Whilst basking in a North London Derby victory is plenty of fun and I intend on doing it a bit more today, there’s no rest for the wicked this week, with Atalanta on Thursday and so probably Mikel and the team leaving for Italy either later today or first thing tomorrow. I wonder if they have a set rule around when they travel? Does it differ depending on the proximity to the previous game? Or the location and distance? I’d imagine that if we were playing a Belgian team, or PSG away (I know we have them at home, I’m just thinking about close locations) then the rules might differ, but surely they want to get a training session in the country they are playing in before the match, no? In a sport where marginal gains is very much a thing, having the players training in the climate they will be playing in must be a thing and if that’s the case you’d imagine they’d be boarding a plane to Bergamo today so they can be in the hotel overnight and train tomorrow, I would have thought.

Maybe I’m thinking too much about something that really doesn’t warrant it. Perhaps I need to go back to victory basking at the expenses of The Scum.

Yesterday was fun consuming all of the content though and when it is those lot, I do enjoy heading over to enemy territory and seeing the fallout. What’s interesting this time around, however, is that a lot of them aren’t massively angry, just resigned that despite having more possession, despite on paper having more shots, they all know that they were bested by a team who is very much showing itself to be an experienced outlet these days. And that’s what we are. The project itself – aka trust the process – is reaching the point at which pundits are starting to make comments about winning silverware and to be honest I can understand it; we have accumulated a lot of very young players and they have grown together and been moulded by a tactically obsessive manager who has mapped out for the a clear way of playing and approached based on each game state. I said this during the game on X and Threads, but at one point in the first half on Sunday I heard Arteta say (I’m paraphrasing the exact words but broadly speaking this is it) “ok, jockey, yes, yes, yes….” as the ball was near him on the touchline and Saka was standing up to hold his man in position. Then, when the ball was passed to a different player slightly backwards, Arteta barked “NOW WE PRESS, NOW WE WIN”. He had clearly identified that certain players – or at certain points in a passage of play – were more vulnerable to the ball turning over. And in that short moment as fans we were treated to the tiniest peaking in to the world of the Arsenal team and all of these details they work on in training that we don’t see. We get to witness the end product and when that works it’s amazing for us, but very few of us truly get in to the inner sanctum to truly get an idea on what life is like at London Colney and the detail that Arteta meticulously plans out.

And to be fair that’s for the best, because if we all knew, then opponents would know and would work on ways to nullify it. In the post match yesterday the reporter – I think from Sky but it might have been BBC – asked Arteta what the secret was to the goal and whether they’d talked about targeting Vicario given how he had looked a little unsure on crosses last season and then today. Arteta laughed it off and said “no, winning headers, that’s what we work on – scoring goals” (again, I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but you get the gist) and of course that’s a simple explanation as to why we scored, but there’s no way that you become as good as we are on set pieces without knowing all the details on your opponent and their weaknesses, as well as your own strength and movement. They will have been working on this stuff all week since the players got back from international breaks and the output was a well crafted, well thought out, impressive goal that was the difference-maker between us and them on the day.

The challenge he will now face is that with so many games once again shoehorned in to this season, finding time to do detailed analysis and work on specific plays for upcoming opponents, because few and far between. The players will most likely have had a day off yesterday so they can recover from the intensity of the North London Derby, they’ll probably do a session this morning, then it’s off to the airport later on to head to Italy. Even if they leave tomorrow, it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to do too much on the opponents on Thursday, not like they would have done in the week leading up to the NLD. Maybe they do their analysis and game plan in blocks i.e. last week they looked at all three of these matches this week, but as Arteta explained post the game on Sunday, injuries change everything and his game plan had to pivot this weekend just gone as it was, so mapping out game plans for the next game and the one after that seem impossible. It would also make a mockery of the football manager cliché of “the most important game is the next one” if you are planning three ahead.

So instead he has today and tomorrow to work out what to do, then he’ll have Friday and Saturday to assess his squad’s situation for City. He’ll also be crossing everything that we don’t get even more injuries, although by the sounds of it at least Bukayo Saka limping off on Sunday was just down to cramp, so hopefully he’s fine, because we could do without any more injuries or suspensions right now. He had run himself ragged in both directions against them and given it is the start of the season, I can understand why he was suffering, but it is still something the club needs to keep an eye on and I wonder if Arteta even decides to shuffle his starting deck on Thursday evening as a result? I know it’s early in the season, but we need to start as we mean to go on and so I wouldn’t be averse to seeing a little more movement and rotation on Thursday. Maybe that means Jorginho and Rice and Partey sits out, or maybe it’s Partey and Rice with Jorginho saved for City on Sunday? Then perhaps we see Sterling coming in for Martinelli or Saka, along with Gabriel Jesus, dropping Kai back in to the left eight and letting Trossard rest for Sunday? Or maybe he plays Trossard and knows that Martinelli running in behind a higher pressing City might give us a better outlet than Trossard, so it is Martinelli who takes to the bench? Whatever he decides, with Rice to come back in and with Jesus and Sterling getting some minutes, it feels like there are at least some options for Mikel to have a think about.

And I think I’ll leave it there for now. Back tomorrow for more ramblings.