I am starting this blog the night of the game. I never do that.

This was an unprofessional Arsenal performance.

This was a disgraceful performance.

I am embarrassed.

This is falling apart.

Two wins in nine.

This is a football side who have spent two-thirds of the season being a dominant side, the best side in the league, the ‘Champions-Elect’.

Nope.

This team is crumbling and they are – collectively – falling apart.

That second half is one for the ages. In a bad way. Players lumping the ball. Players hiding in plain sight. A manager who – in his instence to keep Martinelli on the pitch – showed that maybe he is also feeling the pinch and not recognising when difficult decisions need to be made.

I don’t even want to go into details on this game. It was shit. Arsenal were shit. They played a Wolves side who spent most of the game passing the ball to us.

And yet they have found two goals to draw level with us.

Who cares about analysis at this stage? Arsenal just fell apart and our form is a real problem right now.

I don’t want to hear about the others. I don’t want to hear about the fact we are five points clear. City win their game in hand and beat us – which feels certainly feasible, nay – realistic given our record up there – and they are in the driving seat.

This Arsenal team could have turned this Premier League season into a procession. Instead they are delivering unto us torture.

Name me one player who has stepped up in that Wolves game. I can’t. I see scared little boys who played what might end up being the worst team in Premier League in history.

Shame on so many of you Arsenal players.

What’s the point in analysing it? Arsenal were awful. Wolves were awful. Two awful teams played out what felt like a relegation scrap.

Normally, I write 1,000 words for this blog. But what’s the point at this stage?

The North London Derby – against a terrible Tottenham team – could bring more misery. Because if Wolves can do that to us on their own patch, why can’t a Tottenham team with plenty of rest, as well as the incentive of seeing an Arsenal team falling apart.

It feels like a horror show waiting to happen. And right now – I feel like I don’t even want to watch it.

Sorry – you’ll get no positivity from me today.

I’m going to stop now. I’m going to save this as a draft. Then I’m going to wake up tomorrow and look at this again. I don’t think I’ll feel much different. But at least before I post I’ll have a night’s sleep. How much sleep I’ll get I don’t know.

Shambles.

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

The dividing line is the difference a sleep makes. I didn’t get too much sleep. I am still utterly apoplectic with rage. I have re-read my semi-drunken ramblings from last night and I still feel the same. This Premier League season is imploding in front of our very eyes. It is pathetic.

It’s a football media and social media lock down for me now for at least 24 hours I think. SO it’s also debatable whether I’ll blog tomorrow morning too. I probably will, but right now, I just don’t feel like it. And the North London Derby on Sunday is the absolute WORST game to be playing right now.

Laters people.

We were all certainly blessed with mostly good news yesterday, as it was all but confirmed that Bukayo Saka has signed his new bumper contract. I was asked to give some comments on that for the BBC so rather than repeat what I said there, here is a link if you want to see a few words from me on that deal.

There was also good news on the injury front, as Riccardo Calafiori has been confirmed as fit following his withdrawal from the squad at the weekend against Wigan. When you hear that kind of news, there is often a worry that it’ll end up being a prolonged absence, as was the case over Christmas when he pulled up in a warm-up game, but this time it appears the club is focused on making sure they don’t take any precautions with players like Riccy. That’s EXACTLY what we all want to hear; he’s a very talented player, and we need him available, not out for weeks and weeks at a time. Whether he starts tonight will be interesting. Personally, I’d be tempted not to risk it, to give Hincapie the starting jersey, then see if Calafiori comes through the last 30 minutes unscathed. If he does, you’ve got him as a viable option for the game against The Scum at the weekend.

Ben White is also fine, having limped off, but it appears that was just a bit of fatigue, so having him available is good. Jurrien Timber probably needs to do a little more job sharing in my opinion, because he’s looked leggy in the latter stages of games recently, so having White available to come on is important for us and keeping it tight at the back, I believe.

The other good news on the injury front was that Kai Havertz has an outside chance of being fit for this evening, according to Mikel Arteta, but he has also said he is a possibility for the weekend. I think the club won’t risk Kai tonight, but I think they’ll have him training this week and maybe he can be a bench option on Sunday, which is fantastic news.

Odegaard, however, won’t make it this evening, which I think means Arteta has two options for a replacement, and I’ll be interested to see what he goes for. He either puts Eze in there in the hope that the Wigan game has been the spark that the Englishman needs, or he can continue with the Saka-central experiment, in the hope that this could be something that unlocks our scoring firepower for the remainder of the season, where we will continue to come up against low blocks.

I really don’t know which option he’ll go for. Of course, what he could do is play Eze in the left eight, then tell Rice to switch to right eight and do the same role, but on a slightly different pivot to normal. We’re going to have more of the ball, we’re going to do most of the attacking tonight, you’d expect, so giving those progressive passes and attacking players like Eze the natural zones and spaces they like to operate in makes sense to me. Rice is also quality enough that he could do just as good a job at right eight as he does on the left, so that’s what I’d be leaning towards if I were Arteta.

I also think that Wolves are going to sit into a low block and congest the defensive third; they have the lowest field tilt of any team in the Premier League (meaning most of the ball is played in their half), they have made the second most tackles of any team (suggesting they are often on the back foot trying to wrestle back control), although interestingly they are not the worst when it comes to things like xG – Burnley, West Ham, Leeds and Forest are all worse for xG allowed, which says to me that whilst Wolves have trouble up the attacking end and sit deep, they don’t give up as many chances as those sides.

With some of that data in mind, it does feel like somebody like Eze would be useful in this match. If Wolves are sitting deep in their own box, maybe we do need to unsettle them by peppering a few shots from distance? I think we also need those trickery players, so Trossard on the left feels natural, but should we be looking at Madueke on the right? Probably not. You can’t not have Saka in this Arsenal team. He’s the main man, and whilst his form hasn’t been amazing, this is the sort of day and game that he could well come alive in on that right-hand side. So, for me, I’d go with this as a starting XI:

Raya

Timber   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Hincapie

Zubimendi

Rice   –   Eze

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Trossard

If that’s the side, then you still have Martinelli and Madueke to be impact players in the second half. If the game feels like one in which Big Vik isn’t getting a sniff because of a low-block back line, then Gabby J is also there as somebody who can come o,n too. If the game is (hopefully) sewn up, maybe you can also think about Norgaard for the closing stages, as he impressed against Wigan, and I think he is deserving of more Premier League minutes than he’s had so far.

Wolves are expected to line up with a back three, which will move to a back five when out of possession and dropping deep, which might mean that they look to double up on our wide men. They are missing Hwang, but they have that tricky kid, Mane, who has impressed me on the few times I’ve seen him. If he plays, he’s one to keep an eye on. Like us, they rotated practically all of their team, although their back line remained the same, so maybe/hopefully there’s some fatigue that creeps in there for us to take advantage of. But this should be a game that we are doing anyway. There is a reason Wolves have eight points all season. There is a reason they have just one win against West Ham all season. There is a reason they are at the bottom of the league, and if we want to win this thing, this is the sort of game that you need to do the business in. Wolves proved in the game at The Emirates that they are not as terrible as their results suggest, and I think Mikel will be acutely aware of the need for his team to be on it tonight.

That’s it from me. I’ll be back tomorrow for a review, in which hopefully we’re talking about three points for The Arsenal.

Catch you then.

When you get to that part of the season you’re looking for ways in which you can involve the whole squad, so this opportunity will, I think, afford Mikel Arteta the chance to rest and rotate some of those key players who have been playing all the minutes. I think it also feels like some sort of football karma; we’ve had a fair few years of playing all Premier League opposition, so to be able to play teams with whom we rarely come up against feels quite nice, I would say.

City go away to Newcastel and you’d hope that means Pep has some thinking to do around that time about how he lines up his team for that one. They too will have it sandwiched in between Premier League and Champions League games, so if it helps to contribute towards their fatigue as he’s forced to field a stronger side, then I think we’re all good with that, as Arsenal fans.

But for now, attention moves to Wolves away tomorrow night, for which I do wonder how tempted Arteta might be to play some of the faces that played against Wigan, in some of the positions they play in as well. For example, could we see Saka and Madueke both in the starting line-up? It felt good to me; both seemed to have a good connection, good passing combinations and good rapport between them, with Madueke and Saka combining for the own goal that was scored. My hope is that Arteta is asked about it today and that he doesn’t dismiss it. In fact, if we get a little smile and a vanilla response that you can’t quite work out what he’s saying, I think that means he’s got it seriously in contention as an option tomorrow. With Odegaard potentially not fit, it does feel like it could be worth a try. Alternatively, maybe Eze in the 10 is the choice, with Rice and Zubi slotting into more of a double pivot? Eze’s performance will be such that Arteta must be thinking about ways in which he can unlock him and against a Wolves side sure to sit back into a low block, having the guy who is willing to take those pot shots to try to unlock something might be worth consideration.

As for Wolves, having looked like they might be on the comeback trail over the turn of the new year with a draw away at United and a 3-0 home win against West Ham, they’ve slipped back into defeat mode, so my hope for tomorrow is that the initial confidence that looked like it was sweeping through following the arrival of Rob Edwards, is now extinguished for tomorrow. They’ve picked up a point away at Forest in their last game, but before that it was a 3-1 defeat at home to Chelsea, which came before a 2-0 home defeat to Bournemouth. Before that it was a 2-0 away defeat at Man City, with the game before that being a 0-0 at home to a Newcastle side who have struggled a bit on the road this season (victory at the Scum aside). So it’s not exactly a massive swing in form and we have to use that to press down on the necks of them tomorrow evening. In their last game against Forest I think it is fair to say they got away with one a bit; Forest had 34 attempts at goal! There’s no Strand Larsson in their team any more, replacing him with Armstrong from Southampton, whilst they’ll have no Hwang through injury either.

Their fans are hardly optimistic either. I’ve just had a quick look on a Wolves Forum and not a single fan even predicted their team to score a goal, let alone win the match. The scorelines ranged from 0-2 to 0-4 and that tells you a lot about how they are feeling. You can understand why; they’ve scored 16 goals in 26 games, they have one win and six draws with 19 defeats, they’ve conceded 48 goals (nearly two per game on average) and they are looking like they will be going down within the coming weeks.

But all of that was true when we played them at The Emirates, and it didn’t stop us needing a stoppage-time winner to save our blushes. This is a difficult league, it is an unpredictable league; you never quite know what is going to happen once the first ball is kicked. Arteta should be stressing that to his players. I hope he is also stressing the importance of not wasting up a whole half. I’ll expand on it a little bit more tomorrow, but we need to be going for the jugular from the first minute tomorrow evening. No more walking pace first-half football, please, Arsenal. I don’t want to see Big Gabi and Big Bill Saliba exchanging passes whilst we rest defence our way through a first half. Get the job done early like you did against Wigan. Then you can start thinking about that nausea-inducing North London Derby on Saturday.

We’ll have some press conferences today, which we can have a look at tomorrow, but for now, I’ll leave you all be and be back tomorrow with more of a match preview once we know the team news. Catch you all then.

So I think I’ll unload a little more of my concern with that impending two Premier League games on the horizon that, I think, might have a massive say in how we’re going to see the remainder of this season unfold. There’s a few reasons why I think this:

Building momentum back up again

We talked about this last night on the Same Old Arsenal pod, but my concern from the Brentford game didn’t come from that game in isolation. Instead, it comes from our 2026 form so far, which has been patchy. Draws to Liverpool and Forest, a defeat to Man United, and some sluggish football at times until we scored the first goals against Leeds and Sunderland. We haven’t looked as imperious as we did around November time. The defensive lapses, the lack of a creative spark, the injuries – all seem to be compounding themselves. So if we can go to Wolves and put on a good display, then follow that by any kind of victory – good or otherwise against the Scum, then I think that will be a massive adrenaline shot in the arm for this team. Declan Rice sounded kind of okay after that Brentford draw, and Mikel Arteta seemed calm, too, but those players must surely know that now is the time to go on the run. And unlike in 2023/24 when we all saw things sort of clicking in front of our eyes around this time, I’m not really getting that vibe right now. That has to change.

More away games knocked down

By the time we’ve played the Scum, we’ll have 10 games left, with six home games and four away. That feels good. That those games include a North London Derby and a Brighton side that are always decent against us feels less splendid, which is why I think these next two away games feel massive for us. We have been good at home, you’d hope that we could win all of those home games. I think with 12 games to go, we probably need to win 10 of the 12 to pretty much secure it. Maybe we could get away with nine. If we win our six home games (fingers crossed), then you’re talking about three away wins needed. If we beat Wolves, then go to the Toilet Bowl and also somehow pick up a win there, I will be in a much better place than where my nerves are at the moment, because it will feel like we’re back on track and getting there. Win the next two Premier League away games, then you would say that West Ham away should be winnable and then you have to go to Brighton and get something. IF we do that, then even a defeat at the Etihad is fine if we keep up our good home form. I get it, lots of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, but at a time like this, I am trying to sanitise the emotional side by thinking about the practical elements of what we need to do and where we need to get our points.

