Arsenal perspective, I guess you’d say it was pretty routine. I mean it wasn’t when they scored on 82 minutes and we had a good 15 minutes of time remaining to play including injury time, but if you think about how the game played out as a whole, it was pretty standard stuff. We had something crazy like 78% of the ball, we created a fair few chances and at halftime they had been limited to just one effort, plus we’d scored two goals in the first half to make it all feel rather comfortable up until they hit us on the counter late on. We all know Elanga is a rapid guy and when you’re putting him in a foot race against Saka and Rice who have just played the whole match of their first game of the proper season, there’s always going to be that chance that they’re tired, so I guess it’s just one of those things. Ultimately it didn’t cost us and our season is up and running with the win.

The talking points were definitely based on the first XI and squad that Arteta picked. Having Gabriel on the bench was really interesting; it was a switch to a back three formation and was clearly in response to how Forest lined up. Arteta wanted more firepower in his attack and that’s why he went with Eddie, Havertz, Martinelli, Odegaard and Saka; five creative and attacking players knowing that we’re going to see a lot of the ball and we’re going to spend a lot of the time camped in their half. The Gabriel decision was clearly to get the players on the pitch who are best with the ball at their feet and hence why it was White, Saliba and Timber. Big Gabby is good, but he’s more of a ball-winning centre half rather than a better distributor than the others. The injury to Timber looked like it scuppered the situation for us a little, but bringing Tomiyasu on for big Gabby was interesting I thought. Arteta spoke in pre season about us trying different combinations and this was obviously the first example of that. I was chatting to Giles before we went in to the ground on Saturday (well, before we ended up standing in a queue for 30 minutes because the turnstiles buggered up!) about how difficult it is going to be for opposing teams’ analysts to predict how we will set up, because if we’re fans that spend all of our time watching, talking and reading about Arsenal and we have no idea how we’ll line up, how on earth are those scouts looking at us for a short period of time??

Of course the down side to that is that those famous ‘automatisms’ become a little more difficult to develop, but this is probably the best approach if we want teams to not just ‘work us out’ like perhaps some of them did towards the end of last season.

I suspect that big Gabby will be back in the team for Palace on Monday night though.

The other discussion point I saw online was Kai Havertz, who seemed to divide opinion amongst the fans. I didn’t think he did anything wrong on the day, but I also didn’t think he did that much spectacularly either, so it’s difficult for me to form a judgement. But if we find ourselves with a dozen games of Kai Havertz performances like that I will probably start to change my tune I think. He’s a decent player, I really hope he bangs, but last week against Man City I didn’t think he was amazing and this weekend just gone where he’s played in the position I think he could be better at – left eight – he hardly set the world alight.

Away from the Havertz stuff there’s also the Tierney situation, as he wasn’t even selected for the bench, with the manager instead picking three centre halves to warm the subs bench (Gabriel, Kiwior and Tomiyasu). I think we all know that KT’s days are probably numbered and that is a shame, but at this stage I think it’s fair to say that I think it’s best for all parties if we can find him a new club.

What I find amazing however is the lack of suitors. This is a guy we all love, he’s been a great player for us, just doesn’t fit our system, yet the only noises we’re hearing was that Celtic might be interested, or Newcastle have slightly renewed their interest in him. But there doesn’t seem to be any proper links from the journos who do tend to be spot on when they talk about rumours. Romano, for example, seems to be saying that Sociedad on loan is about the only stuff happening around KT right now. How is a Scotland international that is so well thought of not attracting more interest?

I have no idea. But as I said above – we need to get his future sorted out sooner rather than later.

Right – that’s me done for the day. I’m offski for a day of work. Have a good’un.

There’s something very special about the first game of the season when it’s a homer. Everything is new, hope has been renewed, the bad tastes of last season (unless you’re a City fan) have subsided (I’m not sure it will eve go away, as I’ll always be a little ‘if only’ about the 22/23 season) have abated somewhat and what stretches out in front of us in nine months of football. It may be the hope that kills you, but right now before a ball has been kicked (properly), the excitement is absolutely palpable.

And especially amongst us Arsenal fans. We’ve done our business early, our squad has been improved and on paper at least, we look ready to tackle what will be a much tougher season than last season. Our rivals have strengthened, we will have more competitive games because of the Champions League, plus the expectations have been raised amongst the media, the players, as well as us as fans, so the big question is how the boys will respond to that increased expectations.

The good news is that I think they will. I hear some of what these Arsenal players are saying and they seem very grounded. There is no more comments like “this is the best squad I’ve ever seen” from players like Theo Walcott who, whilst a good player for us, wasn’t exactly elite. When he said it all those years ago I loved to hear it at the time, but I never really believed it. This team we have now feels balanced, it feels deep enough, so if one of the current crop talked like that I would be more inclined to believe it. But here’s the thing: they’re NOT talking like that. They have been grounded. They know that they haven’t won anything yet. They know they have a good mentality, Arteta has set them on the right path, but football has so many variables in it that they know there is no point bigging yourself up because you’re only as good as your last win and your last trophy.

(To be fair to them, technically their last win WAS their last trophy )

So that means the game faces need to be on, the focus needs to be laser-sharp, the desire, drive and game plan needs to be right for the visit of Nottingham Forest today. I had a couple of looks at some Forest fan channels and they’re all thinking that Turner is going to start for them today. If we haven’t put in some kind of clause that he can’t play, or have a gentlemen’s agreement in place, then I think we’re mad. Because if he plays you just know he’s going to have the game of his life. But that’s us to be fair, we’re always ‘nice guys’ when it comes to this kind of stuff. Personally I say ‘screw that’ and I’d want every and any marginal gain we can get against every opposition in the Premier League. They reckon they’ll go for a 5-3-1-1 formation with Chris Wood up top. So that means set pieces and target man to the big lump, probably with Gibbs-White looking to hit the pace on the counter.

They reckon they’re dropping low block football today and you can understand why. They’ve had a couple of supposed injuries, we’re at home, we have high expectations and we should have too much quality for Forest.

