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Morning all.
I have a confession to make. When I first clapped eyes on our new third kit, I thought it was a cream colour which is why I didn’t like it but it’s white. At least I think it’s white.
Noni Madueke has joined with his new teammates and yesterday, he got stuck into training. The club’s official website has a video clip of him in action and guess what, one of the first things he’s seen doing is scoring a goal. A left footed belter into the top of the net. Let’s see if he can do the same when he has two defenders on him. Same goes for Viktor Gyokeres really, we know he could score goals in Portugal, lots of them too but I think it’s fair to suggest that the Premier League is a totally different challenge. A challenge which strikers like him will no doubt love. My brother in law, a staunch Liverpool fan, reckons he’s going to struggle in a way Darwin Nunez has since his arrival from Benfica where he scored 32 goals in 57 games. Viktor’s 68 in 66 games is way more impressive to begin with though but then he’s a more mature player than Nunez was when he arrived in England.
Rasmus Hojlund is another young striker who has found life in the Premier League difficult, or life at Man Utd difficult. Still just 22 years old he’s being tipped for a move away as Benjamin Sesko looks set to take his place. I read that Hojlund could move for £30 million. (#justsayin) I can already see the negative Arsenal headlines written in bold letters should Sesko be a success. If he does end up at Utd rather than Newcastle, I think Liverpool’s chances of signing Isak lessen. My brother in law won’t be pleased that’s for sure as he’s 100% sure Liverpool will sign him this summer.
Arsenal take on Villarreal tonight at The Emirates with kick off at 6pm.
Mikel Arteta:
> We know what we want from pre-season, which is why we have planned the schedule like this. First we played Watford at Sobha, then we went to Singapore to play against AC Milan and Newcastle, before facing Tottenham in Hong Kong. So we’ve been changing conditions, changing contexts, and now we are playing at home against two teams preparing to be in the Champions League this season.
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> Villarreal are playing at the highest level, and they have a manager in Marcelino who likes to play a very specific type of system and formation that we will find in the Premier League this season. But also we are playing against Spanish opposition, so that will require other things from us as well, and I expect these to be really good games.
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> When we arrange these pre-season matches, I always look at how the manager sets up his teams, how they coach their team, the kind of players they have, how they train different phases of play against different blocks. We have a very good mixture this pre-season. The knowledge and experience that we gain from these games all goes into our “database” to help us throughout the season and it helps for the way we have to evolve our game models.
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> Each game is going to demand something from you physically, and the spaces you have to attack or protect, and different ways they can play in their build-up as well. So we have to nail that and improve that, and playing against Villarreal will help that, so it’s a good game for us.
Well, it cannot be said that Arteta and his coaching staff don’t do their homework. I never really understood why we played Premier League teams during pre-season but now it makes complete sense.
Whilst we need to remember tonight’s fixture is a friendly and the result is meaningless, I hope we see the team/players step things up a bit. Quicker passing, quicker movement and quicker football in general. I know any change in life can take time to process and perfect but the opening day of the season is less than two weeks away so I’m hoping we see a bit more of the anticipated improvements in tonight’s match.
Remember Denis Suarez? Well, the once Man City, Barcelona and Arsenal loanee is likely to feature for Villarreal tonight along with another old Arsenal player in Nicolas Pepe. I’m looking forward to seeing Pepe play because despite not having a great time in the Premier League, he’s a talented player. But obviously, I’m a lot more interested in seeing what our new players deliver, especially Gyokeres and Madueke. Then there’s Mad Max of course, who doesn’t want to see him play again. I refer to him that way because it is madness that a player so young can play so well at senior level. Friendlies or not, he’s stood up to whatever test he’s faced so far in pre-season. I’m sure a number of the younger players will get playing time too.
Enjoy the game guys..
Catch up in the comments.