Marker in a big game (NLD)

If City’s win at Anfield was the shot in the arm they needed to kick-start the run, the North London Derby could be the same for us. Don’t let The Scum’s terrible home form fool you, they will not play like the team who have been a shambles in front of their own fans all season. I am going to be super nervous ahead of this one, because this game feels like it has more riding on it than ever before at that horrendous Toilet Bowl of a stadium. They have a new guy in charge in Igor Tudor and when you look at what he’s tended to be pretty good at in Italy, it is breathing life into teams at this stage in the season. He can’t manage for any prolonged period of time, he falls out with owners and staff, he gets binned after he’s done an escape job when he first comes in, but he has been able to inject a bit of something into any team he’s joined. For the Scum, that ‘New Manager Bounce’ is needed more than anything and I really fear that. And I don’t think that will go away as we get closer to that match.

Their fans simply won’t stand for performances like Newcastle a few days ago. Those players know they basically need to leave everything out there next Sunday. We need to be ready for it.

If I’m thinking about a positive upside, it is that they are decimated with injuries right now. There’s no Romero because of his sending off, but they are also expected to be missing Odobert, Maddison, Kulusevski, Bentancur, Kudus, Davies, Bergvall, Udogie, Danso, plus they are sweating on the fitness of Richarlison and Porro. If both of those players are confirmed to be out…well…if they weren’t the Scum you’d sort of feel sorry for them. We’ve had our fair share of injuries this season, but that’s a decimation. One just hopes that we do actually step up with all of those injuries and we don’t get the old Neil Mellor syndrome that haunted us all those years ago.

Right, I think I’ll leave it there for today. Still got more work to do, so will get back on with my chores before I treat the missus to the football tomorrow.

Catch you then for a match preview.

I watched a few bits of the City versus Palace game (although I mainly watched the Tyne-Wear Derby) and from the 20 – 30 minutes that I saw, I didn’t see a City side that ‘blew away’ Palace. In the cold light of day and looking only at the result you’ll see that 3-0 victory and say they are looking imperious, but I saw a Palace side who couldn’t finish their dinner, perhaps because they’d played in Dublin on Thursday night. I didn’t watch any of the West Ham v Villa game, but I looked at the data and it looked to me like Unai Emery doing ‘Unai things’ and we’ve all seen that before as Arsenal fans; the 22-game unbeaten run in his first season was littered with alarm bells and whilst Villa have been on a superb run and you have to give them credit for it, you cannot sustain your form with scoring three goings from your four shots in a match. Football just doesn’t work like that.

That’s the problem I think I have with in particular some sections of the football media – the results-based analysis that exists these days. People look at the results on paper and make sweeping statements. I haven’t had a look at the media narratives this morning (and I probably won’t) but I suspect there will be some corners of the press who will now have them as favourites. But against Fulham, against Leeds, then again yesterday against Palace, this City side were hanging on. Conversely this weekend, Arsenal delivered their worst performance of the year against a terrible Wolves side and that has led to a little bit of fretting amongst some of us Gooners. For me though, I’ve been a little more sanguine yesterday evening as I reflected, because I don’t believe that what we saw on Saturday night is reflective of this Arsenal team.

Heck, the data tells us otherwise, as well as the eye test on how we have been through over 20+ games so far this season and given it is that time of year, why note quote a bit of Marley from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

My senses tell me that Saturday was a terrible day at the office. It tells me that although we’ve had back-to-back of those if you include Villa in the league, this isn’t the Arsenal that I usually expect, whilst also telling me that we have been patching this team together for the best part of a month – maybe even two – now as we try to get over a perpetual injury crisis. I alluded to that ‘bad day at the office’ vibe on our early morning Same Old Arsenal pod yesterday morning when we were talking about why it went wrong and although I saw a few articles (including one from Football365 which suggested it was certainly NOT hallmark of champions with what we did this weekend) that were chastising us, I am prepared to let this slide because I think we have seen a more accurate representation of The Arsenal this season and it doesn’t look like Saturday’s hot mess.

A ‘hot mess’, by the way, that resulted in us still winning and still sitting top of the league by two points.

I also think that the manner of the results this weekend have impacted some of the psyche of the Arsenal fanbase. Hypothetically speaking, imagine if we’d have scored our two goals early, dominated the game against Wolves, then conceded in the last second to make it closer than it was. I think most Arsenals would shrug, say “meh, three points is all that matter” and then even with the City result yesterday, it would be ‘move on’ and away we go. But because of the manner of how the game unfolded, coupled with the fact we came a-cropper late against Villa, I think there’s some results-based analysis (as well as timing of goals-based analysis) that is going on with some of us, forgetting how controlled we’ve been and forgetting that sometimes these types of results just happen. I remember a 0-0 draw at home to Fulham during the Invincibles season that was a bit like that. And we didn’t have the level of injuries we had that day.

Let’s remind ourselves here about who we have been missing from the weekend:

1. Gabriel
2. Mosquera
3. Havertz

We had Calafiori suspended and Arteta said that Saliba probably shouldn’t have done the 90. We lost Ben White who was clearly not fit to play but was wheeled out in the absence of others. That’s a waaaay better injury list than we’ve had, but it is still key players out. City meanwhile this weekend missed Rodri (big blow), Kovacic (squad player) and the perpetually injured (although again admittedly very god player) John Stones. They have had some injuries but are over them, we are just getting to the tail end of ours and Arteta has even spoken about how the lack of ability to rotate has caused us more problems.

A lot of what we have seen in recent weeks can possibly be put down to some of that I believe.

Villa were missing Martinez in goal yesterday, but aside from Mings and Barkley (another squad player) they’re in pretty decent health. They also played a pretty terrible West Ham away (I know, I know, Wolves, etc, etc – but I think Wolves away this weekend would have been easier than at home because they ain’t parking the bus against us on their own ground) and only just scraped by too.

I realise that so far this might all sound like an Arsenal fan clutching at straws and doing the whole “I’m not nervous, you’re nervous!” thing, but honestly I promise you, I don’t feel like that this morning. Now, if we are pants against Everton next weekend, or drop points at home to Brighton or Villa, then I will 100% start to probably have a little wobble. But as it stands, knowing that Arsenal and Arteta have a solid few days on the training ground from tomorrow to address some of the issues we’ve had, I am feeling pretty chipper and hopeful that we can tackle this Christmas period with Gusto and come out the other side of it in good shape. If we pick up three wins in a row in the Premier League, I think a lot of what a few people are feeling right now goes away.

So I’m calm, we have a week now to hopefully start having some drip-fed information about potential return of players, so let’s keep our fingers crossed for some of that before the build up to Everton away.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I spoke about Wolves’ form, about the problems they have, about the fact that they an injury to a key player and how defensively they don’t park the bus and play a higher line than you’d think. But unsurprisingly given the two positions in the league each side occupies, Wolves came to The Emirates with zero intention of playing the way they have been doing this season. And so the bus was parked and it was on Arsenal to put the keys in and drive it to one side.

Arteta made a few changes that surprised me personally; no reward for Madueke’s midweek heroics, no Odegaard from the start (which let’s face it Arteta NEVER does) and it was Hincapie at left back instead of MLS. What that message sends to Myles I don’t know, but whatever the line up and starting XI, this should have been a game won at a canter.

But it felt like a slog. A real grim one in that first half. Wolves shut it down with stoppages, niggly fouls drawn, the usual slow ‘keeper kicks and by halftime even though the stats sheet read that we’d had three big chances and six shots, I don’t really remember much to write home with. There was just too many players off it yesterday. Eze and Gyokeres were anonymous, Martinelli didn’t do very much and the back line were hardly tested. The only player who comes out of yesterday with major credit from the starting XI was Bukayo Saka, who once again looked the most lively and our biggest goal threat. It was his corner from which we scored from the goalkeeper knocking it in to his own net and at that point in which we’re one up against a team who struggles for goals, you’re just hoping that we can see the game out and say “not the best day at the office” and move on.

But Wolves suddenly started getting more of the ball. They were stringing passes together and conversely, we just weren’t. We looked edgy, nervous, more like the team who was low in confidence because they’d lost a bunch of games. And so inevitably the old Championship Manager 98 adage rang true – Wolves scored with basically their only shot. I am so glad that I don’t have to watch it on TV because that absolute twat ‘Fletch’ lapped it all up. You could hear it in his voice just as you could last weekend against Villa. He loved it. It was poor from Hincapie to lose his man though – that just doesn’t happen with Big Gabi and you can start to see just how much of a miss he is in this side. And it felt like the title was imploding in front of my very eyes. So when Gabriel Jesus had his impact just four minutes later, pandamonium set in. Of course ‘Fletch’ just showed his twatty colours; he was obliged to comment on it but then he just went silent. Absolute bell.

But we did the dirty late on just like we had it done to us against Villa and the points were secured. I think the impact Gabriel Jesus is already having is important and telling, but we should have never had needed to get to that desperate point in the first place. Afterwards Arteta was rightly raging, calling some of the play “horrible defensive habits” and it’s hard to disagree with him at all. We keep having to chop and change the back line and Arteta admitted that even Saliba probably shouldn’t have played 90, but White also limped off with a hammy in the first half and now we find ourselves with another injury we have to deal with. Perhaps you can argue that it was avoidable playing White in consecutive matches that he has, but we keep losing players every week and so as Arteta pointed out before this game this week, the players aren’t being given the opportunity for rest and rotation because of all these frigging injuries we keep picking up.

Defensively though I have to say I am getting a little bit worried. This is a team who went however many games without conceding earlier in the season, yet here we are finding ourselves conceding late goals, conceding set pieces, dropping defensive mistakes and given we aren’t a high-scoring, free-flowing football side, that is a worry because we do not look like we are going to keep out goals. Sunderland, Chelsea and Villa have all looked concerning and I’d imagine the work that Arteta wants to do on the training ground this week is looking at those “horrible defensive habits” and how he can counter them.

We should probably talk about Gyokeres and Eze. Neither worked in the slightest and the fact that Big Vik mustered a measly 0.04xG through one decent spin and shot in the second half just isn’t what you expect from a striker for the current best team in the league. He completed just three of a total of six passes in this whole match. Six. He was just a non-entity and with Gabriel Jesus looking busier and busier in this Arsenal team, you have to wonder how long it might be before the Swede loses his place to the Brazilian. I know we do need to feed him more, he needs to be played in when he’s making the runs and perhaps I didn’t see enough of it because i’d been on the beers all day, but I just didn’t see him do as many sprints as usual and it felt like he was so heavy-legged.

But Eze too just didn’t impact the game at all. He had 35 touches in total which is what you don’t want from your chief creative playmaker and I can’t really remember any incision  or cutting edge to his play. I don’t know whether it was an off day, or the fact that he doesn’t quite work in that right eight position, but it felt to me with the benefit of hindsight, that opting for even an Nwaneri if you want to rest Odegaard, would have been a better option.

Ultimately though what we need to fix on is three points. It’s a win and it means we start today off five points clear of City and a hope that Palace can maybe even pick up a point when they host City at 2pm today. Arteta gives the lads a couple of days off now, they can spend some time on the training ground and prep properly for Everton away.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some more thoughts and fallout from the weekend’s results. Speak then.

I also think that we might see Saliba too because although the boss was all “I don’t know, we have another training session” yesterday, he admitted that he will be fine for Everton and so I reckon Saliba is ok for tonight. Whether or not they decide to be 100% on him remains to be seen because, with all due respect to Wolves, it is in attack that you would expect we will be spending most of our time. So even if they also want to rest up Timber (which will bugger up my FPL team but there you go) for this evening so he can be fine for Everton away next weekend, it remains to be seen. We do have Norgaard who played admirably as a centre half in midweek and I think the guys on the Arsenal Vision Pod made a really good point that Wolves and Club Brugge are probably of the same level in terms of opponent difficulty. So if Arteta is happy to play Norgaard in that game, he may well be happy to do the same again.

Personally, I suspect we might see a line up like this though:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Hincapie   –   MLS

Zubimendi

Odegaard   –   Rice

Saka   –   Gyokeres   –   Eze

Here’s my thinking on the attacking side of it:

1. Odegaard is Arteta’s captain and when he is fit he plays
2. Saka got midweek rest and he’s another ‘first on the teamsheet’ kinda guy
3. Gyokeres needs more minutes and I think Arteta will want him in there tonight to get at least 70
4. Eze didn’t even get on the pitch and I think against what will invariably be a low block from Wolves, we have to have players who can dance their way around defenders.

On that last point, I suspect not getting on the pitch for Eze in midweek might also have a little something to do with his performance at Villa. He was ignominiously hooked at halftime for being asleep for the Cash goal and he had a bit of a stinker in Birmingham. If you let your foggin estandards drop then Arteta will let you know. So he saw zero minutes in the Champions League. But a home game against a team who will set up with a back five and holding midfielders and somebody like Martinelli just doesn’t really work. So I have a hunch it might be Eze asked to start from the left and drift in field to be involved centrally, as well as get shots off.