In terms of us, there are obviously many decisions that Arteta is going to have to deliberate over for his starting XI this lunchtime and I have to say fair play to him, because as somebody who watches all of the time I have no idea what team will be put out today, so I’ll be dammed if the Forest analysts will have any idea too. I have an inkling that he will stick with the same team that played against Man City a week ago, but I kind of hope he doesn’t. And the reason I say this is because I look at some of the Forest fan responses to how they will play – low block football – and I just think we need more lock pickers rather than big physical presence.

So for me I’d be looking at a Trossard starting at the nine rather than Havertz or Eddie. I know Havertz has pretty decent feet and balance for a big fella, that his game isn’t a target man one, but Trossard is just elite with his close ball control. I think he is better in small spaces and I think when we’ve got the ball in and around their penalty area, it is going to need to be those players who have that ability to twist and turn rapidly to evade the sheer volume of bodies we’re going to get in the Forest box.

So, my line up for today would be:

Ramsdale

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Timber

Partey

Odegaard   –   Rice

Saka   –   Trossard   –   Martinelli

There could be an argument for Havertz instead of Rice as we should be looking at having more ball and Havertz is probably better in the attacking third than Rice, but if Forest look to spring traps and hit us with the likes of Gibbs-White on the counter, then Rice will be the kind of guy you can see bombing back to make up ground and break down the transitions. There could also probably be an argument for Zinchenko but given how well Timber played last weekend, I think Arteta should be telling Zinny that he needs to pull up a pew and take a seat for this one.

I don’t see this game being the same as the 5-0 drubbing we gave them last season. I think they will look to frustrate and we might have to be patient. It’s the first game of the first Saturday of the season and so they aren’t going to want their arses handed to them, so I think they’ll look to be super compact and that may mean we’re waiting until they tire in the second half. We just have to be patient. The good news is that we have plenty of options from the bench; Eddie can come on, if Havertz plays then Trossard will absolute get on the pitch, Smith Rowe is looking sharper, as is Fabio Vieira. We have plenty of creativity and so we need to make sure that we make it count. A nice early goal will settle any nerves and will also mean Forest probably have to change their game plan, but let’s not set the bar of expectation too high that it’ll be as easy as that.

Just get the win, Arsenal – by hook or by crook.

Catch you wonderful people later. Have a good one.

I’ve just had a look at the Forest squad at the moment and in goal it looks like they have a guy from Luton that has joined, as well as Wayne Hennessey in goal as their current options, so you can see why they’ve been after turner and Henderson from United. It has been speculated that Turner would be back up and if that’s the case then you have to feel for Matty; reserve for The Arsenal and in the Champions League, or back up for a side who will be mid table probably at best this season, doesn’t exactly seem like a step forward. Now, if Forest bring him in and decide not to go for Henderson then it’s a great move for Turner, but the noises are that they still want Henderson and so we’ll have to see how it plays out.

Regardless of that, I hope they don’t get any deals done before the Friday deadline, because it would be just our luck that a deal gets done and then he comes in and has the game of his life against us on Saturday lunchtime. No, come on Arsenal, tell Forest the fax machine is on the fritz or something; just string it out until Friday afternoon and then we can release him.

He’s been with us a year, looked a decent enough ‘keeper, but this shows a ruthlessness from Arteta that we all know exists. I still can’t see Ramsdale and Raya working out for more than a season, but it does mean the drop off between the two is a lot less marked than Turner from last season – and I didn’t think Turner did too much wrong to be fair.

Supposedly we signed him for just over €6million (about £5million I think), he’s been back up for a year, we’re selling for £7million plus an additional £3million in add ons and when you flip a profit for a guy who hasn’t played too much in the last 12 months, you can’t complain that much I guess. Transfermarkt has his value at €8million and if you’re converting that to pounds then it’s around £7million, so we’re getting his fair market price. We’re dropping a fair old outlay for a second ‘keeper in Raya though, so I wonder how Arteta is going to ensure he holds his value if he doesn’t get the game time because Ramsdale is on top form? Or if he usurps Ramsdale’s position, how do you ensure that you get his value if you have to sell him next summer?

All problem’s for another time, I guess.

For now, our focus is on the game this weekend and if Arsenal can get any marginal gains – regardless of the opponent – I say that we take it and releasse Turner one minute after the deadline for him to play this weekend. Simples.

The other semi-Arsenal related news was that Maitland-Niles has joined Lyon on a free transfer and, bizarre welcome video aside, I hope he does well. He probably always thought he was a little better than he actually was, he never nailed down a starting place and when the chance came he went all Goldilocks on what he wanted. Sam Allardyce himself said when he was manager of West Brom that Ainsley should go back to Arsenal and tell them he’ll play wherever they want him, but clearly he didn’t feel that way and now he needs to ply his trade overseas.

Elsewhere in the Arsenal transfer world we have learned about Monaco’s offer for Balogun that has been rejected by The Arsenal hierarchy. And I’m glad. I am – frankly – getting sick of hearing of clubs low balling us. Yes we have been terrible sellers for some time, yes there is much work for Edu to do in that regard, but we’ve got a guy who bagged 21 goals in the French League last season and at his age and at any other team on the continent, they’d want double what has been offered by clubs so far. You’ve got West Ham bidding £30million for a midfield clobbermeister in Scott McTominay, yet clubs only value one of the hottest young striker properties in Europe last season at £37million?? It’s bizarre. Flo is a good player, he’s a player that Arsenal fans ourselves are saying that ideally we want to give him a shot because of his potential ceiling, yet we’re getting poverty pleaded to us by Italian and French teams. Last season Monaco made £100million in profit on player sales, this season they’ve made £22million in profit, and we’re supposed to believe that £37million is all they can afford? Shut up, cough up, let’s all move on with our lives.

Where is everyone saying “just pay the asking price if you want him” now?

Hopefully we get what we want, or at least in to the mid 40s for Flo. with a nice buyback or a very big sell on clause. He’s proved that he can do it in the French League and so Monaco can’t exactly plead the ‘unknown quantity’ card on us. He’ll bag plenty of goals for them and so I hope he goes there and makes a name for himself. Then, in a couple of years, if we have a buyback, let’s have him back for £60million as a polished striker ready to bang in the Premier League. That’d be a nice trajectory for me.

