Arsenal 1-0 AC Milan – observations

Morning.

Arsenal’s first public game of pre-season took place last night, Bukayo Saka scored the only goal in a 1-0 win over AC Milan. There’s no need to do an entire piece on the game itself, which was very July, but let’s do some observations for today’s blog.

Added muscle

We spoke about this from our seats in the press area – Ethan Nwaneri looks more physically mature. That’s normal, he’s still only 18 but he looks a bit taller and like he’s spent some time in the gym. I thought he was Arsenal’s best player in the first half, and it was interesting he started in the ‘Odegaard role’.

With a new contract set to be announced officially any time now, he’ll be pushing for more football than he got towards the end of last season. It seems as if his role will be more central, and you want to get him into those positions where he can let fly with that left foot of his. He did that a couple of times last night, came close to scoring, and had a really positive 45 minutes.

He’s not the only one who looks like they’ve put on a bit of muscle. Kai Havertz is another one who looks like he’s been at gym, and Ricardo Calafiori looks bulked up too.

Old reliables

There’s a lot of focus on new signings this summer, which is understandable, but the goal was scored by Saka, and I thought William Saliba was really good at the back. It sort of goes without saying when it comes to the Frenchman, but maybe it’s worth saying because you don’t want to take him for granted. We already have the core of a really competitive team, and we’re all keen to see what the new pieces will add, but it’s worth remembering a lot of what we have is really good.

Midfield remake

We got our first look at our two new central midfielders. Christian Norgaard is basically an oven ready signing, 31 years of age, loads of experience, and as you’d expect, he looked very comfortable in his first appearance. We then saw Martin Zubimendi in the second half, and considering the amount of changes we made to the team in that period, with some very young players on the pitch, he looked very solid and his passing was assured. Obviously there’s more to come, and you can’t judge too much on pre-season games in this kind of heat, but you can see what he’s going to bring to this team in a key area of the pitch.

Age is just a number

With about 25 minutes to go, Mikel Arteta made more changes having also made a clutch of them at half-time. Even in the context of early pre-season, it’s quite something that we introduced two 15 year olds. Max Dowman is a name many people will have heard over the last little while, but he was accompanied by young defender Marli Salmon. The best compliment I can pay them is that they didn’t look out of place, nor did the fact we had two players of such tender age destabilise the team in any way.

Dowman in particular looks almost ready to go, and there were some nice flashes of his potential on display. Asked about them afterwards, Mikel Arteta said:

I’m very happy with all the kids, I think they are able to play at that level, with 15 years old, in my opinion, because of the environment, and the culture that is within the team, and when somebody makes you feel so comfortable, so confident, straight away you can go and do it. Obviously it gives you the best chance, you have to have the qualities that this kid has.

I do think we need to have realistic expectations for players this young, but the romance of the Hale End graduate is a real thing. We have a long track record of giving our Academy players a chance, so that underpins how we view players like Dowman. I think he’s more likely to feature next season than Salmon, but he doesn’t turn 16 until December, so let’s not worry too much if it doesn’t happen straight away. His time will surely come.

Penalties

At one point I thought the shoot-out would never end. Kepa Arrizabalaga saved three but still ended up on the losing side. Mikel Merino’s penalty was fun, and the spot kicks added a bit of fun for the crowd. I don’t know how useful they are to anyone on either team, you can’t really replicate the jeopardy of the ‘real thing’, but they have been a feature of pre-season in the last few years.

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So, the players will continue their training before the game against Newcastle here on Sunday. Let’s see what the next few days brings in terms of additions. Cristhian Mosquera is set to be made official, and then we’ll see what developments take place in the Viktor Gyokeres transfer.

James and I will be recording a podcast for you a bit later on this morning (Singapore time) so stand by for that. In the meantime, have a good one.