From Wolves’ perspective we got the good news that they will be missing Jean-Ricner Bellegarde through a hamstring injury. He’s been one of their best players this season and a key part of their midfield as an eight, so they will miss him, although Joao Gomes comes in from suspension, so he’ll slot back in to their midfield for sure. As I mentioned yesterday in the blog we know that Wolves will try to go long, they will try to get crosses in as their threat but we have to control everything tonight. Territory, possession, shots, the lot. This needs to be a game in which Arsenal have to show their quality. But there can’t be complacency. The longer it stays 0-0 the longer we’ll all get a bit antsy in the crowd of a smash and grab from the Black Country Boys – we’ve seen those over the years; one shot, one goal, but if Arsenal bag in the first half, the hope will be that the floodgates will open.

Wolves don’t usually park the bus, but I think they will today. I can’t see them sticking with their approach of trying to win tackles higher up the pitch and in some instances in the opposition half; if they try to do that they we will be able to cut through them so I think Rob Edwards will be pragmatic, he’ll stick his 11 men behind the ball and do a bit of “come on then – come and have a go” to us. Feels preordained that it will be the case today. So we need to find the answers, because if you want to win leagues then you have to find answers to every kind of opponent in every kind of way.

A lot of the pundits are obviously backing The Arsenal, but I’m with Lewis Jones from Sky Sports on this one. I don’t think this will be a battering – not in terms of the scoreline – because of the way Wolves might set up, but also because we always struggle to break down these types of teams. So I’d definitely plump for a 2-0 kind of score line. It’s the kind of score line you have seen us deliver already; we did it against Brentford, against Burnley, against West Ham, against Olympiajos, against Port Vale and against Athletic Bilbao. We get the first goal, we get the second goal, then that’s about it. And hey, I’d love that today because as bad as Wolves have been, they are still a Premier League outfit and they still have players on that pitch capable of causing an upset. Remember in 2020? They had themselves a victory during COVID and n February 2022 Hwang put them ahead on 10 minutes, only for us to come back in the last 10 minutes with goals from Pepe and an OG from Jose Sa. Hwang is still at Wolves and he’s still capable of magic, so we need to be mindful of that, because if we are complacent even Wolves can capitalise.

I’ll be there as usual and then tomorrow morning back on here for a debrief, as well as with Amanda and James for the Same Old Arsenal podcast. So until then, I’ll take my leave and wish you all the most happiest of Saturday’s, which of course can only happen if Arsenal win tonight.

Catch you tomorrow.

Wolves have picked up just two points this season, have scored eight goals in their 15 matches they’ve played, they’ve let in 33 and one look at one Wolves fans forum gives you and idea on what they think will happen – this prediction forum here has their fans saying it’ll be an Arsenal win with an aggregate score of 69 – 15 and an average rating of 5-0 Arsenal from 15 responses – not one thinking Wolves will win. They’re at the point where they are just happy when they score and that’s a bit sad really when the Gallow’s Humour kicks in.

You can see why – there aren’t many stats at all that are in favour of Wolves this season, albeit they aren’t comfortably the worst, so I don’t think we’re going to get the battering that many think we might dish out tomorrow. They’re in the bottom three for xG created and xG allowed, although they aren’t bottom of that one with West Ham and Burnley both delivering shockers in that regard. Weirdly too, they aren’t bottom of the shots on target faced either; Burnley take that crown with West Ham also ahead of them. Where they are rock bottom is their percentage of shots they save; which isn’t a stat a ‘keeper ever wants to see but it appears as though they don’t have a good time of it when teams get shots on target.

Their ‘keeper is a launcher of the ball from goal kicks and from a defensive point of view they top the league with the number of tackles they make in their own defensive third with 156 – no other Premier League team has to make as much. I read that stat and think that they might play in a low block, but weirdly, in terms of the average distance from their goal that Wolves make a defensive action (tackle, blocked shot, etc), it’s actually quite hjigh at 15 yards from their own goal. Arsenal are the highest with 18.6 because obviously opposition teams don’t get as close to our goal as much, so you’d think a low block team would have lower average distances (again, West Ham and Burnley are in the bottom two there), but Wolves are actually sixth in the league for average distance on defensive action. So, what does that mean? If I go amateur data nerd on you for a second (as I like to do), that tells me that Wolves are a team who play a higher line than you’d expect and that there might be some opportunities to get in behind tomorrow evening – I’d certainly hope so.

You’d also hope that defensively we’d be able to keep them quiet, because they have the lowest number of shots they’ve taken this season of any team, the lowest number of shots on target per 90 and the fifth highest distance that they’re taking their shots from at 17.4 yards. So this is a team that is struggling to penetrate opposition back lines up until this point and who don’t create many chances or shots at all. This will be a Wolves team that goes long as often as possible – they have the highest number of attempted long balls in the league – and this is a team who when the ball does go long it goes into the channels and they look to cross the ball in (they have the highest number of crosses into the penalty area of any team this season.

Arsenal will be aware of this, Arteta will be aware of this, they need to be ready for this and they need to be in the mindset of scoring early because if we do (and I’ll do more of a match preview tomorrow), then I think this game could run up a few goals.

But football is weird and even though there won’t be too many brave men betting on Wolves winning at The Emirates tomorrow night, I still feel like we need to be wary of any threat or potential banana-skin. You only need to look back a couple of weeks to see how Villa nearly came a-cropper; Wolves looked good, scored a good goal that was ruled out, forced Martinez into some great saves (including tipping one onto the bar) and Villa had to rely on a wonder strike from the edge of the box to seal the win. We know what good form Villa are in so for Wolves to give them the type of game they did, should serve as ample warning for Arteta and his coaching staff.

But if you want to win league titles then you have to win your home games like tomorrow, so Arsenal have a job to do and that’s what Arteta will be telling those players in training today.

More on how Arsenal will line up tomorrow, as well as any interesting titbits from the press conference today but for now, I hope you have a great Friday and I’ll be back tomorrow with more pre-match thoughts.

Congratulations to VAR. A few weeks back we saw the Brighton player Estupinan get away with the most reckless challenge you’ll ever see a few weeks ago. It endangered and opponent and could have caused serious injury to Max Kilman of West Ham. But nobody on VAR decided to do anything. Yesterday there was an opportunity for Darren England to call Michael Oliver to the screen, or to have a word in his ear and say “you might want to just have another look at that” on the monitor. But instead you decided to just ‘back your mate’. Because that’s what VAR does. It doesn’t bring true impartiality in to the game. It doesn’t afford an opportunity for referees to admit that they are human. It is used merely as a rubber-stamping exercise to validate a peer. We’ve already heard from Mike Dean last year about how he didn’t want to go against an Anthony Taylor decision because his mate had had a tough game. Here is what he said:

“I said to Anthony afterwards: ‘I just didn’t want to send you to the screen after what has gone on in the game.’ I didn’t want to send him up because he is a mate as well as a referee and I think I didn’t want to send him up because I didn’t want any more grief than he already had.”

So we have a man who worked on VAR admitting that they make these kind of calls with the knowledge that they want to help friends out rather than apply the laws of the game.

Congratulations to PGMOL. You have manufactured this ludicrous situation. You and Howard Webb, who want to make it all about you, about putting yourselves in the centre of the spectacle, have exactly what you want. And the fans and everyone who watches football suffers. Last season we got “He doesn’t want to ruin the game” from Howard Webb, as a defence of his ‘top’ referee . Please show me that same rhetoric this coming week, Howard, I beg you, because you will just once again underline how broken the institution you head up is. This happens on a weekly basis and instead of addressing the problems, we get gaslit by PGMOL-favoured media like Dale Johnson and his absolutely mental ‘takes’ on VAR that are essentially designed to exonerate poor calls.

Congratulations to the Arsenal players. You stepped up lads. After the red card in that first half I thought I was going to be in for an absolutely horrible time. I thought that second half would be a ‘backs to the wall’ 45 minutes of us clinging on for a 0-0 draw, which wouldn’t have been enough anyway, because Liverpool were trouncing Ipswich. What I didn’t expect from that second half performance was a team who would come out and use the clear injustice dished out by Oliver to their advantage. Those Arsenal players were everywhere. They dominated the ball, they created chances, they pinned Wolves back and were absolutely magnificent. We can all be very proud today as Arsenal fans, because they represented the shirt brilliantly and whilst the bulk of today’s analysis will be focused on refereeing, we should not forget the absolute shift those Arsenal players put in.

Congratulations to Mikel Arteta. Whatever you said at halftime worked. We were already on top of Wolves before the red card, but we didn’t quite seem to have that killer touch. Thankfully the introduction – your introduction – of Calafiori, was the right call. It was the right call from a defensive point of view, but it was also the right call at the other end of the pitch, because his finish was good enough to find the net and I don’t think I have shouted that loudly on my sofa for years. It felt like a pocket of justice had been given back to us and with Wolves already down to ten men as well (that Gomes ‘challenge’ was worse than Lewis-Skelly’s, by the way, but only warranted a second yellow), we knew these players had enough to see out the game against a Wolves side who created a couple of chances and forced Raya in to a couple of good saves. It was a tough game for the lads, there were some knackered bodies out there by full time, but every single one of them did an amazing job and Mikel Arteta’s half time team talk must have inspired them.

Congratulations to all and to all a good night.

I’ll be on the Same Old Arsenal pod at 9.30am this morning – join us live or catch up afterwards here.

I hate it when everyone is unanimous. Because it never ends up that way.

Wolves do ship goals though. They’ve conceded 51 this season in 22 games – that’s an average of 2.3 goals conceded per game and is the worst in the league behind Southampton. They have a defence that could get them relegated, were it not for an attack which clearly props them up from being in the bottom three, for as much as Wolves concede goals, they do bag more than their league position suggests. IN goals scored in the league they are 12th and have scored more than West Ham, Man  United, Palace, Leicester, Ipswich, Everton and Southampton. They’ve scored 32 goals this season and given all the transfer chatter has been around Mattehus Cunha this last week, you all know where I’m going with the next paragraph.

He is their big danger man. He’s scored 10 goals from the wide left position this season and accounts for a third of the goals Wolves have scored this season. Strand Larsen is next with seven and so those two between them will be our biggest defensive headache today. Cunha will be the dribbler, the man who wants to run at us with the ball at his feet and he’ll test the likes of Timber and hopefully Saliba if he’s fit. Strand Larsen will be their big, physical, six foot three inches centre forward who will hold up play, look to bring others in, wait for those balls in to the box so he can compete with the likes of Gabriel and possibly Saliba.

If Saliba isn’t fit, then I’d stick with Kiwior at right centre half for this game; it’s not ideal, he does have at least one mistake in him every game, but in the main against Zagreb he performed well other than his error which ended up not leading to anything. There’s an option for Calafiori to come in and play centre half, but I guess it depends how ready he is. I read somewhere that on Tuesday before the Zagreb game he’d only had about 20 minutes training, so he’ll have only have had another two days training before today’s game and given his injuries this season, I suspect Arteta will be cautious.

So I think the back line will look similar to Wednesday night, with the possibility of MLS coming in for Zinchenko if he’s passed fit. In midfield Rice was on fire in midweek so I think he starts, but I also think Partey will play in at six, so it’ll be Partey, Rice and Odegaard I’d wager. Then up top I think the first choice front three will be given the nod. Well, the most available first choice front three – Trossard, Martinelli and Havertz up top. The benefit of the game being so comfortable was that Kai was able to come off on 74 minutes and so too did Zinchenko for KT, so even if MLS isn’t fully fit we can still play the Ukrainian at left back, because I think we’re going to be spending more time in Wolves half this afternoon. They will pose threat on the counter and on that left hand side they will encourage Semedo to get forward and support Sarabia, but their approach will be long ball football and so you’d hope that Gabriel will be mopping up if the ball transitions and Zinchenko is further up the pitch.

Wolves give away a fair few fouls, so we should expect a physical game today, but what I like about this Arsenal squad is that we aren’t afraid to match up physicality with physicality. Rice, Partey, Kai, Gabriel, hopefully Saliba, Timber – these are all guys that love a battle and a duel and tyhat’s what I want us to show to a Wolves side whose last win in the league came on Boxing Day against a Man United side down to ten men after Fernandes was sent off in the beginning of the second half. Even down to ten men United still had the same amount of possession and more shots than the hosts. I watched the highlights from the goal and the first one Wolves scored was a shocker – Cunha scoring from a corner and Onana all over the place. The second one was in stoppage time and a lump up field as United had sent everyone up in search for the equaliser, so it was a bit of a tap in. I spoke to a Chelsea fan at work yesterday about Wolves and he seemed to think they were very open defensively and gave Chelsea a lot of chances – we have to hope that they give us plenty of opportunities and are also as open as they looked. I just watched the game and the scorers of the first two goals were unlikely – Tosin and Cucurella. Madueke got the third and interestingly, it looked like it was all from set piece positions, so whether that plays in to our hands or not, we’ll have to see.

