Arsenal Open the Season in Style Ahead of a Fun Weekend of Results

27:28He's a player of a huge affection for.

27:29Elliot:Yeah, he seems to be accepting at the time of recording that that could be a good move for him. And hey, look, everybody likes to be wanted. And maybe he's been approached and they really want him. They're going to pay him appropriately. And he's going to join a project which suits him at this moment in time. He's 25. He's got plenty of time. He wants to come back in two, three years time and go to Spain and do something else. I think it's a very important sell for us, not just for our balance sheet, because he will be pure profit, because his book value is nothing. So he will be pure profit. But Elliot, we need to build relationships.

28:06Elliot:And we need to build relationships in Saudi Arabia so we have exit plans for a few of the 28-year-olds that we just bought. So we need to think about this. It's a very, very important strategic move. And I wouldn't push him too hard for the money, because you can get money for other players down the road. So rather than say, put the deal at risk for five mil, no, take the deal. But we're coming back to you again. And we're coming back to you again. And we're going to build those relationships. And that's how you do business. So that's why I'm with it. If Martinelli's happy with it, and by the way, we're all happy with him.

28:37Elliot:He came as a kid and was going to be in the under-21s, and ended up being in the first team and helped transform phase one of Miklard Teta's team. So Father Unconcerned, he can do no wrong. Despite me criticizing him on the odd occasion for the odd miss, it doesn't really matter. you think of his time at Arsenal, he's absolutely sensational, where he's come from and where he's ended up. And so whatever he does next, he's just brilliant, what a brilliant career he's having. So if he does move on, he's only going to get the best wishes from you. Amen. And I think we dehumanize players sometimes because we see them in two dimensions.

29:12And I get it, they're millionaires who play a kid's game. And for some people, that's enough reason to just not care about them as human beings. But I think it is important to note that this is a 25 year old young man that's a young person from brazil who's made a life in london and now you're asking him to go to a place where war is happening where the cultures are different where the language is different where the food is different where everything is different and go move his life there and play his football there out of the purview of the global football fan base and and that's a big decision to ask a player to take and honestly like I can respect a human being who says that's not my life plan so while I understand they're handsomely paid it's generational wealth it's hard to feel bad for anyone the point is uprooting your life is hard and it is a big change and so I you know I wish Gabrielle Martinelli the best and I understand if this is not a movie wants to make but it seems like he's edging closer to making it we'll just have to see what happens there so um I think we should get into the game though.

30:11So we'll set aside the transfers for now and the laughing at our rivals. It was a fun weekend. We didn't get the city dropped points that we may have hoped for, but Liverpool dropped points. United lost. Spurs lost. Villa were ripped apart, and we play them next, and they look like they're in disarray. So, so far, so good. Tim, as for the opening night of the season, I think the biggest thing for me is when that team sheet comes out and the boys are back in town you know and it's like granted in part probably because people that are back in town the boys exactly and i think it is the first time since december 2020 or only the second time since december 2024 that kai havertz pakaio saka and martin odegaard have started a game together and the first time since december 2024 that all them plus ben white started a game together and the best of Mikel Arteta's football I think was played when those players were together they were together and what do you know we saw some of the best of Arteta's football and I realized that Paul we're here we could run it through the crapatron and talk about how bad Coventry are but rather than do that is that the biggest thing just seeing oh yeah the good players are back they look fit they looked excited to play together and they brought back a scintillating dynamic to the way we played that was just absent without them in prior seasons.

