It’s Bayker Leverkusen tonight for The Arsenal in a game that feels like the first ‘proper’ friendly match this summer, if that makes sense? What I mean by that is that Arsenal are back on home soil, it’s close enough to the new season that the team should be getting back to fitness, we have all of our squad back from various international tournaments and we’re up against an opponent who have been dubbed the German Invincibles. It’ll be fantastic to see how Leverkusen play tonight. Xabi Alsonso took the footballing world by storm by upsetting the Apfel Wagen in Germany by beating perennial champions Bayern to the title. They were imperious and went the season unbeaten, also winning the German Cup and as I have already said this week, they have managed to keep a number of their stars so far this summer. I suspect the ‘Alonso factor’ has something to do with that; had he left lfor another club, I think they might have seen a few guys looking to move on, but so far they appear to be sticking together and I suspect a few of their stars will start tonight and play some minutes at least. So we’ll see Boniface, Wirtz, Xhaka, Frimpong and others, possibly also some of their summer signings Terrier, Alex Garcia and Belocian, who they’ve signed for a combined £46million(ish).

I wonder if their fans will have the same feelings as us after we competed with City two season’s ago for the first time, which was:

“Are we now just good? Was last season who we were?”

I’ll admit that this was exactly what I was feeling last summer. We didn’t win the league as impressively as Leverkusen, nor did we pick up any trophies of note other than the Community Shield, but I wondered whether that was a season in which all of the chips fell in our favour and we would fall back in to the chasing pack for City. And over the Christmas period last season I also had the doubts, but a Premier League season is a long time and it is the true marker of consistency, so last season showed me that Arteta’s Arsenal are a good team and hopefully barring any kind of massive dip in form and injuries, be towards the top of the league again.

So is that the same for Leverkusen? Are they now ‘this good’?

I certainly think the signs are pointing in that direction. They have a decent squad as a whole, they haven’t lost players as I have already mentioned, they will be confident going in to this new season and interestingly last season they also had to contend with European football in the shape of the Europa League. They went to the final in that competition and managed to maintain competitiveness in multiple competitions throughout so to me it doesn’t feel like we’ll see too much of a drop off. Perhaps they had a similar situation to us in that the Champions League demands you play your best players more often midweek as well as at the weekend, but it feels as though they are well-equipped to do that.

As for Arteta, he will be wanting to see his side shaping up like the side that finished last season on an impressive winning streak. We’ve done the fitness exercise matches that were a bit exhibitiony, we’ve got all of our players back and we need to not see silly concessions of goals like we had against Liverpool and United in the last two outings. We need to see that rock-steady back line showing that we’ll be very difficult to score goals against this season and we’ll need to have a midfield with Declan Rice running the show. Then in attack we need more potency; so I am hoping to see movement and technical excellence on the ball with the likes of Kai, Bukayo, Martin and also Trossard, with Gabby jesus and Martinelli providing more of the ‘bang bang’ in our play. I suspect all will play some kind of part tonight.

It’s on The Arsenal website but I am not paying for a friendly game, so I think I’ll see if I can find a way to get a blow-by-blow look at the match through other means of some sort I suspect. But what I do want to see is an Arsenal team with the game faces on. Hopefully we get that.

On the transfer front it appears Marseille have called Arsenal’s bluff on Eddie Nketiah and have now switched their attention to a few options, one of which I saw was Lens’ forward Elye Wahl (I thought he was in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly?? 😉 ), who played against us and played well I recall, getting a goal and an assist. He’s younger than Eddie at 21 and played more matches for Lens last season, bagging 12 goals and four assists in 37 games, but given that Lens signed him from Lens for €30million, the noises of Marseille offering €20million feeling a little spurious to me. Then Fabrizio Romano said yesterday that they were looking at Youssoufa Moukoko from Dortmund on a loan to buy options. That to me feels more realistic, although he has played a lot fewer minutes at 758 in the season over 27 appearances with six goals. Looking at his numbers it looks like he only started five games all season and so if Marseille get this over the line the noises are the Eddie deal is dead.

If that’s the case so be it, because Arsenal can’t be messing around with low ball bids. If we want to be seen as a club that doesn’t just accept any old bid and be poor sellers, then sometimes you have to accept that you need to turn away from poor offers. I do find it surprising that there isn’t a Premier League club willing to give him and us some coin though. This is a guy at a perfect age, has scored a fair few goals and last season had nine goals and assists in all competitions. £25 – £30million isn’t a massive outlay in today’s market and just think what he could do at some Premier League clubs. Fulham, for example, have a 33-year-old Raul Jimenez who played 29 times and got seven goals, as well as Rodrigo Muniz who played 33 times and got 10 goals. I’d wager Eddie could better that if he started regularly. Nottingham Forest have Taiwo Awoniyi up top who is a good player, but struggles with fitness. Brighton have their options but Joao Pedro was in and out of the team with injury last season and Evan Ferguson is still only 19, with Welbeck at the other end of the spectrum at 33. Wolves, Southampton and Leicester would surely also benefit from somebody like Eddie? So I’m surprised we haven’t seen more clubs looking at him.

Perhaps the PRS has impacted the desire to go for him, but I don’t understand why clubs aren’t looking more closely at a proven Premier League goalscorer who, if he was playing regularly, should surely be good for 15 goals next season?

Perhaps I’m just doing my best sales pitch here and the reality is he isn’t worth it, but surely somebody must want to have a go, no?

Anyway, I’ve waffled on a little longer than usual today so I think I’ll pause and catch you all tomorrow for a bit of a digest on how the game went tonight. Have yourselves a good one.