It is probably unlikely to happen, but we’ll see. Whatever the situation, we need to just get it resolved, because it is clear that Arteta has accepted he’s not part of the group and he’s clearly not getting game time this season. Better for us all to move on and hopefully it can just get done sooner rather than later.

I think i’ll leave it there for today. Off into the smog for a day of work so need to wrap this up and catch up with you all tomorrow.

Have a good’un, folks.

Apparently one of the staff is the owner, which explains about who looks after her and it was hand selected by Arteta, which I would fully expect. I wonder how he got one of the staff to sign up to looking after her though. Something on the notice board perhaps?

Who wants a dog? I want someone to look after an absolute beaut that I found and I want her to roam free across the fields. Give me a shout in my office. MA.

I like the idea too because it’s another example of how Mikel is trying to be innovative and find ways in which he can create an environment that is a happy environment, as well as a competitive one. Give your people the best place to work – which let’s face it is where they spend most of their time – and try to find those marginal gains that will enable them to go that little bit further.

And it’s stuff like that, ideas that Arteta has that are very creative, that I think bode really well. He’s a guy who is very creative in ways in which he wants to motivate his players and that is important because when you’re hearing from the same voice every day, you can quite easily start to become numb to what they are saying. That is, of course, unless that voice is constantly changing, adapting and thinking of new ways to motivate and engage. Hopefully it keeps driving the players and hopefully next season we can go again and have a similar season to this season (albeit hopefully with a better outcome at the end).

Today we have a match day though, one of two left and pretty much a dead rubber as we all know. Chelsea will fold like crisp piece of white A4 paper tomorrow and Financially Doped FC (FDFC) will pick up yet another title. So what do we do today against a Forest side fighting for their lives?

Well, we’re forced in to more changes because Martinelli has been confirmed as being out for the rest of the season. Which is basically a week so I’m not really too fussed about that. Arteta confirmed that he and Zinchenko are out for the next week or two and it means our team today will be without four of what you’d call the ‘first XI.’. It means that there will be a start for Trossard I suspect and hopefully he can make amends for a pretty lacklustre weekend last time out at home to Brighton. Our team will be a full strength other than the injuries though, I suspect, which I think will mean:

Ramsdale

White   –   Kiwior   –   Gabriel   –   Tierney

Jorginho

Odegaard   –   Xhaka

Saka   –   Gabriel Jesus   –   Trossard

That, on paper, should be enough to beat Nottingham Forest, but against Brighton in the second half it really did look like the spark had gone and I do wonder about the levels of motivation today. Don’t get me wrong, they are all professional footballers and when they step out on to the turf there will be a desire to win. But if Forest find themselves going a goal up then how much fight will we see from this Arsenal team? I suspect they know the jig is up and there won’t be the same intensity as there would be if we were level on points with City going in to the final week.

And hey, if that happens, I’m not going to chastise the team. They have done so well for so long this season, but the squad just fell short as injuries to key players kicked in. Arteta alluded to that when he was asked about whether they could compete on multiple fronts like the Premier League and Champions League. His answer was a pretty blunt ‘not at the moment’ and he’s right. Which is why we’re getting so much noise about who Arsenal are after and why they want to be moving quickly this summer. They know they need to add quality and depth and whilst we are all hoping that they move rapidly when the season is over, I think we all need to brace ourselves for a lot of back and forth over players, as clubs like West Ham drive some proper drawn out processes to string along us as long as possible over the summer.

Look at me, on a match day, spending a bit of time on what happens in the summer. That’s very unusual for me, but it is probably because I’m sort of ready for the season to be over now. We gave it a good shot, next weekend our opportunity comes to cheer the players and let them know we appreciate the effort of making us competitive again, but right now I’m just a bit ‘meh’ about this game. Maybe we could give some rotation chances to the likes of ESR, or Fabio Vieira? Whatever we do, I’ll still watch, but the jeopardy doesn’t feel like it’s there for the first time this season. In a way perhaps that’s a good thing; the nerves and worries all season is better than a general feeling and apathy over the club and what it is doing. Arsenal made us feel alive this season and because of their form it is only now that I have those ‘meh’ feelings. Three to four years ago that was happening every week, so that’s something to be grateful about.

Right, that’s me done for the day. Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief on the result.

Have a good one folks.

Even the catharsis of doing the pod last night hasn’t helped to get me over the defeat to Brighton. I said on the pod that my football hangover cure was to avoid social media for a bit and that I did, but being an obsessive as I am, it is almost impossible for me not to find my way on to Twitter. So I’ve done that a few times already and seeing clipped up bits of Gary Nevill playing the ‘I told you so’ card hasn’t exactly helped my mood.

I think what is also compounding the feelings of being down is that the thought of the next game isn’t really helping. All season we’ve been able to park any disappointments quite quickly, but there’s been an opportunity to look at the next game with a sense of optimism. Sadly, knowing that whatever we do on Saturday will mean nothing when City win their 12th game in a row to a hapless Chelsea team, means that I’m not even looking at this coming weekend game against Forest as a chance of redemption. The inevitability of the death of the title dream is still hanging over us and that is a real gut-puncher.

Last night we briefly got to talking about ‘what next?’ with regards to the next few games. FK was a guest on the pod and he said that personally he’d send a few players on their holidays, like Saka, etc. I have to say I’m kind of with him on this one. City will win one of their remaining three games. It will almost inevitably be against Chelsea and in somewhat of a frustrating twist of fate the first time in weeks and weeks in which we play first – on Saturday evening – is a time in which little will be of relevance come Sunday evening. I certainly won’t be watching any football on the Sunday. I’ll be finding something – anything – to do rather than see that pathetic Chelsea team get rolled over.

Arteta won’t give up. It is kind of part of the job description as a professional in football that you have to keep fighting. As fans we are afforded the ability to give up all hope so that when the inevitable happens, it doesn’t hit us as hard. I’ve heard a few comments lately of ‘pre grieving’ and that is what it has felt like for me since the Southampton draw, which if we’re honest, felt as bad as a defeat given how useless the Saints are. But Arteta won’t use these last two games as experiments. He will go strong on Saturday, evening if I kind of hope that he tries something different.

