Morning Gooners – a Happy Friday to you and yours. Matchday tomorrow at home to Sheffield United and it’s the most glorious of things as well: a 3pm-er. Love it. I’ll do a bit more tomorrow on line ups and Sheffield United and how they’ll set up, but for now as we wait on Mikel Arteta to deliver his press conference and update ahead of the game, there are a few things on my mind that if I could get a straight answer on, I’d love to hear the truth from him.

Raya or Ramsdale?

I know, it’s getting boring, but I kind of hope – as I said yesterday – that it is Ramsdale, not because I don’t like Raya, but because I really want the ‘two top goalkeepers’ thing to actually be a ‘thing’. But that only happens if they both get a fair amount of game time. Give Ramsdale tomorrow, West Ham, Newcastle then Sevilla, then if you want to bring Raya back in for Burnley at home then let’s do it! I’ll speak no more on this though as I suspect you’re already rolling your eyes as you read this.

Tomiyasu or Zinchenko?

As per above. Be really interesting to see if he sticks with the Japanese international.

When’s Partey back fit?

We’ve just seen some rumours emerge that Partey isn’t the happiest kid on campus at London Colney. I could understand that if he was fit all season and not getting picked, but he was injured for about a month before the international break, Arsenal eased him in, then he didn’t start at Chelsea and was injured for Sevilla away on Tuesday. Not really sure he can have too many complaints until he’s sat on the bench for a few weeks whilst being fully fit. If he’s out again with a thigh problem this weekend, then I think we’re all within our rights to tell him to take a bit of a chill pill. Get yourself fit Thomas, we all want you in the team alongside Rice and Odegaard to make up that midfield we’ve been salivating over since the summer.

If he’s been fit and hasn’t been putting it in during training, or if he’s been looking like his form had dipped in training and a possible return to the dip in form from the end of last season, then you could understand why he isn’t one of the first names on the team sheet.

What’s up with Odegaard?

Listened to a few post-Sevilla pods in which a few peeps have said his form is in the trenches a little bit. Having not seen the Sevilla game I’m not going to pass too much judgement, but he wasn’t great against Chelsea and against City he hardly set the world alight. A game like this weekend at home to Sheffield United is, you’d hope, an opportunity for him to get on the ball more and dictate the play in between those Sheffield United midfield and defensive lines. If he can have a good one this weekend then perhaps we just chalk it up to a bit of a sticky patch. But if he continues to be ineffective this weekend, then I wonder if the dissenting voices will get louder?

I’ve always seen him as such a silky smooth footballer though and I’m not going to be turning on my boy just yet. But he does need to influence games a little more, because the voices that are just the occasionally murmuring right now, will soon turn a little raised. We want our captain at his best because when he is, we get there too. Time to show it tomorrow, Martin.

Level with us on Gabriel Jesus: How bad is it?

Eddie Nketiah to deputise against Sheffield United and in the League Cup against West Ham is one thing, but against Newcastle the following week, now that’s an altogether different challenge that you feel like we need our main striker fit. We’ve already had him out for the first month of the season, so to lose him again for another three to four weeks will feel a little unfair. He missed a third of the season last season and he only needs to pick up another couple of knocks and that’d be two years in a row in which we’ve had a fantastic player denied from us. Hopefully Mikel reveals that it is nothing, he has a chance of playing this weekend, but the club are going to be careful. If that’s the case i.e. he could play this weekend but they are feeling like it is better to be safe than sorry, then I’d be absolutely fine with that. We should have enough tomorrow with the other quality players in our team available (we hope) to overcome Sheffield United, but we need to wait until Mikel talks to get a proper status update.

So despite a really good win against Sevilla to put us in a commanding position in our Champions League group, despite being a couple of points off top spot going in to this weekend, there are a still a few questions hanging over the squad that we ideally want answered. We all know that even if he has the answers to all of these questions, Mikel probably wouldn’t open up much, but I just hope he has answers to each that ultimately result in us picking up more points and wins. Starting this weekend.

That’s yer lot from me for today. Back tomorrow with a pre match preview as I make my way to The Emirates.

Laters peeps.