Morning Gooners – happy Friday!

It’s the calm before the relative storm today, as we head north for one of the toughest trips of the season – away to Newcastle in the Premier League tomorrow evening at 5.30pm. Arteta is due to do his press conference at some stage this morning, probably by the time I’ve finished typing my last word for today’s blog, so we’ll get an idea of the challenges we are currently facing with regards to injuries for the game tomorrow. Apparently Newcastle have their fair share of injuries too, but you get the feeling that our challenge is greater and so I hope Arteta comes out swinging in his press conference after the disappointment of the limp exit to West Ham on Wednesday night.

What I mean by that is not that he’s aggressive, angry or short with the journalists, but more that he sounds super upbeat and ready to take on this big challenge in the North East. I want him to be able to say “we’re ready for this, these players have laser-focus after Wednesday and they are going to give a reaction, you can be sure of that”. And I hope that is indeed the case. Sure, we’re going to be missing a fair few with the likes of Partey, Smith Rowe and Gabriel Jesus out (to be confirmed by Arteta, of course), but what I want to hear is that these players have reacted to the sting of defeat by working extra hard in training, through pushing each other, having frank conversations about their collective performances, that they are relishing the opportunity to right the wrong of a League Cup midweek exit.

I hope that Arteta gives some flowers to Tomiyasu too, who picked up Arsenal’s player of the month for October and who I think most Arsenal fans are in agreement with, has been superb for us. Given the injuries he’s picked up for us, given how he’s struggled to get in to the side for the last year or so, it is really heartening to see him as a player stepping up and delivering some great performances. I think it also speaks to his value in the team that we’re all now saying that he should be starting ahead of Zinchenko at left back for the game tomorrow. He’s a versatile player who has proven to be so valuable when he’s come in; he was very good against Sevilla, he came on and bagged his first goal against Sheffield United last weekend and he has 100% earned the right to be starting tomorrow if indeed that happens.

What I also like about him is that he brings something different to Zinchenko and that means we have options to play differently depending on the opponent. I spoke about this in the Same Old Arsenal pod yesterday with Cookie as we reviewed the League Cup game and looked ahead to the weekend action. As I said to James, to me Tomiyasu is our dual-merchant. He is expert in the one-on-ones, he is a great positional defender, good in the air and if we’re playing a team where their best player is a left winger or they are going to try to target us in behind our left back, you want Tomiyasu in there as your defender. I suspect it is because of his grounding as a centre half that makes him so good in that one-v-one sense but we are also benefitting by having both him and Ben White as our full backs, because we effectively take the attributes of centre halves and morph them in to these hybrid players that we’ve seen for the last couple of seasons. Then, in different games where we will be ball dominant – like a Sheffield United or Burnley at home – a player like Zinchenko becomes more useful. So I am liking the flexibility Tomiyasu brings to this Arsenal team.

I think his rise this last month is also good for those players looking at their situation and thinking about how they can fight their way back in to the starting XI; Tomiyasu’s form and winning of this award shows that they too can fight and become a regular and get game time if they keep at it. It will hopefully inspire competition in the team that is healthy and I’m sure that’s what Arteta wants. In fact, I know that is what Arteta wants, because he wants a team for 16 to 18 players he can swap in and swap out on a regular basis to give himself options.

So perhaps Tomiyasu can be an example to the likes of Fabio Vieira, Leandro Trossard, or even Jakob Kiwior, who I thought played really well against Sheffield United and was one of the few bright sparks at West Ham too. We need the players to feel like they have a shot (yes, I know about Ramsdale and I am in agreement with you – he probably doesn’t feel that way right now, but I think we’ve all laboured that point long enough and we just have to accept it) because if they do then it will drive this team on to bigger and better things.

And if we want to get anything against the monster that is Man City this season, we need that level of drive in this team, because we aren’t getting past them in many competitions unless we have it.

Right, I think I’ll leave it there. It’s 9.15am and of course, as predicted, he’s now done his press conference. I need to get better at timing these things, LOL.

Catch you wonderful humans tomorrow.