Hello and welcome to Arseblog from – wait-a-goddamn-minute-this-isn’t-my-house! In fairness, it does appear to be the house I went to sleep in, but it’s not my house, with my bed, with my things. Tis not unpleasant though, I’m staying with some friends in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. We shall call this place something imaginative and completely original, like The Upside Down. Things are not what they seem.

For example, there’s a mouse in this house. In fact there are two mice. One is merrily scurrying around in its cage, the other is apparently in a toolbox, in the garage, being an ex-mouse after it contracted some disease that necessitated its demise. Long time readers may know I have two large Maine Coon cats. I can only speculate as to what they’d do to either or both of these mice, but I can’t see any of it ending well for the not-yet-dead mouse. The ex-mouse probably wouldn’t care.

On to things Arsenal and a quick Saturday round up for you ahead of the game against Newcastle this afternoon. It all seems to be quotes from the manager today, starting with some chat about his compatriot at the helm at Newcastle:

He is the first of the Spanish coaches to be working here. He knows the Premier League. He got the best performance with a lot of teams and above all with Liverpool.

I remember a few interesting games between the two teams when Benitez was still at Liverpool, both getting thumped and giving a thumping. Let’s hope today is a case of the latter rather than the former.

Emery also had a bit to say about our style:

We need to improve on the pitch with our personality and our ideas. We want to do better than the last match in Cardiff. We want the same result but we can be better on the pitch.

Let’s hope so. The new system and processes Emery is trying to put in place are obviously going to take some time to work, and a win is a win however it comes, but it’d be nice to see us put in something of a performance too.

Emery also had some words for the Europa League, a competition Arsene Wenger didn’t seem to take too seriously until the latter stages when he started to play what he felt was his best eleven. Speaking of the first Europa League game, against Ukraine’s FC Vorskla, he said:

I have proven with my experience to know the best way to manage the players. My idea isn’t to change 11 players between one competition and the next competition.

Which makes it difficult to see how younger players are going to get a look in, but maybe he’s reserving the Caracaracarabou Cup for that type of experimentation. We’ll have to wait and see, I suppose.

Emery has also had something to say about Mesut Ozil, who has yet to register a successful through ball or assist this season:

The reason we are working is to prepare each match with our players to have the possibility to arrive in Newcastle in the best condition for every player.

That’s the same for Mesut. He working well. He is OK. I want to push them, I want to be demanding to prepare this match – Mesut the same.

I want to find with him the possibility to do the best, to make decisive passes, to do more near and in the box to score. Also I think he is working for the team to help us with his quality.

But he is feeling like I am feeling. He can improve, he can do more. In this process, we will work, we will help him, give him the possibility on the pitch to be together, to find his qualities for us.

All well and good, but as our best paid, and probably best player, he needs to start delivering, so hopefully he can start that today.

Sticking with the manager (finally!), Emery has little to say about Ivan Gazidis’ proposed move to Italy. Having been pressed on the CEO’s situation, in not at all unreasonable comments, he said:

I answered this question and every conversation with me is speaking about us. About our performance. About our ideas. Our process. Then, for his future we didn’t speak. I think it’s one question for him.

Which is exactly as it should be. We’ll wait to see what happens, but it does highlight the new structure and how the Chief Exec and manager are sufficiently far apart from each other that one or the other leaving doesn’t really make much difference (to each other; obviously the manager/coach leaving is a bigger impact on the club).

Finally for today, in team news, it seems from what I can tell that we have no new injuries, so we’ll hopefully see Auba link up with Lacazette some more, with potential for Lucas Torerria to his first start, presumably alongside Xhaka in midfield.

That’s it from me. As ever, we’ll have a liveblog for you this afternoon, so tune in for that if you can’t watch live.

Until next time. Come on you Gooners!

MATCH REPORT – PLAYER RATINGS – REACTION – VIDEO

By half-time of yesterday’s match, it’s fair to say I was not impressed.

My frustration boiled down to a huge disparity between what the coach and players tell everyone we’re trying to do and what we’d actually done. 

Where was the pressing of our opponents? Where was the quick-tempo football? Why weren’t we playing through the lines? What kind of an attempt to build play from the back repeatedly ends with a hopeless long ball? Why Mustafi? Why? Why? Why?

We were unimaginative, laboured, meek and dopey in equal measure.

Thankfully, despite trying to copy Cardiff’s tactics, Newcastle – a very limited team – failed in their attempts to break the deadlock with an aerial bombardment. In fact, by the break, neither team had registered a shot on target. It was turgid stuff and quite difficult to watch.

Unai Emery had plumped for the same starting XI that won in the Welsh capital, which meant that once again Matteo Guendouzi partnered Granit Xhaka at the base of our midfield. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a controversial decision, but Lucas Torreira must have been scratching his head. Since signing for £26.5 million, he’s not started a game and that’s despite a series of tidy cameos and an assist last time out.

If the little Uruguayan was miffed, he certainly channelled his annoyance well. His introduction at half time (credit to Emery for that) changed the game for the Gunners.

At this point, I should point out that Matteo Guendouzi, whom he replaced, had done little wrong in his 45 minutes. In fact, he’d come closest to scoring with a cross-cum-shot that zipped over the bar and had completed 39 of the 40 passes he attempted.

Anyway, back to Torreira. Inside four minutes he fizzed a pass to Aubameyang who was immediately taken out from behind about 25-yards from goal. It seems strange to think that an innocuous forward-minded pass could recalibrate the mentality of the whole side, but it seemed to do the trick.

Obviously, it helped that Xhaka curled the resulting free-kick over the wall and into the top corner. For once, the Swiss didn’t try and leather the ball, his connection with side-foot technique was controlled and it produced that awesome up and down swerve that makes it look like the ball is accelerating. Dubravka in the Newcastle goal had no chance.

Emery said afterwards:

“I think the key is the first goal. This goal gave us the confidence to continue to improve in the match. We finished the match with the result.”

Within nine minutes Mesut Ozil had doubled the advantage. Very early in the build-up to the goal, the commentator on my stream greeted a pass by Torreira with the words; ‘I don’t think he’s put a foot wrong since coming on.’ I don’t know about you, but I was certainly thinking the same.

His touch moved the ball to Ramsey who played triangles with Aubameyang and Monreal before making space for Xhaka to play a give-and-go with the left-back that released him behind the Magpies defence. The Swiss looked up and arrowed a pull-back to Lacazette who was unlucky to have his shot blocked at close quarters. The rebound fell to Ozil who nonchalantly opened his body and tucked the ball home first time. Not a bad way to mark your 200th appearance in an Arsenal shirt.

The German, our tenth different scorer of the season already, was understandably chuffed and later took the opportunity to make clear he’s enjoying the new coaching set-up, no matter what the doubters might say.

“I am very happy to play for Arsenal and especially for the new coach. He knows what he wants and the team accepts that, we have a good relationship. We score and we are happy, even the players that don’t play, we are all team.”

Aubameyang had a chance to kill the game within a minute but he dragged his effort wide following some brilliantly tenacious attacking play by Lacazette, who’d taken down a long ball by Xhaka and hustled it to his strike partner. Pierre never really got going all afternoon and was replaced by Mkhitaryan with 20 minutes remaining. 

After that we controlled things nicely. We weren’t exactly Pep-era Barcelona, but compared to the first half we at least looked alert and eager to play football. Newcastle, their crowd quietened, seemed to run out of steam and with the game stretched, chances came and went for Torreira and Mkhitaryan.

Of course, Arsenal being Arsenal, we let Rafael Benitez’s side back into things in the dying moments. There was a warning on 85 minutes when Cech tipped over Joselu’s header; the Geordies’ first effort on target. Annoyingly, we didn’t learn our lesson and when another cross from the right was whipped to the back post just into stoppage time, Ciaran Clark, unmarked, reduced the deficit with his head from six-yards out.

The wait for a clean sheet goes on. I can’t tell whether we’re choosing not to close down the crossing of opponents out of choice or if something is seriously awry with the pressing of our full-backs and wide players. I’m leaning towards the latter.

Thankfully, unlike in 2011, there was no time for a miraculous Newcastle equaliser. The points were ours and so too a third win on the bounce. Not that these things mean much at this point, but we’ve climbed level with Sp*rs to the heady heights of seventh.

Just returning to Torreira, quickly. Looking at the Stats Zone app, he made fewer passes, interceptions and ball recoveries than Guendouzi and he won fewer tackles than the Frenchman. His pass completion rate (74% vs 97%) was also considerably worse. And yet, despite all that, I suspect most people who watched the game will agree that Torreira made more of an impact for us.

It was all about balance, according to Emery, who said after:

“I want to give every player confidence. I am very happy with Matteo and also very happy with Lucas. Maybe in the second half, we needed a little more balance on the pitch with the positioning. Lucas gives us this balance.”

When we face Everton in the Premier League next Sunday, I’d love to see Torreira start, but it’s hard second-guessing Emery’s selection policy especially with other competitions kicking-off.

On Friday, he suggested he’d limit squad rotation for the Europa League and in yesterday’s post-match conference he said, “We’re going to change and use a lot of players for different competitions.”

Make of that what you will.