31:36Absolutely. And we saw the beginnings of it in the Community Shield. And, you know, that was very much Erdegaard and Havertz. They both started, right? In Cardiff as well. So absolutely, you can just see those connections refiring. You can see that there's fluidity, that there's joy there, particularly on that right-hand side. And it just makes everyone else look better because I was reading the piece Adrian Clarke did. about this game and uh he he talked about how i think something like 48 of our attacks it's in the 40s percentage wise uh went down the right hand side in this game and yet we'd all say that zolis and calafiore had great games and they set up the first goal and um it's just that kind of oh we've got a right side and a left side um you know because there were times when we had that right hand pod that we all know about but perhaps the left side didn't quite match up to it and and it kind of did on this occasion and you know you get Saka's goal and actually it's because of great work on the left again it just felt um it felt kind of equilateral the performance it just felt like everything kind of flowed I think that happens so much more with Havertz up front as well I think Havertz is such an integral player for us and by the way his his goal scoring record is really really good since he came back to fitness and I just I loved the first goal so much as well Elliot because um you know if you were looking at it from a Coventry point of view but this is going to sound as patronizing as hell what a fantastic education like they're right back ever so slightly missed controls a bounce for half a second and 1.5 seconds later the ball's in the net and like that's not going to happen to you in the championship and to be fair it's not actually going to happen to you that often in the Premier League but that's just like if you're Coventry and that happened right in front of their fans as well like I bet the conversations in that away end when they saw that in front of their face was wow how quick was that like a tiny bobble 1.5 seconds later it's in the net and we were just you know we were very ruthless as well and I felt like not literally but figuratively it felt like a smiles on faces performance and I definitely think we we get a lot more of that with those players on the pitch just stay with you for a second tim just the the atmosphere i mean like obviously good every game home and away every year um even watching from thousands of miles away when the campeones chance went up when the we know what we are chance went up um which coventry joined in with us yeah yeah as they have every right to do champions um the championship of europe i mean it gave me chills It really brought it back home after a summer of maybe letting the intensity of the excitement slip.

34:33It brought it right back for me. Yeah, big time. And what I really noticed as well. Now, to be fair, a lot of people will do this for the first game of the season because they'll make changes to your digital ticket and all of that. And there was an incident a couple of years ago when we opened the season at home to Forest and everyone got in 15 minutes late because there were issues at turnstiles. So people are more likely to turn up early on the first day. And I got him when the ground opened. I was like, child care anyway, but I was like, not going to the pub. I want to be inside and I want to make sure I'm inside.

35:08I want to make sure I'm not outside in a queue, you know, 10 minutes before kickoff, kind of going mad. And so I was in my seat like 25 minutes before kickoff, which never happens, basically. And the ground was almost full. and what was really nice was they brought um karl jenkinson out because he announced his retirement recently and they they do that former player thing usually about 15 minutes before kickoff and there's probably like 10 000 people there but karl jenkinson got like a good 50 000 people in there um and that was really nice as well and obviously there was um uh sadly a former arsenal goalkeeper from the 70s jimmy rimmer passed away as well and they did like a little tribute to him on the big screen and everyone was there for it but yeah the mood was just absolutely buoyant you could tell that everyone thought this is our first chance at a game to really celebrate what we did last season yeah and and the the mood on the in the ground was reflected on the pitch with the way the players were playing and I think there's so much bullshit that's written about Arsenal and the way we play and that we're defensive we all know it's lies but like when the players are out there who can play the football Mikel wants you see what he wants to do and one of the things that just delighted me, Clive.

36:20The combinations, central spaces, the distances, players close to each other, one-twos, top of the box, playing through midfield. Myles Lewis-Skelly with Odegaard and Rice in the midfield, two global superstars, just showing his personality, punching the ball between the lines. We really seemed to make an effort to not just go wide early. And when we went wide, we had two good players. We could talk about that as well. But is that something that stood out to you from the start our ability to push the ball between the lines centrally and get players close together and combined because that that's something that

36:53Elliot:i saw basically right from the start yeah it's it's lovely at the moment and the whole the whole night was really nice i kept thinking about last year and the full-on game might have been the last game i enjoyed yeah yeah because and it wasn't because i don't love my football i love my football i enjoy every game but my goodness it's been some tense games in last season i keep saying it i urge you to watch the season review but watch it now when your heart's a little bit lower and you'll realize why people have said why they got so stressed maybe some of our analysis has been a bit edgy etc because of what we were all living through and to get to this game and to basically go into a 12 pins and the smiles in there it was just brilliant absolutely brilliant i got into the early and it all starts and i saw kyle jenkins but i met him last week on the radio five preview what a nice guy absolutely top guy and i think we'll be seeing him more around our sauna and he wrote a retirement note i don't know if you've caught it we may have touched it before but i i urge you to find it and read it it's a sensational bit of writing which he did himself that is not ai and it's a really heartfelt message and um so i urge you to read that But as for Arsenal, the way we're playing, what I'm really, really loving at the moment is our ability to see the pitch and our capacity to see the plus ones that we need to have.

