It seems there’s a bit of a fixture argument going on with Man City. Well, not so much an argument, but rather a ‘discussion’, if the reports are to be believed, for which City wants to play Bournemouth in their rearranged fixture slot before Palace. I didn’t really understand the significance of that until I saw this Tweet from an account I follow:
@SamiMokbel_BBC has confirmed the below.
For clarity, City’s objective is to manipulate the fixtures and avoid playing Bournemouth on a few days rest when Bournemouth have 10+ days rest… just like Arsenal had to do the other week.
It would hurt Palace’s possible final
prep too https://t.co/qZZpHDsiHG pic.twitter.com/u79BFpYoek
— Magic hat 🎩 (@themagic_tophat) April 28, 2026
I don’t think I want to spend too much time on this, but it does feel as though there should be little room for manoeuvre here. Arsenal had to suffer playing a very good Bournemouth team after they were not in the FA Cup, and we had both FA Cup and the Champions League games in between our Premier League matches. If City are playing a fresher Bournemouth too, then so be it. You can’t rearrange things just because of the hope from the TV companies (because you can bet your bottom dollar that Sky will want this re-arrangement, to take it to the last day of the season) that they get more drama on that last week.
They’re gonna get it anyway! Have you seen how nervy we look when playing!
Those nerves were heightened somewhat at the weekend, when we thought that we’d be losing both Eze and Havertz for a period of time, right when they were just coming back for us and able to play significant minutes. Thankfully, Eze dispelled that almost immediately by doing his media duties and being seen on the pitch afterwards on Saturday. Phew. One sigh of relief down.
Then we got a ‘sort of’ sigh of relief yesterday evening, as news emerged from the likes of The Athletic that Kai’s injury is not as bad as feared, which again is good stuff. Depending on what you read, there are variations on when he could potentially be back. I suspect we’ll get it confirmed from Arteta this evening that he’ll play no part tonight. I saw one report suggesting that Arsenal think he might be able to play some part in all of our remaining Premier League games. If that’s true, then happy days, because that means he’d at least be fit for the Fulham home game this coming weekend.
I suspect that might be a little more hope than reality, though.
What he brings is without question. We talked about it on Sunday, and Scarlet spoke the truth when she said that we looked very different after Kai came off. That’s very true indeed. I had a look at some of the stats up until the 34th minute, when he limped off, and we had:
Better possession (just) – edging it 51% to 49% (we finished the game on
More through balls (four to one)
Level on shots (they ended up out-shooting us by the end of the game)
But the way we played just looked more fluid to the eye. Kai links players all around him, where Gyokeres seems to be a lot more isolated. A lot of that, I think, is that his technical quality is so low that the players don’t want to lose the ball, but rather than turn this into a Gyokeres-bashing piece, I want to lean in more into what Kai brings us.
We were much better against City. It ‘felt’ better against Newcastle until he came off. I also think the Everton game we played well, although Big Vik did his bit by coming on later in the game and making an impact. The prospect of not having Kai for anything longer than Fulham next weekend was very real, so having him potentially available thereafter is massive.
The next worry we have about this week is the volume of games within a week. Jamie Carragher pointed it out on Monday Night Football last night, but we play Wednesday-Saturday-Tuesday, at a point in the season in which we still have players not fully fit and back to form. It’s going to be quite some gruelling week, and when I look at tomorrow night’s game against Atletico Madrid, I can’t help but think it just needs to be one of those “just get through it” games. Get through it, try to keep it tight, then see how much you can rest up before playing a Fulham side who have had a week off, plus will be coming off the back of a morale-boosting 1-0 victory over Villa last weekend.
I didn’t watch the game Fulham played, but I’ve looked at the numbers, and it looks like a classic one in which one team (Villa) had all of the possession, but Fulham created more chances and ultimately like us had that one moment of magic. Before that win, they had just one win in six games, so their form was patchy, but as we know, so was Newcastle’s, and yet they made us look very leggy indeed at times on Saturday.
I don’t know how we overcome that, to be honest, because Arteta has very much just patched up players and sent them out of late. I doubt Saka can do many 90-minute games, and given he was only given around 20 minutes on Saturday, surely he can’t start in Madrid?
Odegaard and Eze will also need to be managed carefully, so despite our big squad, it’s all feeling a little paper-thin in certain positions right now.
We’ll know more later on who is likely to start, and wouldn’t it just be nice to get some positive news about Jurrien Timber, eh? Let’s see what the boss says later.
Otherwise, I’ll be back for a match preview tomorrow, so I’ll catch you then.