We now have four home games on the bounce, Vorskla on Thursday, the aforementioned showdown with Everton, Brentford in the Carabao Cup and then Watford. I’m getting used to this winning thing. So here’s to a few more in September.

__

Right, that’s nearly it from me.

Just a quickie, to congratulate Reiss Nelson on his debut goal for Hoffenheim. The 18-year-old, who is there on loan for the season, came off the bench to score with his first shot in the Bundesliga. Unfortunately, his team still lost, but nice work all the same.

OK, I’m signing off. Blogs returns from Spain today and will be back on duty tomorrow. Thanks for reading over the last week or so. Until next time.

Hello everyone, I’m back from Spain having consumed most of the Jamón Ruffles in the world, and partaken of many refreshing beverages. In some ways, I feel like I now need a holiday to recover from the holiday, but I’m very grateful to have been away and to have enjoyed some hot weather and the restorative powers of the sea.

I should first say thanks to Andrew and Tom for holding down the fort so well, particularly during an Interlull when things are so quiet, and to James for putting together a podcast last Friday. I might have been away but the world of Arsenal and #content waits for no man, so it’s great to be able to hand things over to people I know can do a great job. Cheers guys!

So, Andrew touched on the Newcastle game in yesterday’s blog, and I sit here a couple of days afterwards still not quite sure what I think of it, and by extension, what I think of us right now. On the one hand, winning away from home after an Interlull is nothing to be sniffed at. Even aside from last season’s troubles on the road, we’ve often found it tough to take three points from these kind of games in these kind of circumstances, so there can be no complaints about the result.

There were positives for sure. It feels to me like Mesut Ozil’s goal was one he really needed after what has been a difficult time, and if it helps boost both his confidence and performance levels that can only be a good thing. Granit Xhaka’s free kick was superb, a weapon that hopefully we’ll see more than once throughout this season. I thought Sokratis had an excellent game at centre-half, he looked more assured and seemed better able to read what was going on around him – understanding his new teammates more fully is surely playing a part there.

And the fact that our ten goals this season have come from nine different scorers (and one own goal) has got to be seen as a positive thing. I’m more than happy for my team to have a 30 goal a season striker, but being able to spread goals around is important too. The varied threat of goals from your front players and midfield can give the opposition something to think about, and I hope that continues.

On the subject of 30 goal a season strikers though, we paid £55m for one in January after spending £50m on another one the previous summer, and right now I think we’re a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette. There’s no doubt the Frenchman has played his way into the team over the last couple of weeks, but I’m far from convinced that playing the former Borussia Dortmund man on the left is the best way to use him.

He did have a couple of chances against Newcastle, and ought to have been given a tap-in but for Aaron Ramsey’s poor final ball, so you can see how he might have made his contribution. However, right now it doesn’t feel like the optimum way to get the best out of one of Europe’s most prolific centre-forwards over the last few seasons. His reaction to being subbed suggests he’s feeling a bit frustrated himself, even if the manager said what you’d expect a manager to say when quizzed about it afterwards.

In fact, that front four of the two strikers plus Ozil and Ramsey doesn’t quite feel right in terms of balance – a bit too much square peg and round hole action for me. But maybe it also just needs time. Every time you think you’ve got a hot take on something, you realise you need to step back because this is only five games in and Emery is only just beginning his work. This ‘process’ that he keeps referring to will, we hope, become more natural and refined as time goes on. Perhaps part of it is to see what doesn’t work as much as what does and the only way to do that is play games, try things, and for him to analyse and make decisions based on that.

I’m kinda torn over his predilection for half-time substitutions. Is it decisive action from a manager, or a tacit admission that he got his team selection a bit wrong in the first place? Again, our sample size is too small to make any definitive judgements here. The half-time introduction of Lucas Torreira on Saturday against Newcastle definitely made some difference, although if we hadn’t performed better anyway after the break – even without a change – I’d have been worried because the first 45 minutes was so turgid.

The next couple of weeks will be really interesting, because we have four consecutive home games – two in the Premier League, one in the Europa League and one in the Carabao Cup. I’m curious to see how Emery will approach the cup games and what kind of squad rotation we’ll see. Some might take the view that playing some senior players in need of a boost against relatively lesser opposition might be a good idea, as well as helping him refine that process, but he’s also got to include the players who, up until now, have been warming the bench.

They have to feel involved, we’ll need them as the season goes on, and we also need them to put some pressure on what seems to be an established Premier League hierarchy because that can only be a good thing for the squad. You can’t have competition for places if you don’t give these guys any playing time, so as we get into the part of the season when we have a game every three or four days, we’ll come to better understand how the new boss views his players and how he operates.

It’s fascinating really. We’re all trying so hard to figure so many things out right now, and while we can all assess the games and the performances within that small context, it will be some time before we can really say anything for certain about what’s going on. As we live in an era of instant judgement, where patience is no longer a virtue but a perceived inconvenience, it’s going to be a bit of a challenge, but an interesting one all the same.

Right, I hope this finds you all well. James and I will have an Arsecast Extra for you this morning, recorded last night so don’t send any questions, and all the news throughout the day will be on Arseblog News.

Catch up with you here tomorrow.

Welcome to another Arsecast Extra, the Arsenal podcast, with myself and James from @gunnerblog.

On this week’s show discussion of Saturday’s 2-1, post-Interlull, win over Newcastle. After an unconvincing first half, the Gunners found their groove a bit in the second, but questions remain about what exactly we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it. Is that front four compatible? Should Lucas Torreira have started? Those questions and more answered, as well as listener questions about Unai Emery’s pressing style, the potential departure of Ivan Gazidis, Europa League rotation and lots more besides.

Remember, you can send us questions via which we’ll try and get to each week. Send them to either @arseblog or @Gunnerblog (or both) using the hashtag #arsecastextra. Best to send them Monday morning so they get noticed more easily.

You can subscribe to the Arsecast Extra on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes).

You can listen without leaving this page by using the player below, download the Acast app for iOS or Android, or download the MP3 directly using the link below.

Also, if you’re a fan of the show, please leave us a rating/review on iTunes, it’d be greatly appreciated.

Download – iTunes – Acast – RSS

This Arsecast Extra was recorded with ipDTL

There’s a curious thing about Arsenal at the moment. On top of all the other changes we’ve seen in recent times, the way games fizzle in and then fizzle out is quite interesting. I don’t mean to use the word fizzle in a derogatory manner either.

There’s nothing, then a fizzle of press conference + game + post-match reaction, then a fizzle out to almost nothing again. This really is in sharp contrast to the Wenger era when there seemed to be so much more going on on a day to day basis.

I don’t know if this is because of what I touched on yesterday, in that it’s hard to have discussions about things when we’re still trying so hard to figure out what’s going on, or something else. Perhaps it’s that we got so tied up in the soap opera of Arsene Wenger over the last few years that things seemed to resonate for much longer.

Again that’s not to be negative about the former boss but simply to be realistic about how all-encompassing his presence was. They say no man is bigger than the club, but one man can become so intrinsically linked with a club that it’s practically impossible to have any conversation about the institution without it involving him. I can’t even begin to count the number of times in the last few years when I’d meet someone, tell them what I did for a living, and then have them ask: “Well, are you Wenger in or Wenger out?!”

There was as much discussion about him as there was about the football. Everything Arsenal did was viewed through Arsene’s Prism©®, and even if you took a more rounded view of what was going on, the extremists at both ends were always there driving an argument that was circular. A never-ending cacophony of discord which must be some version of hell for those who have to endure it.

Thankfully, for most reasonable people it was possible to exist without exposing yourself to it too much, but you always knew it was there. A background hum of anger and self-righteousness from people who literally had nothing better to do than to argue with strangers on the Internet all day, every goddam day.

That’s gone now. And that’s a good thing. It’s not to say people who enjoy arguing all day long have found something better to do. I don’t think that’s the case, they’ve simply jumped on board different vessels. I sometimes see those aboard the SS Emery – with its crew of those who will defend the man and the club to the very hilt and will hold no truck with any criticism of anything ever – but the majority have just left port on a passenger liner that might well be the QE2 or, perhaps, the Titanic. The journey has just begun.

It has left us in a less busy place, some might say a more reflective place, as we see land disappear behind us and we head for open seas. I don’t quite know where this metaphor is going in a football sense, but the sea is beautiful and majestic and filled with wonderful creatures, but it’s also powerful and scary and there are deep sea fish that look like they can give you cancer with a flick of their tail which also has their eye on it, so it’s all ahead of us.

I think that’s what I’m saying, and it’s to highlight that this morning, after a good win in the league on Saturday and our first Europa League game coming up on Thursday that there is very little going on at Arsenal from a football point of view this morning.

At board level though, it looks as if things are going to change as I was told yesterday that Ivan Gazidis would be leaving the club to take up the role he’s been linked with at AC Milan for months now. As I’ve said here before, the idea of going through a transfer saga over a chief executive really doesn’t interest me at all. We’ve been through enough of those with people who really matter for this to register, but you have to say that the whole thing has been a shoddy mess from all concerned.

This story began much earlier in the summer, at first it was denied, then acknowledged, then we had that statement from Arsenal which made nothing clear at all, and complete silence from Gazidis himself which was curious after a period in which he couldn’t wait to get out in front of the cameras and talk and talk and talk.