38:17Elliot:I mean, that first goal, I mean, the first goal against Man City, I barely got over that. It was a thing of beauty. What we did in that game, how we ran through them, and that was just a major moment in change. Again, affecting the box, running through the box. Odegaard getting box touches. this is what we used to do and we're doing it again now people running through lines then this game the ball's moving around the back and we're obviously good right so there's no no drama i don't feel stressed but the first goal always makes you feel better so we're moving the ball around and then ben white just goes you know what i fancy a diag and he fancies a diag and it goes over to or solace on that side but then when you do a diag like that the next the drill and your principle is when you do a long pass can i do so you say i call it fast support how can i get to the ball carrier better than quicker than the opposition so what happens califuri reads it so rather than one v one you have a plus one you get a plus one we're in the we win the second ball across the area swept into the side name one nil everyone's standing up clapping like we've just seen a film at the pictures that stuff has taken years to put in place to recognize the one-on-one to recognize that we want to make that two-on-one ben white done it's continuously on the right hand side and i do feel and i know i've read it so it's in my mind i do feel players are recognizing the plus once more and creating more by their movement and they're overloading on one side i do feel i don't want to use the name the words that that the handbrake has come up i don't want to use that word because i don't believe the handbrake was on but psychologically maybe it was and it's early right it's very early but two games in there's a freedom to our attack and maybe that's down to personnel you know recognizing this person i understand how to attack in a slightly different way their condition their health their fitness the addition of solace the fitness of califurin we have attacking players on the pitch and they are attacking but i do feel the recognition of our plus ones has been really really good and it's very enjoyable earlier i'll be honest here very enjoyable yeah absolutely totally agree and just to show you how much fitness matters by the way ben white second in distance covered second in number of sprints for arsenal after havert's right yep havert havert's had the most distance covered solis had the most sprints number two ben white ben white you know and and is that something benjamin white would have been able to do in previous seasons, I'm not so sure.

40:51Or if he did, he's coming off at 35 minutes. You know what I mean? So it just shows you the difference it makes. I do want to talk about Christos Solis at length. I think that is a performance that needs some attention along with a couple other things. And I want to cover the goals as well. Plus maybe some of the players that didn't come on. I mean, that's a talking point we haven't gotten to yet. So let me hit you with... Sleep Number's new collections are designed to adapt to the changing nature of your life and your sleep needs. Whether it's the personalized comfort of the Comfort Mode mattress, the targeted pressure relief of the Comfort Next mattress, or the climate collection that actively cools or warms to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

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43:29Elliot:indeed nailed it boy oh boy you know is there anything more fun than buying a player you don't know much about and then they show up and they just wow you. It's such a cool feeling, isn't it? Because buying stars is exciting. But Christos Solis, and it's early, he looks like he's got it. And Clive, the thing that really struck me, you and I did a scouting video of Christos Solis and we watched him. Two good feet. Very direct. Very end product focused. Quick decisions. Ball into the box. Left foot, right foot, cross or shot. Could he do that in the Premier League? That was the only question. You see him do it in the Belgian League.