In the context of the season and any dwindling hopes of a league title attempt though, this is a ‘non-negotiable’ win. Liverpool will be hammering Ipswich at home this weekend, so anything other than a win and it absolutely will be all over for any title hopes. So we need to be at it, at them, up for it and take our chances. The beginning of the month saw us profligate, unlucky (teams scoring with basically their only chances), but there’s been some green shoots that we are taking our chances, so I am hopeful that today we can do what is required and get over the line.

Let’s hope we’ve got enough for the three points. I’ll be back with Amanda and James tomorrow morning to talk through the game on the Same Old Arsenal podcast, so if you fancy joining us, we’ll be there from about 9.30am UK time here.

The excitement was there, the expectation was there, it was a beautifully sunny day in North London and The Arsenal were back. I made my way to the Highbury area with some hope and expectation of good times, but football is an unpredictable mistress; you never know when you might come-a-cropper and so whilst most people thought it would be an Arsenal win, to rule Wolves out completely would be a naive assumption.

Arteta named the first XI for the season and I think for 90% of the team it was as most of us had thought: Raya in goal, a back four of White, Saliba, Gabriel and Zinchenko, Partey anchoring the midfield (obviously focusing on ball progression above anything else), with Rice and Odegaard in front of him, although Rice naturally dropped back alongside the Ghanaian when we needed a little more cover (which wasn’t that often, to be fair). Up top Havertz played centrally and Saka was never not going to play wide right. But Martinelli’s inclusion raised a few eyebrows I think. The good thing about this Arsenal team is that we have so many options that it doesn’t surprise people too much though. Martinelli did well enough in the last couple of pre season matches so it was a close call between him and Trossard, but Leandro’s form at the end of last season had me thinking that he might get the nod.

Instead it was the Brazilian and clearly the thinking from Arteta was that he wanted somebody with pace who could run at their full back. The challenge was that Wolves knew they would be up against it and as a result they sat a little deeper, were compact enough to frustrate us in the first half and I thought it might be ‘one of those days’ until we got that first goal. Thankfully we didn’t have to worry about that for too long, because on 25 minutes up stepped Kai to nod home a very good header after a Bukayo Saka cross in to the box. Up until that point we’d seen a few pot-shots, but Jose Sa had seemed equal to them, but there was nothing he could go about the bullet header and it was good to see the German continue the good form of last season that had him bagging plenty in the run in as we fought for that 2024 Premier League crown.

And from then on I personally felt a little more comfortable. We dominated possession, we looked comfortable knocking the ball around, we had Wolves at arms-length. Sure, they fashioned a few chances and for one in particular David Raya needed a firm hand to keep out their new number nine signing, but overall in that first half it felt like we had this game locked down.

The second half was never going to be the same though. Gary O’Neill is no mug and he will have had a few more words to say to his team, which will most likely have been centred around how passive they were. But in the second half they came out and had a little more too them. There was a bit more ball in our half and Wolves – whilst they didn’t really create too many chances, were at least looking a little more ambitious. But even with a little more territory, you always felt that Arsenal could turn it up a gear and one more goal would be all we would need to close this game out.

We had to wait though. Because it was only on 74 minutes with Saka’s fine strike that we got that all-important second to make sure the last 15 minutes feel a littlwe more secure. It felt like a bit of a trademark Saka finish too; a cut inside so he could hit it with his left foot, but a shot to the near post that has the ‘keeper wrong-footed, which is exactly what Jose Sa felt as the ball hit the back of the net.

2-0, job done, three points, so that now we look at our ‘death run’ for the next six weeks with at least something on the board. Three years ago we kicked off the season with three really hard games after what was expected to be a relatively comfy one away to newly promoted Brentford. Defeat that day and subsequent defeats had us bottom of the league and the ‘banter’ coming out from the media and rival fans. But this time around we are a different beast and there was to be no ‘banter narrative’ ahead of what will surely be a season-defining next few weeks, so early in this campaign.

We’re up and running, we played some decent – if not mesmerising – football and as Arsenal fans I don’t think any of us are complaining.

Now the attention turns to Villa next weekend. I watched their game on the way home and then in the garden with my West Ham-supporting brother and nephew. They rode their luck at times against West Ham yesterday but I suspect they will try to do what they did to us last season and hit us hard and fast early. We need to be ready for it.

That’ll do me for today I think. Gonna be a hot one again today to it’ll be paddling pool and then some hope that Chelsea can give City a scare. I doubt it though.

Catch you wonderful humans tomorrow. If you fancy it we’re doing a Same Old Arsenal podcast at 9.30am this morning, so come and say hello in the comments.

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

And I find myself thinking “why?”

There’s a multitude of reasons.

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

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

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Zinchenko

Partey

Odegaard   –   Rice

Saka   –   Havertz   –   Trossard

The bench could then include:

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s foggin’ go guys!

But that’s what you get when you want to be in the latter stages of competitions and when you are one of the top elite teams. I don’t remember them complaining as much about it previously, so maybe the stresses of having tough opponents and things not going their way is catching up with them?

Who knows. All I do know is that after we did our job on Saturday night, yesterday it was the job of others for which we could take the pleasure in, which comes chiefly through laughing at other teams. And I certainly had to laugh at Man United scraping through against Coventry. Being three goals up with around 20 to play in the second half should mean a simple procession to the final, but I was listening to Man United fans on the radio yesterday as I drove down from seeing a friend in Doncaster and there were a fair few saying “we WILL concede”. Such is their leaky defence, that truth outed and I managed to catch the dying embers of extra time as I managed to walk in to a pub in London to see VAR was ruling out the Coventry fourth goal. That would have been funny, but it wasn’t to be and now Man United can go to the final and lose to City.

Hopefully by then City are playing for their only trophy of the season but I still suspect that it won’t be. I have hope that it won’t be but we are inching closer and closer to the most ultimate of crunch times.

33 games played for Arsenal and 74 points. Liverpool played yesterday and we had about eight minutes of hope that Fulham would do something and play like they did against us, but perhaps they are on the beach a little bit having already accumulated 42 points and so the urgency isn’t quite there. I only hope that on Thursday Brighton don’t have the mindset, which I think might be a stretch because I think at this stage it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to creep in to the European qualification spaces this season. That only falls to seventh and at the moment that’s Man United on 50 points. Brighton are on 44 so that’s a six point swing and although West Ham lost to give them a chance, there are Chelsea above them and with a game in hand. We have to hope that if we can beat Chelsea it might give them hope, but in reality I suspect that Brighton won’t have enough for a City team who we are holding out hope will drop points somewhere.

From an Arsenal perspective there hasn’t been a ton of additional stuff that has come out in the last 24 hours (other than the Arsenal women winning 3-0 which was good and had another pretty full, but given there are only three games left and Chelsea are six points clear, I suspect Arsenal are going to finish third this season), probably because the players just got on the bus post Wolves, headed straight home and spent yesterday with a day off resting. I suspect they’ll be back in training today and whilst we often all joke about how it’s pointless asking Arteta about team news, he will literally have had bare any time with them today to assess what the full availability and fatigue levels of some players are right now. It will be a case of patching them up and sending them out against a Chelsea team who I’d have loved to have held on and played 120 minutes on Saturday, but sadly it was not mean to be.

I touched on it a bit yesterday but I do wonder what their mentality and levels will be like as well. That was pretty much their best chance of silverware this season gone and having seen pockets of that game and the chances they created, I wonder how that dressing room will have felt after getting a fair few opportunities from a tired City side. We will be tired too, but as opposed to the City FA Cup game on Saturday in which Chelsea had five days to prepare, they will have had roughly the same amount of time as us to prepare and so I wonder how Poch might shuffle his deck – if at all – for a trip to The Emirates. Arteta will no doubt be asked the fatigue question too, as well as how much he might need to rotate, which I suspect he’ll be reluctant as always to give any answers to, but I do think that he’ll have to rotate in some respect tomorrow evening. Who that might be and how that might be remains to be seen, but I suspect it’ll be at the sharp end of the pitch rather than in defence too much. More on that tomorrow.

For today I think I’ll call time on the Monday musings. Amanda did a morning pod with GeoffArsenal yesterday to digest the game on Saturday evening, so if you want to have a listen you can do so here.

Back tomorrow with a look at Chelsea and how we might line up. See you then.

So much of yesterday’s game felt like there were some psychological demons that needed to be slain and as the team was confirmed an hour beforehand, it was clear that Arteta knew that he needed to change things up a bit.

In came Kiwior, Trossard and Jesus, Havertz dropped in to the left eight position and Jesus started up top again, with hope that we would be a little more effective than this team was against Villa last week. And we started brightly. We moved the ball well, with purpose, we started to create some chances and it felt like the team were getting over any potential nerves minute by minute. Wolves had played a couple of debutants and you could tell that there was an eagerness about them that we would need to be mindful of, but the hope would also be that we’d have a referee who would also manage properly in case things went over the line.

Sadly in Paul Tierney we got no such luck and I thought he was appalling yesterday. There were two really nasty, late, reckless challenges by Wolves players on Arsenal players’ ankles which probably should have seen red, but there was also a reckless high boot on Gabriel Jesus which was so obviously at least a card, but Tierney did nothing to punish other than a free kick. Honestly I feared that one of our players was going to go down with something and I just hope he doesn’t referee another game this season for us, because it was terrible.

But Arsenal kept plugging away. I thought Kiwior was a little shaky in the first half but he grew in to the game in the second, but it was on his side that we got our biggest scare of the game as Gomes wrestled clear of him and forced Raya in to an excellent save that he tipped on to the post. It was a brilliant stop from the Spaniard and I for one was pleased for him; I’ve said on here and the Same Old Arsenal pod (Amanda is recording this morning with a couple of guests here if you fancy tuning in) a couple of times that he hasn’t had many of those moments where you say “great save” with him but that one yesterday definitely goes down as one of those moments.

And that was pretty much all Wolves were restricted to yesterday, as our defence proved that they have overcome their little blip and were once again superb in completely shutting down Wolves with another clean sheet. By the end of the game we’d limited them to just three shots on target, an xG of 0.17 (so the quality of their chances were really low), with a second half of just one on target. It was impressive stuff.

And when you have a defence who can deliver that kind of solidity, you always give yourself a chance of winning football matches, which is why when the deadlock was broken right on halftime it felt like a very big goal. Trossard’s finish was a little more ‘hit and hope’ than anything else, but it still counts and although the shot was skewed, they somehow feel better and more satisfying when they go in off the post. Hey, I don’t care, they all count however they come and you just feel like after two games in which we haven’t looked like scoring, we needed something to fall our way.

Arteta’s halftime team talk was therefore a little easier but the message would have been clear: stay in shape, structure, see if you can get a second but above all don’t give Wolves any chances at the back.

And we didn’t.

It’s easier to say when you know the score and have hindsight on your side, but we were brilliant in that second half. We controlled the game, limited Wolves to scraps and created a few chances of our own. You could tell that the team was a little tense and in real time that second half felt very nervy, but we kept chipping away and Ødegaard’s second deep in to injury time felt deserved. It was good move by Rice to delay and delay the pass to Havertz after a turnover in the middle of the park, then it was a perfectly timed slide pass from Havertz to put Ødegaard in on the right. His cut back may have been blocked and the fact it fell to him again may have had a touch of fortune about it, but I thought that his composure to slot in was brilliant.

Declan Rice was also brilliant yesterday. How and where he gets his energy levels from I have no idea, but that kid is an absolute machine and we are so very lucky to have him. He’s a big part of why we are sitting top of the league today and a big part of the many shut outs we’ve had this season with our defensive numbers.

Three points secured, more nerves shredded, more to come. But this win ensures we’re still in it. There will be little time for rest and recovery and Arteta will already be thinking about how he manages his side from a rotation point of view given that we play Chelsea on Tuesday, but this win feels like a good platform to have The Emirates rocking for a night game, for sure.

I’ll be there on Tuesday, chewing my fingernails down to their stubby core, but with Chelsea suffering the ignominy of late defeat to City having played their best possible side, the hope is that we can deal another blow to them and keep our title chances alive once more. I hope that being knocked out at Wembley has them as down as possible And there’ll be more thoughts on that tomorrow and Tuesday.

Until then have a good one and I’ll catch you later.

Who is best placed to start tonight?