At a time of seismic change to have this kind of instability at board level, as well as the complete inability – or unwillingness – to address it properly as a club has been a bit embarrassing really. Obviously Stan and Josh had other things to concentrate on as they hoovered up Usmanov’s stake and then bought up the rest of the shares from small shareholders, many of whom did not want to sell.

I can also understand why, from the Gazidis side of things, silence was the best option. There’s a lot to work out with a move like this, terms of his departure, gardening leave, his new package at AC Milan (with some points in the club apparently), but none of it reflects well on the people who are supposed to be guiding this club in the right direction at a turbulent time.

Lest we forget, KSE’s pledge in their takeover document was:

KSE’s ambitions for the Club are to see it competing consistently to win The Premier League and The Champions League, as well as the major trophies in the women’s senior game and at youth level.

Perhaps this is all simply part of that process. We’ll see more stability when Josh Kroenke comes in, which is what I’m told will happen. I suspect we might see Raul Sanllehi take more responsibility for football matters at board level with Kroenke Jr more business focused, and there’s no question that the make-up of the Arsenal boardroom will be very different in 12 months time as KSE put their men in to replace some of the old guard. You’d expect nothing else when they take 100% control, that’s the way it goes in every other business so why would we be any different.

Whether it’s going to be the beginning of a new KSE era, in which the ambitions they can so easily trot out in a document are matched by the kind of investment it will require to realise them, remains to be seen. You wouldn’t blame a person if they had a more cynical, perhaps pessimistic outlook than that, but as our football ship heads for open waters, so too does our executive vessel.

The Dread Captain Kroenke and his merry crew of reprobates and ne’er-do-wells will be steering our course back towards the promised lands of the Premier League and Champions League. Or, at the very least, a continued increase on the investment as commercial and broadcast revenues continue to increase the overall value of the asset.

All aboard!

The last 12 months have seen Arsenal undergo a series of changes which have completely altered the complexion of the club as we knew it. From backroom staff to manager to boardroom to pitch, when you step back and look at it in total the scale of what has gone on has been quite something to behold.

If it felt like bringing in Unai Emery, new signings, and his backroom staff was the final piece of the new red and white puzzle, the continued rumours of Ivan Gazidis going to AC Milan caused some instability – particularly when he had been seen as the driving force behind many of the new appointments and the new direction the club appeared to be taking.

Yesterday we got some clarity at last as Arsenal’s worst kept secret was made official. It  was never a question of if he would go to AC Milan, but when, and clearly a move like this takes a lot of wrangling behind the scenes. That he leaves at the end of October to start at the beginning of December in Italy shows you some negotiation has gone on because the club would have been within their rights to hold him to a longer notice period or even put him on gardening leave for much longer than a month.

Perhaps it’s the goodwill in which he’s viewed by Stan and Josh Kroenke. Perhaps it was a financial sweetener from the hedge fund which now owns the Italian giants. Who knows? We might find out in time, but in truth I’m not sure it really matters that much now that we have a clear idea of what’s going on.

The most important part of this whole thing is what we do, and for now it seems as if we’re going to operate without a CEO and we’ve appointed two men to handle two different sides of the job Gazidis was in charge of. Raul Sanllehi, who was appointed Head of Football Relations in January, will now simply become the Head of Football, while the current Chief Commercial Officer, Vinai Venkatesham, will be the club’s new managing director.

The distinction is obvious: the Spaniard will oversee all things football, and with a wealth of experience at Barcelona, he’s clearly got a track record which makes him the ideal candidate to do that job. He’s a smart operator with fantastic connections in the game, and the efficiency with which we did our incoming summer transfers was, in no small part, down to him.

He’s got some legacy issues to deal with straight away, as he’s been left a couple of messy contract situations in Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck, and whatever he does with those two, one of his most important jobs will be to ensure we don’t let players run down their deals the way they have in recent years. We might have to make difficult, sometimes unpopular decisions about selling players – maybe ones we like – but that’s the way it goes at every club of our level, and others have shown that you can sell key men, reinvest, and come out the other side stronger.

As for Venkatesham, I don’t know a great deal about him, but if Gazidis has been criticised for our relative under-performance from a commercial standpoint, then surely the man in charge of that division can’t escape some scrutiny for it either. It was under his remit that we were caught up in a bizarre story earlier this summer about a partnership deal with a Chinese company brokered by a fake employee, but we’ll see how he gets on as his work gets underway.

Either way, I think the separation of the two parts of the job is a good thing. Someone to focus completely on football and someone to focus completely on business. Over the last couple of years, I’m told that there was a blurring of the lines, so to speak, when it came to Gazidis. Primarily his role was more business focused, but he took an office at the training ground, began to get involved in player recommendations when it came to signings etc, and as Swiss Ramble pointed out in one of his fantastic Twitter threads, it came at the expense of our financial numbers. We’ve been boosted by broadcast income, but a rising tide lifts all boats, and the nuts and bolts of our commercial income haven’t matched the other teams around us.

Some will point to the deals done in 2014 as evidence of our commercial growth, but such were the restrictions on us from the deals which helped build the stadium, they were always going to be significantly better. Others, I’m sure, can analyse what went on under Gazidis from a business point of view with much great acumen than I ever could – Phil Wall asks will anyone notice his departure – but he has been a kind of figurehead since his arrival in 2009 and in mitigation, I don’t think he’s always had the easiest job.

He arrived at a club with a hugely powerful and popular manager, dealing with a squabbling board as the fight for control was still very much underway. Then there was the sale to Kroenke which gave him majority control, the isolation of the second biggest shareholder which ultimately led Alisher Usmanov to sell to the American but not before spending years piping up whenever things went wrong – and a lot went wrong – and dealing with an increasingly disgruntled fanbase.

And this is where Gazidis shone. He almost always said the right thing in a way which made you think things were going to be ok. A consummate orator, he could deal with tricky situations and questions pretty well – although year after year at the AGM Arsene Wenger, under even more pressure than the CEO, managed to outshine him in front crowds who were ever less predisposed towards the work he was doing.

“We can do things that will excite you,” said Gazidis.

“We should be able to compete at a level like a club such as Bayern Munich,” he said.

His words promised much but ultimately actions delivered little. Not all of his was his fault, Wenger’s power, Kroenke’s absenteeism, and other factors made things complicated, but this was a man who would talk positively about safe-standing and reduced ticket prices in public but didn’t follow through on that behind the scenes. This is a man who, when we were sitting on football’s biggest cash reserves, suggested we try and use Leicester as a model, and by the time everyone had stopped laughing at how ludicrous that was, transfer fees exploded ensuring what we had in the bank didn’t get us anywhere close to what it would have if we hadn’t kept our powder dry

When things were going so wrong last season, the man with all those words was nowhere to be found when some kind of leadership was required. He let Wenger take the sticks and stones week after week after week, but when the manager’s decision to ‘step down’ was made he presided over a toe-curling press conference, eulogising a man who wasn’t dead yet, putting himself front and centre despite being invisible – and deliberately so – for months. That rankled because it felt so cowardly, and whatever you thought of the Frenchman, he deserved better than that.

Gazidis deserves credit for the work to restructure the club, the appointments we all know about, but the jury is still out on the efficacy of some of those men – for no other reason that we haven’t had enough time to see how good they are at their jobs. He won’t be around to see how they get on though, because he’ll be elsewhere. And that’s all right, man takes a new job is hardly a shock or something to get angry about, but the timing of it feels a bit odd all the same.

Is he getting out before he’s held accountable for his work in that regard, or is the AC Milan offer simply too good to turn down? To me it feels much more like the latter than the former. Financially it’s a big increase and potentially worth millions more after he’s given some shares ahead of future sale. I wouldn’t blame him for taking that chance, but nor do I feel like his departure is a great blow to us.

KSE were always going to make changes at board level despite their offer document saying they had no plans to. Josh Kroenke will now take a much more active role in the running of Arsenal, we’ll obviously wait and see how that goes, and it might well be a case that he takes a different role than CEO as some of the old guard on the board are replaced in the not too distant future.

The question we have to contend with now comes back to the post I made yesterday: where are the Kroenkes going to take Arsenal? Will it simply be their European investment vehicle in a high profile space in which even mediocre outfits make profits and whose value continues to rise, or do they genuinely have ambitions to take us back to where we want to be?

All of us, I’m sure, hope it’s going to be the latter. Maybe Josh sees this as a chance to make his own name, and will preside over the kind of investment and smart running of the club required to make us truly competitive again. That’s the ideal scenario I guess. The flip-side is that we find ourselves stuck in a kind of mediocre rut that we can’t get out of, another one of the middling KSE franchises in their middling portfolio. I think our size and reputation protects us from too much of a downward slide, but the Premier League is an ever more difficult playground, and unless we find ways to kick on, we could be the team we are now for some time.

Anyway, it’s all ahead of us and hopefully now that things have been cleared up, the new men can get to work and help make things better.

Best of luck them.

Having played their first 5 league matches of the season, Arsenal are about to enter a sort of second phase of the campaign, with the Europa League group stages and the Carabao Cup tumbling into the fray. While a little unloved, these competitions give fringe players their first real chance to make an impression on the season and for some, their first opportunity to impress the new manager in a competitive environment.

