Morning all!
Day off from the grind for me today. Think I will go visit Mountfitchet Castle.
So pre-season is over(ish) depending on how you rate the Community Shield.
I will always say that competition is just another glorified friendly. Teams will often start with a strong XI but make plenty of subs as the game goes on. No difference to if we were playing Man City in our final friendly before the season starts.
It has been a mixed bag this pre-season for us.
We started off with a 1-1 draw against Nurnberg. We looked very good at times but a sloppy mistake let them equalise.
They were further advanced in their pre-season and susbtitutions interrupted our momentum, as it so often does.
We then faced the MLS All-Stars and won comfortably 5-0.
The result was not a surprise as the gulf between the Premier League and the MLS is huge. Add in that many of the players had not played together before and were being managed by Wayne Rooney. Some excellent goals though.
Up next was the defeat against a very motivated Manchester United team. It felt like Erik Ten Hag told his players to go out and prove a point, and Man U played very aggressively.
They treated it like a proper Premier League game, playing their aggressive, long ball style. We saw it as just a run out to build fitness and work on tactical transitions.
The headline read 2-0 to Man U, but I feel Mikel Arteta would have learned more about our team than Ten Hag did about his.
We put things right in the next game against Barcelona.
We upped our intensity and won 5-3. Ironically Barcelona manager Xavi came out after and said Arsenal treated it too seriously. And this is why you can often ignore pre-season results.
Against Man U, we get criticised for not being sharp enough, not aggressive enough. Then against Barcelona it is that we were too sharp, too aggressive.
The real difference is we were simply ahead of Barca in our preperations.
We were their 1st friendly game of the season, they were out 4th. Perhaps if they don’t want to be overwhelmed, they should plan their pre-season better and not face a top team as their first game?
But then it’s all about money. Facing Arsenal, Real Madrid, AC Milan and Tottenham makes them more cash than facing Nurnberg, MLS All-Stars, Real Madrid and then Arsenal.
Pre-season was rounded off with the game against Monaco.
For the first 30, we sat back and invited pressure. We did not look up for it. Then for the next 30 we dominated. The last half hour was a write off due to the amount of substitutions.
We won the Emirates Cup on penalties. Interesting fact: Spurs have never won the semi Emirates Cup…
A few injury concerns have come out of pre-season.
Gabriel Jesus is out for 2-3 weeks at least. Hopefully that is all it is. He misses Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and Fulham. We should win those without him.
Any longer than 2-3 weeks and we might have to look into going into the market for a new striker. But the headache is still there about who we could get?
Every name mentioned to me is either too expensive, or not really much better than Eddie or Flo.
Declan Rice is also a minor injury concern. He has twice suffered a “tight calf”.
This would indicate that his conditioning is probably not where it should be. Playing a static role for West Ham is not the same as the intensity Arteta wants from Arsenal players.
His fitness will need to be bought up to the appropriate level slowly to avoid suffering a more significant injury.
Pre-season saw certainly Arsenal-incels decide to pick on Kai Havertz and Declan Rice.
They scream “spend money” and moan that Kroenke does not financially support the team. Then we buy to top, top class players for big money and they complain “we have been turned over”.
We should not concern ourselves with how much a player costs. The only thing his price impacts is whether it then restricts us signing someone else.
Say we had have signed Rice for £65m (which is what I have seen some Arsenal “fans” say is all we should have offered), what striker are we really getting for £40m?
And then West Ham we’re never going to accept £65m so we’d have to move onto other targets.
Moises Caicedo is clearly going for more than that, so you would probably end up with someone like Romeo Lavia. And Rice would go to City for £95m.
These same fans would then moan that we had missed out on another top signing due to being cheap and not paying the asking price.
They moan if we spend £100m on a player, and then they moan if we don’t spend £100m on the exact same player…
Anyway, I’m nice and chilled in my garden having a cup of coffee. Sun is out. Finally.
A couple more days then we are off to Wembley!
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 