For me I do wonder how much rotation he will actually do. Has he said to his players “six games, just give me your all and we’re done” or has he realised that in the last two matches we’ve faded in the second half and so he needs to find a solution to that. That doesn’t have to be to completely rotate the team – and I don’t think he will – but perhaps he knows that some players should only be giving about 60 minutes before he makes some changes. The problem we have is that when he’s made subs in the last couple of games we’ve looked a little disjointed, so in terms of turning games around when it isn’t going our way, it hasn’t really worked. So I have a feeling that the team will have a similar feel to it to the side that has played in midweek. If I was forced with a gun to my head to pick an expected line up, i’d go for:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Zinchenko

Rice

Odegaard   –   Havertz

Saka   –   Jesus   –   Martinelli

Tomiyasu is, I don’t think, going to be able to make two starts in a week given that he has not played very much recently. I know Zinchenko isn’t really in great form, but I still think that the choice is between him and Kiwior and it feels like Arteta has slotted back in to the mindset of Kiwior as the third choice back up (fourth if Timber is fit) and so I suspect Zinchenko gets the nod. I’m also applying the same logic for Jorginho too, given he played against Munich from the start. I think most of us agree that Havertz in left eight isn’t ideal and that we look a bit better when he’s up top, but I don’t know who else would slot in there if you do that. Arteta doesn’t seem to fancy ESR or Fabio Vieira and he’s not giving Partey minutes either; Partey fully fit would be my choice but I just don’t see it. Then I’ve gone with Martinelli and Jesus up top because of their relationship, but also because Jesus didn’t start against Bayern and so hopefully he’s able to get more minutes in today.

And it feels like this team needs to score first. I talked about it yesterday in terms of when Wolves score and concede, but that consideration aside, it just feels like we need to get our noses in front rather than chase a game. We haven’t looked like scoring in second halves recently and I think a lot of that is down to fatigue.  So we need to get ahead in that first half and then hopefully the last two “excellent” training sessions that Arteta mentioned in his presser have been spent on not giving away silly goals.

As Arteta said in his presser though, the key has to be responding tonight. The team shouldn’t need any more motivation from going top and if we can overcome what I still think will be a really tough game, despite Gary O’Neill talking like he wants to rotate for this one given they have three matches in a week. I wouldn’t say that it sounded like Arteta came out fighting, as he seemed quite calm when chatting to the media, but it was interesting to see how he spoke about how football is constantly testing your ego, that one minute you’re up and then you’re down. That old Arsene comment of going up in the stairs and down in the lift rings true; it is a lot harder to build up momentum and belief on the back of back-to-back defeats, but that is the challenge in front of this Arsenal team and they simply must respond today. The competitors we are up against – as he mentioned – are such that they are the best the league has ever seen and to finish above them feels like it is an almost impossible task. The level of consistency they show across multiple positions is staggering and if you just look at how City are continuing to win matches, to fight and fight and fight across multiple fronts and still come out on top (they have Chelsea today at 5.15pm and I really hope that goes to extra time!!) is quite crazy really. He made a really good point about Bayern’s schedule too, because he spoke about how they rested ten players ahead of the first leg, then nine players for their game before the midweek second leg, then they also had extra days to prepare for their game (one extra for the first leg and one extra for the second leg where we played Villa on the Sunday and they played on the Saturday), it does make you think that perhaps the Premier League could be helping out the English clubs with some unofficial rules about matches played ahead of these games. It’ll never happen, but when other countries do it to give their teams the best possible chances, it does seem silly that we don’t give it a try in England. But as Arteta said “it is the reality” and we have to live with that.

But the opponents we’re up against are also so much harder than any other league in the world. We are up against the best teams that have ever been in the competition, which is the ‘estandards’ that have been set and that is what Mikel will be drilling in to the lads as they make their way up to the Midlands for this tough evening fixture. You have to go and go and go again. And then when you’ve done that, you have to be ready to go again and again. This isn’t just elite sport, this is hyper-elite sport and the margin for error is basically zero.

But that’s the challenge before us. Wolves have a really good record at home. They’ve beaten Chelsea, Man City, as well as The Scum, had a draw against Villa whilst down to ten men, so they’ve taken a few scalps. So they’ll fancy another one today and we need to be ready for them to hit us on the counter.

Fingers crossed we get a performance that will have us back to believing we can take this title to the end. We have to win tonight to even contemplate thinking about that happening though.

Catch you all tomorrow with some post-match thoughts. Might be a little later than usual as I’m travelling back in the morning from seeing some friends in the North East.

Have a good’un peeps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a good one.

I’m obviously down this morning, I wanted us to progress to the semi final and especially now that I know we’d have played Real Madrid and not Man City given they got knocked out, but I’m not as downbeat as I was post Villa, oddly enough. I think that’s because the Villa game came as a real gut punch, whereas this was a Bayern team with bags of experience, pedigree in this competition, a side who are usually perennial winners domestically and a team with which we have a not great history against. So my expectations were a little lower than the game at home to Villa. I think also we got an indication as to the fine margins in the first leg against them at The Emirates. We were the better team on the night but we let defensive lapses give Bayern a sniff and they took it. And that’s what happened last night too.

It was an odd game for me personally to absorb. Arteta mixed things up a bit and I think most of us were happy with the line up, with Tomiyasu coming in at left back, Jorginho back in to midfield and Havertz once again being at the top of the pitch. And we moved the ball around well. In the first half we controlled most of the possession, Bayern were content to let us have it, then they kept their shape and limited us to just a few chances. They were well aware of Saka’s threat so they doubled up on him at times and I’m not going to bag on him and say he played poorly, I just thought he barely got a sniff. That’s understandable given the threat he offered in the first leg and Bayern were acutely aware of his threat, so they snuffed him out.

But we couldn’t really get the ball to our wide forwards quick enough, I didn’t think, such was the set up Bayern had. They wanted to contain us and hit us on the counter and once again they created a couple of good chances in that first half. But as we went in at halftime I was pretty fine with how we’d played. It was a cagey game, we’d kept Bayern at arms length and apart from once or twice in which Sane got behind Tomiyasu – who I thought coped much better than Kiwior did last week against Bayern – I thought we were in good shape.

But in similar fashion to the game at the weekend, this Arsenal team faded in the second half and it’s hard not to look at fatigue for this team as a factor right now, especially with some of the stats and introspection going on amongst us Arsenal fans as to why we keep fading each season. Here’s an interesting graphic that my old mate Danny from the Bergkamp Wonderland podcast put up last night:

Around game 41, three out of the last four seasons our team falls apart, runs out of ideas, all looked fucked

Because Arteta has his fav’s, he doesnt trust the others, the gamble signings havent worked out

This is not a coincidence pic.twitter.com/iHj42o2JDI

— Danny (@The_GFP) April 17, 2024

Obviously Dan is reacting in the heat of the moment and like me he was disappointed and frustrated, but there might be something to be said about the fact that we haven’t really introduced enough rotation in to the team in 2024.

There’s also this from Sam Dean:

Just like the previous two years, Arteta has largely stuck with the same core group of players this season. And just like the previous two years, Arsenal have faded in April.

He either needs more top options or more faith in the fringe players he’s got.https://t.co/0eu4gdcIxk pic.twitter.com/8wbXLwamM4

— Sam Dean (@SamJDean) April 18, 2024

It was all going fine when we were playing once a week, but we all knew that April was going to be tough. I’m not suggesting you drop the likes of Odegaard, Saka, etc for this game, but were there other games we’ve had in which those players could have come off on 60 or 70 minutes? We don’t know the ins and out’s of player fitness, but Thomas Partey has been in training a while now and he’s only been given token minutes. Should we have been building up his fitness with more minutes so that he would be more match fit by now?

I don’t know. I don’t feel like bagging on Arteta or his approach today, because we’re all down, I’m just trying to find reasons as to why we’ve faded so badly in the last few matches in the second half. Having been romping to goals and results just a few short months ago, it feels like we’re back to really having to work hard for each goal and they just aren’t coming. And as a fan you naturally start to wonder what else we could be doing? Is it getting somebody else in to play in certain positions up top? Do we need to just stick with what was working a few months ago? Or should we try something else, like Trossard in a false nine? I don’t have the answers, I’m just a fan, but all I know is that I have a bit of a worry now about how we will play against Wolves at the weekend. I am praying that there is no psychological lasting damage that has been done to the team from these back-to-back defeats. A loss, or even a draw at the weekend and it’s going to feel like last season; the end of the season and a bit of an unravelling going on.

Arteta has to get them on the plane, get them back in to training tomorrow for a debrief, then he has to quickly reset them because we are still not out of the title discussion yet, even though it feels like it’s hanging on a bit of knife edge.

I’m going to stop at this point I think. Be back tomorrow with a look ahead as we start to count down to another massive game and what will be a really tough one away to Wolves.

See you tomorrow.

We did indeed get just that in the sun of North London yesterday. Wolves were on the beach, for sure, but Arsenal still had to show there was fight and drive and we got that in abundance. And who better to kick us off for the day than the man who is on his way after 297 appearances for The Arsenal, 23 goals and 29 assists. Granit Xhaka nodding in the first goal to get us on the way felt like a fitting end, then bagging a second just three minutes later was just the tonic the home faithful needed. Less than 15 minutes gone and in truth the game was pretty much over. Wolves don’t score goals, they’ve struggled all season and they weren’t coming back from being two behind. So it just came down to how much of an example did Arsenal want to set.

We weren’t in the mood to be charitable. The passing for the third goal was brilliant and the finish from Saka was sublime. Not even 30 minutes on the clock and I feel like we all knew inside the stadium that a rout was coming. We created a couple more chances in that first half, then went in at the break knowing it was just a case of ‘how many more?’.

Two more, was the answer, although we had one disallowed which I think was harsh, but Trossard’s excellent drop of the shoulder and peach of a cross for Gabriel Jesus to head in was welcome and with still 30 minutes left to play we were making life easy for the home supporters. All that we had to worry about inside the stadium was which song we were going to chant next.

There was time for Kiwior to bag a fifth and his first goal for The Arsenal, which was nice, but the game petered out and Arteta made a few subs that felt like “get out there and run around a bit” subs in bringing on Smith Rowe, Nketiah and Tierney. I suspect that it might have been the last game for at least one, possibly two, of those players.

The final whistle went, the fans chanted and appreciated the players, as the season drew to a close. It wasn’t the one we wanted and had dreamed of, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and Arsenal finish – by some distance – the second best team in the league. We have the second youngest team, we scored the second most goals in the league, we had the second best goal difference and ultimately, we couldn’t compete against the juggernaut that is Man City. A Man City who only ended up finishing five points clear of us in the end, having lost to Brentford yesterday. I know that they took their foot off the gas for the final two games, but those two teams they played in Brighton and Brentford are good sides and if we’d have picked up the points in some of those games like West Ham away, Southampton away, Forest away and Brighton at home, I think we’d have forced them to go right to the end and maybe they’d have slipped up.

Afterwards Arteta talked about how he needs to go away, have a refresh and a reset, coming back ready for next season and I think he’ll be ruminating over that end of season fall that we had. He’ll be acutely aware that if we’re fortunate enough to be in the same position in March and April next season, we’ll need to avoid having the same injury and form problems if we want to make that next step forward, which is arguably the hardest.

But I believe in him and his ability to get us there. He is relentless and he will be picking the brains of his team and thinking hard himself about how he goes about assembling a squad capable of winning the league; it needs to have more depth and I think he’ll know that. I also think he’ll want to get going quickly as soon as possible in getting in some of those depth players. He and his players will now go away for a few weeks, get some time to relax, then I think he’ll be chomping at the bit to get his squad assembled quickly so he can start to set them up for the next season.

For now though, as we reflect on a very impressive season and one in which we scored an extra 27 goals compared to the season before, we won an extra six games, amassing an extra 15 points in the process and climbing three places to second to be runners up in the Premier League, we can see clear progress and can take that positivity in to the summer and pre season.

Up the Arsenal.

I’ll be on the Same Old Arsenal podcast this evening doing a season recap and reflection, before we go in to the summer with some ideas we’ve got around some shows we’re going to do that might give you guys some interesting things to talk about.

Have a good one folks and I’ll catch you all in the morrow.

Today’s game at home to Wolves may not be the procession and march to the title that we hoped, but it should be a festival of appreciation and I for one will be singing my heart out in thanks to this group of players. Then, when the dust has settled on the season, we go again. But this summer we will be looking ahead at the 2023/24 season with much more enthusiasm and hope than we’ve had for very many a year.

In terms of the team Arteta will play today, I think he’ll go as full strength as possible and that will mean Ramsdale in goal, White at right back, Kiwior and Gabriel at centre half and I think he’ll give Tierney his place back on the left. It will probably be a final farewell for KT and I think Arteta will grant that to him. In midfield there is a genuine question over whether it is Partey or Jorginho operating in the holding number six role and this is the one position I think there are the biggest questions over. Xhaka and Odegaard will play in the eights, then it’ll be Trossard, Gabriel Jesus and Saka up top, with maybe some minutes for Smith Rowe and Reiss Nelson at some stage in the game. But do you start Partey with the view that he’s the main man and maybe he can shake off his dreadful form of late? Or, because we will more than likely dominate the ball and spend a lot of the time in possession and needing control, do you give Jorginho the starting slot?

