Ahh man, there really is bugger all on today from a football perspective, that’s for sure, with the Euro’s final not on until Sunday, The Arsenal not on for a few weeks on from that, plus the only real transfer news going on is stuff we’ve already been privy too, like Lokonga, Calafiore and Tavares.

It’s enough to drive a Gooner crazy, know what I mean?

I suppose we could talk about the upcoming season and some expectations though, right? I mean, it’s interesting to gauge where people’s heads are at. Mine is getting to the point in the summer (in England…ha! what summer?) in which I’m starting to think about best and worst case scenario’s for our season. Right now it looks like we aren’t close to getting anyone in from an attacking sense, but Arteta might be about to solve some of the left sided defensive challenges with that young Italian joining us. And it makes me wonder how we’re going to approach next season. How is Arteta going to evolve his Arsenal team?

They have to be plotting something. It feels like these days you can’t stand still in elite football; and I’m not just talking about signing new players. Tactically it seems that the teams at the top re-invent themselves every year, tweaking their style and approach each time, to keep opponents guessing. The Premier League in itself has a cottage industry of analysts and data nerds who are Moneyballing their way through season’s and as a result Arteta and his coaching staff have to be cooking up something new for the new season, because you can bet your bottom dollar that clubs will already be analysing how to get at us, particularly those we face early on. Wolves, Villa, Brighton and The Scum will all have people right now pouring over footage of us, like they will of all of their opponents and I’m sure that we’ll be doing the same over them. There’s a great line I’ve heard on the Arsenal Vision pod a few times, that “other teams get to do tactics too” and I think that is so spot on; it’s all very well marvelling at the innovations that Arteta has brought to The Arsenal with his team, but if we can see it, other teams with professionally qualified people whose job it is to analyse other teams, will 100% be seeing it too.

Will we see Arsenal cut down on the Arsenal inverting full backs? Will we still see the ‘box’ in the midfield (Rice, Partey, Odegaard, Havertz)? Do we persist with similar patterns with the front three in build up? It’s all unknowns until we start seeing some of the friendly games that get played. And that’s why I think friendlies have started to become more interesting to watch. Five to ten year’s ago I just didn’t bother; it was about fitness, about about getting players up to speed, that was it. Yes, it still is that, but also looking for little signs and patterns on tweaks of tactical set up, are also interesting, in my opinion.

I have also come to realise the importance of having a good pre season. Again, not so much with the results, but if you watch an Arsenal team popping the ball around well, of making connections between pockets of players in the team, of building those automatisms, all adds up and all starts to inform how we think the season is going to go. This summer when pre season starts properly, I’ll be looking to see how we are shaping up because if we look good, then it’ll start to get me properly excited for the season kick off. But as of now, I just have those nervous feelings in my stomach. I think it’s probably because of the start to the season that we have; my Arsenal history PTSD kicks in when I see starts like that where we play Villa, the Scum, Brighton and City all before October is upon us. We’ll be about a fifth of the way through the season and have a bunch of tough games already played, which could either go very well or go horribly wrong. I have faith in the quality of our team, but even at the beginning of the season when it’s all fresh and exciting and has the prospect of hope, if you drop a few games in this league you are basically almost finished with Man City likely to rack up maximum points, I suspect, before they entertain us at The Emptihad on 22nd September.

That’s why we need to absolutely nail pre season. Those players need to essentially be in tip-top shape by the time the Wolves home game comes around.

I also think Arteta is going to need to lean in to his squad more this coming season. We aren’t going to have the fortune of playing the same XI each week, so I suspect he needs to finally migrate to the full-Pep approach of sitting some players down for a few weeks at points in the season. So far he’s been reluctant to do that, but he will need to trust in some of those fringe players more this season, what with the extra Champions League games too. Whether that is with some of the existing players, or whether we do a bit of a fringe clear out of the like of Fabio Vieira, Emile Smith Rowe, Nelson and Nketiah, remains to be seen. He was reluctant to use them towards the end of last season so will it be the same again? Personally, if he was reluctant last season, I’m not really sure what else might change, because each of the aforementioned players are of the age where you start to think that they aren’t young guys who are going to make massive upticks in development for next season. Smith Rowe is 23 but turns 24 in a few weeks, Nelson is 24 until December, Fabio Vieira has just turned 24, Nketiah turned 25 in May – these aren’t really young kids in a footballing term any more. They need to be playing more and it just feels like that has to probably be elsewhere unless Arteta is going to start giving them more minutes, the indication of which is probably not.

So does Arteta need to move all of these guys on and try for players who he will trust a little more? And is that to get in more young talents again? Or does he go a little more experienced that he has more trust in to come in?

It’s a tough one, but it’s one that he probably already needs to have an answer in his head, especially if we’re hoping to compete for the title again this season.

This is a period of the year in which there is still so much ambiguity. It’s a bit like a footballing ‘no mans land’. We’re not really close to the season and knowing how we are going to line up for 2024/25, we haven’t delved very far in to the transfermarket yet so we’re no clearer there, the international tournaments are still ongoing and that’s making the ambiguity all the more…well…ambiguous. I’m a football fan. You’re a football fan. We are impatient.

Let’s hope that patience is rewarded sooner rather than later.

Have a good one folks.