Here we go folks, strap yerselves in, because we’re now on the countdown the North London Derby and that means any of the football media outlets you usually tune in to will be awash with COMBINED NORTH LONDON DERBY XI‘S, ex-players talking about how this is ‘make or break’ for both teams, discussions around why one of these teams is a ‘shoe in’ and other such hyperbolic nonsense.

I get it – it’s the biggest game of the weekend by far and the rest of the ‘big teams have relatively low key affairs; United away to Southampton, Liverpool at home to Forest, City at home to Brentford and because they are in the Champions League I guess you’d say Villa at home to Everton. So in reality once these fixtures are done one of Arsenal and the Scum will be seen to be playing more catch up. I also ‘get it’ because these guys need to make a story out of something, so you’re going to pick a game like this; before the pointless September internationals Liverpool were at United and that was the centre of their attention, but now it’ll be us and it’ll be our turn to chew our fingernails.

And I am a sucker for consuming content too; I read all of the news, all of the stories, I listen to the preview pods and I worry myself silly ahead of a game I have repeatedly called “my most hated in the season by a mile”. I still stand by that, by the way, because a) we’ve got a terrible record there in general over the last decade or two (although not in the last two season’s, I’ll admit), and b) they’ve not always been that good. We’ve just not always performed.

Of course It’ll be harder with our injuries and suspensions in midfield, plus the fact that bizarrely Jarred Gillet has been handed the North London Derby just weeks after failing to send Mosquera off for a choke slam on Havertz in the opening game of the season. That is weird, I have to say, because there are 21 referees in the Premier League this season, which means in theory you could have a different referee for almost half of the games in the season. Yet here we are, just four games in and we’ll have had the same referee. Howard Webb is sticking two fingers up to The Arsenal, because this strikes me as something you are unlikely to see in 99% of the season for most of the teams. It’s also weird that they’ve put an Australian referee with an Aussie boss for the Scum; I don’t think it really makes any difference whatsoever and I doubt they are close, but the optics of it do look a little weird. It’s a bit like the optics when you get a referee from Manchester (har-har – most of them are from Greater Manchester) refereeing a game between City/united and a London club. The optics just don’t sit 100% in terms of impartiality – or at least the perception of it.

I had a quick look at his record for us and them on this website and it actually doesn’t look like it’s that bad; seven games, five wins, two defeats, with the Scum having him eight times and winning four and losing four. He was the guy who ruled out Havertz’s goal in the Villa game, which again was strange because as much as it touched Havertz’s hand in that game, if I recall rightly it also touched the Villa players hand, but only the offence against Havertz was given. There’s also the fact that camera angles proved he couldn’t have seen the infringement because he was behind a player or two, but we’ll let that slide for now. Well, at least until Sunday when he sends an Arsenal player off for another nonsensical decision. But in the main he’s presided over Arsenal wins, which is probably because it’s been against ‘smaller’ opposition – Wimbledon in the cup, Southampton, Fulham, Brighton in the cup, as well as Burnley away last season. So this game here represents a big one for him and Arsenal and we have to hope he’s prepared for it. Because these are always tetchy encounters and what we don’t need is a trigger-happy referee who wants to get his card out at every slight infringement.

On the flip side, what we don’t want is a referee to be keeping his pocket for everything, because that way you’ll end up with players hurt. It’s a balance that needs to be struck and one wonders if he is strong enough to do it. I hope so.

As for us, Arteta’s attention will turn to who on earth he puts in midfield this weekend. I suspect the club are running drills today, tomorrow and on Saturday with a new look set up and as I mentioned yesterday, there are a number of options that will need to be considered. Neither are perfect, but then again that’s the whole point of an understudy and even if Fabio Vieira was fit and still at the club, I don’t think any of us would be looking at him and thinking he’ll be able to replicate what he did when he stepped in for Odegaard two season’s ago against Brentford in that impressive 3-0 win we had. So I’m coming round to the idea that trying something different might be exciting and might just be that ‘Hail Mary’ that could be a difference maker. After all, if none of us Arsenal fans have any idea what we’re going to do in midfield, what are the Tottenham analysts thinking?

So that’s my first bit of optimism I think I’ll lean in to for this coming weekend: we are the unknown quantity. We have the element of surprise and whilst clearly it would be better if we didn’t and had players available to play, the fact that the Scum don’t know what Arteta is cooking, perhaps at least gives us a weird edge.

And I think I’ll leave it there for today, because I’m sure there will be all manner of previews that start to filter out throughout the day and despite lamenting many of them, you can be damn sure I’ll still read/listen/watch them.

Catch you all tomorrow.