If the friendly against Bournemouth failed to generate excitement in front of a rather modest crowd, Manchester United at the SoFi Stadium tonight might do the trick. There is obviously a very different attitude to pre-season, how important it is, how much people are paying attention. I think it would be great to see Arsenal playing football again.
It’s definitely not the same, and I won’t lose any sleep if we don’t win this game, but I’ve really missed seeing Martin Odegaard and his teammates in action. The game against Bournemouth earlier this week had a mix of first-team and academy players, but as this tour progresses, you’ll see the scales tip towards the first-team preparing for the new season. Gabriel, Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz have all joined up with their teammates and will no doubt be in the running for some time on Saturday (or Sunday, depending on where you are) after training on Friday.
I’m curious to see how this season will affect all three of these players. Gabriel could see less playing time with Jurrien Timber returning and the potential arrival of an Italian defender. Havertz was a solid No. 9 at the end of last season, but things could change quickly if Gabriel Jesus (or a new contender) returns to form. And Gabriel Martinelli has had a bit of a disappointing season and seems to have lost his place to Leandro Trossard towards the end of the season. I think all three returning players will need to perform well tonight to be successful this season.
Of course, transfer rumours continue to sway in the background. Mikel Arteta tends not to reveal much, but when Kaya Kaynak was asked about the Riccardo Calafiori deal in his pre-match press conference, he and Odegaard laughed it off a bit.
The club will be quiet until the ink dries, but it would be nice if we could get this done and get him over the line in time to be in the team and play some role against Liverpool on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. We’ll see. There have also been increasing links to Mikel Merino, but he’s probably still on holiday for now as he went all the way to the Euros with Spain.
In an ideal world, Arsenal’s business wouldn’t end there, but the market still seems to be moving very slowly after the Euros and Copa America. It was great that we got the business done so early last summer, but with Arteta nodding to the fact that these things aren’t entirely in our hands, it looks like we could see a very late in and out move this time around as things change.
We know what parts of the squad we want to improve, but it depends on the market.
Arteta also spoke about targeting in his press conference. 115 They need 114 points to beat Manchester City (of course, they technically only need 112 if they win once, but that’s a nitpick!) and while they’ve been close to that over the past two seasons, they now have the task of improving.
It’s about realizing what we need to do better, what we need to improve.
We know the margins that we need to make to do that, because at the current level, the margins that we can improve are very small. We are trying to be clear about what those margins are and how we are going to improve them.
The margins are really good. We had the best defensive record in the league last season and only City scored more than our 91 goals. That’s the most in a league season since 1953. I’d say we’re not scoring a few more, but it’s not easy to find where to look and actually do it.
It would be a good start to a couple of games against United tonight. But remember, we lost 2-0 to them this time last year and the two teams were worlds apart when it really mattered. Still, it would be nice to get one more against them and one more Erik Ten Hag excuse bingo in the middle of the weekend.
The rest of the weekend is planned to be spent in Berlin today, where Pride is taking place. Other than that, the Olympics will dominate my TV for the next few weeks. Whatever you do, have a great day! I’ll be back tomorrow to talk about what’s going on at the games tonight.