44:11You see him do it a bit at the Champions League. Could he do it in the Premier League? And he shows up. And what does he do? He does it in the Premier League. Leads us in sprints. Gets on the ball. Cross after cross. Into a dangerous position. Billy Carpenter wrote something about if we could get our left-hand side working, it will lead to a lot of cheap, easy goals for Saka cleaning up. And sure enough, we see that happen on the opening day. Solis drags people over. The defense gets pulled out of shape. Keeper doesn't have a good parry, and Saka's right there to clean it up. we have a left-hand side now and it's been brought to you by Christos Solis that's not a brand mentioned by the way that's an actual player at Arsenal so um yeah I mean it's exciting to see all the things we saw over the summer when we watched him just replicated at the Premier League level and you go too big at your own peril but I I think everybody was very excited by Solis yeah some

44:58Elliot:people sit around me in the crowd they're looking at each other with our eyes wide open going crikey he's good and uh so yes it's the second game i've seen him playing that and he looks um yeah and he's the bit that maybe you know we've seen him close up on youtube and we've seen him in certain friendlies but the bit that really stands out to me is his power i think he's really quite powerful he really sprints into dual so that power does always jump off the screen when you're on youtube looking at the clips but when i can hear his left foot crosses i can hear him he had a shot i can hear the contact on the ball and i'm thinking mate normally players come in and they have to physically develop into our league he's already physically developed we don't know what it's going to be like because this at this favor this stage of the sunny season we're playing once a week then it's all good right but on thursday the european the champions league draw comes out and then they slot in those games really quickly and you start to realize oh suddenly you care about the squad rather than the team right because um when they slot depending how tough they are when they when they land home and away versus your bigger games at the weekend and then we're going to see what these kids really like how what you can do every three day sort of thing in this level but as for football it doesn't take much to work out what you can do lefty righty seems to make the right pass every single time these are going the right way every single time and that's hard when you're sitting in the seats and you know everything from those seats you can see every decision and when a player's making all of the right ones it's like oh that's interesting there was a little interview i don't know if you caught it there's loads of interviews with him there's one post game and he and they said to him how have you settled in so quickly and he said when i heard the rumors i started to watch every game basically i started to study and he looks like somebody that studied us intimately and he's now taking the exam and he's passing it you know he looks really really good he really does tim anything to add on solis because i mean we could do a whole part on him but uh it was a tremendous opening day yeah yeah it really was what i've liked about him so far pre-season and this game is just like he doesn't do anything stupid you know um it's that sounds we got enough of that yeah well yeah yeah yeah i'm keeping my mouth shut man we won't mention the names but like yeah there is a lack of erraticness to him you know it's just like everything's kind of clean not always like absolutely wows you but like every decision kind of feels like the right one his shot selection's good his cross selection he kind of knows when to cut in he knows when the cross is there and when it's not and when to recycle um one of the things i can't remember if you guys said this in the scouting video but i've certainly read about him that like his decision making at speed is really really good and i think that's something a lot of players again maybe we've got a player or twos like this like when you're running very very fast with the ball out wide like you know it can fry your brain a little bit but his his seems to slow down um which is which is really good he just looks like a really really solid addition he really does like it's i guess the best compliment i can give him to this point and it's still very early as it's kind of like trossard never went away you know um which would which is a great compliment because trossard was an immense player for arsenal i think there's a player too that we have to learn a bit he's so direct and he's so intent on getting the ball into the box in dangerous places.

48:40I think his teammates will really understand to bust their ass to be in position because they have a chance to score a goal when he's on the ball. I already love his understanding with Calafiore, his understanding with Kai Havertz. Obviously, the first goal comes from Solis chasing the ball down and then Calafiore delivering to Kai. The second goal is a cross from Solis that is poorly parried from a brilliant declin rice drive through the midfield by the way but that shot was really quite smart

49:10Elliot:yeah do it on time quickly if you chop you miss the runs do i mean the runs are all going in and he left footed it if he'd have chopped and right footed it then those runs would have been offside do you mean that and they would have gone you have to do a shake and bake and get shot that decision that instant decision your your teammates can read and if you are predictable in wide areas and people can move, right? And so it's very encouraging, Elliot. Yeah, it really is. And I thought there were a lot of things to like about this performance. You know, the two big things, obviously, was Solis stuck out to me and just having the players back.