The reason I think this is because we as fans need to look forward to next season now. All that is left is to give the players a clap of appreciation on Sunday week after next and we show them that we appreciate that they have come so far and they have – for such large parts – given us so much hope. There will be plenty of time for reflection, for seeing how we didn’t get it over the line, but when the dust settles I’m sure we’ll all be much happier about where we are as a football club than we’ve been for decades.

But I do hope he tries some different things. He’s mentioned recently about how he’s thought of different tactical approaches that could be adopted. Maybe the Forest game can’t be a game in which he experiments because it is still not mathematically impossible, but the Wolves game should 100% be a game in which he starts the testing process. Sure, there will be time for experimentation during pre season, but why not use what will effectively be a glorified friendly, to start the process of trying something different?

Could we give ESR some minutes and see if he can recapture some of the form of last season? Could we try Gabriel Jesus out wide, with Trossard through the middle, in a look at next season where we could use Gabriel Jesus as a wide forward if, say, Saka goes down injured? How about trying Kiwior at left back? Is that a thing?

I’m obviously talking about personnel changes, but he could look at tactical tweaks too. We saw how we went long against Brighton and it just didn’t work. What else could he try? Maybe a double pivot of Partey and Jorginho? If the rumours of Xhaka to Leverkusen have a little more fire to the initial smoke, maybe we try playing Trossard in the advanced eight position, because we’re looking at life without Xhaka?

There are lots of bits of experimentation that could be done and whilst we must look at this season as one in which we were brilliant but ultimately came up short, the fact that we had a similar feeling last season could be a positive as we go in to the summer. Could this team take another step forward both from a personnel and a tactical perspective this pre season? There is always hope.

Besides, we usually win Premier League titles in year’s that end in even numbers anyway (1998, 2002, 2004), so maybe we just have to be patient for next year anyway….

…Yes, I know that’s a tenuous hope to have, but I’m sticking with it anyway.

Catch you all tomorrow guys.

I’ve never got up at 6am, trudged across town, got to an Arsenal bar to watch the game at 7am before, but if the result could be the same as what we got yesterday at home to Forest, then I’d gladly go through that again and again, I can tell you that for free.

A shoutout to Mark and all the guys from the Bay Area Gooners – very hospitable people and made the experience in San Francisco all the better.

But The Arsenal played their part in yesterday’s great day too, because the players finally delivered the hammering that we’ve been after all season. So far we’ve played well, we’ve got results, but we haven’t really put a team massively to the sword in terms of the final score. There was Bournemouth and Brentford away, but personally I’ve never thought of a three goal margin as a hammering. I’ve always seen it as a comfortable win, but not a smash up. Five goals to nil, however, certainly is.

And whilst I am still not a fan of Tomiyasu at left back, when you produce a victory like that yesterday, you have to say the manager got it right. If I’m going to call it when it doesn’t work – like Leeds and Southampton – I have to be prepared to say he was right yesterday.

Now, of course, you could argue that the inclusion of Tomiyasu ahead of Tierney would have had little impact yesterday. That’s because what clicked was our attacking line. And certainly that’s a big shout, but I’m not minded to get too caught up on a day in which we restored our position at the top of the Premier League, added a decent chunk to our goal tally, plus got a new face on the scoresheet. Ahead of this game against Forest there had started to be the signs of some handwringing in the fan base over how the goals seemed to have dried up. We’d scored just two in our last three games in all competitions and Gabby Jesus suddenly wasn’t banging them in. So when those murmurs start to surface, what better way to answer them by bagging a hatful of goals?

And getting the first goal so early made a big difference in my opinion. Martinelli’s super run and stooped headed made – I think – Forest’s game plan switch within minutes of the game. They’ve not been conceding more than one goal in their last three or four games and they’ve tightened up at the back. I think their plan was to be resolute, right at the back, then in certain pockets press us and force turnovers. I think I noticed that in patches in that first half and there were a few instances in which they managed to get in to dangerous positions in our half, but often it felt like it was of our own doing (Gabriel passing to Lingard in his own box was a bit mental), so whilst there were tiny signs that tactically they could have potentially had something to us with, we dealt with it well.

In the first half it felt like it might be a frustrating afternoon though. Sure, we got the goal and sure, we also had most of the ball and created chances. But at halftime it had a slight whiff of the PSV home game and so when we scored the second goal just a few minutes in to the second half, that’s when I personally calmed down a bit and could start to enjoy the game. And at this point we should talk absolutely the goal scorer, because Reiss Nelson stepped up yesterday and had a fantastic performance overall. The worry was of course Saka coming off injured after he’s once again been booted all over the place with little protection from the referee, but Arteta didn’t sound too worried after the game, so hopefully he can recover. But his understudy made sure there was little disruption in service on that right hand side.

It was interesting because for the first 10 or 15 minutes after he came on for Saka in that first half, it looked very much like he was just playing the safe option. But as soon as he scored his goal you could visibly see the confidence flood in to him. The first goal may have had a touch of fortune about it after his first shot was saved by Henderson, but the rebound fell kindly and his second attempt had nothing fortuitous about it. Very calm, very composed, a great finish. His dummy to send the defender for a hot dog just before his first shot was pretty special too.

As I said though, the confidence flooded in to his feet and his second goal was superb too, with shades of Giroud I said in the pub at the time. You know that run that Giroud used to make in front of a defender at the near post to flick goalward? Yep.

He was man of the match but the goals didn’t stop there and I thought Partey’s carbon copy of his NLD goal was a great way to make the afternoon a lot more fun, followed by a net roofer from Ødegaard to finish off the hammering.

If we’re going to look at the tiniest of downsides, perhaps there’s an argument that Gabriel Jesus should have got on the scoresheet, but his impact on the team and what he delivers – even yesterday – means that none of us should be too concerned. The goals are coming from all over the pitch and from a risk mitigation perspective that’s a very good sign.

Next up it’s Zurich at home and I think we need to rotate out as many players as possible, because that game at Stamford Bridge next weekend is going to be really tough. I don’t care what they’ve been playing like, they’ll be up for us and Potter has often had our number, so hopefully Arteta is mindful of that and is already planning how he gets one over on him.

