Game 1 of the ‘new season’ is a must win

Morning all.

“Game 1”, is how Mikel Arteta described today’s encounter with Newcastle. For understandable reasons, I think he very clearly wants to draw a line under the last few weeks, and have his team focus fully on this ‘new league’ that we have to play between now and May 24th. We have five in the league, hopefully another three in Europe, and fingers crossed we can make it a great eight that we talk about for years to come.

In terms of team news, Bukayo Saka and Riccardo Calafiori are back in the squad, which is obviously a boost. Whether they’re fit enough to start is another question. Saka hasn’t played since March 22nd and has been nursing an Achilles problem since, while the Italian has been in action more recently but given his fitness record a cautious approach to his latest comeback is probably sensible. I think they’ll both probably be seen as bench options today, but players who can potentially make a real difference if we need that.

With Piero Hincapie likely to start on the left, I’d be inclined to go with Ben White at right-back, he just has a little more attacking thrust than Cristhian Mosquera, even if his form hasn’t been brilliant of late. There’s still no Jurrien Timber, who has been out since the Everton game, and maybe a bit more attack/defence balance in the full-back positions would be useful. I think we’ll see the midfield duo of Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi, but perhaps the most important aspect of today for me is to ensure that we get Martin Odegaard and Eberechi Eze on the pitch together.

The latter ostensibly started on the left against Man City, but he was given licence to come inside to the more central areas where he can really cause the opposition problems. I want to see more of that, coupled with Odegaard’s creativity and craft, to try and give Newcastle something to think about when we have the ball in their half. I’d also continue with Kai Havertz up front. His relationship with Odegaard is well established and they connected well against City, let’s just hope this time there’s greater efficiency in his finishing if and when the chances come.

I am a bit torn about the right hand side. If Saka is eased back into action, there’s no perfect choice for the manager. Noni Madueke has been underwhelming, Gabriel Martinelli came on against Man City and was worse than the player he replaced at the break, and while I’m as enthused by the potential of Max Dowman as anyone, it’s a lot to ask of a 16 year old in a game of this magnitude. He has demonstrated that fearlessness of youth, which could be a positive, but we are in must-win territory and as good as he is, there’s still a lot of development needed in his game. So, let’s see what kind of decision he makes there.

Ahead of the game there’s been so much talk about goal difference and how the title might come down to that. There were questions to Mikel Arteta about it, but he seemed keen to play that aspect of things down, focusing solely on getting the right result:

The first thing we have to do is earn the right to win the game and then win it, and then, depending on how the situation is, you can think about something else. It’s the goals for, goals against. I think there’s going to be a balance of that. It’s been all season, that’s why the goal difference between the two teams is so small. First of all, it’s very clear what we have to do to win the game, to earn the right to win the game, to compete and be better than the opponent. The rest will come.

When your team is on a run of one win in six, I think that’s absolutely the right message to send publicly. Maybe behind the scenes they’re talking differently about what they need to do, but today – first and foremost – is about three points. If it’s a 1-0, fine; if the scoreline is more comprehensive than that, all the better. But we can make no assumptions about how this one will go, and this team hasn’t been in the kind of form that would make any of us think this isn’t going to be anything other than hard work.

But, as I said during the week, that form is something of an outlier based on what we’ve done all season, so let’s hope for a positive performance, that this team remembers that they are actually really, really good, and that later this evening we’re sitting back on top of the Premier League with the ball back in City’s court.

Right, let’s leave it there this morning. As ever, we’ll have live blog coverage for you, all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News, and there’s a preview podcast on Patreon if you need something to listen to in the meantime.

For now, have a good one, and I’ll catch you later for the game.