Happy Tuesday campers, we all good?

Tomorrow the team line up against Leverkusen in our penultimate friendly before the season kicks off properly and it’ll be the return of Xhaka who I’m sure will get a good reception. I suspect Arteta might do something today, maybe not a press conference (or maybe he will?) but maybe a video or something ahead of the game. It’ll be interesting to see where his head is at in terms of how ready the team is physically for the season start. All players are back now and in training mode and we’ve been treated to some training ground pictures back at London Colney. I suspect there will be a glimpse of Calafiori tomorrow, maybe from the bench or something like that, but it’ll be interesting to see how we line up in general because it feels like this is when we’ll get the closest thing to the starting XI for the Wolves game, although I suspect Lyon in the Emirates Cup will be the proper dress rehearsal.

There won’t be any new signings to speak of I don’t think (check my reversal psychology going on here…), but maybe by the weekend Merino is moving along. It all seems to have stalled based on the news that is being drip-fed to us, which makes me wonder if Arsenal are going to drag this out a little bit. If their valuation is closer to £20million+ and Sociedad want £26million+, you could probably save yourselves a few million by entering negotiations towards the end of August. Sociedad have a player who is free come next summer and if they have him in January then Arsenal could probably negotiate a free transfer anyway, so if we’re getting to late December and a deal hasn’t been done, that’s my feeling about this situation, that Arsenal are trying to save a few bucks, as the Americans would say.

I’m sure there are a few that will take the view we should just “pay the damn money” but £6million is no small chunk of change. Sure, for these clubs it isn’t as much as that sort of money would mean to you or I, but Arsenal has always prided itself on being a financially well-run club. We don’t need shady sponsorship deals, selling of property to ourselves or two do weird and inflated transfer sales of our academy players to other clubs who are also operating in the murky grey world on the edge of the rules. So £6million – if my speculating is correct and that is what Arsenal are doing, is worth holding on a little longer for.

We’ve also got a very good team who you’d hope are all able to survive without the likes of Merino for the first few weeks of the season. A lot can change of course with injuries, etc, but we seem to have a pretty fit squad – poor old Tomi aside – to start the season, so Arteta has plenty of very good options in almost every position as it stands. We need reinforcements for a busy season, for sure, but the first few week’s you’re only playing one game a week anyway, so there’s no need to press the panic button just yet.

The Eddie news is still rumbling along too. The noises I’m reading on the socials are that Arsenal are happy to use him should the valuation we have not be met. Which I think is fair enough really. Would I like to get a good fee and look to get a player in Arteta is more willing to use? Of course I would. I know we used him more at the beginning of the season, but towards the end he really didn’t get a look in and never made it off the bench for the last six games. In fact, after Fulham away on 31st December he never started a game again last season and only racked up 86 minutes in total for the last 15 Premier League games of the season.

But Arsenal do need to stand firm. If Marseille really want the guy, then they have to pay the asking price and I think if Arsenal a playing a little hard ball here, it’s a slightly different situation to Merino. That’s because his contract runs until 2027 and so even by next summer he’ll still have two year’s left to run. Arsenal don’t need to sell. They – we – probably think it’s best for all parties, but if a club wants to play silly buggers and leave it until deadline day with us given no chance to get a replacement in, you’re better just keeping Eddie as a squad player. Our forward three has Martinelli, Trossard, Havertz, Jesus, Saka and Nketiah in it, not to mention Nelson and Vieira has been trialled wide left this pre season, so we are pretty well stacked. Perhaps we could try to shuffle the deck a bit with an Nketiah and Nelson exit, but we aren’t desperate for that and so I think we’re in a strong position. So ‘good for you’ I say to Arsenal for holding out. get closer to €30million/£25million and a deal is there to be done guys.

I feel like i’ve been talking about Eddie and Merino for the last week and I’m getting to the stage where I might be repeating myself, so it is perhaps quite merciful that we have the friendlies to get a look at the team tomorrow and Saturday. Then we can start to get back to the real football in 11 days time. Can’t wait.

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a good one.