Right, that’s me done for the day. I’m off to Napa for some wine tasting. Have a good one folks.

Being away and busy has taken my mind off of The Arsenal a little bit, but that part of me cannot ever truly be switched off, so I thought I’d pen some quick thoughts on this Saturday morning West Coast time.

Firstly, on the PSV result, which was of course disappointing but thankfully not a terminal result. I’ve seen lots of disappointed Arsenal fans and of course I was too, to an extent, but maybe because the feed was a little patchy when I watched it on the plane, but I struggled to get too angry immediately after the result and the next day too. I did hypothesise before the game that it might be a difficult test for these Arsenal players; we didn’t have to win. PSV absolutely did and in elite sport that sometimes means a team has an intangible edge that is what PSV probably had.

The good news is that we can render that result meaningless by beating FC Zurich next week and with both Arsenal and PSV now through, Zurich have nothing to play for; I.e. they don’t have to win. So my hope is that even with a heavily rotated team, Arsenal should have enough to get all three points.

The issue now is about our reaction. What we need to do is to not have this game last Thursday cause any kind of hangover and now, tomorrow, Arsenal have to win. The hope is that the jeopardy that want there for Arsenal is back and we get a performance that shows we are back on track. For most of this season Arsenal have played superbly, but suddenly there are performances – both individual and collectively – that has caused some handwringing amongst the fanbase.

“Is this a slump like we had last season against Brighton, Palace and Southampton?” is, I think, what a lot of us are worried about.

So it is now incumbent upon this Arsenal side to answer that question with a resounding “no” when they take to the field against Forest tomorrow lunchtime UK time (for me it’ll be 6am – not a feeling I’m too family with!). For the record I think – and hope – that we get the side that has impressed us for so many games this season. I don’t think we’ll have an easy game because Forest will have had a week to prepare for us like Leeds did, they’ll be buoyed by a home victory against Liverpool which was by far their most impressive of the season, so they’ll fancy an update.

But as Arteta said in his post match press conference on Thursday, these players need to reset and we need to be on it tomorrow, because winning becomes habitual and it can also be difficult to get back if a blip becomes more than that. The PSV game can still be chalked off as a ‘blip’. The fact it came after the Southampton draw and ‘getting away with it’ in the Leeds game means we’re just starting to see the rumbles of nerves. It’s just murmurs at the moment; the tiniest of ripples, but it’s there and tomorrow is the perfect opportunity to drop those ripples and get us back on track.

There will be a different team out to the one that lost against PSV. There should also be a different mindset and a little more urgency about us. There should also be that home game urgency and extra belief the fans can give to the players; they’ve talked about it, Arteta has talked about it, we as fans have said how it is different in terms of the relationship and support. So for me, as I said, I am hopeful for a response, I am hopeful for a performance, but I’m not naive enough to expect it in the Premier League.

Let’s see what we get tomorrow.

That’s it from me for today. A short one on account of my holiday timings and all the touristy stuff me n the Management are doing today. Catch you all soon – maybe tomorrow.

Laters peeps.

I took the trip up to Nottingham in the car with my ol’ mate Dave Seager and as we drove up talking about how Arteta would set up his team, there was a clear acknowledgement from us both that rotation was the best approach on the day. Players who haven’t played very much needed to get minutes; we have relied on a pretty settled first XI for much of this season and whilst that has brought some very good performances and we are starting to see the fruits of that consistent labour, any injuries to key players would mean that we need to bring in other members of the squad and so having them coming in cold isn’t the best idea.

So when the team news came out I was kind of ok with it. Perhaps I’d have given Martinelli and Saka a rest but I’m not really sure who would fill the gaps, because we had Balogun off to Middlesbrough to complete his loan, Auba at the AFCON (although we know he is in the cold anyway so probably wouldn’t play even if he was there), Pepe at the AFCON, so the options for rotation seem light unless you dip in to the youth team who have never played for the first team before. You can’t do that in a hostile environment asway from home to a decent Championship outfit. If we were playing a League Two side at home then maybe Arteta could have given it a go, but not away to Forest, so I could see why that decision was taken. Added to that was the fact that ESR had picked up a knock and as Arteta had said on Friday, we had a number of problems in the side, with Xhaka also out with COVID.

But also as Arteta said, that doesn’t excuse the performance yesterday, because it was pretty bad. There were some real stinkers of performances from some of those Arsenal players. It was that bad that Arteta hooked Tavares on 30 minutes! He was having a shocker but that is one heck of a public statement by the manager; I suspect if he could he probably would have liked to hook half of his team yesterday to make that same statement. Cedric on the other flank was utterly awful. When he wasn’t swinging dead balls out for goal kicks, he was getting caught under the flight of the ball, getting overrun by basically anybody that attacked him and looking every bit the player that we would gladly send off to Spain if we could. Quite what Atletico have seen in him as a squad player is beyond me, because if we can see he is pants as a squad player for us, what does that say about their options??

Cedric was joined by Rob Holding in the ‘having a mare’ corner too, because the newly hairlined centre half stunk the place out just the same. It is an embarrassing state of affairs for a seasoned Premier League defender when your opponents from a division down basically don’t bother to press you or close you down when you’ve got the ball. Holding had all of the time in the world when the ball was at his feet and that is because Nottingham Forest knew he is terrible in that situation. And so it proved. Forest backed off him, Ben White as well and the England international wasn’t exactly great, but Holding’s shocker masked White’s performance a bit. But the whole back line was pretty bad and the goal Forest scored was inevitably by a mistake in midfield by Sambi, but the lack of tracking by Cedric of a 33-year-old Lewis Grabban sneaking in at the back post just shows how appalling we were.

