Morning folks, hope you’re all well. A lot better than Joachim Andersen and Darwin Nunez this morning I would say, with the Liverpool forward probably still annoyed with himself for being suckered in by Andersen and poor helpless and defensive Andersen, who was victim of the ‘brutal’ headbutt that caused him to hit the deck in yesterday evening’s game. Andersen ‘done him there’ methinks; Nunez got suckered in and Liverpool paid the price. I just hope Andersen was ok to travel home after the game because I’m sure all of the psychological trauma he received, as well as the physical damage done, will be felt for weeks to come.

As for our world, the movements continue to happen and yesterday Alex Runarsson departed off to Alanyaspor in Turkey for a season long long. Given that we paid peanuts for him I’m not sure why we don’t just ask for peanuts back for his signature but I wonder if he’s another guy on big wages (for his standing in the game I mean) and therefore Arsenal are having to foot the bill, hence why it’s only a loan deal. He will most likely never put on a first team jersey again and it’ll be another one of those deals that was baffling and ultimately a bit of a waste of time, but hey-ho, we move on.

Well, some do, some don’t. Hector’s deal whereby he gets to go to Betis for free, with us also renovating the Betis stadium, buying McLaren cars for the Betis first team, Arteta personally flying to Seville three times a year to give Pellegrini a backrub, still has yet to be completed. Arsenal are just such terrible people. Why don’t we just give footballers exactly what they want. After all, they deserve it, don’t they? Like Auba, for example, who got exactly what he wanted in January and is now being courted very closely by Chelsea, who are willing to offer him big money and also pay Barcelona the £20million they couldn’t afford in January when they asked us to give them our player for nothing.

Anyway, I’m becoming a bit of a broken record on the Bellerin stuff and in danger of it looking like my issue is with the player, when that is anything but the truth. Instead, let’s focus on the hear and now and that is with the players who have already helped us pick up our first two wins of the season. A big part of that has been Zinchenko and Simon Collings wrote a good piece in the Standard yesterday which was nice to read. You can find it here if you so wish. I do like Zinchenko. He comes across as a solid, good pro and he’s come in to the team and been very effectively in that hybrid left-back/midfield role that is freeing up Xhaka to get about the pitch and I’m loving what he brings to the club. We all like him, he’s already got a pretty good song the fans are singing and there’s no doubt we’ve improved our squad as a result, but he’s kind of flown under the radar a bit because of some of the other attacking options that we have. Jesus has been electric in his first two games and was rightly man of the match on Saturday and altough he isn’t a new signing, Martinelli has been brilliant since the season kicked off. You’ve got Big Willy Saliba who has been doing the business at the back and because of the impact of shifting White to right back and Tomiyasu also being an option, people are talking about our depth in more detail too. Zinchenko has just slotted in and looked like a model pro in there and whilst defensively he’s not the greatest, he is still doing a pretty good job and the fact we haven’t had to rush Tierney back is a godsend.

‘Zinny’ has been saying some nice things about Martinelli and his future, which of course we all know – and/or hope – that it will be a good one, but he’s also talked up the team as a whole as well as Tierney in at left back, saying that he thinks they will provide good competition for each other. This is what we’ve all been crying out for, for so long, but to hear players talk about that too is really important I think. They need competition to drive them forward. Zinchenko will be used to a life with extreme competition like he’s had at Man City and he and Gabriel Jesus bring that hunger and relentless drive to improve in to our team. That can only be a good thing and I for one am delighted to see we’ve brought in players who have that mentality. They aren’t here for a final payday, they are of an age where they are hungry for more success and they have been sold a project which they believe gives them a chance of getting that.

Never be satisfied, never be finished, always be looking for growth and competition. Yes please.

Zinchenko mentions that in the Standard article. He talks about it being great to see the team play well, but there is more improvement to be done, more work needed to analyse what was good and what was less good about Saturday. I was in the ground, in the heat, having had a few beers and I got swept away watching the game as a fan. When you go on a day like that and you are treated to goals galore, it is easy to gloss over any of the slight setbacks. But we did have one or two moments that need to be reviewed as to how the team can cut it out of their overall game and improve and if this is the mindset of those players after smashing Leicester at home, then I see this as positive. Arteta is relentless, always striving for more and he’s brought in more players with that mentality, which I am hoping can have a massive impact when we get to those crunch times in the season. I know the pile up of injuries towards the end of the season is perhaps have been the biggest reason as to why we fell short in the Champions League race to The Scum, but having players who have been there, seen it, done it, will also help to add a little extra drive to our team I hope. My hope is the pain of missing out last season is driving the players, but a little bit more experience and that little bit of extra squad depth we have now, all adds to the cocktail of success I hope Mikel is brewing for us at the moment.

We have a long way to go to find out, but the initial signs are positive.

Catch you all tomorrow.