Young players such as Eddie Nketiah and Emile Smith-Rowe will look to continue to build their profiles with minutes in these games. Arsenal are very well stocked in attack, where at least one big player has to be omitted from the starting line-up every week, so the Gunners will probably be able to call upon whomever does not make the team from the preceding league match as a policy.

For other players, the Carabao Cup and the Europa League represent an opportunity to build the case for more regular inclusion. Last season, this bifurcate approach to the Europa League led to a distinct line in the sand in the squad. Emery is still getting a feel for his players, having made many alterations to his starting line-up and lots of early substitutions. I suspect the fringe players stand a better chance of muscling their way into the manager’s thinking this year.

Nobody will be smacking their lips more audibly than Bernd Leno, who has yet to make his debut between the sticks. He will almost certainly be afforded outings against Vorskla and Brentford. That Leno has not started life as first choice at Arsenal surprised many Arsenal fans- myself included. The German has a reputation for comfort in possession that runs corollary to Cech’s, who gives the impression of a man left to awkwardly cradle a friend’s baby just after it has fudged its pampers when the ball arrives at feet.

A little concerned on how Emery views Leno if Cech starts tomorrow. Leno is 26 and has 300 top flight appearances. He shouldn't really need "time to bed in." Arrizabalaga and Alisson are less experienced and also have never played in the PL. Both will start this weekend.

— Tim Stillman (@Stillberto) August 11, 2018

Leno is 26, has over 300 professional appearances and has 6 Germany caps, he is no greenhorn. That said, I have revised my opinion on the goalkeeping quandary in recent weeks. Given Cech’s age and seniority, when he eventually relinquishes his place in the Arsenal goal, it will be difficult to turn back. Cech is facing down the final curtain, once he goes quietly in the night it becomes tricky and a bit disastrous for Leno if he has to be reinstated.

Spurs managed a similar situation back in 2012 when Hugo Lloris was brought in to as a long term successor to then 41 year old Brad Friedel. Lloris bade his time on the bench for half a season or so. When your competition is close to pension age, it becomes difficult, politically, to lose your place to someone who is being gently ushered towards light duties.

If Leno can appear solid and competent in the games he is about to play, the clamour for his inclusion will grow. I suspect that, like a few members of the squad, Cech is kinda sorta being given enough rope to hang himself with. Though, as I wrote a fortnight ago, Petr is a highly capable learner. He can learn to play Emery’s possession style in my view, the question is how quickly he can do it.

Leno can put Cech’s place under pressure with some unremarkable, incident free performances and a basic level of competence with the ball at his feet. In pure goalkeeping terms, Cech has not put a hand wrong yet this season, the problem is that he has put a few feet wrong. His nervy passing against Cardiff made his ball playing skills A Thing now which has invited plenty of scrutiny.

If Leno manages not to chuck the ball into his own goal or roll the ball straight to the feet of an opposing striker, Emery will be under pressure to pull the Leno leaver. All over the squad, Emery is having to deftly handle some egos. Thus far he has struck a balance between being undeterred by dropping big name players, or making half-time substitutions, but he does not appear to be holding grudges and creating unnecessary confrontation.

After a training ground fallout with Mesut Özil, Emery reinstated the German for the match against Cardiff. He suggested Aaron Ramsey needed to focus a little more on his football and a little less on his contract prior to the Chelsea match before leaving him on the bench for the game. Ramsey has played in each game since.

Granit Xhaka was unceremoniously hooked at half-time during the Chelsea game, but has played in each match since. Emery has displayed soft power without allowing minor gripes to become major grievances- so far anyway. Let’s hope Aubameyang’s minor huff at Newcastle doesn’t escalate into a full blown hissy fit. Unai has walked into a delicate situation at Arsenal and his handling of the competition between Cech and Leno has also tested his diplomatic skills.

On the sub’s bench, Leno has been out of sight, if not out of mind. With the cup competitions swinging into life this month, he will be ushered into the spotlight. There are several other players for whom this also applies too. Stephan Lichtsteiner will have the opportunity to properly challenge Hector Bellerin for his place in the team.

There is still the sense that Bellerin is struggling in a defensive sense- my own view is that there are well founded reasons for that that are not entirely of his own making. But if Lichtsteiner can operate more securely in the same framework and maintain the attacking threat Hector has shown, the Swiss could make life more awkward for the ponytailed Spaniard.

Really interesting halftime graphic here. Look at Bellerin out there on his own. No one close. Big difference from when Mkhi started on the right. Ozil drifting central. Laca and Auba too far apart. Again, from the first half today pic.twitter.com/33dnNTWDMK

— YankeeGunner (@YankeeGunner) September 15, 2018

Mohamed Elneny does not appear to have made an impression on Emery yet, which comes as a bit of a surprise. The Egyptian is capable of the hard running and stamina the coach appreciates and he is economical, if a little conservative, in possession. With Ainsley Maitland-Niles injured, Elneny has an even more presentable opportunity to stake his claim in the coming weeks.

The majority of the focus will be on Bernd Leno, many Arsenal fans will be willing him to prove himself. Cech has not totally convinced the fan base of his credentials as an outright number 1 and at 36, many are attracted to the idea of change between the posts. Leno’s arrival did not create enormous fanfare, but simply not being Petr Cech has probably boosted his reputation. Now he has not to ruin the fantasy in the coming weeks.

Follow me on Twitter @Stillberto– Or like my page on Facebook.

Renowned Arsenal historians Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews and I have written a book about the tumultuous early years of Arsenal Football Club covering the period 1886 – 1893. ‘Royal Arsenal- Champions of the South’ is available to order here.

There’s nothing quite like the glamour of European football. And Arsenal v FC Vorskla is, genuinely, nothing like the glamour of European football. It’s a fixture which – with all due respect to our Ukrainian opponents – really hammers home the difference between the Champions League and the Europa League, and a second season in this competition is really difficult to get enthused about, particularly at the group stages.

Nevertheless, there’s still something to get into because it’ll be the first time we see Unai Emery rotate his squad, and some of the players who have been warming the bench until now will get some playing time. Not least goalkeeper Bernd Leno who, having arrived from Bayer Leverkusen for a fairly whopping £22.5m (well it was until Chelsea and Liverpool splashed even whoppier cash), has been sitting there watching on from the sidelines.

Arsenal are not the kind of club to spend that much money on a back-up player, so I figured he’d start the season, but the new boss prefers Petr Cech despite the more senior man’s occasional issues with the ball at his feet. As James pointed out on the Arsecast Extra this week, the 35 year has barely put a hand wrong this season, but he has had the odd blooper as we try and put into practice Emery’s possession based style and play it out from the back.

However, the Spaniard confirmed that German will make his debut tonight:

Bernd Leno is going to play tomorrow. In our planning with our goalkeeper we have spoken with Javi Garcia, the goalkeeping coach. We need with Leno to give him a chance and the minutes of the game.

It doesn’t appear to be a case that there’s an obvious demarcation between keepers as there has been in recent years under Wenger ie. Cech for the Premier League, Ospina for the cup competitions, and to my mind that’s a good thing. But in his first weeks at the club the new boss has plumped for the man with greater experience in spite of the fact Leno seems to better suit his style. To me that suggests that the 26 year old has got some convincing to do, and while training is all well and good, it’s how he performs on the pitch that will be most important. It makes tonight an important night for him, regardless of the calibre of the opposition.

Stephan Lichtsteiner is set for his first start too, the veteran defender told the press he’s all about the work, work, work, work, work, and while Emery said he’d pick ‘the best team’ for tonight, he surely doesn’t actually mean his best team. He acknowledges the fact he has to get others involved:

Tomorrow we are going to change things to give players the opportunity to find minutes, to find confidence on the pitch and then maybe tomorrow’s players can play on Sunday too.

He’s certainly leaving a door open at least for those who make a mark in the Europa League to stake a claim for higher profile games, so hopefully that will be good for competition within the squad. As for the team tonight, I can only guess, but with Konstantinos Mavropanos apparently sidelined with a minor injury and only one senior left-back, I guess we’ll have some seniority in defence.

Perhaps we’ll see something like: Leno, Lichtsteiner (c), Mustafi, Holding, Monreal, Elneny, Torreira, Smith-Rowe, Iwobi, Mkhitaryan, Welbeck.

The whispers are that the biggest signing of the summer, Torreira, will get his first start tonight too. I do wonder if fitness/conditioning issues have been a part of why he’s been held back – and there’s no other way to put that when you look at his performances when he’s come on. He’s definitely added something to the team, and while I’ll be glad to see him tonight, I wonder if starting this game might preclude him from doing the same against Everton on Sunday. One game at a time though, I suppose, and if Emery is true to his word then tonight might be a small stepping stone to him lining up from the off in the Premier League.

As for tonight’s opposition, I really have no idea what we’re going to face, but apparently they finished third last season – their highest finish since 1997 – so you’d hope that whatever kind of team we put out we’re capable of doing the job. Oh, and hopefully keeping a first clean sheet of the season, that’d be nice.

