Away guide Bodø/Glimt – Arsenal 13/10.

Except for the small amount of tickets, Bodø is the perfect away-trip as absolutely everything is within walking distance.

The easiest way to get to Bodø is of course by flight. From the airport there is a 15 minute walk down to the city center where you will find hotels, restaurants, grocerys, bars etc. Are you heading straight to the Aspmyra Stadium it is only a 10 minute walk.

There is no Uber service in Bodø but it is a taxi rank right outside the airport if you prefer the easy way downtown. All the busses from the airport passes both the stadium and the city centre.

Another route to Bodø is by train from Trondheim. The trainstation is located in the city centre and you can walk from here to any hotel and the stadium.

Hotels:

More or less all hotels in Bodø have a good standard, and they are all located in the city centre and by walking distance. Prices is around £100 a night. The newest hotels in the city are Comfort Hotel, Quality Ramsalt and Smarthotel Bodø which opnened in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Arsenal will probably stay at Scandic Havet.

The cheapest option is the Hostel in the trainstation, but not really recommended as its almost the same price as the hotels, and not really good there.

My best recommendation is Quality Ramsalt, new and modern hotel and not too expensive.

As already mentioned all hotels are close to both the stadium and the airpot so you can walk there.

Small amount of AirBnb available, but you wont save much so hotels still recommended.

Restaurants:

To be a small city with only 50k people there are a lot of restaurants options in the city centre. A minus is of course that in Norway the prices are really high. So a dinner at a restaurant easly ends up well over £50 per person. You do have the cheaper options with fast food chains such as Burger King, Peppes Pizza and Subway, and if you want a good burger i can recommend the local fastfood place Annas Gatekjøkken. We got finer restaurants such as the Italian restaurant Bjørk located in the city shoppingcenter «Glasshuset» and Bryggerikaia with a lot of local food near the harbour. «Egon» is a big chain of restaurants in Norway and is located in the same building as Thon Hotel Nordlys. «Delicatessen» and «Bølgen» both fine restaurants is located with the Quality Ramsalt Hotel.

«Orion» (Italian/turkish) is a cheap alternative where you get both good food and a lot of food for the small price.

There is a sporsbar were you can combind sports, beer and food downtown called «Sportsbaren».

If you want to try traditional norwegian food stop by «Løvold Kafeteria» downtown.

There is a lot more restaurants in the city centre and you get something for every taste. There is sushi, turkish, burger, tapas and much more.

Bars:

Bars as well as restaurants have that problem it’s ridiculously expensive. A pint here in Norway is never under £10 and often as expensive as £12-15. This is due to the very high fees and alocoholtaxes in Norway.

On the matchday «Norlænningen» is the away friendly pub. Its a brown pub in the city centre right outside the shopping centre. You can walk straight from here up to the away entrance on the stadium on a 10 minute walk.

Other places to get a beer is the already mentioned «Sportsbaren», here there will be a lot of home supporters on the match day. But there is no hooliganism or ultras supporters in Bodø so it wont be a problem to take a beer at the same place as home supporters. Every supporter here is friendly and will probably enjoy a good chat about football if you meet some.

«Hundholmen» is the largest bar/restaurant in the city, here it can be nice to take a drink in the evening. «Dama di» is also more of a party place and so is «Lucero» in the shopping centre. Though there is not much nightlife in Bodø on a mid week day.

«Landlov» in Sjøgata is where the active home supporters gather on matchday and is to be avoided by away supporters. Not because there can be trouble, as said all supporters here are friendly, but that bar is for home supporters only on matchday.

Other than that Arsenal supporters are welcome everywhere.

Should there be any other questions will i be happy to answer @benna94 on twitter.

Enjoy Bodø, bring a lot of clothes as its freezing cold here, and have a good game!

Ben

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Morning all.

As you would have noticed there have been a lot less blogs since the sad passing of Her Majesty the Queen last Thursday.

We have reduced our output out of respect, whilst also taking the decision to only write a blog if there was something meaningful for say.

The blog about Marquinhos will have to wait!

Arsenal releated news mainly revolves around games being moved.

The home match against PSV tomorrow has been postponed. I do not really understand that.

As someone who has done plenty of Euro away trips, I feel for the PSV fans who would have splashed out hundreds on flights and hotels only for the game to be cancelled. It really should have gone ahead and would’ve given us the opportunity to pay our respects in the ground.

Moving the weekend game against Brentford does however make sense.

