I don’t usually lead with stuff about the Arsenal women, because I’m not as close to the goings on, but seeing the news break yesterday that Jonas Eidevall had resigned as Head Coach was a bit of a surprise, I have to say.

It’s also very unusual these days to see a coach resign rather than wait for their pay out, so whilst it is most likely the right move for all concerned given the poor results, it is still strange one to see play out yesterday. Let’s hope they can get the right person in and have things turned around after a pretty bad start to the season.

In an also unusual move from me this morning, I thought I’d also chime in on the fact that Thomas Tuchel will be officially unveiled as England manager today at some stage. This is the first appointment from the FA in which I’ve been very surprised and genuinely impressed with. Southgate did a good job at first, but when he was hired it felt very ‘Company Man’. Allardyce was a nod to the ‘Brexit Britain’ style nationalistic pride that had me very ‘meh’. Hodgson was underwhelming, Capello had the CV but not the charisma, McClaren was a bit of a parody and before that Sven was a lovely man and I thought could go on to do great things, but it never quite materialised.

It will be really interesting to see what Tuchel can make of this, especially as he’s seen as a very tactically astute coach, but what he is doing is taking on an England team with plenty of assets that are talented so you can see why he’s attracted to the role (and the money too I’d wager).

So, back to The Arsenal, in which it appears overnight Gabriel played the full 90, so he should hopefully be fine to return and we’ll have him in the team against Bournemouth. Good stuff. Kiwior also started on the left of a three against Croatia and also played the full 90; valuable for us given that he’s not had many minutes so keeping him ticking over in case of yet more injuries is certainly worth it. David Raya also played for Spain in their 3-o win against Serbia, with Merino also getting 65 minutes before coming off for Pedri and from what I can tell there isn’t anything in that other than a tactical sub, so if you’re going to look at that as part of his recovery then you’d probably say that’s the perfect amount of minutes to get for Merino. He’s had 20+ minutes as a cameo against PSG, he then got a solid 30+ minutes against Southampton, plus this just over an hour against Serbia, so if you’re going to map out a perfect pathway for a return to starting, this would probably be it for Mikel Arteta. Will he start on Saturday? Only time will tell. But I suspect he has a good chance to. That’s especially true given that Odegaard will probably not be ready to return just yet, but with Merino in the side the options are starting to fill out a bit more.

And having had the midfield be the place where we have appeared to have suffered the most with players missing at the start of the season, suddenly that is the part of the team that looks to be pretty well stocked. As well as Merino ready to start, we have:

  • Rice – played the full 90 for England in Finland so you’d assume he’s fine
  • Partey – didn’t go with Ghana because of illness and you’d expect him to be over that. I’ve had a cold for the last week and even I’m feeling better, so an elite athlete like him should be a-ok to be playing this weekend
  • Jorginho – not playing for Italy any more and so he’ll be fine

Of course there is a minor question over Havertz but all of the noises appear that this absence from the German team was because of more of an attempt to be precautionary than anything else, so I’d say hopefully he is fine having had his feet up for two weeks. Trossard also alternates with Havertz in the attacking part of the midfield and with him scoring against Italy on Monday (Calafiori also looks good to play as well by the sounds of it) he will be fine for us I think.

The real questions we’ll have are going to probably be at full back and in attack. Timber didn’t go with the Netherlands but it sounds like that was more to give him some time off having played a lot recently, so I think he’ll be back. As too, we have to hope, will Ben White and with the Tomiyasu news coming in about his setback that I mentioned yesterday, it feels like we need our full back options back. I think the noises were that Zinchenko would be back too and although he’ll likely not be fit enough to start, just having him back in the squad will make us feel that, like the midfield situation, we’re getting our options back.

So it’ll likely be how we are getting on with Martinelli and Saka that we need to worry about. If Carsely is true to his word, then hopefully Bukayo has recovered from the knock (Carsley had said he was close to play in the Finland game, but they didn’t want to risk it), so I think the bigger question is whether Martinelli’s calf problems can be shaken off. If not, then one of Sterling or Jesus playing there in his absence wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it? These are seasoned pro’s and hopefully with a couple of week’s stuck at home and not playing for their international teams, they can be raring to go if called upon.

All we need to know is what Mikel says in two days time.

Catch you all tomorrow.