As ever we’ll have a live blog for you, check back here for the details, or bookmark our default live blog page and updates will begin automatically staring with team news about an hour before the game. All the post-match reports, stats, player ratings and the rest will be found over on Arseblog News.

—

Finally for today, this week’s writing and podcasting made me think about how much has changed since Ivan Gazidis uttered his famous ‘catalyst for change’ soundbite back in April 2017. I went through every news article I could find to put together a timeline of the significant changes on and off the pitch, and you can view that right here.

When you look at it in chronological order like that, it’s an extraordinary amount for one club to go through in a little over 12 months. This is a very different Arsenal from the one we were. You suspect there might still be a bit more to come, but it does illustrate what’s happened and why it might yet take a little while for things to stabilise properly and get back on track.

Right, catch you later for the game, have a good one in the meantime.

Join us this evening for live blog coverage of our Europa League clash at home to FC Vorskla – kick off 20.00

We’ve got up the second live text commentary, updates, goal clips, observations and occasionally witty asides. If you want to join the chat, register an Arseblog Live account.

To do that, go to Arseblog Live – click login on the top right, and then choose ‘sign up’ to complete the process with your username/password, or you can use your Twitter, Facebook or Google account to register.

CLICK TO LAUNCH Arsenal v FC Vorskla – LIVE BLOG

Match report – Player ratings – By the numbers – Video

So our European campaign is off to a winning start with a 4-2 victory over FC Vorskla. I don’t think the scoreline really reflects our dominance, particularly in the second half, but it’s an illustration that there are still things that Unai Emery needs to work on with this group of players.

As expected Bernd Leno started in goal, but more interestingly Lucas Torreira was handed his first in midfield. I thought the Uruguayan looked impressive for the opening half an hour, but after picking up an ankle knock around that point – I think he landed awkwardly and may have twisted it a bit – he faded a little. However, up until then he’d shown qualities in that area of the pitch that you could see would be very useful week in, week out.

It wasn’t just his energy, it wasn’t just that he attempted to make a tackle with his head while lying on the ground, or his ability to give his central defenders and goalkeeper an easy out ball, but the range and ambition of his passing was pleasing to me. They didn’t all work, but he looks like he’s got the quality to find attacking runners from deep in midfield. Not all the passes came off, but I like that he sees those runs and tries to find them.

As you’d expect we dominated possession and territory, but didn’t really do a huge amount with it. That was until the 32nd minute when Mkhitaryan picked up the ball deep in our half (there’s some suggestion that he might have shouted ‘leave it’ at the Vorskla player – I have no idea but if he did I’m all for it), drove on, played Iwobi down the left and his ball found Aubameyang at the back post who finished to make it 1-0. A slick, quick, counter-attack gave us the lead in a game when we’d faced a packed, organised defence. Football eh?

It seemed to spark us into life: Torreira almost scored with a sneaky free kick around the wall, Auba hit the base of the post with a curling effort, and Mkhitaryan forced the keeper into a save before the break. We continued after the break and scored quickly through Danny Welbeck who headed home a Mkhitaryan cross after good work from the impressive Alex Iwobi.

Iwobi provided a good chance for Aubameyang who fired over, and as Emery was readying his changes, the striker got his second of the night. Having scored his first goal from outside the box in a long time in the win over Cardiff, he got another last night, curling home perfectly after he’d combined with Mkhitaryan and the ball had come back into his path off the legs of the defender. It was a fine finish, and also his last involvement as he and Torreira made way for Ozil and Guendouzi.

We saw another debut, Emile Smith Rowe replacing Iwobi on the 70′ mark, and just after that it was 4-0. Sokratis played a delicious chip over the top of the defence for Lichtsteiner, he put it to the back post and Ozil was there to poke it home with his studs. Lovely stuff, and with less than twenty minutes to go against opposition we were far superior to, this was now just about seeing out the game and ensuring we kept out first clean sheet of the season.

However, a mistake from Lichtsteiner allowed Chesnakov to slam the ball beyond Leno to make it 4-1 and as the game was in its very dying seconds they scored again. This time Sharpar was sharper than both Elneny and Guendouzi, firing home from the edge of the box to make it 4-2 with literally the last kick of the game. After the goal we let in in injury time against Newcastle last weekend, and then last night, it’s a lesson in concentration for these players. Both could be put down to late stage fatigue, but more properly it’s an illustration that even against more lowly opposition if you switch off you’ll get punished and in tighter games that could prove much more costly. You can’t say it’s a bad habit yet, but it’s something the boss has got to address before it becomes one, and speaking afterwards he was unhappy about the goals we conceded:

We want to be competitive for 90 minutes and I think the last 20 minutes, we conceded chances and we need to improve. Our disappointment today is that there were two goals conceded. But I am going to think that the first 60 minutes were very good and that we are going to continue impressing with those ideas.

It’s too easy, particularly after a win, to say ‘A win is a win, and let’s not worry too much about the other stuff’. There are times that works, but when you’re building something, when you’re at the nascent stages of developing a team and going through a process of educating players in your system, I don’t think you can ignore those failings. We’re six games in and we’ve conceded in every single one – it’s not a crippling issue as four wins in a row shows, but it’s something we need to work on for sure.

Still, there were more positives than negatives. Iwobi was excellent down the left, I thought the centre halves were both good – Holding was calm, assured in possession and read the game well, while Sokratis was more eye-catching, putting in some excellent tackles and playing his part in the build-up to the third goal. Torreira’s first 30 minutes, Aubameyang’s two goals, another goal for Ozil, and a nice debut for Smith Rowe who showed flashes of his undoubted talent.

I don’t think we learned an awful lot about Leno other than he appears to be more comfortable with the ball at his feet – although he was not subjected to the same kind of pressing Cech has been, and when he was put under occasional pressure he got rid of it more quickly – at one point to a smattering of applause for making that decision.

So, like every game so far this season there’s good and bad, this time the former outweighed the latter by some distance, but whether it’s enough to spark more interest in the group stages of this tournament remains to be seen. It really does feel like the poor relation and the attendance showed that. The swathes of empty seats ought to be something the board take note of. It shows that it wasn’t just Wenger-fueled apathy that kept people away last season: it’s simply playing Europa League football. The optics of it aren’t great, and it highlights just how important it us for us to get back into the Champions League. That is something that will require some investment from the soon be 100% owners, so let’s hope they’re as keen to make that happen as we all are to see it.

Right, because of the timing of the game there’s no Arsecast yet today, but there will be one a bit later on, so stay tuned for that.

Until then.

Welcome to another episode of the Arsecast – the Arsenal podcast.

On this week’s show I’m joined by Amy Lawrence to discuss the 4-2 over FC Vorskla and the Europa League in general. We also chat about the new boss, the players response to his methods, and where we are at this very early point in the season. Then there’s some boardroom chat in the wake of the Ivan Gazidis announcement, where will KSE take the club from here, and Amy reveals some snippets from a very interesting conversation with Per Mertesacker for an article to be published in this Sunday’s Observer. There’s also a small amount of the usual waffle.

Follow Amy on Twitter @amylawrence71

You’ll find all the download and subscription links below, and you can always subscribe in your favourite podcasting app by searching for ‘arseblog’ or ‘arsecast’. All our archives are found on site or via our Acast page.

If you are a regular listener via iTunes, if you would be so kind as to leave a review/rating that would be greatly appreciated.

Download – Acast – iTunes – RSS

I thought it was fitting this week not to examine yestereve’s game against Ukrainian titans Vorskla Poltava, but to focus on one man. One giant man. One enormous, towering figure, who more than any other, has transformed Arsenal, lifting us from obscure, small town part-timers into the top six club every farmer’s team thinks they can scalp.

Some say David Danskin, our first captain, should stand atop Arsenal’s Pantheon. There is a strong argument that Mr. Herbert Chapman laid the foundations for the modern club, and therefore should be revered. Mr. Henry Norris, devious and devoted Chairman for fifteen years, moved the club to Highbury and ensured that Middlesex’s Tottenham Hotspur remained in the Second Division after World War I.

Windsorists hold that the man who held sway over the club between 1996 and 2018, delivering multiple trophies, should bear the title of Mr. Arsenal. In terms of players, we can conjure legions of players from glories past.

But not I. Let us stand, shoulder to shoulder, and salute the passing of a footballing God, an immortal, pristine figure. Lord Jesus said, “No one is good but God alone,” but he had not yet met Mr. Ivan Gazidis.

Mr. Wicky’s Encyclopaedia strangely does not give any further details about Mr. Gazidis’s contributions to Arsenal, but I have used my extensive contacts within the club to give you just ten of his contributions to our great club.

10. Signing off on the transfer of Andrew Saint (a.k.a. ANDRE SANTOS) from Fenerbahce

Some say his lack of pace, his beer belly, his poor positioning, and the way he swapped shirts with Robin van Persie at half-time during a 2-1 defeat to Manchester United made him one of the worst purchases of the Gazidis era, but he proved everyone wrong with his astonishing non-overlapping runs, his dynamic head-scratching and his admirable insistence on being as generally un-Brazilian as possible.

