Morning all.
Last night’s game kicked off at 1.30am local time, and as much as I love The Arsenal, I wasn’t staying up that late. However, I’ve watched the highlights via the official site, and it’s great that the fans in DC got to see a 5-0 win over the MLS All-Stars.
Gabriel Jesus opened the scoring with a lovely chip from the edge of the box, which pleasingly went in off the post. Leandro Trossard made it 2-0 with a cracker, before second half goals from Jorginho (pen, skippity-hoppity run-up and all), Gabriel Martinelli (what a pass from Odegaard, carbon copy of one from last season) and Kai Havertz sealed the win.
There was also a first look at Declan Rice and Jurrien Timber in an Arsenal shirt, and Mikel Arteta said afterwards:
It was a great occasion and a great atmosphere. It was great to see so many Arsenal supporters filling the stadium. We had some great moments in the game and some moments, especially in the first-half that weren’t that great, but we’re still very early in pre-season and it was great to see some debuts with Jurrien, Auston and Declan obviously, and I was really pleased in the end with the result.
There were also some interesting comments from the manager on a couple of the new boys. On Timber, he said:
You’ve seen tonight that he’s a really versatile player, you can see him defend in those positions. He gives you the capacity to invert, to occupy different spaces. He’s so comfortable on the ball in that phase and he’s also got this aggression in the duels and that dynamism that I really like about him.
There was a lot of discussion about him and where he might play, and from what Arteta is saying, he sounds like someone who will give the team a different dynamic on the right hand side. There are going to be days when you don’t have Zinchenko on the left, so it might be a case he does it on the opposite flank. In our Patreon new player podcast, Phil Costa floated the idea of him operating in midfield at times, and while one game isn’t enough to say that’s what’s going to happen, he definitely looks like it’s within his wheelhouse. Either way, he’s a really exciting addition and Arteta loving a player who is aggressive in the duels? Knock me down with a feather.
Then on Havertz, he said:
He gives us something very different with his quality and size as well, when you have to beat the press for example and use him as a target man. So, we will see – for now, he’s playing in the attacking midfield position, but I’m sure throughout the season and throughout games as well, we’re going to have the options to play him in different positions.
Again, more variety in terms of how we can play is welcome. Obviously his time up front at Chelsea wasn’t brilliant, and it didn’t get the best out of him, but when you have a 6’4 forward there are probably going to be occasions when you try and use that height. I suspect he’ll still be earmarked strongly for the position filled by Granit Xhaka last season, but let’s see. Solid finish too.
Perhaps lost in the goals and the appearances of the new signings, was the return of Takehiro Tomiyasu – a player I think is going to be really important for us in the season ahead. Our defensive Swiss Army Knife, he can do it all, and after worries about how long that knee injury might have sidelined him for, it’s good to see him making his way back to full fitness and availability.
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Right, that’s where I’m going to leave it for this morning. I have a lot to do, before I fly to New York later on – not least of which is to record a podcast for you guys. That should be up for you mid-morning.
As I’m away, I’m going to hand over the blog to Andrew Allen for a couple of days, and as he’s going to be in LA next week too, Lewis Ambrose will have your daily blog dose for you each morning as usual. We’ll try and keep the regular podcast schedule on track, albeit a bit later in the day than we normally do, and we’ll have some exclusive content from the US over on Patreon.
I’m looking forward to catching up with as many of you as possible over in the states, starting tomorrow night at the Arsenal NYC event in Union Square, so as my esteemed podcast pal might say, lez doo dis!
Stay well folks.
