Happy Friday Gooners. It’s one of those weird Friday’s where we have ourselves some words from the manager, but we don’t actually play this weekend, instead having to wait until Monday night before our match week two begins.
In some ways for me personally that’s a good thing. I’m flying off to Berlin tonight for a cheeky weekend away and so the fact we don’t play until Monday means I will still be able to watch the game from the comfort of my own home and my weekend in Germany doesn’t have to be worked around an Arsenal fixture. Whether or not I can slip in a cheeky Union Berlin game on Sunday remains to be seen…we’ll have to see if the Management accepts that one…
But for us it means we sit the weekend out and put our hopes on:
- Bournemouth to cause an upset at Liverpool
- Newcastle to upset City
- West Ham to step up against Chelsea
- Tottenham to discover a big sink hole at White Hart Lane for them versus Man United.
We did get Mikel’s presser though, so we can look in to where we are from a team news perspective. The downbeat news came first and Mikel admitted that Timber’s season is basically done. It is a hammer blow for him and the sympathy remains for the player as I’ve said a couple of times this week already. Get well soon Jurrien.
The question that has been raised over the last couple of days is whether we’ll go back in to the market again now, but Arteta said that he’s looking internally at solutions, which I think makes sense. We aren’t a team who can just break rules on spending like Chelsea; we spent £38million on a player that we can’t use and we can’t just drop another amount of cash on a player and so for us defensively it is back to square one. What we need, however, is for there not to be big long-term injuries – and all at once – to the likes of Tomiyasu, Saliba or Zinchenko, all of which we know could happen and so we really have to keep our fingers crossed. He was asked about KT and he kind of brushed that aside saying that “it is an opportunity for everybody”. I think we all know that it probably won’t happen and I suspect we are more likely to see Kiwior used more this season than Kieran Tierney. And if you think about it, that does make us stronger than last season. Last season we bought Kiwior in for January as cover but Mikel was reluctant to use him as he was bedding in. But as we reached the end of the season and it was clear players like Holding were being targeted, he brought Kiwior in, to which he then played really well. So I feel like we’re more likely to see Kiwior come in instead of Holding, which means if we have a situation like we had last season with Saliba and Tomiyasu both out, we have a few more options across the back line. We could play Partey at right back and White in the centre, we could play White at right back and Kiwior in the centre, so even though it’s the same players as at the end of last season, I do feel like we are a little more stronger now.
He also elaborated on the Raya arrival, saying that he brings ‘better qualities for our game model’ which if I’m honest, sounds a little ominous for Aaron Ramsdale. He tried to explain it by saying that Courtois got injured for Real and look at where they are at now, but as I’ve said before goalkeeper is a very different position to an outfield player. You don’t expect goalkeepers to be able to pick up as many knocks as outfield players and so I still remain to be convinced that having two number ones could work.
In terms of other availability for Monday, we know that Zinchenko played 60 minutes in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Luton in midweek, so my hope would be that he’s ready to play on Monday night. Those extra few days might be good for a few players, especially if the likes of Gabriel might have been carrying a knock (even though Mikel said it was tactical against Forest). And when you think about our squad for Monday, despite the injury to Timber and Gabriel Jesus, I feel like we’re still in pretty good nick. We literally have two players for every position (at least):
- Ramsdale and Raya
- Tomiyasu and White
- Saliba and Holding
- Gabriel and Kiwior
- Zinchenko and Tierney
- Partey and Jorginho
- Odegaard and Vieira
- Rice and Havertz
- Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe
- Nketiah and Trossard
- Saka and Nelson
And that’s without mentioning Flo Balogun, although I think we all know that he is essentially one foot out of the door. But we have a deep squad and although I’ve included Holding in the team, the versatility of our squad means that if Saliba is out it is probably one of White or Tomiyasu who take his place, rather than Holding.
Just one final point from me before I wrap up today, which is on the ‘do you have a 20 goal a season striker?’ question he was asked. It was answered superbly I thought and it was exactly how I feel about how teams should be lining up. Unless you have an absolute freak like Haaland, it spreads a lot more risk when you have many players who can score goals from all over the pitch. The Scum have just lost their 30-goal a season striker – how do you think they feel about replacing those goals? They can’t. They will spread the goals around a little more, but they might not have that ‘X-factor’ player who will get something out of nothing like Kane used to do. So for me I will always take a team with five players who can score ten or more goals, than a side with one or two players that gets 25 a season.
And on that note, I think I’ll leave it for today, as I have to crack on with a bit of early morning work before heading off to Deutschland.
Catch you guys tomorrow – depending on wifi signal and timings.
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