9. Doing nothing to improve the experience of attending matches at The Emirates

One of the things this god amongst men excelled at was pretending to listen to fans. He remained resolute in his stance of not caring at all about queues for lavatories, pies, and just about everything else, and the pricing policy remains bracingly expensive, ensuring that may local working people, who I think we can all agree have served their purpose by supporting the club in the 123 lean years before the Gazidis era.

8. Insisting on air fresheners in the staff lavatories

We hear that just four years after receiving a number of emails about the rancid stench coming from the staff loos at London Colney and indeed at The Emirates, he insisted that air fresheners (“Neutradol, ideally”) be supplied to nullify the pong.

7. Boldly insisting on not tying down key players to long-term contracts

This ensured that bit part players like Cesc Fàbregas were purged from the club. Gazidis also insisted on Arsenal continuing our charitable good deeds by not asking reasonable sums for the transfer of players.

6. New shelves for printer and photocopier paper

It was a hallowed day when Ivan the visionary insisted that the photocopiers and printers all had shelves installed nearby so that nobody had to walk to the stationery cupboards on the second floor every time they need to refill.

5. Asking the staff which head polish he should use

We have all seen daylight bounce and shimmer off Ivan’s ovoid cranium, giving him his rightful halo. In an email from 2010, he asks everyone for their tips on how to ensure maximum shine. Nicki from accounts suggested Vaseline applied with an electric car polisher and he has stuck rigorously to that regime ever since.

4. Introducing a herbal tea option in the kitchens

Following a two-year consultation on hot and cold drink provision Ivan bravely signed off on the decision to make a range of herbal and fruit teas in the staff kitchens.

3. Working on a virtually pro bono basis

Considering his status as what the Japanese call “heavenly sovereign”, we should have been very grateful for his kind decision to only take £2.62 million in salary every year. The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust often attempted to top up this salary to a figure more befitting someone of Ivan’s magisterial status, via charitable donations and so on but these attempts were rebuffed.

2. New staplers

They arrived in April 2018, a fleet of magnificent Bostitch B8 Impulse 45 No-Jam Electric Staplers, one for each bank of desks, and they have transformed office life at Arsenal. Perhaps Ivan’s lasting legacy will be the ease with which up to 45 pieces of paper can be connected together.

1. Leaving

Like Mary Poppins he arrived, with the wind in the east, a magical nanny with not only authority but also gentleness and kindness. And like Mary Poppins he leaves, hoisting his umbrella made of four million Euros, and flies off to Milan, leaving thousands of bereft Arsenal fans clutching kerchiefs to mouths, tears streaming down their faces, utterly unsure of how we will manage without Ivan.

We’re six games in to the season and yet to keep a clean sheet. This is, despite four wins in a row, a little bit of a worry. Sitting here this morning writing this, I have no idea where that stacks up against previous seasons, so I’m going to do some live research (which is only live for me, you’ll see it as just regular research).

2017-18: 5th game – Arsenal 3-0 Bournemouth, Sept 9th
2016-17: 2nd game – Leicester 0-0 Arsenal, August 20th
2015-16: 3rd game – Arsenal 0-0  Liverpool, August 24th *
2014-15: 2nd game – Arsenal 0-0 Besiktas, August 19th *
2013-14: 2nd game – Fenerbahce 0-3 Arsenal, August 21st
2012-13: 1st game – Arsenal 0-0 Sunderland, August 18th
2011-12: 1st game – Newcastle 0-0 Arsenal, August 13th
2010-11: 2nd game – Arsenal 6-0 Blackpool, August 21st
2009-10: 2nd game – Celtic 0-2 Arsenal, August 18th
2008-09: 1st game – FC Twente 0-2 Arsenal, August 13th

* Community Shield not included

I can’t really be arsed going back any further than ten seasons, but suffice to say a clean sheet is a bit overdue at this point. In games like Man City and Chelsea, where our defensive organisation was nowhere near as solid as it should have been, you can find some mitigation. New manager, first games, top class opposition, but subsequently we’ve faced teams we should be more than capable of holding out against – not least Thursday’s game against FC Vorskla – and we’ve pretty much done a Spud from Trainspotting.

It’s one thing someone else dirtying up your bed linen, but the goals we conceded against Cardiff, Newcastle and in the Europa League were pretty avoidable and those sheets now need to be taken to an industrial cleaners. Or better yet just burned because there’s no getting those stains out after we soiled them ourselves.

If you haven’t listened yet to Amy Lawrence on the Arsecast from yesterday, you should anyway, but she makes a point about how things are so ingrained in the make-up and psyche of this club after 22 years of Arsene it’s going to take time for Unai Emery to get the players to relearn certain things. Defensive instability runs through us like the writing in a stick of rock, it’s part of our DNA, and even the arrival of a new manager and new players isn’t any kind of instant fix.

Of course people will look primarily at the defenders and the goalkeeper, but the Spaniard sees the issue as one for the collective. Asked how he planned to improve our defensive record, he said:

First, the confidence with our defensive players. Second, working tactically to be more compact. But not only for the defensive players but for the whole team, the whole 11. With this process I think we also need time, but it’s our first disappointment from the first games of the season. We need to improve this.

He also highlighted the goal we let in against Newcastle as one that could be relatively easily avoided in the future:

For example in the match against Newcastle we didn’t concede a lot of chances, and the goal that we conceded in the last minute is something we can work on. It’s something where we can give them the mentality so that it doesn’t happen again.

And on Thursday:

Yesterday was different because after we scored four goals, the team relaxed a little and conceded one or two goals.

Can I get a CONCENTRATION?!

Hallelujah!

Can I get a MENTALITY?!

Hallelujah!

Simple things that we can all see, but it’s amazing how often and how relentlessly they need to be drilled into football players. It’s blindingly obvious to say ‘Don’t switch off, track your runners’ etc but, especially late in games with tired legs, it’s something we see time and time again – and not just at Arsenal, by the way. Which is to say it’s almost impossible to eliminate those kind of mistakes completely, but ensuring they’re kept to a minimum would go a long way.

It’s why I hope Lucas Torreira is fit and ready to in the Premier League now. The Uruguayan has been bedded in slowly after his late return from the World Cup, but he clearly brings more natural defensive qualities to our midfield than any of the others. Both Mohamed Elneny and Matteo Guendouzi are energetic, but they’re players who provide us a passing option, the ability to keep and recycle possession quickly, while I think we’d all accept that the defensive part of Granit Xhaka’s game is not exactly his strongest.

Aaron Ramsey is being played further forward so doesn’t really come into this particular equation, which leaves Torreira as the man to make a difference in a key area of the pitch. When I looked at our defensive roster this season, and their individual qualities, it always felt to me that they’d need some help to make them more solid, and the recruitment of an actual defensive midfielder felt very deliberate in that regard.

Of course they can improve as a collective with more coaching and instruction, but Torreira could be a little bit of a force-field to offer a bit more protection. Every player has defensive duties, but looking at our personnel if you were to ask me the best way to make our back four better in the very short-term, it’d be the regular deployment of our number 11 (a weird number for a DM but then the world is weird and this is small fry in comparison).

Just a word on Sokratis before I go: like many I was a bit concerned about him based on what we’d read about his form at Dortmund, but he’s been quietly impressive in the last few games. It’s good to see but I do think we have to take the calibre of the opposition into account here. It’s one thing sliding into tackles to dispossess Boris Borisovski of FC Vorskla, but quite another when you’re facing superior opposition in the Premier League. I hope he can keep up the upward trajectory in his performances, because you can see how he and Laurent Koscielny could form a good partnership, but it’s a bit early to make definitive judgements about him or anyone else just yet.

Right, that’s your lot, I’ll leave you with the Arsecast, happy listening, and I’ll be back tomorrow to preview the Everton game and all the rest.

It’s Everton in the Premier League later this afternoon, and a few questions occur to me.

Is it time for Torreira?

Yes. Yes it is. It is time for Torreira. Like a kind of footballing Hue & Cry, I’m Looking For Lucas. There’s obviously a bit of worry about him after he seemed to pick up an ankle knock in the win on Thursday, but he wasn’t mentioned in the medical briefing that appeared on the official site so I’m taking that as a positive sign.

The Uruguayan has impressed each time he’s played this season, and it goes beyond the ‘Ooooh, he’s new and I like him’ kind of impressed that you get with some players and then after a while you think a bit differently. I’m very open minded so I’m not ruling out the possibility that he’ll be absolutely rubbish in 18 months time, but right now I think we need him in the team.

It’ll be him + Granit Xhaka + 1 other at the 10 position, which could be Mesut Ozil or it could be Aaron Ramsey, but that concerns me far less than the base of our midfield which is so important to the way we want to play and protect our back four.

Is it Go-Go Leno?

After starting his first game, did the German keeper do enough to displace Petr Cech in the line-up?

No. No he didn’t. It’d be amazing to me if the elder of our two keepers didn’t start today as he has in every Premier League game so far. You couldn’t say Leno was in any way at fault for either goal he conceded on Thursday, but he was hardly busy enough to make kind of judgement on his performance and quality. Cech continues.

Can Sokratis make up for Mustafi?