Monday will be “all hands on deck” for the Queens funeral. All police leave will be cancelled.

Police Regulations set out that Officers are entitled to a period of at least 11 hours between rostered shifts.

Moving the game back to 12noon ensures the police working the Brentford game will get their 11 hours rest.

With it being a local-ish derby, it will not cause many problems for fans. Most will be travelling in from in or around London.

The only frustration – from a selfish point of view – is that unless I want to get to the pub at 10am, there will be no pints before the game.

It isn’t great that is has been moved, but is understandable.

The other big game moved is our fixture against Chelsea in November – also moved to 12noon.

This game has been moved to 12noon for TV reasons and shows once more that TV companies do not care about match going fans.

A few beers before and after a game are a big part of the game – it is not just the 90 minutes.

Noon kick offs are awful.

Everyone is barely awake, the atmosphere usually subdued. It just is not the same.

There is also talk that the Manchester City mid-week fixture will be postponed from Wednesday 19th October to accomodate the Europa League game against PSV.

Again, this shows that UEFA do not really care about the fans.

The Mancs would have already splashed out on train tickets (currently £98.10) as well as hotels for an overnight stay.

It all shows once more that the comments from UEFA and the media after the European Super League was hot air.

Enjoy your Wednesday.

Keenos

Morning all. Hope everyone is good.

We have had a few days off out of respect of the life of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

We are a strong and resilient nation so this week we return to some sort of normality, including hopefully football returning.

Without opening it up for too much debate, I’m of the stance that football should have gone ahead at the weekend. That it would have shown more respect to her life to follow other sports in a minutes silence a rendition of God Save The Queen.

Due to no football, there is not much really to blog about this morning other than the naming of the Brazil squad for the upcoming international break.

A bit of fuss has been made about our 3 Gabi’s being left out of the Brazil squad. It really is a non-story.

Opposition fans have used it as a stick to beat Arsenal with. Saying it shows we overrated our players.

Brazilian manager Tite has explained that Gabriel Jesus has been dropped to enable him to look at other forwards. This would indicate Jesus is a guaranteed starter come the World Cup.

Would be like Gareth Southgate leaving Harry Kane out so he can have a look at Ivan Toney.

Meanwhile Gabriel Martinelli has just 3 caps for his country. He has not been dropped, he is just on the fringes of the squad. Always an outside bet to make the World Cup.

With Neymar and Vinicius Junior fighting it out to start on their left hand side, it is no real disgrace to to miss out.

The fact he is probably next in line after these two shows just what a talent he is.

When you also take into account they also have Jesus and Richarlison that have played on that flank, the left hand sid is arguably Brazil’s strongest position.

If Martinelli played regularly on the right hand side I am sure he would have got in ahead of Anthony and Raphinha.

As for Gabriel Magalhaes, he has never been capped for his country.

For a long time Thiago Silva and Marquinhos have been the first choice pairing for Brazil. Eder Militao has become the 3rd choice in recent years.

Tite has selected Juventus’ Bremer and Roma’s Ibanez in his final squad. Like Gabriel, both are uncapped.

There really isn’t much between the 3 in terms of age and profile. You could probably pick 2 of the 3 at random and it wouldn’t make much difference.

Personally I am just happy that all 3 get a little break. And with the World Cup in December, it could be an advantage having less players called up to it.

I won’t be too upset if those players on the fringes of their national team (Cedric, Ben White, Gabriel, William Saliba, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Emile Smith Rowe, Fabio Vieira, Gabriel) miss out.

Add in those whose countries didn’t make it (Kieran Tierney, Martin Odergaard, Olexsandr Zinchenko, Mohamed Elneny) and those who are not close to selection (Rob Holding, Eddie Nketiah, Marquinhos) and it could be that the vast majority of our squad is “left at home”. This will be a huge advantage.

Those left at home will be nicely rested and raring to go come the return of football on Boxing Day.

It will also allow the club to give the likes of Bukayo Saka, Thomas Partey, Granit Xhaka, Gabriel Jesus and Takhehiro Tomiyasu a breather on their return.

Rather than rushing those players back for the hectic Christmas schedule, they could all be given a week off and we ca utilise the freshness of those players not selected.

As the season reaches its business end, those clubs who had a lot of players on a 6 week winter break could be at a huge advantage.

Enjoy your day. And remember if you are struggling with what has happened over the last few days, our DMs are always open.

Keenos