Arsenal 3-0 Athletic Bilbao – observations

Arsenal’s pre-season fixtures concluded yesterday with a 3-0 win over Athletic Bilbao in the Emirates Cup.

Here are my observations on what we saw yesterday.

Gyokeres gets off the mark

There was a strange quirk to the Swedish striker’s time at Sporting around headed goals – he didn’t get that many of them. In his final season where he scored 39 times in the Portuguese league, not a single one of them was a header. So, it was good to see him score his first Arsenal goal in a way not too many people would have predicted.

Martin Zubimendi curled in a lovely cross, Gyokeres’ movement in the box was too smart for the defender, and the header powered past Unai Simon to make it 1-0. We still await his first competitive goal for the club, but hopefully this will ease the pressure a little bit, and help him feel more comfortable in his new surroundings.

I know we live in a media world that causes some serious eye-rolling at times, but I saw a headline yesterday that literally said ‘Gyokeres proves doubters wrong with brilliant opening goal for Arsenal’. It’s obviously absurd for all kinds of reasons, but that’s the environment in which players are being judged by some mainstream outlets. It’s all about the clicks, but it does have an impact on the discourse. Anyway, he scored a good goal and there were some promising signs in the way he got into positions and combined with others. It’s almost as if having a bit more time has proved beneficial.

Zubimendi is quality

I said on the blog before I felt a bit sorry for Martin Zubimendi. His signing had been telegraphed months previously, so some of the shine was taken off it and people were a bit ‘meh’ about his arrival – particularly as the focus was then all on the striker signing. I think we saw yesterday what he’s going to bring to this team. Not just the assist, but the all-round midfield play, the intelligence and security he brings on the ball.

It was quite interesting to note that he and Declan Rice both operated in deep areas, rotating between themselves to drop between the centre-halves, and he looked very comfortable with his partners in that area of the pitch. On his combinations with Rice, Mikel Arteta said afterwards:

With the qualities that they have and the way they can complement each other in that space, we saw another evolution today on that and things that the team can really benefit from to be much more unpredictable and be a much more threat, especially from these inside positions.

How those two operate in tandem this season is going to be fascinating. Rice, for me, is a natural 6 redeployed as an 8 because he has the quality to do that; and while Zubimendi’s star has risen as primarily a deep-lying midfielder, it looks as if Arteta sees more to his game than that. There’s a clamour for the manager to do things differently, so here’s a suggestion how some of that might play out.

Maybe it’s not quite worthy of its own headline, but I don’t think you can talk about Zubimendi and Rice without also acknowledging the role of Martin Odegaard in that midfield trio. I think we’ve seen hints that he’s more like his old self this pre-season, and he showed that yesterday too. It was his ball over the top that allowed Gabriel Martinelli provide a tap-in for Bukayo Saka, and there were some lovely, crafty final third passes that opened up space for us to attack the opposition.

Kai Havertz scores again

I was hoping Kai Havertz would get himself a goal yesterday. With the spotlight very firmly on Gyokeres, I think we still need to remember he’s going to be a very important part of this squad. Everyone loves the shiny new signing, but don’t overlook what you already have. The way he took his goal was almost exactly how you’d want to script it. We’ve talked so much about how we need channel the Swede’s direct running in behind the opposition defence, but it was Havertz who showed how it’s done.

He ran onto a ball in behind, kept it under control, outpaced the defenders to provide the shooting chance, and finished perfectly. Not only was he too quick for them, he was too strong for them – some evidence all those gym sessions and that extra-muscularity has paid off. If Gyokeres had scored that goal, people would be losing their minds, so credit where it’s due and I’m backing both our strikers to score plenty in the season ahead.

Gabriel gets important minutes

With Old Trafford just a week away, it was important to get some minutes into the legs of Gabriel. He played for just over an hour before being replaced by Cristhian Mosquera, and while we weren’t especially troubled defensively, he looked solid alongside William Saliba and comfortable physically. So too Jurrien Timber who played 45 minutes, as did Riccardo Calafiori who played the first half at left-back.

I know there’s such a big ‘if’ over the Italian when it comes to his fitness, but I really hope he can stay on top of that because there’s such a good player in there when he’s available. It’s early days for Mosquera too, but so far I like what I’ve seen. He seems very assured and calm, so let’s hope that augurs well for competitive appearances.

Penalties

It’s not really that important, but I love a good top corner penalty, and a couple of the Athletic players really put theirs away very well. It was fitting that Zubimendi’s was the spot-kick to win it for us, but in a friendly game I’m not to churlish to give a ‘chapeau‘ to the opposition players for the way they took some of their penalties.

—

Right, let’s leave it there for this morning. Next week is one where we have to get down to business with the new season drawing ever closer, so for now have a great Sunday. We’ll be back with more here tomorrow, and an Arsecast Extra.