Morning everyone.
The Emirates Cup game against Borussia Dortmund ended in defeat, with the Bundesliga side running out 3-2 winners. I’ve been around this block too many times to get worked up about pre-season games, and we have way too many very good players missing to use a day like yesterday as representative of who we’re going to be for the season ahead, but I do have one or two small takeaways that I think are worthy of discussion.
– We saw 30 minutes of Martin Odegaard, like others before him eased back into post-World Cup action with half an hour before being replaced by Ethan Nwaneri who later scored a nice goal. I just think in the time the captain was on the pitch we saw how important a player with that kind of vision and eye for a pass is for this team. There was one to Kai Havertz in particular that ought to have resulted in us at least creating a good chance, but for all the discussion around Odegaard, I just can’t get my head around anyone thinking he should be a marginal figure for the new season. We need more of what he can bring, not less.
– Christos Tzolis looks very tidy. His set-piece delivery is really, really good – and I guess it’s worth pointing out that in him and Bruno Guimaraes, we’ve added two more players who can produce quality from those situations. Please let me see Tzolis take a free kick from the edge of the box, rather than Viktor Gyokeres lumping it into orbit. The new man got an assist for the Nwaneri goal, won the penalty which Gyokeres took very well, and while he’s not necessarily the quickest, he has quick feet and a quick brain which he uses to make enough space for the cross or the shot. An encouraging outing.
– The defence looks a bit wobbly. We conceded early, their second goal came from Gabriel standing off before a superb finish, and we let in another set-piece goal for the Dortmund third after we failed to clear our lines properly. Obviously players are still getting up to speed in terms of fitness, but the question mark over the right side of defence is a substantial one. The absences of William Saliba and Jurrien Timber are going to weaken us, no question, and providing a post-game update on those two, Mikel Arteta said:
Jurrien is progressing really well. He’s on the pitch, he’s doing quite a lot right now, but he’s still weeks away. I cannot tell you how much. William Saliba is in rest mode at the moment for two weeks. He had to do almost nothing, an aggravated injury, so it’s going to take some time to heal. We know that. And as soon as we have more news, we can inform you.
I have no expectation of seeing Saliba any time soon, and the ongoing nature of Timber’s injury does worry me. He’s been more or less missing since March, bar that Champions League final cameo which caused another setback, saw him miss the World Cup, as well as the need to undergo a small operation. It does feel like a defensive addition is necessary, but let me state for the record that Christian Romero does not fix our problems, unless you feel the problem is we don’t have enough stupid violent idiots in our team.
– Bruno Guimaraes was introduced to the crowd before the game, got the applause, did the waving and all that. Asked about the decision to sign him and what he will bring to the team, Arteta said:
On the pitch, versatility to play in two different positions in relation to what the opponent or we do. A player who obviously has tremendous timing and intuition to win the ball back and progress play very, very fast. He’s a player that is very comfortable putting people through, pulling between the lines, pulling behind. And then he’s a goal threat. He’s got a smell and a really good timing to get in the box and he has the capacity to finish the actions.
That ability to play passes quickly from deep is such an interesting asset, but it’s also incumbent on your forward players to be able to maximise the opportunities when the ball gets into those areas. I think it’s fair to say we have work to do in that sense. I’m not a fan of Gyokeres and Havertz playing together, but it’s a bit ‘needs must’ at this point of pre-season. Once we get Odegaard fitter, and the manager has all of those midfielders we keep talking about available to him, it becomes an either-or situation up top, dependent quite strongly on the opposition (and fitness of course).
– The penalty shoot-out afterwards was just a bit of fun, but we did take five good ones, Gabriel Martinelli and Ethan Nwaneri in particular. I enjoyed the reactions of the Arsenal players to Piero Hincapie’s double-stutter run up before rolling the ball home. Also, fair play to Illan Meslier who took a bit of time to realise that Inaki Cana’s penalty coaching – which appears to be jump the other way as early as possible – doesn’t give you much chance of making a save. Early days, I know, but I sort of feel more comfortable with him between the sticks than Kepa, so let’s see how that plays out over the season.
Afterwards, Arteta was asked if fans should be worried about a second defeat in a row, and said:
No, I mean, I think it has to, it has to hurt when you lose a football match, it has to hurt when it is a friendly match, a test or whatever you want to call it. But yes, we know where we are. We know that we are missing still a lot of players and some players that haven’t had enough training.
Which I think is fair enough. It’s a more difficult one this year with the World Cup and so many players still away or making their way back. The England and Spain contingent return to training today, so they’ll be on a different schedule, and it does seem clear that there is an obvious plan to get people back to fitness. It doesn’t mean we can’t worry about certain things, it’s just about not over-indexing performances in pre-season. I know as football fans we’re prone to focusing on the things we need to see improvement in, but the work we’re doing is about being ready for Coventry on August 21st, and there’s obviously a bit more time to do that.
Right, that’s it for this morning. We’ll have an Arsecast Extra for you a bit later on, and we’ve already put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com, so fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server.
For now, have a good one.