I’m kind of cool if either starts to be honest with you. This game has no real consequences for either team; Arsenal will finish second whatever, Wolves could drop down as low as 15th with a defeat, but in reality they won’t be too fussed about the difference between finishing 13th or finishing 15th, or if they win and Chelsea fail to win, maybe they’ll get as high as 12th. But regardless of what happens in other games, this one is about as dead rubbery as you can get.

Shall I tell you what I am looking for today? Renewed hope and excitement for next season. We’ll be in the new kit for 2023/24 and I want it to symbolise the planning and the mentality that we are already looking at next season and how we can improve. When we ceded the title to United in 2003 after being beaten by Leeds at Elland Road, there was a mindset shift that the team ‘go again’ and we prove everyone wrong about us, so we played Southampton at home and instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we absolutely battered Southampton 6-1, with goals from Pires and Pennant – a couple of hat tricks. That was the beginning of the 49-game run and it showed the mentality of that Arsenal side; on to the next one and let’s just do better than this season. And they did the following season, 19 seasons ago in 2003/4. That’s what I want to see from today. I want today to feel like the start of something special brewing for next season and if those players can put on a display as a taster for what we might get next season, then that’ll send us all off home very happy.

There’s not really a lot of point going in to details about Wolves or the tactical set up. They have scored the fewest goals all season and so you’d hope we’d be able to keep them out, but when Southampton came to the Emirates they were the worst team in the league with the worst number of ‘goals for’, yet we still shipped three against them. So I’m not going to sit here tapping at my keyboard and telling you that I expect this to be a cakewalk. I hope it is, but nothing is ever simple with The Arsenal, eh?

And I think I’ll leave it there for today. Time to grab the home kit, give it one last outing for this season, before heading to Islington for some brews with the lads.

Catch you all tomorrow.

On to proper football matters – and to Arteta’s presser ahead of the Wolves game tomorrow – and team news is that there has been a few problems in the camp with injuries apparently. Arteta said that Bukayo and Trossard have had little niggles, whilst Saliba and Zinchenko are out as we suspected. He also listed Tomiyasu and Elneny but it doesn’t look as though he mentioned Martinelli. I thought he was also out for the season but perhaps we have him back. I hope so. He’s been a great addition to our team and I’ve thought he’s been one of our shining stars; getting goals and assists and being a massive contributor to our season, so you want him to play that final game so we can see him off with a round of applause come the end of the match.

He was asked about Saliba and he was naturally cautious, but I suspect they’ll be earmarking pre season for him, which is good to hear. The better news is that it sounds like Tomi will be back for pre season. That’s great to hear. I’m sure I read somewhere that there was a fear that he could be out until November / December time, so to think that he might be able to get a proper pre season under his belt before we go again in August is brilliant news for him and us. If you recall I think he missed the first game of this season because he was recovering from injury and was being nursed back to health for the first few weeks. Ben White obviously stepped up and we saw just how great he was and Tomi never really got back in to the side with any kind of regularity, so you see how important availability is. He’s missed 12 games this season through injury and I’ve already talked about how the club might need to think about whether they need another full back to cover for him because his absence coupled with Saliba’s has had a massive impact on the final couple of months of the season for us. But that is for another day as we have the whole summer to speculate on squad composition.

For now, it is back to the presser and the game tomorrow and as you’d expect he said nice things about the Saka contract, as well as how he wanted us to finish this season in style. I agree. We need an Arsenal team that, despite its injuries, needs to give the fans a good send off. He talked about the connection with the fans and how we’re so close for the perfection that he wants, which is ultimately that dream of lifting a cup. I am going to say it again guys; we should have taking the Europa League more seriously. Sorry, I know I am probably in the minority here, but for me I like to play the percentages; I’m an ‘each way’ man on the Grand National as I like to hedge my bets and the Europa League would have been a brilliant fallback after defeat in the league. We would have beaten Juve, we are better than Sevilla and Roma are another team I’d have easily have fancied us to do over. Had we have had a Europa Cup to parade at the end of the season, I think some of the media nonsense in the narrative would have been very different. But that’s all done now and we have to move on.

I also liked what Arteta said when he was asked if there would be celebrations. He was quite straight with that response – nope. That’s what I want to hear. Be appreciative and talk to each other about the improved journey, but be very clear that this is not the end goal. The final destination is to be top of the pile and if this starts to fuel the hunger that helps to take us to the next level, then I am 100% on board with that.

Final point I want to make on the presser, which was Arteta talking about how last season it was important to get the deals done early in the transfer window to build the foundation of the side. I like this kind of talk; no more pontificating over a few extra mil over a player if it loses us precious weeks to get them embedded in to the team. Don’t get me wrong, if you take somebody like Declan Rice and West Ham ludicrously tell you they want £120million, you can’t just ‘pay up’, but there has to be a balance to be struck. When we signed Thomas Partey we waited all summer to trigger his release clause, but Atletico just weren’t budging on our other attempts, so we ended up paying what they wanted on deadline day. That deal could have just happened a month earlier and maybe he’d have had a better start to his Arsenal career? Lessons have been learned I think though, if last summer is anything to go by, so my hope is that we replicate that approach and get our deals done quickly.

There’s little point in talking about tactical set up or line up differences for the match tomorrow, because it is a dead rubber and that will probably be reflected in the game state. Of course we want Arsenal to win, but the motivation won’t be there for Wolves or the desperation won’t be there for us, so it feels moot to ponder over line up selections. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow ahead of the game but it won’t be based on any real urgency.

Anyhoo, I’m done for the day, so I’ll catch you sexy bitches all tomorrow.

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.

What we’ve got as a result of the 2-0 away win at Wolves yesterday, is some kind of mega Interlull situation; you know when the league shuts down for a weekend because of internationals and you don’t want to head in to that with the sour taste of defeat in your mouth? But conversely, if you win, you can do a little bit of basking? That’s where we’re at now. Arsenal sit top of the tree, five points clear of Man City (beaten by Brentford – thanks Ivan Toney!), which enables us to have the occasional glance at the table over the coming weeks and have a little smile to see this Arsenal side at the top having been the best team in the league so far this season. Yes, it is only 14 games and yes because of the World Cup it means that it is different to being top of the league in any normal season, but who cares? I don’t. And I’m seeing plenty of non-Arsenal fans giving it the ‘yeah buts’ this morning. I’ve seen people even say that every team we’ve played so far have been out of form when we played them, so we’ve been lucky. The Caveat Brigade are still going it seems, as yesterday we knocked down another opponent with a decidedly assured performance that ensured we were worthy winners against a Wolves team who have struggled all season. They have struggled to score goals all season and yesterday you could see why. We held them at arms length and were only occasionally troubled, but Wolves have played like that all season against 13 other teams, but I wonder if the same caveats applied against other opponents like Chelsea, Man City or Tottenham? I don’t remember reading much from people about “yeah but it’s only Wolves” then, so why does that apply now?

Because some people are still struggling to rectify in their minds that this Arsenal side have, so far been this season, quite good. Really good actually. And yesterday we showed that with a performance that was controlled pretty much from start to finish. Wolves set up in a low block, with a back five most of the time, looking to hit us on the counter. They looked to swing balls in behind Zinchenko pretty early on in the game as he took up his usual advanced and central position and it was clear a game plan to try to catch us on the counter because they knew that we would have most of the ball. And ultimately it didn’t work because we kept another clean sheet through a back line that, with every week, I am becoming more and more calm about when they play together. We’ve switched it around a bit in left back this season, but that partnership in the middle of the park of Ramsdale, Gabriel and Saliba, has remained consistent and has looked as strong and comfortable as I’ve seen in well over a decade.

So building from that base, we have the foundations to go on and get results like yesterday. The first half was a pretty drab affair and we struggled to break down a low block opponent, but that’s what happens when you are at the top; teams aren’t going to come out and play you and so it becomes incumbent on your side to remain wary and ready for a counter attacking trap to be sprung, but also that your creative players step up and get the goals needed to turn games which for teams lower down the league might end up as dull 0-0’s, but for the best teams they find a way to break down a stubborn opponent.

And that’s what we did, courtesy of Captain Odegaard in the 54th and 75th minute. He hadn’t scored in a while and much like Gabriel Jesus – who was excellent again yesterday without scoring – perhaps that had been playing on his mind. But this Arsenal team has a togetherness about it and that is evidenced as well by the sharing of the goals this season. If one isn’t banging them in, another steps forward. yesterday it was Odegaard, last week it was Gabriel, KT did it against Zurich, then Martinelli, Nelson, Partey and Odegaard did it in the Forest game. The team is all contributing and as I said on the Same Old Arsenal pod last night if Gabriel Jesus doesn’t get another goal this season but keeps playing well, and we keep winning football matches, then we’ll all be celebrating a league title and as we all know that is what we are all here for, not individual accolades for specific players.

The two goals we scored were really nicely worked too. Gabriel Jesus’ reverse pass to Fabio Vieira – on for the ill Xhaka who came off ill after the first 15 minutes – was grand and Vieira’s flick over the ‘keeper to give Odegaard a tap in was excellent. Vieira didn’t have the best of games but made a telling contribution and that will be important for a young player still trying to find his form in a new team and a new country. The second goal was another well worked finish and Martinelli needs to be given props for his hustle to win the ball back off the Wolves right back, then a grand back heel to give Zinchenko time to pick out a pass in the box. Ok, it didn’t go in first time from Martinelli’s shot, but what we are doing this season is getting more bodies in the box and when you do that you increase the probability of a loose ball falling to a red shirt. That it did and Odegaard found the net through a crowd of players to basically shut the game down.

That second goal was very welcome and it’s something we haven’t had in recent matches like the Chelsea game, the Zurich home game, or Leeds and Southampton away, for example. So to bag that and effectively put the game to bed goes to show that this team are learning and more is being done to secure points and leave the end of games just a march to the final whistle.

It’s job done for the boys and now they can sit back and relax for a bit. I suspect for those not going to the World Cup there will be a week or so of rest offered by the club, before some warm weather training in Dubai or similar will be laid on so we can effectively start a mini pre season again. There is still a lot of the season left to be played, we still have so much more to do, but if you are going to rank this first chunk of the season as an Arsenal fan, then the expectations of being in with a shout of the top four spots have been well and truly exceeded. And for that we can all be thankful.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Back in Blighty after just over two weeks in the States and after a mammoth sleep to try to recover from jet lag, I’ve woken up this morning to that familiar feeling of butterflies in my stomach ahead of an Arsenal game.

It’s weird because I’ve known I’ll be back home, watching the game under normal circumstances, at normal times, for the whole of the holiday, but for some reason I have had no real nerves ahead of the Wolves game at Molineux tonight. I wondered if that was because I was starting to become so blasé about The Arsenal and us winning football matches; after the victory last weekend against Chelsea – another hurdle and narrative overcome (“yeah, but they haven’t beaten any of the traditional ‘big six’ away from home yet”) – and the hammering we gave Nottingham Forest the week before, yesterday and in the run up to this game this week I’ve been feeling confident about going to Wolves and getting something. After all, their form isn’t great and they haven’t got their new manager in yet as Lopetegui doesn’t start until Monday, although he’ll be in the stands and I suspect we’ll see a few of those Wolves players out to impress tonight.

So with the respective forms of Arsenal and Wolves going into this game, I was pretty chilled about getting the result.

Until this morning.

This morning I’ve woken up and the nerves have kicked in because if we want to remain top of the table going in to the World Cup hiatus, we will need to win in the Midlands this evening. Man City play Brentford at home and that is as nailed on a home banker as you’re going to see this weekend, so by the time kick off comes at 7:45pm this evening, I suspect we’ll be in second place. So we have to respond to Man City and that is not going to be easy on a ground in which we’ve suffered in recent past. Last year we got the win but it was a tough watch after Martinelli was inexplicably sent off for two quick-fire red cards, which funnily enough isn’t the precedent that many thought would happen in the league; it seems as though Arsenal get some situations refereed in certain ways and this fixture has shown that in recent years. Remember David Luiz being sent off for the tiniest touch on a Wolves striker, with the referee Pawson sending him off and awarding a red card in what seemed like the complete ignoring of the ‘double jeopardy’ rule? I certainly do. But let’s not get too happy and excited that neither last season’s referee Michael Oliver, or the season before Craig Pawson, will be there to give Wolves a helping hand, because Stuart Attwell is the appointed ref for today’s game. Remember him? You should do, because the last game he refereed with Arsenal involved was the home defeat to Man City way back in January this year. Remember the incredibly soft penalty that was given on Xhaka when Bernardo Silva dived? Or how about being very happy to get his hands in his pocket for Gabriel to be sent off? It was an appalling performance all round on that day I seem to remember, so I’ll not be expecting any favours from another sub-standard referee.