Arsenal have, since Arsene Wenger departed, given us greater access to what goes on behind the scenes and in training. I understand fully that what we’re getting is a sanitised version of real life, but in almost every single video there’s a bit where Mustafi is being zany. You might ask what this has to do with him when it comes to playing actual games of football, but I equate these moments of zaniness with those moments in a game when he, you know, just falls over for no reason or gets left on his arse by an average striker.

Mustafi is the kind of guy who goes to a party, puts a lampshade on his head and stands around shouting ‘I’M A LAMP’ until it becomes awkward. He’s also the kind of defender who can play very well, but it’s difficult not to worry about a mistake happening at any time. We have a lot of evidence of this.

People have been impressed with Sokratis in the last few games and I think he has definitely played well. I enjoy seeing a physical, no-nonsense defender and anyone who doesn’t like a good sliding tackle is, frankly, dead inside. The Greek international has displayed those qualities in the last couple of weeks, but the nagging doubt is that it was against teams who weren’t exactly the best we’ll face this season.

Everton aren’t world beaters, but they’re better than Newcastle and FC Vorskla, and they have a decent coach who can, on his day, get solid performances out of his side. This will be a bigger test for the former Borussia Dortmund man, and I’m interested to see how he copes and if his increased understanding of the man he plays alongside will help him make up for what feels like an inevitable ‘I’M A LAMP’ moment.

Can we keep a clean sheet?

As I wrote yesterday, it’s long overdue and it would be a very welcome addition to our statistical record this season. This is a team, despite its obvious teething troubles, that has plenty of goals in it, so a clean sheet would almost certainly mean three points (stand by for a tedious 0-0- now).

Petr Cech will want it, the defenders will want it, and Unai Emery will want it. The boss spoke yesterday about the need for everyone to contribute to our defensive effort, which brings me back to question 1 about Lucas Torreira so I think I’ve pretty much come full circle here.

Let’s hope that the concentration and discipline lasts for the full 90 minutes + injury time, and that we can start to build on the nice little platform we’ve given ourselves with four consecutive wins. A fifth today would be very welcome, not least because it would leave us on 12 points, right up there in the mix with the teams we’re expected to be competing with for a top four place.

—

Finally for today, if you listened to the podcast on Friday you’ll have heard Amy talk about her upcoming piece with Per Mertesacker, so for some extra reading this morning you can check it out here. There’s a reason why the BFG was one of my favourite players, and it’s not simply because I tend to identify strongly with central defenders for whom pace is not necessarily their greatest asset, but because he always seemed to get it. Right from the very start he was someone who understood this club and when you read the article it reminds you that he was a fantastic player but also a fantastic person.

Ok, live blog later on as ever, you can find that here, and we’ll have all the post-match stuff on Arseblog News.

Catch you later!

Join us this afternoon for live blog coverage of our Premier League clash at home to Everton – kick off 16.00

We’ve got up the second live text commentary, updates, goal clips, observations and occasionally witty asides. If you want to join the chat, register an Arseblog Live account.

To do that, go to Arseblog Live – click login on the top right, and then choose ‘sign up’ to complete the process with your username/password, or you can use your Twitter, Facebook or Google account to register.

CLICK TO LAUNCH Arsenal v Everton – LIVE BLOG

Welcome to another Arsecast Extra, the Arsenal podcast, with myself and James from @gunnerblog.

On this week’s show we celebrate the first clean sheet of the season in the 2-0 win over Everton. Petr Cech was the man of the match, the front four contributed but raise questions, Lucas Torreira got his first start, and we’re steadily racking up the wins after the difficult start to the season. Then we answer questions about why we’re so slow to start games, Cech’s improved form, Alex Iwobi knocking on the door, there’s an invitation to Josh Kroenke, chat about leadership at the club, Arsenal tag-team wrestling and much more.

Remember, you can send us questions via which we’ll try and get to each week. Send them to either @arseblog or @Gunnerblog (or both) using the hashtag #arsecastextra. Best to send them Monday morning so they get noticed more easily.

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This Arsecast Extra was recorded with ipDTL

Match report – Player ratings – By the numbers – Video

In some ways it’s fitting that on the day we kept our first clean of the season, our goalkeeper was the man of the match. Petr Cech’s performance was fantastic, the captain made saves, dominated his area, and used all his experience to ensure that Everton were never able to find the breakthrough – but the worry is quite how many chances they had to do that.

The first half in particular saw the visitors cause us plenty of defensive problems, and our tendency – can we now call it a habit? – to start games slowly was a significant factor in this. Despite a very welcome first start for Lucas Torreira, we were on the back foot almost immediately and only for some indecision from Calvert-Lewin, and Cech’s first intervention of the day, we could have been behind inside two minutes.

We don’t help ourselves by putting ourselves under needless pressure, Xhaka being caught in possession just outside our box ensured the jitters continued, and we struggled to build any kind of momentum. We conceded countless free kicks, Mustafi’s inevitable brain-fart saw him lose the ball and force Sokratis into making a foul on Theo Walcott which gave them a dangerous free kick just outside the box, while the Greek defender picked up a yellow card and a knee injury in the process which saw him replaced by Rob Holding.

The former Arsenal man had Everton’s best chance of the game late in the half when he got clean through and into a position from which we’ve seen him score plenty of goals for us in the past, but once again Cech was quick, decisive and saved well with his feet. All we had to offer at the other end was an Aubameyang cross which accidentally hit the bar, and a moment when Ramsey set up Lacazette but the striker took a touch and was dispossessed.

While the second half was obviously better in the end, again it was Everton who looked sharper and hungrier in the opening stages, although not quite as dangerous. We did start to crank things up a bit though, and had we not scored our first goal so soon after Jon Moss waved away appeals for what I thought was a pretty nailed on penalty, we might have been discussing that as a more contentious decision this morning.

Interestingly, with Alex Iwobi stripped and ready to come on, it was Lacazette who was about to make way, but then Torreira kept the ball alive in midfield, Ramsey fed the French international in the box, and without even looking up he smashed an unbelievable shot across the goal and in off the post. As we all know, a goal that goes in off the post is immediately about 22.65% better, but it was a superb finish and a moment of individual quality that we really, really needed.

Three minutes later it was 2-0, Lacazette broke down the right, fed Ozil who played it to  Ramsey for what would have been a tap-in but as he moved towards the ball he slipped. I think if this were any other player in our team the chance would have gone, but the Welshman is capable of moments of wonderful improvisation and he somehow got his feet right to flick the ball to Aubameyang who made it 2-0. Make no mistake, it was deliberate from Ramsey who ended the game with two assists.

Now, Aubameyang was about as offside as offside can be, I have no idea how a professional official couldn’t see it, and while I will definitely complain if and when this happens to us, I won’t complain about this. If I recall correctly, his first Arsenal goal was against Everton and he was also offside then. What larks.

Iwobi came on for the the Gabon striker then, and what was perhaps most pleasing about the performance yesterday was how well we controlled the game at 2-0 up. We didn’t do anything stupid, we didn’t let them back into it, we didn’t allow them to build any kind of momentum or make any kind of comeback, and without doing too much ourselves we ground the game down to the final stages. They had a few moments in the last five minutes or so, but beyond that I thought we dealt with the situation professionally and, considering we’re a team who so often shoots itself in the foot, it was good to see us keep our weapon’s holstered and not inflict any damage on ourselves.

When they did raise questions, the man to answer them was Petr Cech who saved, caught, and punched every ball that came his way, and while he’s had a couple of iffy moments with his feet this season, his goalkeeping has been very, very good so it was pleasing to see us come away with that long-awaited clean sheet. His performance more than merited it, and helped us to our fourth consecutive Premier League win. We’re now on 12 points, in sixth place in the table, and it all looks a bit rosier than it did after those difficult opening games of the season.

Which isn’t to say that everything is hunky-dory because it’s impossible not to have some questions and concerns about the way we’re playing. The balance of that front four – Ozil, Ramsey, Lacazette and Aubameyang – doesn’t look right at all. I don’t think playing Auba out left is ideal, but on a day when both our £50m strikers scored it’s perhaps a bit churlish to complain about his particular role. However, he doesn’t look fully comfortable out there.

Then there’s the Ramsey/Ozil issue. The Welshman wasn’t great but set up both goals and created our most dangerous moment of the first half. The German was level with Monreal as the team’s most successful tackler yesterday (4), but while I hate to read too much into body language I watch him and can’t help but feel something’s really not right with him.

The system we’re playing leaves him far less involved that he’s used to. He’s someone who has generally been one of most influential players when it comes to passes, touches of the ball etc, and now he’s miles down the list when it comes to those things. I don’t think it’s indifference on his part, more the role he’s being asked to play, and it raises questions. If you have a playmaker who is unable to make play, for want of a better expression, do you need to find a different way to use him or a different player to play in that position?

You can easily understand why Emery would want the individual quality of both Ramsey and Ozil in his team, but is it coming at the detriment of the football we’d like to see us play? That said, it’s one of those ‘good problems’ a manager has to face, and over time we’ll see if he can make it work. If not, he’s got a difficult decision to make, but from what we’ve seen so far Emery appears willing to make those when they’re presented to him.

So, plenty to get the discussion going, and for more on yesterday’s game, discussion of the performance, our issues with balance and loads more, check out the brand new Arsecast Extra below. We’ll have all the day’s stories over on Arseblog News. Till tomorrow.

