Here we are folks – match day!

I have to tell you, I know this feeling well from many years on this planet and many times experiencing this s well as getting to go to The Arsenal on the first day of the season, but this feels like the most excited I’ve been of what’s to come. I think it might be ever.

And I find myself thinking “why?”

There’s a multitude of reasons.

  1. We are really good – The last two season’s have shown the kind of growth and evolution in this squad that has seen us move from a side with which we ‘think’ might do well, we ‘hope’ will have their potential realised as a young team, to we ‘know’ that they are. Every year those players have gotten better and better and as a result I find myself projecting glory – even though yesterday I made my predictions and talked about my inherent pessimism as a kind of defence mechanism to protect myself from getting too carried away.
  2. We have a really good manager – I think I’ve said it on here a couple of times, but as we signed Mikel, my mate Dave told me that somebody had been speaking to ex-Arsenal midfielder Paul Davis, who had been doing doing his coaching badges at the same time as Mikel. Davis had said “he is very special” at the time. Now we are seeing this. In his five year’s at the club he’s taken us from some of our lowest ebbs to a stage in which plenty of pundits are predicting we can topple the immovable object that is City’s Pep. The fact we are even in the conversation is amazing.
  3. The squad looks balanced – Whatever outsiders want to say about ‘they need a striker’, the fact is that this is the most balanced I’ve seen an Arsenal team look in – arguably – decades. We have a player for every position and last season we hit 91 goals, so if we do that again and spread that across the team (which in itself is a bit of a risk mitigation in case of injury), then I am hopeful that we will win ourselves some shiny silver trinkets. It used to be a cliché that as Arsenal fans we’d always opine for ‘just one or two more players and we’ll be ready to compete’ but I believe – and have seen a fair few other Arsenal fans say the same – that we could sign nobody else this window and we’ll still be competing for the league.
  4. Our form and the mentality sounds spot on – this is a bit of a ‘vibes’ riff, but just listening to the players from last season, plus the winning run they went on at the end, as well as the manager and his press conference yesterday, makes me think that the hunger has even been dialled up a notch from last season. Arteta spoke about it specifically in his press conference yesterday and as opposed to Ten Haag talking about not being ready, Arteta seemed very steadfast in his view that there are no excuses. This is a tough league, the hardest in football, but this Arsenal team are ready for the challenge.

That press conference has been buoyed for today. Wolves are a good team, they will pose us a threat no doubt, but if this Arsenal team and Arteta are focused enough, then you’d hope that they have enough across the squad, to get the three points. The team news is that Tomiyasu and Tierney are 100% out as we know, but Timber and Vieira are back, which means we’re going to have good first team squad players who aren’t even going to make the bench. You can name up to nine subs on your bench, so a bench of 20 players and I was looking at what we could see today, which I think will be:

Raya

White   –   Saliba   –   Gabriel   –   Zinchenko

Partey

Odegaard   –   Rice

Saka   –   Havertz   –   Trossard

The bench could then include:

  • Ramsdale
  • Timber
  • Kiwior
  • Calafiori
  • Jorginho
  • Fabio Vieira (who Arteta said is being assessed)
  • Gabriel Jesus
  • Gabriel Martinelli
  • Eddie Nketiah
  • Reiss Nelson
  • Ethan Nwaneri (Arteta confirmed will train with the first team this season
  • Aiden Heaven (as above)
  • Myles Lewis-Skelly (as above)

That’s 13 players to pick from for the match day squad. IF KT and Tomiyasu were fit you’re talking 26 players at Arteta’s disposal and given the form of the younger players this summer, I wouldn’t have a problem seeing any of them at some stage. You can talk about a marquee wide player all you want, but the fact we’ve got this many options now is pretty good if you ask me.

Arteta did admit that we cannot expect to keep White, Saliba and Gabriel fit for the whole season though, so I think he will still be looking for more and that’s why we’re so close to Merino. If he comes in that’s 27 players with three impressive youngsters who are waiting in the wings making up those slots and that’s why I think I am feeling like we’re ok in terms of numbers and quality. Would I like to add a quality forward who can play across the front line? Of course I would. Do we all think Mikel would? I think so. But whilst we all think Eddie and Reiss probably need to move on for the sake of their own careers, I have no problem with them being here come September 1st if we haven’t been able to move them on. Providing Gabriel Jesus and Martinelli stay fit, they will be third choice options anyway and when you are talking about players like that as your third choices, that ain’t too bad if you ask me.

In terms of today’s opponents, let’s not sleep on them, eh? Last season they gave us a scare after we went comfortably 2-0 up but managed to hold on to that 2-1 win at the Emirates and I think they’ll be up for a spoiler today; they’ve apparently had a good pre season too and have beaten both West Ham and Leipzig. They’re missing Neto of course, who has gone to that horrible club in West London, as well as Cunha, who is a threat in their attacking third. Nelson Semedo is also a good player for them but he was sent off in the final match of last season, so he’s out too. They also sold Max Kilman to West Ham so they’re without one of their main defenders from last season. All of this combines together to suggest to me that Wolves will be aiming to frustrate and contain us this afternoon, which might mean a back three instead of his usual 4-3-3 approach. I think they’ll rely on the counter and tuck in and so keeping players like Hwang quiet will be essential for our back four. Last season they struggled to create chances and I read something this morning that they had the fourth lowest xG last season, only just above the three relegated teams. Let’s hope that lack of chance creation continues today.

I’ll be there this afternoon signing my heart out, then tomorrow morning we’re all back for the Same Old Arsenal podcast, so join us at 9.30am if you fancy a bit of a debrief. Otherwise, I’ll see you here in the morrow.

Let’s foggin’ go guys!