Howdy folks, from an overcast Sri Lanka in which I’m operating on about two hours sleep, so please bear with me if my usual Arsenal-related rambling is a little more incoherent than usual.
We heard from Mikel Arteta yesterday and I guess the first thing to be happy about is that Hincapie and Calafiori are back in training. I suspect that tomorrow will come too soon for them, although you never know with defenders and given that Hincapie has only been out a few weeks, his recency in match fitness might mean he makes his way back into the starting line-up.
I also think that with defenders, they tend to be able to be moved back into action a little quicker than attackers do, probably on account of the fact that there are more times in which they are not stretching those muscle sinuses as much as attackers might. If you think about the whole ‘rest defence’ thing – where teams deliberately set up in phases of play so they can control and rebuild whilst controlling possession – it kind of lends itself to the fact that defenders probably come back quicker than attackers. Big Gabi, for example, was brought on as a sub before Christmas for 20+ minutes, then he was in from the start the next game. That just doesn’t happen with a wide forward like Saka, for example.
Mikel Arteta was asked some questions about Arsenal’s form, about how Pep Guardiola has once again been singing our praises as the best team in the world right now and predictably, Arteta was thankful for the positivity, but equally magnanimous over the team and how we are playing. I think all of us are going out of our way to remind each other, rival fans, the media and pundits that _we know_ that we haven’t won anything yet. Arteta, as the captain steering our _Good Ship Arsenal_ leads that charge and narrative just as much as anyone. I think that’s because he, like we, know that it doesn’t take a lot to find yourself burned. We have seen that for a few seasons now and as a result, we all have our guard up when we get questions like that, or comments about the fact that the league is wrapped up. You only have to see City’s three draws and a defeat as an example of how things can swing, and Mikel Arteta will be acutely aware of this, especially given we’re on back-to-back draws ourselves. Lose tomorrow, or even draw, and it will feel like we might ourselves be in a little bit of a funk too.
And as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, the nature of this United team being somewhat of an unknown quantity under Carrick, doesn’t help. Arteta admitted that planning for tomorrow has been somewhat altered as a result of the change; he doesn’t know what version Michael Carrick’s United are and one game is not a big enough sample size to be sure.
What I think we can all be sure of, though, is that United won’t come for us tomorrow. They’ll come to counter, they’ll have ways to hurt us for sure, but they will know we have the depth, we have talent, we are top of the league for a reason. We have to show it tomorrow. [I said it yesterday](https://www.suburbangooners.com/2026/01/23/united-are-the-unknown-quantity/), I’ll say it again and I’ll repeat tomorrow:
_Don’t play the badge. Play the team._
I think we’ve got enough weapons to hurt them, we’ve got enough bench options, but it’s about us taking our chances. That’s something we didn’t do last Saturday, or the previous week against Liverpool.
That will fall on the attacking players, and Arteta was asked a few questions on Kai and Viktor on it, as you’d expect. He was complimentary on both, but also stressed that the club are taking their time with Kai’s return. I don’t think there was anything groundbreaking in what he said, but I do think it is interesting that when he was asked about Big Vik, he specifically referenced Kai, but that he could also play in a few attacking positions. I do think we are going to see a time this season when both are on the pitch; that may be because we are chasing the game, but the very fact these options now appear to be becoming available to the manager, as we reach the run in and the crunch point in the season, could be massive for us. I really hope it is.
I’ve been thinking about what we need to reach our ambitions between now and the end of the season with our three attackers. I really do think we probably need a minimum of 20 goals between all of them. If we’re assuming that Bukayo, Martinelli, Trossard _et al_ will all also be on the scoresheet, having those three players getting six each at least should be what we hope for. And I think if we do manage that, I do think we will be picking up silverware. Midweek was a great confidence-booster for two out of the three attackers, but we need to now show that form domestically too. Starting tomorrow would go a long way.
And we still have a long way to go. It’s back to the slog that is the Premier League tomorrow, in which we’ll have to show a ruthlessness that hasn’t been there in our last two Premier League teams.
Time to do the business, Arsenal.
Back tomorrow with a match preview. See you then.