Arteta’s words yesterday that Bukayo Saka is “ready to go” were like a perfectly harmonious symphony orchestra delivering their first sweet notes to your years of a summer concert. We’ve missed the Starboy, we’ve cried out for his ability to change games, we’ve longed to see him cut inside and deliver end product for us for just over three months. But now he’s back and although it’s too late domestically to have the kind of impact that we would have all hoped for, at least he is back and can help us for the remainder of the season, not least (we hope) in the Champions League.

Arteta was asked if he’s ready to start and although he affirmed that was the case, I can’t be having that, not when there are – with all due respect to Fulham tonight – bigger fish to fry in the Champions League in eight days time. Tonight’s game needs to see a place on the bench for him and maybe 20 minutes at the end to give him the reception he deserves and to light up the Emirates with that beaming smile of his as he takes to the field. The roar will certainly be bigger than anything we’ve heard in our home ground for quite some time that’s for sure.

Arteta was asked about Saka and wider team news and whilst it’s not great for Calafiori – who will be out for a few weeks – defensively you’d hope that we have enough cover. In fact, regardless of whether the Italian was fit or not, I suspect we wouldn’t have seen him from the start anyway, given that newly capped Myles Lewis-Skelly currently has the starting jersey. His performances for England had Tuchel purring and I for one am glad we’ve found him this season, because he’s sparkled for us and effectively rendered the likes of KT and Zinchenko practically redundant.

So it’ll be Raya in goal, MLS at left back, Big Gabby and Bill Saliba as four of the back five, but I guess one question mark will remain at right back. Ben White is now fully fit, he’s able to play 90 minutes and given that Timber didn’t play for the Netherlands due to illness, it feels inevitable that it will be the Englishman who gets his place back. It will be interesting to see how long he gets though, because one of White’s trademarks over the last couple of years has been his willingness to overlap Saka to create more space. We haven’t seen Timber do as much of that to my recollection, but if Saka is only getting 20 minutes at most tonight, does that mean we’ll see White and Saka together on that right hand side? Or will we be seeing White come off if/when Saka makes his way on to the pitch for Timber?

These are minor footnote details, I know, but those relationship dynamics in football are usually quite important.

In midfield I think that given we’ve had no football at the weekend and no fresh injury concerns, it’ll be Partey at the base, Rice at left eight and Odegaard at right eight. Then the question marks need to come in attack. Does Arteta go with more experience and play Martinelli AND Trossard on either flank? Or does he go with Nwaneri because of some of the end product he’s delivered for us in the last six to eight weeks?

Personally, I’d have Ethan wide right, Martinelli wide left, then I’d give Trossard another go at false nine. Arteta won’t do it, of course, because he loves a physical and dominant presence in as his central keystone at the top of his team. That means it’ll be Merino, but I wouldn’t be averse to telling Trossard and Martinelli to alternate and switch positions in game to see if they can pull apart those Fulham defenders. Trossard hasn’t looked great recently playing through the middle and Arteta doesn’t seem to fancy Martinelli centrally, but when Trossard has played that position recently we’ve seen more of a makeshift team with Sterling playing in it. So it hasn’t really been the types of players who can pull apart defenders. Just ones that run into them.

Fulham’s approach will be interesting. They low-blocked us on their own patch, but I read Marco Silva’s comments yesterday and he said they will come to play, come to play us with their game and whilst a lot of managers say that and we end up seeing a low block, I think Silva might be truer to his word than some of the managers that come to our gaff.

The big question for me is whether the weekend result has effected Fulham from a confidence point of view. They were pretty emphatically dumped out of the FA Cup at the weekend at home whilst we had our feet up. So not only is there that disappointment still potentially fresh in their minds, but they’ve also had less time to prepare for this game, having been playing football just 48 hours earlier. My hope is that those two factors can play this evening, although there should be no excuses from an Arsenal perspective, Fulham are a good side, they’re unbeaten in their last three against us and they will be stubborn and look to catch us cold on transition and counter, but we have to be better at breaking these teams down. They’re eighth in the league for a reason and they’ve been in good form away from home too. The fact they are just three points off City in fifth also gives them added motivation to get a result tonight. So this won’t be easy. They have players who can hurt us, not least ESR, who we are all aware of his talent. Silva has talked about an element of inconcsistency about his game and I think we can all recollect that being something that not only Arteta has spoken of, but also that we’ve seen ourselves. But he’s got end product in him and if he can find that on a regular basis then he’s going to forge an impressive career at The Cottagers. Let’s just hope he doesn’t do the standard ‘return to haunt your old club’ thing.

Back tomorrow with some post match thoughts.