That was a tough ol’ watch yesterday, eh?

Arsenal went to Bergamo, they played a tricky opponent with a very specific approach that is ingrained in their system; they play high-intensity, man-for-man (something Mikel reflected on afterwards in the post-match presser), looking to nullify us by winning those individual duals and hoping that we didn’t have that moment of magic that could unlock them on their own turf. This was the first time they’d been in this competition for a while, they were in front of their own fans and so didn’t want to get off on to a losing foot, so the end result was a match which – in reality – had very little to speak of bar one or two key incidents.

It’s something James and I talked about on the Same Old Arsenal pod last night and whilst we have one or two pivotal moments that we could talk over, broadly speaking this game won’t be remembered long in the memory when we get to the end of this season, methinks.

Arteta was always going to rotate at least some of his players yesterday, what with City coming up at the weekend, but whilst Rice coming in was a fairly obvious call we all could have made, it felt like a toss of a coin as to whether it would be Jorginho or Partey starting. Arteta opted for the Ghanaian and whilst my pre match line up prediction was wrong in that sense (I thought he’d lean in to the Italian connection in Jorginho), I was right in that the two elder statesmen on the team effectively job shared on the night. Partey was off pretty much on 60 minutes and I wonder if Jorginho might get the first hour at the weekend in Manchester?

It was clearly a pre-determined substitution and I wonder if it’s a microcosm of the game itself; this was a match that Arsenal didn’t want to lose, didn’t want to over-exert themselves, in amongst a really tricky period of three tough away games in a row. The whole game felt to me like an Arsenal team playing in third gear; we created a few chances in the first half (like Saka’s free kick that the ‘keeper smartly palmed away), we held Atalanta at arms length and defensively in that first half they never really looked like causing us a threat. But the issue we had – and it’s for the second game in a row and I don’t know if it’s by accident or design – is the lack of that final ball from the middle third to the final third. We missed Martin Odegaard. Or at least somebody like him, which is why I could see many calling for Nwaneri to get more minutes. IN the end we opted for Rice and Havertz in that midfield and whilst Havertz has won our hearts in attack, it still doesn’t feel quite like it’s working when he dops back in to midfield. I get that he can move around the pitch, that he doesn’t have a fixed position and he often pops up in attacking positions, but when out of position and dropping in to our defensive shape, when the ball turns over, he’s naturally sitting a bit deeper and I think that affects our build up somewhat.

Gabriel Jesus got a start and you could tell that he was rusty. He chased, he harried, but he never really looked like he was going to have that Champions League threat that I’d spoken about the day before. We know he loves this competition, but that was never going to be his night last night against that opposition and whilst trying to recover his fitness.

And after five minutes of similar stuff it felt like this game was going to end up being a drab 0-0.

Step forward Thomas Partey and David Raya.

I saw a few people lamenting Partey on the socials last night, but I think this was unlucky, because the initial foul happens inside the box and then there is an unfortunate tangle of legs that was minor. But it was connection and the referee is always going to give those. No VAR save today unfortunately.

Then the penalty itself took an age as VAR checked it. The fact they took so long tells you what a tight call it was, but it gave Raya the opportunity to go over to Inaki Cana and get in to quite a bit of dialogue. The Spaniard’s spoke for about a minute in what looked like a lot of detail and even at the time I remember thinking “They’re showing quite a lot of this. That’s interesting.

Well, we could see why. The first shot itself was a pretty poor penalty, I have to say, but David Raya’s second save was nothing short of stupendous. His quick reactions to get back up and leap across his goal was something I haven’t seen in a long time and not only was it arguably the finest save of the season, but it wasn’t even the first time he’s done that in an Arsenal shirt this season. Remember Villa? Yep, this one was possibly even better. But the fact that I can’t separate the two tells you just how awesome this save was. And that’s a win against Villa that he’s had a significant impact in, as well as helping us keep a clean sheet. I have been sceptical over the difference between Raya and Ramsdale ever since he signed, but this season Raya has certainly stepped up and is showing that the difference is not just with the ball at his feet, but his shot-stopping too.

That moment alongside the Villa one will have won any remaining Arsenal fan doubters like myself over I think. It was Raya’s Seaman versus Sheffield United moment and I think not only did it salvage us a point on a pretty average night, but it will have been massive for Raya’s confidence.

So we pick up a point on the road to go with our three points away at the Toilet Bowl. So far so good. But on Sunday comes the biggest test. The team will travel back today, they’ll be in training tomorrow and Mikel will have to craft another plan to nullify City. But what he will definitely be thinking long and hard about is how he improves things in the attacking end of the pitch, because it feels like we’re going to get caught out unless we can solve some of our lack of creativity issues right now.

But that’s something to ponder over the next 48 hours. For now it is ‘job done’ – just about.

Catch you all tomorrow.