Brighton preview + Raheem Sterling arrives on hectic deadline day

Morning.

While so much focus revolves around deadline day, there’s the small matter of an actual game of football early this afternoon when we take on Brighton at home. Like us, they’re two for two this season, and this has been quite a tricky fixture in recent years.

In terms of team news, hopes that we might see a Mikel Merino debut today were dashed after news emerged he picked up an injury in his first training session following his arrival from Real Sociedad. A collision involving Big Gabi saw him sustain what’s believed to be a fracture to his shoulder, and he’s likely to be sidelined for a good few weeks at least.

It’s so unfortunate for him, and for us, but Mikel Arteta was fairly sanguine about it, saying:

We signed him for many years, not for a few weeks and we need to move on. These things can happen, it was very unfortunate but it’s our reality. Let’s use the time that we have right now to make sure that he’s familiar with everything that we do, how we live, what we expect of him, the team dynamics. He will be in every meeting, so we’ll use that time in the best possible way and, hopefully, in a few weeks he will be ready.

So, my guess is today’s side will be very similar to the one that beat Villa last week. Given Brighton’s strength on the wings, I expect Jurrien Timber to start again at left-back, and after his huge impact off the bench at Villa Park, surely Leandro Trossard has played himself into the starting XI. Beyond that, I can’t see any changes, and given the injury to Merino, the fact we’re still without Gabriel Jesus and Takehiro Tomiyasu, and Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson have both departed, there might be room on the bench for a couple of youth players today.

I’m sure while fans were focused on comings and goings yesterday, the manager and players were preparing fully for this game, so let’s hope that we can do the business and go into the Interlull with the three points under our belts. It’s taking nothing for granted, and you underestimate any team in this league to your peril, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be confident going into a home game like this.

As ever, you can follow the game with us over on the live blog, and catch all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News. So, that bring us to …

Transfer Deadline Day

… and what an eventful day it turned out to be. Aaron Ramsdale was first to go, his move to Southampton confirmed, followed by his goodbye to the club and the fans. It was good to see him with a smile on his face again, and let’s hope he has a great time there (36 times a season).

The reporting during the day was that beyond the arrival of Bournemouth goalkeeper Neto there wasn’t going to be anyone else arriving. It’s fair to say that social media was lively, to say the least. I have to admit, while I’ve said throughout this summer I felt we’re short up front and needed a signing – especially as we were expecting Eddie Nketiah to go – I couldn’t connect with the anger and vitriol I was seeing. Of course we all want to see new players arrive, and I think it would have been a risk not to do anything, but the frenzy of transfer deadline day sort of blinds some people to how good we actually are and how welll we’ve done to make the progress we have.

Like I say, I get it. We all just want the club to do well and achieve success, but some of it was a bit much for me. So, it’s obviously a good thing that some pieces of a puzzle started shifting around. There had been a lot of talk about Raheem Sterling and his situation at Chelsea, where he’d been cast off due to their proliferation of signings that make no real sense. However, earlier in the day it was far talk than anything substantial, but things took a shift late afternoon.

I think we can say that the Reiss Nelson departure (on loan to Fulham, and good luck to him), was a factor in what transpired. The clubs opened talks, Sterling arrived at London Colney with a couple of hours of the deadline to go, and he was confirmed as a loan signing at 1.45am last night (clubs have a post-11pm window to complete formalities once a deal is agreed before 11pm).

It’s one of those ones where even a week ago I’d have been dubious about whether or not it’s a deal we should do, but as the window prepared to close, you can see why we went for it. He’s a very good player with vast experience, and while he’s probably heading into the September of his career, there’s probably enough still in the tank to give us that extra bit of attacking quality and depth for the duration of his season long loan. Mikel Arteta obviously knows him well for their time at Man City, and the terms also seem to have been quite favourable. There’s no loan fee payable to Chelsea while they continue to pay a large part of the £320,000 a week wage they put him on when they signed him two years ago (and gave him a contract until 2027).

Obviously he’s not available for today as he missed the 12 midday deadline yesterday to be eligible (something true of Neto too so we’re likely to have a very young keeper on the bench today), but going forward he’s someone who can bring goals and assists to this team, in the Premier League and beyond. As I said, as a loan deal for one season, it makes a lot of sense in the context of our squad and the way the window was this summer. When you look at what other teams have done/not done, there wasn’t a lot going on with attackers in the market, and if this enables us to properly pursue a more long-term target in January or next summer, then you can’t argue too much.

So, this is our squad now. The Merino injury is a little cloud, but essentially just bad luck, and now we can focus fully on what happens on the pitch rather than off it. There are just a few hours before the Brighton game now, so let’s turn our attention to that.

Catch you later for all that action!

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