And so to the midfield, which is where I think Arteta got it wrong, from a tactical perspective. We have seen this season where Arteta has opted for Partey in central midfield and two number eights playing in front of him as a single pivot and it hasn’t really clicked. Remember earlier in the season where Odegaard was told to sit deeper in that number eight role and a lot of us thought he was out of form and it didn’t work? Well this happened again yesterday. Arteta detailed Sambi to play as a single pivot in the middle and hold everything together, whilst asking teenage debutant Patino and Odegaard to play those number eight roles. And unsurprisingly it didn’t work. There was too much space between Lokonga and his other midfield partners and as a result our passing felt lacklustre in the middle of the park and we never looked like we were going to get a control of the game. Control the midfield and you control most of a football game and in this match we didn’t do that at all. You have to feel for Patino, who as a result of this instruction looked a little lost at times, but Odegaard was equally lost. But it can’t have done Sambi any good to play that role. Personally I think Patino and Sambi sitting in front of the back four in a double pivot may have offered at least a little more; keep the spaces between the two very close and so both always have an option to release the ball. So for me it was a tactical set up that was wrong and that played a bit part in us losing yesterday because of the lack of midfield control. Whether or not it was personnel related or not – in terms of injuries and absentees – I don’t know, but it didn’t work and Arteta needs to hold his hands up today.

But so do so many of those players. Saka and Martinelli weren’t great, although Saka was manhandled by Colback a couple of times with absolutely no repercussions by the left wing-back. But here’s the thing about those two: both have built up enough goodwill and fan credit in the bank that we can forgive a performance like that from them. One player who – to me at least – hasn’t built up that credit is Eddie Nketiah and he had a shocker yesterday. He offered nothing in terms of channel running, he didn’t hold the ball up at all (although to be fair I know that isn’t his game), plus he missed a header at the far post that was basic bread and butter stuff. Quite how he didn’t even hit the target from Saka’s cross is beyond me and just hit home once again how he is not the guy to take over from our ageing and exiting strikers. That miss, coupled with the shocking miss at the back post against Everton when the scores were 1-1, are examples as to why you need proper elite strikers in games like this because if you get one chance you need to put it away. Eddie was poor and if this was supposed to be a shop window game, he did himself no favours.

But very few Arsenal players or coaches did yesterday. It was a collective stinkfest and the result of which is that we now realistically have just one opportunity for a trophy this season. And if we play like that against Liverpool on Thursday, that hope will soon diminish too.

Catch you all tomorrow.

We have to be hopeful of success today I would have thought. We played them in the League Cup at home and smashed them 5-0 in 2019, but the last time we rocked up at the City Ground it was a terrible day with some terrible performances from Arsenal players. I think it was one of Big Per’s last games for the club and you could tell because he looked out of it and Forest beat us 4-2. They got two penalties that day and only a Danny Welbeck late goal stopped it from being an even bigger embarrassment if I recall rightly.

But today is a different game, different team completely, different coaching staff and there is definitely a different optimism about The Arsenal. We may have lost to City, but Arsenal fans over the globe will be looking at today’s game and seeing it as an opportunity to extract a little bit of revenge on that game almost exactly four years ago.

Team news is a bit of a weird one because I can’t find too much online about who is available and who isn’t. When Arteta did his press conference on Friday he just said we have a load of issues and also some COVID cases to deal with, so we have no idea who is available and who isn’t. But on the assumption that most are available, I suspect we’ll see a little rotation, but not a lot, today. Personally I’d rotate the lot and give key players a mini winter break by not even featuring them this weekend, so my team would be:

• Leno
• Cedric
• Holding
• Mari
• Tavares
• Lokonga
• Xhaka
• Smith Rowe
• Odegaard
• Patino
• Nketiah

Charlie Patino in there looks a little left of field, but I wouldn’t be starting Martinelli today, because I want those legs – and that of Saka’s – fully rested and ready for the challenge of Liverpool away and The Scum away next week. Let’s have Lacazette also sat down too. He is playing more 90 minute matches lately but in a game like this we might as well give Eddie another shop window opportunity and given the opposition you would have thought this is a perfect opportunity to give some of them time. You could have them on the bench and if things look to be going sour then we can bring them on for minutes in the second half.

If Arteta names a side similar to that then it should be good enough to beat a Forest who have also had a bit of time off and haven’t played this year yet. That means they will be fit, ready and able to press us and give us as much intensity as possible. Because of their lack of playing time I suspect we’ll see a full strength side and I can’t pretend to know a lot about Forest, but their team includes Steve Cook – a guy who likes a strong challenge – as well as Lewis Grabban who at 33 is their main man and has 10 goals in 23 games for Forest.

Having looked at a few Forest fan sites it seems as though they think they’ll go with a 3-4-3 formation with wing backs in Spence and Colback. Colback is more of a central midfielder – or was so when he played for Newcastle – so that is an area which will be our right hand attacking side, that I’d hope we could exploit. But what we will need to do is to match Forest’s intensity in the opening skirmishes. These FA Cup games always start a little raucous and I am expecting those Forest players to try to come straight out of the blocks and try to rattle us, old-school FA Cup third round style. But providing Arteta has enough technical competence in the team – which I think we have – then after those first 15 minutes we need to start imposing our style and approach on the game.

It all has to be decided today and in front of terrestrial TV cameras in the UK, so I am hoping for a great game in which we can secure safe passage to the next round. Arteta can rest a few key players and even after today we have four days until our next match so there is time for recovery. But we need to see a continuation of the form that has seen us get to fourth in the league and having so many of us excited that this could be a good season. We only realistically have two competitions we can win this season and this is one along with the League Cup, so what I want to be writing about tomorrow is how The Arsenal – in their beautiful all-white kits, faced up to a lively and partisan Forest crowd and players and came out on top to secure passage to the next round.

Let’s hope we’re happy Gooners come 7pm this evening.

Have a good one peeps. Catch you all tomorrow.

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

So, to the press conference, and Mikel was asked a little bit about the Nottingham Forest game, but not really very much, which I have to say I thought it was odd. He got ridiculous questions like “you beat Nottingham Forest in 1979 on the way to winning the cup, is that a good omen?” and it is nonsense questions like that which really infuriate me. I want to hear about the team news, any kind of tactical approach to the game, the mood in the camp, etc. I want to gleam some kind of insight in to whether or not we are ready, what he thinks about our opponents, etc. Instead we get treated to English media nonsense as usual.