Which means we need to make it so that no controversy can get in the way of out performance. we need to start fast, start quick, get at the throat of Wolves and impose our football on them. The good news is that our starting XI should be fresh; Arteta rang the changes in midweek and so the following players have almost had a free week off – Saliba aside  – (although some came on as subs, but they won’t be too overly-exerted from the midweek):

Ramsdale

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Zinchenko

Partey

Odegaard   –   Xhaka

Saka   –   Jesus   –   Martinelli

That is probably our strongest XI we’ve had this season and is the side that went to Stamford Bridge and controlled the game pretty much from start to finish, so my hope is that we can continue our good league form and the team has already put the disappointing midweek cup exit out of their minds anyway. It was a different side that lost to Brighton and I want them to prove that tonight.

Wolves have struggled for goals this season and the absence of Jimenez and Neto doesn’t help them tonight, but Podence has always looked a threat and they’ll have the beast of Adama Traore who will look to get at us in wide positions. They’ll also possibly look to bring back Hwang in to the starting line up, who scored early against us last season, which is something we want to avoid because if we can get at Wolves early and quieten the crowd, it could be a big advantage point for us. We’ve been able to do that a lot this season and my hope is that we see more of the same because if the home crowd isn’t given the chance to make noise, it has an impact on the players.

Wolves have eight goals all season, the lowest in the league, but their xG is five worst, showing that they aren’t taking their chances, also bourn out by the fact that they sit roughly mid table in terms of the number of shots they have taken this season, so it will be important for our back line to keep up it’s imperious form by not giving away any silly chances. They sit fourth in the league in terms of the number of long balls attempted and by the looks of their numbers they get most of their touches – compared to other teams – in the defensive third of the pitch. So I think they will look to sit deep tonight and look to find players like Podence, Hwang and Adama Traore, with longer balls in to channel areas to catch us out on transition.

But that will only work if when looking to play those balls, they commit bodies forward, I think. Picture this: we have the ball deep in their defensive ball and it turns over in to their possession. Unless they have left three players up top against our three (I’m assuming Zinchenko further forward in that advanced midfield role he takes up), then they will – hopefully – be hitting long without many options. However if they do manage to commit bodies forward and leave us one-v-one in our defence and their attack, that could give them some joy. But it is a risky strategy.

What is incumbent on our players is that we show them why we are top of the league. We need Gabriel’s Jesus and Martinelli to look their usual annoying selves for defenders, pressing hard and hopefully forcing turnovers. we need to get the ball wide to Saka and Martinelli as much as possible because Wolves are apparently vulnerable on the wings. So this could be a game for our forwards and I hope that Arteta and his coaching staff are thinking that this is where we may get most of our joy today.

It’s the last game before the World Cup and it’d be nice to finish off this first part of the season with a win and to be top of the league. Everyone is expecting  Man City to eventually that that top spot from us but it’d be nice to get to Christmas with us top of the tree and having a few more weeks of joy looking at that table.

Over to Mikel and the boys to see if they can do it.

Catch you all tomorrow.

One whole paragraph and not a word on Arsenal yet and for that I’m sorry, but like I said, that result was ‘interesting’ because it showed a vulnerability to Liverpool that we haven’t seen from either them or Man City in the last three to four years. At a time in which we are currently flying high and playing well, it’s ‘interesting’ because we’ve basically been written off getting anywhere near Liverpool or City this season, but if they play like that for a few more games I suspect we may at least be able to narrow the points gap somewhat.

It will probably be Liverpool and City battling it out for that top spot, but results like yesterday give us hope. There is a slight nervousness that this might be a blueprint for United to kick on, but I’m hoping these games are one-offs because of the rivalries between the two clubs. I’ve got everything crossed for the weekend and some hope that when Southampton play United at St Mary’s, that they give the Mancs a bump down to earth. That’s what we all have to hope for.

But when you look at the squad we have at the moment, it feels like it’s in good shape and in good form right now. I’ve been loving reading some of the player responses like the captain Martin Odegaard after the game on Saturday; talking about how the players have to keep their feet on the ground, stay calm, be focused and concentrate on the next fixture. After we beat United last season at home there was a comment from Arteta, who said “well done guys, you played excellent, now we go again against West Ham” and that is the relentlessness of elite football that we need to see from this Arsenal team if they are to achieve anything that is an improvement on last season. Odegaard is showing that in what he’s saying, but other players have talked about the mentality shift like Aaron Ramsdale. Missing out on the Top Four last season hit this team hard I think, but given what we have seen already – not just in the league but also in pre season – are early signs that, I hope, they are using that pain as a fuel to drive loftier ambitions.

That, but also having added quality players to the squad, has all played a big part. And by the sounds of it we’re not done yet, as the Ornacle David Ornstein tweeted yesterday that the winger we are after is Pedro Neto from Wolves. Apparently we’ve been on the case for him for over a month with his agent Mendes and with Neto having previously admitted he liked to watch Arsenal when he was a kid, there’s clearly an opportunity there for the club. However having recently signed a new deal there is no way this guy comes cheap and I suspect that whilst Ornstein always one of the most – if not the most – reliable journo when it comes to releasing stories about The Arsenal, this one is one I’d be surprised if we pulled it off. I’m just not just we’ll look to pay as much as £50million for a guy who will not be first choice. He’s played predominantly as a left winger, although he’s had a chunk of games at right wing and he’s played 12 times for Wolves up top, most recently in January last year. If Arteta is looking for a guy who can play as a third choice centre forward option, as well as cover across that front three, then you can understand why Arsenal want this deal to happen. However, he’s going to want to come in and play left wing I suspect and right now he wouldn’t be touching Gabriel Martinelli on that flank. Sitting behind him is Emile Smith Rowe and whilst I recognise his injury problems have made it difficult for  him to get back in to the team, but what does this happen to him if we sign Neto? Where does ESR fit in along with Vieira?

Hey, I know, I know, you can never have enough good players and all that jazz, but I just wonder about this desire for a wide forward in the team right now. Personally I’m still looking at the central midfield first and worrying about what happens if Partey breaks down, or what happens if Granit Xhaka’s form doesn’t last all season, what then? Maybe somebody like Pedro Neto comes in and is transformative for the club and I will admit to not watching enough of Wolves to see just what he could do at The Arsenal, but for the reported £50million I certainly have concerns. Those concerns aren’t alleviated by the fact that there are also rumours that we’re supposedly on a UEFA FFP watchlist right now. Of course FFP doesn’t seem to matter to other clubs like Barca, Real, Juve, Man City, Chelsea, etc, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the book would be thrown at Arsenal if we’re found to have breached FFP and with a lack of ‘creative accounting’ in naming our stadium something to get around the big spending we’ve been doing, as well as the fact we haven’t been great at bringing in money for players. As always the excellent Swiss Ramble does a forensic look at this and that provides some comfort, but I still have my worries. Hopefully they can be alleviated but also, hopefully, it doesn’t mean we’ve got a big player who we’re prepping for a sale at some time in the next year or two.

Let’s see how this one all shakes out and with nine days left of the window we won’t have to wait long, but for now, we all have an interesting watching brief as to whether this will remain our squad for the season come 1st September.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I’ve spent the whole weekend working our permutations and ‘if this then what’s! But I guess that is what happens when your team doesn’t play for the whole weekend. It means you have to peer over in to other people’s back gardens and start to look at what they are doing. If we’re going to focus on ourselves though, this weekend feels like it’s been focused on a few Gooners having some online discord in relation to Arsenal’s next captain. Who will Arteta choose? And does it really matter?

Unai Emery was widely mocked with his ‘five captains’ approach but the principle was grounded in common sense. The role of a captain these days feels a lot more ceremonial than anything else, albeit the captain is the guy who is called over when a ref wants to have a word about something. I’ve seen a few suggest Ramsdale as captain and certainly for me he should be up there. Arteta has spoken of a ‘Leadership Group’ and if you’re going to have that – the evolution of Unai’s ‘five captains’ – then you probably do put Ramsdale in that collective. Anything happening in the defensive third of the pitch and Ramsdale should be there, barking and hollering at everyone and anyone who is around. He’ll cajole, hassle, harry and point things out from his vantage point of having all of the play in front of him. And the energy he gives off can only be positive for me. But if you’re going to have him as captain then you probably do need other ‘captains’ in the team, because if a discussion is needed to be had between player, referee and captain in the final third, you don’t want the ‘keeper to be running the length of the pitch to have a word. So whilst I could get behind him as captain, it feels like you probably need another guy in there further up the pitch.

Maybe that is Odegaard? He’s captain of Norway, he’s fast becoming the fulcrum of this Arsenal team and his vision and creativity makes him somebody that most of the other players are clearly looking to in the middle of the park. He is more of a ‘leader by example’ rather than a barker like Ramsdale would be, but we’ve had examples of that working in the past; most notably when Fabregas was handed the Arsenal captaincy at such a young age. So I’d be more than happy to have Odegaard as captain when Lacazette eventually departs.

Again though, if you’re talking about a ‘Leadership Group’ then you need more than a couple of guys. Tony Adams famously said ‘you need seven’ when referring to guys who will go in to battle or a ruck if needed; seven guys on the pitch who will have your back. Do we have that? I’d put Ramsdale, White, Gabriel, Tierney, Partey, Xhaka, Odegaard and Lacazette in that collective. You could probably also chuck Bob Holding in their too. That’s nine and so ticks the Tony Adams mantra, but are they all part of the ‘Leadership Group’? Maybe not all of them, but I’d have no trouble with Gabriel, Tierney, Xhaka all being classed as part of that collective. That gives you your ‘five captains’ and I think it shows that we have a group that has forged who will look out for each other and go to bat for each other. When was the last time we could say that about the Arsenal squad? It’s heartening to see and it is why so many Arsenal fans are feeling their positive voice. As Arteta has already explained a few times we have won nothing yet, but the signs there are positive.

I’m going to leave it there for another day, but before I go, a word for the spineless officials at FIFA for their stance on Russia. They have been given a stand like the rest of the world is slowly doing against Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, but once again they have shown what a disaster of a footballing body they are. Telling Russia to change their name to the ‘Federation of United Russia’ or some other such nonsense as they have done, as well as telling them not to compete under the Russian flag or play the Russian national anthem, is an appalling misjudgement of global sentiment and if FIFA had any decency they would have told Russia that it will be removed from competing for Qatar 2022 as a result of their actions. It is a disgrace that we have such an incompetent governing body but, as we have all seen in recent years, FIFA is as corrupt as it comes and never got the complete refresh it needed when Blatter was removed all those years ago.

Back tomorrow with more Arsenal thoughts. Catch you all then.

What I mean by that is that our two games in hand are currently Chelski and the Scum away. We have terrible records there in recent years and whilst we beat Chelski on their ground last season in front of nobody, with fans in the stadium we haven’t won there in the league since October 2011. For Tottenham we haven’t won at the Toilet Bowl since March 2014. So taking away the victory at Stamford Bridge from last season – which was a weird season for lots of results as we know – we have essentially gone eight years without winning at either place with fans in the stadium. So personally I am not counting my chickens on those points and when you factor in that this weekend is likely to result in most of those teams around us picking up wins, our additional game in hand will be against Liverpool, with whom our league form reads eight defeats and four draws in our last 13 games going back to 2015.

So I am not particularly confident that we’re picking up loads of points with our games in hand and that ‘advantage’ feels like it is very shallow in terms of how real it actually is. In fact, it doesn’t really feel like much of an advantage at all.

Of course the Scum have to play Man United and Liverpool, but that’s it from them and as it stands they only have one additional game to play on top of us, which is in the FA Cup against Middlesbrough. That’s away and midweek next week and whilst I don’t want them getting anywhere near the FA Cup final, maybe another round if they beat Boro wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. They have played the same number of games as us and so they need to fit more in to their schedule and if that starts to adversely impact them too.

I suppose I feel the same about United and West Ham. Both have European ties and in a way it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if United can overcome Atletico Madrid. Hopefully they’d get another two games they have to squeeze in and that would impact their fixture scheduling, meaning they have to play more games too. They have their points on the board and if you told me that Arsenal would collect one point from the two in hand they have at the moment then I’d probably believe you. That would just bring us level on points with them, so our perceived advantage with games in hand suddenly doesn’t seem as great as it is. United have to play Watford at home today and they’ll win that, meaning they extend the points difference to us to four points and it also means we have to win one of the Cum away, Chelski away or Liverpool at home. Again, I’m not exactly holding any expectations that we might do that. We could, you never know, but our record against those three sides suggest we probably won’t. United have a tough few games after Watford though so the hope has to be that dropped points are on the menu; they play City, the Scum, us as well as Chelski and so my hope is that with the way they are playing that the other teams will chalk up some wins for them.