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This Arsecast Extra was recorded with ipDTL

Let’s begin this morning with some interesting comments from Petr Cech about how a team needs to be able to ‘win ugly’.

It’s something we’ve heard down the years, about how one of the signs of a really good side is being able to grind out wins when not playing particularly well. I suppose it’s much more applicable to teams we know can play very well, but when not at the top of their game can still find the resources, character, mental strength, or whatever else you want to call it, to get the three points by hook or by crook.

I’m not sure it’s quite the same thing when all your wins are ugly, which has been the case with us. Nevertheless, Cech said after the Everton game:

Sometimes you need to make sure you win ugly games when you are not completely playing well and you just dig deep and you just close the back door and win 1-0 no matter how.

Unquestionably there’s a lot to be said for having the ability to do that, and in Premier League terms each of our four victories under Unai Emery could reasonably placed in the category of ugly. We went behind against West Ham and needed an own goal and a late Danny Welbeck strike to seal the deal; twice we went ahead at Cardiff only to concede equalisers before Alexandre Lacazette’s late winner; we huffed and puffed at Newcastle and it was relatively comfortable but the late goal took some of the sheen off; and our first half against Everton on Sunday might well have seen us behind but for Cech’s outstanding performance, before the second half improvement got us the three points.

We’re all looking for signs of how Emery is improving the team and perhaps the most obvious one would be playing slick, cohesive football. I don’t think we’re anywhere close to that just yet, and in truth we’re riding our luck a little, but I often wonder if players analyse things to the Nth degree as much as we do as fans. We delve into the nuts and bolts of every performance, whereas I think they’ll just finish their days work, realise they can do a bit better but also feel happy that they’ve just won their fifth game in a row and take confidence from that.

If they can feel like they can win matches despite not playing as well as they know they can, is it not a positive? It probably is, but with the more beautiful side of the game come things like assurance, control and dominance, not to mention the psychological impact it can have on your opponent, so if we can add some of that to mix soon then all the better.

Cech, meanwhile, continued his interview and suggested that under Arsene Wenger there was perhaps too much focus on style over substance:

The Arsenal way was more important than getting the points sometimes. This is not how you win the league. I think this is what we lacked since I arrived in the last three years this is what we lacked.

For any club who’ve won titles in recent years you have that know how to finish it off. This club haven’t won the league for more than ten years so you need to get back into knowing how to do it.

He cited the example of Tiger Woods who hadn’t won a tournament for years, and with each passing year it became harder and harder. Woods, of course, won the Tour Championship on Sunday which is clearly a sign that we should all have a tenner on Arsenal to win the league this season. I kid, but it’s a serious point that Cech is making here, that sometimes you need to put your footballing philosophy and principles to one side in order to achieve results.

In fairness to Wenger, I think he tried in the last years of his Arsenal career to be a bit more flexible and a little more attuned to the opposition. Famously, his method was built getting the best out of his players and his team, trusting that their quality would be enough to win games if they got things right, paying scant attention to who we were playing. When you had a side full of world class players like Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Robert Pires, Patrick Vieira etc, with a fantastic supporting cast, that was something which worked beautifully a lot of the time. Not only were these guys great players, but they were intelligent, capable of problem solving on the pitch when presented with difficult situations.

Where I think we consistently saw the flaws of that approach was in Europe where teams with less individual quality but with greater tactical acumen ensured that particular Arsenal side never achieved what it should have when you consider the talent we had. We frequently got found out in the Champions League, and as Wenger’s reign continued we slowly but surely got found out domestically too, as our competitiveness in the Premier League diminished almost season on season.

Unai Emery’s approach is different. We know, although we haven’t really seen too much evidence of it as yet, that he is much more focused on the opposition and that is part and parcel of the work we do in the build-up to each match. It’s not just about doing what we do well, but stopping them doing what they do well. You might say that his ability to change the dynamic of games in the second half after a slew of slow starts is an illustration of his tactical flexibility, but I’m sure this approach will be much more evident when we play the top teams to whom you really do have pay closer attention than the likes of Cardiff and Newcastle – with all due respect to them.

It’s still quite hard to work out exactly what he’s trying to do with this team. I wonder if the calibre of recent opposition made him think he’d just get his best attacking players on the pitch to help us win games, get on a run, boost the confidence after two defeats to open the season, thus leaving him in a better position to tweak things that he feels need to be tweaked. Everything still comes with the caveat of him being so new in the job, but it’s still interesting to try and work it out.

And if Cech, a man of vast experience, can sense that there’s a change in something as fundamental as our mentality and the way we approach games, maybe that’s the thing we hang on to as we wait for the quality of our performances to improve.

Right, that’s your lot for today. Have a good one, back tomorrow.

Carabao Cup action tonight as we take on Brentford at the Emirates. They’re currently lying 7th in the Championship, so while this is lower league opposition, it’s not going to be a walk in the park or anything like it.

One only needs to look at Manchester United’s elimination last night to … hahahaha … hahahahahaha …. their Castles made of Sand … Mourinho’s face afterwards … hahaha … sorry, got a little carried away there, but in this crazy old world of ours, you have to take your laughs where you can get them. Anyway, the serious point is that United got beaten by Derby, currently one place above Brentford in the table, so we need to be careful not to take this one for granted this evening.

All the same, it does appear as if Unai Emery is going to pick a young-ish team for tonight, giving chances to some of the kids who are knocking on the first team door. He says:

One possibility is to give the players who are playing less in one competition to take minutes and this responsibility going forward. We were preparing in pre-season with the young players and every player to give them a chance to show us their confidence and performance

maybe the young players can have opportunities to play in this game if I think it’s the best for us to give them this opportunity of starting in the first XI, but the first thing about the best performance is thinking about winning.

So while he changed things around in the Europa League, there was still enough experience to fill the team and tonight it sounds like he might go a bit younger. I assume Bernd Leno will start in goal again, while in defence he’s got some thinking to do. An injury to Konstantinos Mavropanos means we’re down to just two fit senior central defenders – Rob Holding and Shkodran Mustafi – and although Sokratis is expected to be fit for the weekend, would it be too much of a risk to play Mustafi, just in case?

Young Spaniard Julio Pleguezuelo has been training with the first team and could be an option, while at left back Nacho Monreal might need a break so it remains to be seen if Sead Kolasinac’s return to first team training means he’s in contention tonight. If not, Emery might have to find another solution for that position, or trust in the robustness and stamina of Monreal.

In midfield Matteo Guendouzi and Mohamed Elneny could support Emile Smith Rowe in the ‘Ramsey role’, or even Joe Willock could allow the latter to be part of a front three with Danny Welbeck and Eddie Nketiah. The young striker made his name last season in this competition against Championship opposition so it’d be good to see him get another chance tonight.

I’ll be perfectly honest and admit my interest in the Carabao Cup this season is absolutely minimal. I think we’ve got enough on our plate between the Premier League and Europe to keep us going, but where we can have some fun with it is the deployment of young players to see how ready they are and how they perform. There’s always something nice about an academy talent shining so hopefully we see a bit of that tonight.

With our defensive issues this season, it was also interesting to hear Emery say he views this game – along with the Europa League – as a chance for Rob Holding to force his way into the first team reckoning. He says of tonight’s encounter:

It’s also a good opportunity for Holding to continue taking confidence, taking minutes and taking also our ideas of playing and I want to look at him also with our best performance, staying in the first XI.

His English has improved but sometimes still takes a bit of thinking about! Anyway, I think the point is that if Holding plays well, he’ll be considered for our ‘first’ team, which I take as a positive. Right now I think the boss is playing it relatively safe by picking his two most experienced central defenders, but the issue is that one of them has – so far this season at least – got a blooper in him every game, sometimes more.

I would be all on for Holding to partner Sokratis at the expense of Mustafi, but it feels like Emery needs to see a bit more of the 23 year old to be fully convinced that’s a change he should make. I thought he was very good against Vorskla, not culpable in either of the goals we conceded, and when he came on for the Greek international against Everton on Sunday he slotted in very well. Another good showing tonight and he’ll definitely start to put pressure on the German, and that’s a good thing in my book, because while 95% of what Mustafi does is fine, the frequency of that other 5% demands attention.

What the Mavropanos injury does highlight though is how light we are at centre-half, at least until Laurent Koscielny returns from injury. Even then we’re not sure how that serious Achilles problem is going to affect him, and there was probably a good reason this summer why we were chasing two central defenders, Sokratis + 1, but ultimately the Borussia Dortmund man was the only arrival. It was a bit of a gamble from our recruitment team, especially when they sanctioned the Calum Chambers loan to Fulham, so let’s hope they don’t regret not making that second deal (or being unable to make it for other reasons).

Right, we should be able to find a stream later on, so we’ll have a live blog for this game later on, and all the post-match stuff over on Arseblog News.

Until then have a good one.

Join us this afternoon for live blog coverage of our Carabao Cup clash at home to Brentford – kick off 19.45

We’ve got up the second live text commentary, updates, goal clips, observations and occasionally witty asides. If you want to join the chat, register an Arseblog Live account.

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CLICK TO LAUNCH Arsenal v Brentford – LIVE BLOG