There were a couple of small morsels to feed on, I guess, and Arteta was asked about the COVID situation. He said how it is difficult to plan as they have a number of issues and they won’t know until people are tested tomorrow. You do have to feel for him in this regard; he doesn’t know if he’s going to wake up tomorrow and find that half the team are missing because they got a positive test. He mentioned about having a ‘Plan B’ and a ‘Plan C and D’ and that must be what he is doing every game now. “Well if this guy can’t play left back, who is next? Then who plays after that? And after that?” probably all multiplied out by most of the positions on the pitch. It’s really tough and when you work in a job where you could be fired after a number of these results go against you, having that uncertainty must be a right pain in the hole.

He was asked about the Liverpool situation and although he played a straight bat, I think he too thinks some games have been played by the scousers. He simply said that “we wanted to play the game” and whilst you can infer that he is doing enough to not really give anyone his opinion, the fact he talked about “many many issues” for this Forest match, but that “we want to play” again reiterated, I suspect Mikel knows like the rest of us that Liverpool have fiddled the system. We’ll find out tomorrow when we see what team Liverpool put out and if they come clean on who is actually ill with COVID.

As for other topics of conversation, the small snippets on transfers were heartening to me. He admitted that we are short in some positions and said “obviously we are going to move, and we are going to look for options, because we are very short”. Clearly Arsenal are going to try to get people in and it’s a far cry from the days of Wenger saying “nope, nothing happening” evening though we’d have about 12 left backs all injured for the remainder of the season! I think the noises that are ramping up from the media – Ornstein talking about Vlahovic, Isak and Calvert-Lewin, for example – suggest that we are pushing to make moves in the next few weeks. Of course we’d all rather it got done sooner rather than later but if it takes the whole window and we get that top class player in so we can bed them in this season, then that works for me. There’s been less talk of a central midfield option but I’m taking heart in the fact that in saying what I’ve mentioned above, Arteta was responding directly to a question of Ainsley Maitland-Niles joining Roma on loan. Given how the conversation played out I get the feeling that we might see a central midfielder AND a striker this window. Especially given the Aubameyang situation and if as reported Palace come in for Nketiah, then we will 100% need another player coming in to compete with Lacazette for the role.

With the Eddie stuff, if Palace are coming in for the player then I think we have to take the money and move on and whilst Arteta once again played a straight bat, the fact that he didn’t really out rightly pour cold water on it by saying that he isn’t going anywhere this window, suggests to me that if they get the green light from someone like Fiorentina, or if they can get Sociedad to agree on Isak’s release, I wonder if the club might move for one of those players. We aren’t going to get any value at all if we go to a tribunal fee for Eddie Nketiah, so if Palace can drop £10million on our laps, for example, then I think we simply must take it.

As we must if Atletico really are going to give us any money whatsoever for Cedric Soares. I don’t believe this for one minute but I guess if they want a back up right back and they think they can get him on the cheap then it makes sense. If I was in Arsenal’s shoes I’d only sanction a loan move if they are obligated to buy in the summer. Even if the fee is relatively low, we have Chambers who can play there, Tavares too, so we have cover and getting Cedric off the wage bill would be ok with me. I don’t think he’s been as bad as people say, but he’s always just been a limited player and also represents another one of the infamous Kia regime at Arsenal that we could cut from the club. The fact Atletico are after him though – assuming its true – shoes just how much Kia must earn his wedge, because he can clear talk his way out of anything and is whispering those sweet nothings to Diego as we speak!

Right, that’s probably enough for one day. Back tomorrow with a match preview.

What hasn’t helped was the lack of football when we thought we’d be playing the Victims FC yesterday, but I guess the week after next when we play at home will mean a midweek fixture for the likes of me to get all nervous about. The only challenge is that the game straight after last night’s game that was supposed to happen was Nottingham Forest. Mikel Arteta would have surely rotated at the weekend and therefore been able to spread minutes around. But now he is probably having a decent think about what to do. The players will not have played for eight days when they take to the field in the Midlands, so do you go a little stronger in the hope of keeping the momentum going with the first XI, or do you keep to your original plan of rotation and give some of those players an even bigger rest ahead of a stern test at Anfield and then the Toilet Bowl in the other half of North London?

Personally I’m up for a fair bit of rotation and I think we could probably do it. The likes of Leno, Tavares, Holding, Mari could all come in defence. Maybe we even have Cedric in at right back? We could give Smith Rowe some minutes from the start and certainly putting Eddie Nketiah in the shop window in the hope that somebody tries to give us some cash now seems prudent. Flo Balogun might be worthy of a start at the weekend if we are on the verge of sending him out on loan and we have Charlie Patino who made a nice little ten minute cameo in the previous round of the cup. That’s nine players alone I’ve suggested and if Arteta does make that many changes then you can look at the game at Anfield and the Scum as ones in which those first team players could certainly be playing in. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to play on a Thursday and then a Sunday when you’ve just had 12 days away from football with just training keeping you ticking over.

So whilst the postponement is not what anyone wants and I still believe it is unacceptable that Victims FC get so much leeway when others haven’t, in the immediate future I think there is an opportunity for us to manage this game time a little more effectively.

In other news, we have a host of players up for individual awards in the Premier League from their performances in December and with the wins and performances that we started to see bringing us in to the top four on Christmas Day, it’s understandable as to why we have so many nominees. Personally I think these individual awards are meaningless in a game which success is defined as a team, but I guess it is a recognition that things went right for us in December and the team started to gel, which culminated in a superb performance against Man City that was taken away from us by unfortunate circumstances and sub-standard officiating. Odegaard and Martinelli for player of the month and Arteta for Manager of the month, as well as Lacazette’s goal against Southampton. It’s weird that Lacazette could pick up a trophy for putting the ball away when most of the work was done by all of his other teammates, but I guess that’s just the nature of it, but it was a fabulous team goal and more like that for the remainder of the season would be welcome.