But I suspect that for this weekend we won’t have as much fun as the weekend before last when everyone except the Scum seemed to pick up points (thanks a lot, Man City. Knobs). Tottenham will beat a pretty poor Leeds side, West Ham will beat Wolves I reckon, then United will overcome Watford. It means that by Sunday night I suspect we’ll be back down to sixth and the Scum will be within three points of us. So whilst I said at the top of the blog part of me is happy it’s just a watching brief this weekend, I suspect that by the time the weekend is done I will be more unhappy about that and the fact that the others around us have all got their points on the board.

There’s no despair in my thinking though, despite the fact you’re probably reading this and thinking that I’m going a little Debbie Downer on you. I am still so happy and buzzing after that Wolves win. I have already said that the run of games we are in could be pivotal for us, that we need to accumulate as many points as possible as I think we’ll be dropping a few in the big games, because if we do we set ourselves up with a bit of a ‘buffer’ for dropped points. And we’ve done that so far. Wins away at Wolves, home to Brentford and home to Wolves has meant maximum points tally so far. If we can beat Watford away we go in to the Liverpool midweek game knowing we are probably in a pretty decent position.  If we go in to that Leicester game at home having even picked up a draw against Liverpool and if we’ve managed to beat what will be a tough to break down Watford team, I think I’ll start to fancy our chances. But until then we have to watch the others pick up points this weekend and wait our turn when we go to Vicarage Road next weekend.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Honestly, last minute winners are the amber nectar from the gods. It gives your opponent no time to respond, the narrative and acceptance in your own mind is instantly flicked in to jubilation and when they show the league table afterwards you are often found fist pumping the air for a double-bubble bit of celebration as a result. The Management asked why I shouted so loudly when that goal went in compared to so many Arsenal goals scored this season, but explaining the context to her, she got it. A win that gets us closer to fourth spot. A win that keeps the pressure on United with our two games in hand. A win that puts a little more daylight between us and the Scum, as well as Wolves. A win that feels hard earned. A win that comes in the face of some perceived injustice (I’ll come to that). It all stacks up that creates a fervour when you see that last second goal go in. And boy did we all enjoy it as Arsenal fans.

As I mentioned though, I had accepted the draw in my head, to be honest. It wouldn’t have been the worst result in the world; Wolves are on a fantastic run of form, they have been winning games away and they turned over the Scum just two weekends ago. They are a defensive resolute side and whilst they don’t score many goals, when you give them opportunities they will take them. And we gave them one heck of a gift in that first half. Gabriel’s back pass was way too short and it’s the first time in a while I’ve looked at our Brazilian centre half and thought “mate, that was idiotic”. Within 10 minutes you’re one goal down against a team who has mastered the low block and whose strength lies in its defensive solidity. I’ll be honest with you, I thought this would be a very long night after they scored, because they haven’t lost from a winning position in about four years I think. That is the strength of their approach when they are in front.

And as the game played out it felt that way too. We created more chances, we had more of the ball, but Wolves still had opportunities themselves and if you look at the whole game, we weren’t exactly amazing. We huffed, we puffed, we didn’t really trouble Sa that much. I think we’d only had a couple of shots on his goal in the first half. Saka and Martinelli found it difficult and Lacazette was not really doing anything of note. And although we continued to press and try to impose our approach on a resolute Wolves team, even in the second half, I personally could not see where the goal was coming from.

Step forward Mikel Arteta. If there’s one thing you want from your manager, it is to see when something isn’t working and to take remedial steps to rectify, or at least try something different. On came Pepe and on came Nketiah and immediately we had a different dynamic. For the second game in a row the Ivorian looked impressive from the bench and five minutes after his arrival we also saw Nketiah come on in a very aggressive and attacking move from Arteta to bring off Cedric and bring on Eddie. And both players made the impact. Nketiah’s assist for Pepe’s goal was a tick for the persistence charts, but Pepe’s touch and spin before flicking the ball in past Sa was sublime. That is what you get with him; a natural finisher who in the right form and frame of mind, as well as confidence, can be deadly in the box. We are going to need more of that in the coming months if we’re to even get close to top four and last night he delivered to bring us back level.

But praise needs to also be reserved for Lacazette too who, despite once again not really playing that well, was at the centre of the dramatic late win and you could see just how much it meant to him as the ball hit the back of the net. A delicious bit of last minute justice that had us all in raptures. And it was justice too, because the reason there was so much injury time was because of Wolves time wasting. Throughout the second half players went down, feigned injury, played the sh*thoursey card and unlike in the game at Molineux where Gabriel was booked for time wasting, it was only on 89 minutes that the first Wolves player was booked from Atkinson. What a surprise, eh? No such brandishing of cards like in our game away to them. Of course not. But everyone is refereed the same, right?

There was also some perceived injustice right at the beginning of the game where some argue we could have had a penalty, but I’m not so sure, as it looked a little soft. It’s one of those where if it’s given against you then you are pretty angry about it, but then again if it was against us it probably WOULD be given against us. That’s how it goes with officials and The Arsenal these days. Standard unconscious bias. It is what it is.

And we are where we are, which is now fifth in the league, three points clear of West Ham with two games in hand. We are one point away from United with two games in hand and now six points more than the Scum, having played the same amount of matches. We don’t play this weekend so it will be a watching brief for us all, but hopefully we get some luck from one of the games this weekend. I don’t hold out much hope because the Scum play Leeds away (in terrible form), United play Watford at home (who they should comfortably overcome), whereas Watford and West Ham duke it out Sunday afternoon. Someone will drop points in that match and you’d probably hope it’s West Ham, but we’ll see.

For today though, it is a smile on every Gooners face as we head our way into the weekend. Good stuff.

Bruno Lage played down talk of ‘revenge’ and the bad blood caused by Neves’ comments about us celebrating too much, then the subsequent storm in a teacup brought about by the Wolves Twitter feed after they beat Tottenham, but my hope is that the Arsenal players are ready, willing and able to deliver a proper performance tonight and then hopefully give it some more with the celebrating against a team who you can legitimately call a rival in Wolves.

The Scum’s loss to Burnley has opened up an opportunity though and that is partially fuelling my fear because how many times have we seen over the years, when an Arsenal team has an opportunity to grasp, they flail at said opportunity, eh? Too many for me to want to recall. But tonight is a big game, a massive game, another cup final and Arsenal simply must show up and deliver a top performance.

Like I’ve said though, it won’t be easy and when you consider that we haven’t beaten Wolves at home in our last four games in the league, dating back to February 2011, it shows just how much of a bogey team they have been for us at home in recent years. Last season they came to the Emirates, outplayed us, deserved to pick up all three points and at the time things looked pretty bleak for Arsenal and Arteta. But a lot has changed since then – coming up to a year and a half ago now – and Arteta has a team more in his image, more defensively resolute, with a steel about us that will hopefully stand us in good stead tonight.

We know how Wolves will line up. They will be compact and strong in a back three, give us few opportunities and look to hit us on the counter. If they get the first goal that could be all she wrote, as they say, because they are a side who knows how to sit in and defend in a low block and it could be a long night if they go ahead.

What could also make it a long night is if we are down to ten men, something that has happened in our last two games against Wolves, albeit in some weird situations that we probably won’t ever see again. I’m hoping we don’t see the likes of which again tonight and keeping ten men on the pitch, as well as not giving away anything stupid like needless penalties or silly goals, will have a big baring on this game I think.

That’s because whilst Wolves are a side who are very good defensively, they also don’t score that many goals, so if you cut out defensive mistakes, the hope is that you can limit their chances and therefore build yourself a good platform to pick up the three points. I’ve seen a few suggest a draw wouldn’t be the worst result in the world but when you look at how many tough fixtures we still have to play (all the top teams), it feels like we need to be making hay whilst the sun is shining. We have to hope it is shining tonight on Arsenal today, then metaphorically as well whilst under those floodlights.

As for the team, well, it mostly picks itself I would have thought. Wolves love those long diagonals and so we can expect our fullbacks to be targeted, which is why we need to be bringing Tomiyasu back in for his aerial presence. I think Arteta will and I suspect that’s why he rested him for the Brentford game. It worked and Tomiyaasu must be fresh for this game you would have thought. His inclusion should also enable us to be able to shift our centre halves over a bit when out of possession too and if that means Gabriel can give more support to Tierney on that left hand side, then that would be all the better too.

In midfield it must be Partey and Xhaka but in front of them is where it starts to get interesting. I suspect we all know by now that Laca is a sure-fire  bet to play centre forward, but what does Arteta do with those three men behind him? I think he’ll go with Odegaard as he loves the Norwegian and he’s been in sparkling form in recent games. So he can’t be shuffled around. On the right it has to be starboy Saka, but what about that left hand side? Does he bring Martinelli back in or doehe go for Smith Rowe after his  impressive performance on Saturday? I’d be leaning to Smith Rowe with the idea that Martinelli can be an impact sub. If you play well, you should be in the team the next game, it should be that simple. Plus, having Martinelli coming on and causing trouble for the last 20 minutes isn’t the worst problem in the world, eh?

Whatever Arteta chooses the important thing is that we start brightly, we show intensity early on, because we’ve all had enough of Arsenal in recent times taking a little to long to get started and then leaving it too late. This season at times we’ve been better, but we need that to really ramp up from now until the end of the season. Get at them, go hard at them, let’s impose ourselves, then see if we can’t get closer to United as the weekend closes in on us.

Up the Arsenal!

Mikel Arteta has a luxurious position behind the striker right now. He has an array of talent to pick from and making his selection choices must be a delight for him because even when we have referees conspiring against us to take players out of the equation like Michael Oliver did for the game away at Wolves, he still has an option that can come in and make it feel like we haven’t lost a good player to suspension.

Such was ESR’s impressive display, that it has led me to today’s title because as I said above, I left the ground thinking that Emile has to come in on Thursday. He deserves it. He has scored goals, he looked threatening for most of the game and he was taken off for Nicolas Pepe (another good option in one of the two wide positions and one I’ve even wondered about centrally from time-to-time) on 75 minutes which means he will have a little more freshness about him and will surely be ready for the visit of Wolves this week.

But what do you do? Do you tell Martinelli “unlucky son, the red card was a joke but them’s the breaks in the team because the competition in your position has been filled by a guy who gave a performance which means he cannot be dropped”? Or do you try to find a solution that incorporates the Brazilian, Odegaard, Smith Rowe and Saka all as one?

We’ve all been talking about it, haven’t we? We’ve all made suggestions in our Arsenal WhatsApp’s and on Twitter; Martinelli looks like a guy who can play off the shoulder, who has a killer instinct, so why not try him as a centre forward? Why not give him a shot and see what happens?

I’m open to the idea myself, but it feels a lot of  burden for a collective of players all under 23. Odegaard as the senior statemen in that group hits home just how young our players are and whilst that gives us all the feels in terms of how far this team can go, we don’t want to put too much expectation on them and not have enough experience around them when we need it. I didn’t agree with the Martinelli sending off against Wolves in the slightest, but it felt like the rashness of a young and over-enthusiastic man and sometimes you do need those older heads around to be able to diffuse the situation. I realise that we have Xhaka and Partey who have both got themselves sent off in January, so my statement may feel a little ironic, but it feels like we need an experienced head at the moment in those attacking positions.

I  am by no means the biggest fan of Lacazette by the way. If this is the first time you’ve read my jibberish then you may be fooled in to thinking that, but far from it, I am looking for a solution that sees him out as quickly as possible. But I don’t want us to go too hard and too fast on some of these young players by upping the pressure on them to deliver each week. I also wonder if the fact that the fanbase is all looking at Lacazette and his misses, his lack of chance creation and generally feeling a frustration that he doesn’t do enough in the penalty box, actually has a beneficial impact on those other younger players around him. We’re all so concerned with lamenting Lacazette’s lack of end product, the frustration doesn’t spill on to the younger players when they aren’t firing on all cylinders in games. Martinelli, for example, had a poor game against Wolves and didn’t really get too involved at times I thought. But the outrage of his sending off, plus the fact Lacazette missed some good chances, has meant that the Brazilian’s performance has gone somewhat under the radar.

To me that is a good thing; young players have those types of games, so the last thing any of us wants to see is any of them being ‘killed’ in terms of confidence. We saw what happened to Iwobi after he burst on to the scene; everyone thought his trajectory would be linear and he’d be a beast for us after a couple of seasons in the first team, but he never kicked on and I think his confidence took a massive hit as a result. I’m  not sure it has ever recovered and now he’s a squad player at Everton not getting that much of a look in. It just goes to show you how these guys are still in their formative years and so if we can find ways to deflect some pressure off them, then so be it.

So perhaps Lacazette does offer more than just this ‘build up play’ we’ve heard so much about, as if no other player can hold the ball up. I wonder if they can though. I wonder if getting Martinelli in central is something worth considering. Maybe not against a load of grizzly centre halves playing three at the back and knocking him about like Wolves would, but in the coming weeks maybe it is time to experiment to see if we can really get the quartet of ESR, Martinelli, Odegaard and Saka on the pitch all at the same time.

I’m  game. What about you?