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Keeping everyone happy at Arsenal

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo Happy Hincapie Saturday folks!

Although Arteta was tight-lipped on that arrival, the Ornbomb has already dropped and it appears we’re loan-optioning him for the season and clearly we’ll drop the actual cash on Leverkusen’s lap in the summer of 2026, which makes sense given that we probably don’t have the cash lying around to make this deal a permanent one now. What it means is that Jakub Kiwior heads to Porto for what Ornstein says is a pretty much guaranteed £23million from Porto. A Polish international who starred for our team towards the end of the season and proved he is a very good left-centre half, leaves the club for about £3million more than we paid for him. It’s been said on social media, but if he’s a Chelsea player, he goes for around £10million more from that, I assure you. They’ve just sold Renato Veiga, who made seven appearances for them last season before being loaned to Juve, for €24.5million. That player is nowhere near as established or good as Kiwior, yet they’re getting a couple of million Euro’s less. We can all be happy with the superb work of Berta this summer in terms of incomings, but the sales continue to be under valued and that is an issue we need to address.

Apparently Marseille are after Zinchenko but wages are a sticking point and with just over a day and a bit left in the transfer window, Arsenal have to ship him, Nelson, Fabio Vieira and Sambi Lokonga. It’s a lot to ask to get those turned in to permanent deals. If Palace cough up £15million for Reiss then I think that’s good work. If Arsenal can get £15million for Zinchenko then I think at this stage you have to take it. But I suspect Lokonga and Vieira will be last minute loans from one club. Which would be a shame for them and us not to sort their respective futures out.

These are the problems we need Berta to fix, because ours attention – and certainly Arteta;s – has to be on how we win at Anfield for the first time in 13 years. He was asked the usual questions about player availability and of course we know all of the absentees that are guaranteed at the moment (Saka and Havertz) but I was encouraged by what he said about the skipper Odegaard. His words when asked if it was serious were “there’s an injury there, but hopefully, if everything goes well, he can cope with it. But we don’t know yet”. The fact he’s saying that he can cope with it suggests to me that I think he might be alright. That is a boost because although Ethan performed well last weekend at home to Leeds I thought, I think away at Anfield you need somebody with Odegaard’s experience on the pitch. There’s also the fact that Liverpool barely have any injury worries, with Mac Allister having trained and Bradley back in training too, as confirmed by Slot yesterday.

Arteta talked about the ‘aura’ of Eze in his press conference and I think this time tomorrow there’s going to be quite the clamour for Arsenal fans to see him from the start. I’ll touch on team news tomorrow, but whilst Arteta wouldn’t be drawn on that yesterday, I do think he’s not going to be tempted in to using him straight from the off. We have Martinelli who always seems to play well at Anfield and there’s Trossard too, so there are options there and at least of that we can be pleased.

I liked that he asked whether he wanted to play Liverpool later in the season, because it’s a question I’ve been flip-flopping over in my mind. On the one hand it’s good to get it out of the way early, when the damage doesn’t feel as terminal as if we had to go there in April and win to keep any title hopes alive. But on the other hand it could be seen as an early blow and then when you think we have City to play within two games after tomorrow, it puts a little more added pressure on that game if we get beat tomorrow. Arteta didn’t really properly answer the question, but I do wonder if he’s happy that we are getting it out of the way now? I wonder if he’d also rather play City away than home in a couple of weeks too, in that same vein, because that would have ticked off Old Trafford, Etihad and Anfield within the opening weeks of the season. Meaning later in the year you get the benefit of home soil advantage for the crunch games. People who say “you have to play everyone twice it doesn’t matter” I think miss the point; look at how gee’d up Man United were on the opening day. Now look at them having just lost to Grimsby and their fans are turning. I think they’ll beat Burnley next weekend, but the next ‘big game’ they’ve got, I think they’ll have been softened up a bit by some of these results and so you can’t say it’s the same United side that we played versus one that looks like it is on its knees.

Back to the press conference, in which Arteta was asked about keeping everyone happy and what problem that might cause and he rightfully said he doesn’t worry about that, more that players are as happy as they can be. I think that’s where the communication comes in. Arteta might have Trossard knocking on his door wanting to play, but if he communicates in an effective way that they needed to bolster based on last season, that he is still a great player and one we value, that he will get minutes but he needs to accept that we needed a bigger squad based on last season, I think even the likes of Trossard will understand. I remember back to that Leicester City game last season and we played with Sterling, Trossard and Nwaneri as the front three, with Merino coming on in that second half to break the deadlock. We can’t have that situation again. Plus, I think with the injuries we have already, we can all see that players are going to play. When we get in to mid September it is sometimes three games a week, so Arteta is 100% going to have to rotate players in for those midweek games. That also links in with the question he was asked about Martinelli, who he was pretty emphatic that he wouldn’t leave this summer, which also makes me think about whether he’ll sdtart tomorrow, but as I have said above I think Martinelli might just start tomorrow. Just a hunch I’ve got.

Other than that there’s not a ton else that came out from it. Tomorrow I’ll take a look ahead at the game, who I think might play and also how Liverpool might approach this one but for now, you have yourselves a great Saturday.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.