I wonder how Lacazette is feeling right now though? I mean he’s got a contract that is up in the summer, he’s now the main man as Aubameyang is firmly in the cold (and now on his own having to self isolate in Gabon) and he’s in a team that is doing well. It would be amazing if we won some silverware this season and if we somehow manage to sneak in a top four slot he’ll be looking around at all of his contribution to this thinking “why can’t I benefit from this?”. He signed for us in summer 2017 and that was the last time we were in the Champions League. He hasn’t played a minute of Champions League football in an Arsenal shirt and if we manage to get it this season (I still think it is tight and going to be a tough ask) then he’ll be potentially exiting the club having played his part and not got to play in those Champions League nights. It makes me wonder whether an extension by the club – if they were to offer it – would be a bit more appealing to him.

I guess the challenge is that from the clubs perspective there’s no way we should offer more than a year, two at a push, and we still need to go out and get another big name striker to be first name on the teamsheet. Lacazette would therefore have to play second fiddle again and although he’d secure more time and the option of playing in the Champions League, he probably wouldn’t get much action time in the competition, or certainly shouldn’t if we’ve done our job properly. I know Lacazette has been playing well of late, but let’s not forget we’ve had him since 2017, so we know what he is about. He isn’t ‘the guy’ to kick us on to the next level in the same way that Granit Xhaka isn’t ‘the guy’ in midfield and we all know we need an upgrade there. So it is a really tough one with Laca. In a way it would be better if Auba was the one whose contract was running down this summer and Lacazette had one more after this season. That would mean we could get in a first team regular up top, whilst still having them rotate with Lacazette. But it is what it is and we have to deal with the fallouot of where we are at.

And that is that we will lose Eddie, Laca and if Auba has burned his bridges, then him too in the summer. That leaves us with Flo Balogun as our only recognised striker in the summer and so you can see why we are linked with somebody now. Get them in, get them settled and with five months of little pressure and an opportunity to acclimatise in the league, then you can look for a second striker in the summer to replace Lacazette, having probably let Auba disappear off somewhere. I won’t bother going in to any names right now because there’s already too much of that going around. Instead, I’ll call it a day and hope you have a good Friday.

Laters friends.

So, with the lack of transparency, here’s what we know so far:

• Liverpool have three confirmed cases of COVID in their playing staff (Matip, Alisson and Firmino) and two confirmed cases in their coaching staff (Klopp and assistant Lijnders)
• Liverpool have three confirmed injuries to players (Eliott, Phillips, Origi) – I know this may not be the definitive list as it is not directly from Liverpool, but as they are not providing an update on who is missing we have to go on what we can find – here
• Leyton Orient had their match postponed last year because they were unable to fulfil the fixture with 18 players out due to COVID
• Aston Villa were forced to name a youth team in the fourth round of the FA Cup due to an outbreak of COVID
• In the third and fourth round of this year’s Carabao Cup Liverpool featured a team of rotated youngsters and squad players – only Origi listed above featured
• Liverpool have closed their training ground for the last two days due to the outbreak.

Do you know what makes all of this speculation go away? Transparency. If Liverpool make an announcement that 15 staff members have all suddenly contracted COVID – playing staff really – then personally I would say fair enough and you have to appreciate that it is an extraordinary circumstance and the game was right to be called off. But as we know it all we have seen is ‘suspected COVID’ plastered all over Liverpool’s website.

But here’s a couple of kickers for you; firstly, Liverpool’s game against Shrewsbury is due to go ahead on Saturday. If that does go ahead, then any sane individual can surely question why one football match could not go ahead and yet three days later another football match can go ahead. If that game on Sunday goes ahead then as far as I am concerned it is a tacit admission from Liverpool that they have fiddled the rules here. If it is cancelled then you have to say ‘fair enough’ and perhaps this outbreak was as bad as they have suggested, without disclosing this information publicly.

The second kicker? If Arsenal now have an outbreak of COVID and cannot fulfil one of those games, given the fact that the schedule is so compacted, we could be forced to forfeit the competition and we would be kicked out.

Justice? I don’t think so.

As I say – I am happy to say “fair enough” if we get some clarity over Liverpool’s situation, but unless we get that then I’m afraid this will just look like more games from them and makes a mockery of the competition itself.

I’ll leave it at that though because I said a fair ol’ piece on it yesterday too. Instead, let’s also laugh at the FA trying to stick the knife in further by charging Arsenal with a count of failing to control their players, citing the 59th minute of the game against Man City. That is the moment Gabriel gets sent off. I would encourage you to look at the video clips of that minute. Honestly, it is a heated discussion the likes of which you see every time a decision that big (red card, penalty) goes against a team. I look forward to seeing the FA charge every team from now on based on that yardstick. Because their coffers will get very deep in fines indeed if they do, given what happens every week in the Premier League. What I’d like to hear from the FA is a little bit more of that transparency of their criteria for this, as well as explaining why this incident has been singled out and other incidents – I bet there are a couple this weekend – will get ignored in referees match reports.

But we move on. We all know it’s a joke and we just have to deal with it. Let’s move on to the fact that we have Ainsley Maitland-Niles on his way to Roma for a season-long loan. That’s a weird one, I have to say, mainly because of the timing. With Partey, Elneny and now Maitland-Niles unavailable, with Azeez at Portsmouth on loan, our first team squad midfield comprises of Sambi Lokonga and Granit Xhaka. You could count Odegaard in there but he has underwhelmed in the midfield two and why would we take him away from the good work he has done in the front four? You could include Calum Chambers but he’s hardly played since the start of the season. You could include Ben White as he’s played there before in his time but again why would you take him out of a defence that is working? Plus we have the Granit Xhaka at left back in the Europa League that proves it isn’t a good idea because you then have two problems to deal with in terms of player positions instead of one.

I can only assume that Arsenal are now moving heaven and earth to get a new player in asap. They’d be mad not to. We are so short and we have some incredibly hard games coming up. I suspect that because of today’s postponement we will see a slightly stronger team on Sunday against Forest, but even if Arteta wanted to rotate his side, in midfield it’s not like he can do too much. Perhaps he could play Odegaard in there and then play Smith Rowe in front of him, but it’s not really a longer term solution and certainly against Premier League opponents. Perhaps we will get some hints from Arteta as to what he plans to do when he does his press conference ahead of the Forest game (assuming that goes ahead). I suspect that will now take place tomorrow for the manager.

Until we hear from him and from Arsenal, I guess we just have to wait and see how everything unfolds.

Catch you all tomorrow.