SHAPING THE NEW SEASON
It’s the last chance for Mikel Arteta to shape a 90 minutes that could inject a bit of confidence into the players and the fan base. Preseason has been a mixed bag considering the excitement of the summer signings. We haven’t seen a performance that goes beyond ‘meh’ so far, and most of what we’re seeing with the style of play looks remarkably similar to what we saw last season.
Moving the ball to the forwards has felt slow, chance creation has looked quite average, and the output has been that weird kind of dominant fine margins stuff we saw last season. Odd to say it, but we can control the whole game and win, lose, or draw off conceding a painfully limited amount of shots on target.
On a personal note, I am coming to terms with a summer that, so far, looks like it’s been loaded up with risk across the park. We had a lot of positions to fill and we’ve had to be cute with our pennies. United went out and spent £208m on three players with goals in mind… Arsenal has spent about the same amount on six players.
We finally landed a striker and we picked the one with the biggest number to his name. He’s tall, built like a monster, and the narrative has mostly been about his relentless running this summer. He has a big eight weeks coming up because there is going to be a lot of attention on who had the best summer when it comes to forwards. Sesko, Ekitike, Gyokeres, and maybe Isak will all have moved clubs… someone is going to get the deal of the century, and someone is going to look like they were fleeced.
Gyokeres is as close as we have got to guaranteed goals this window. We supposedly spent a small fortune on Madueke, with Arteta hinting he could pop up on the left and the right this year. Jacob said he’d heard from people close to the player that the plan is to have Saka float around the forward line this season, which is an interesting evolution I’d be excited to see. The English winger has a lot of bang BANG to his game, he just lacks that end product at this stage in his career. He’s fast, skillful, he believes in himself, but we can’t escape the truth here… Madueke is a project player.
Norgaard is a solid addition, no doubt. He’s great at moving the ball forward, he’s tried and true, and he’ll add a lot of bastard to a midfield that needs it with Jorginho exiting to Brazil and Thomas Partey getting booted. Kepa joins as our first proper back-up in years, he’s young, can save penalties, and he could certainly step in if Raya’s form dips at any stage.
The best signing of our window, without doubt, is Zubimendi. It’ll take him time to settle into the team, but it’s hard to avoid his outrageous quality already. He’s different to what we’ve had in the past, but his intelligence, robustness, and incredible reading of the game will elevate that 6 and allow Declan to push further forward.
The attacking transformation we were hoping for hasn’t happened to the level of extremism I was hoping for. Big journos are doubting our ability to move on Eze now, which is quite upsetting because he really did feel like an un-Arsenal-like signing. Rodrygo on a loan deal from Madrid seems fanciful. You don’t see too many £300k-a-week players taking loan moves, but it would seem like there isn’t a very big market for a player I was more in love with three months ago than I am now. Regardless of concerns about his motivations, he would add something to the left we don’t have right now.
My landing space on the window as it stands is this: it feels very much like Arteta is banking on Arsenal returning to the form we saw two seasons ago. This transfer window says that depth is the issue, not starting 11 quality. We have more options now to ride the inevitable injury storms, and there’s a belief at the training ground that the shared goals approach is going to sputter back into reality this season.
Arteta is an exceptional coach, Andrea Berta is a man of exceptional reputation… we have to trust the process and hope it all comes together this season.
That all starts in a few hours. Bilbao is a good test of where we are. Then it’s eight days to get everything in order for an absolutely HUGE game at Old Trafford. Gyokeres vs Amorim - Sesko vs Arsenal - a classic fixture that really could deliver fireworks.
I can’t wait…
I’ll be On The Whistle with Johnny a little bit later, see you there, and don’t forget to sign up for the website this season. We’ll have a LOT of content for you. Something every single day, whether it’s writing or podcasts. x