49:47On Solis, Mikel Arteta said, quote, I love that a player who has only been with us a few weeks gets this kind of energy whenever he's on the ball. And I think he's earned it. I think the way he's performed the last few games has been phenomenal. What he transmits as a player, so direct, constantly incisive, and wants to make things happen. He has an incredible variety of actions in the last 30 meters to decide and make the right decisions, even when the spaces are really small. I'm really impressed with him. And I think that's the thing too. Sometimes when you're a new player at a big club coming from a smaller club, the instinct can be make the safe pass, keep possession, give it back to the fullback, give it back to the center back, let the more established players do the critical thing.

50:25Solis was having none of that. He was all over the pitch doing the big things. By the way, on having the best players back, you know, Mikel talked about the chemistry and he said, quote, we missed players playing together like last year, like Ben White, Bakaio Saka, Martin Odegaard. It was good. It was about the connections between players that I really like. The outside ones as well. Bakaio, I think, was exceptional. We had some big individual performances and we demanded at this level. The players have to be decisive. And I think they were decisive today. Tim there were so many great moves and the thing I came away with from this game is actually I think we can get better I actually don't think our final third execution was as good as it can be I think there's still opportunities to exploit that we didn't exploit in this game but the thing that was so encouraging was the way that Odegaard, Miles and Rice midfield operated and it felt to me like Rice is maybe playing a little deeper a little more like the six.

51:24You know, again, the positions felt fluid, but maybe he was focused a little deeper. And I think that just gave Miles such an exciting platform to make those risky, big decisions he likes to make in tight spaces, to turn and face and punch the ball forward. Because someone has to have the personality to play those passes. We know that Bruno will. Miles will. I think if you're Miles Lewis Skelly, you're definitely making it hard for Mikel in terms of thinking about taking him out of the team because he's playing so well. But did you notice anything about the midfield dynamic that looked any different to you or just that it worked really well in general?

52:02Yeah, definitely. Like Rice was dropping back between the centre-backs quite a lot. Lewis Skelly did it on occasion. Like I think ever since Zubimendi came in, like Rice and Zubimendi, that was always, I think, intended to be quite a fluid double pivot. I think Rice and Bruno would be the same. Bruno and Zubimendi would be the same. Like, they're all... I think what you're seeing a lot of, and I've seen this conversation with Liverpool as well, like, because Liverpool, there's a lot of talk about, like, do they really have a six? Do they really need a six? And there's some, like, which Slott never thought so.

52:38It looks like Iriola doesn't really think so as well, that they just kind of retain some fluidity there. And actually, a lot of the top teams are moving away from that a bit. but it did definitely feel like Rice sat in a bit and I think we probably saw that in the Champions League final as well and it could be that that's our intention. For Rice, like I say, I think there'll always be a sense of interchange there but maybe the ball just moves a little bit more quickly this way and we still do have the option for Rice to kind of gallop the ball up the pitch which he does really really well but that can't be the only way we progress the ball up the pitch and yeah like definitely we know Miles has got that kind of first of all the turn away from pressure and then he's got that really kind of punchy pass between the lines but then look at the pass in the build up to the third goal is it from Rice that pass like between the lines into Erdegaard like I don't know maybe it's something he's worked on maybe it's like oh I'm playing around all these players that that are doing this um we keep signing players that are you know passers through the lines more progressive passes maybe I need to up my game there a little bit maybe I'm reading too much into that but it certainly this this feels like a nice midfield at the moment is is what I'd say um I doubt Bruno will be available anyway for the next couple of games so we might get that continuity in there it might be just a nice way of reintroducing rice as well like in the community shield he kind of very much did sit in front of the defense and actually that he didn't have to exert himself too much probably the same in this game as well like commentary didn't come forward a great deal so he didn't have to run his legs off you know it was uh in the armchair as it were in front of the kind of the center back so I think I think what's really positive though is we're just finding out we've got more stuff that works we know Rice and Zubimendi works it worked for a good portion of last season and we now know Rice and Lewis Skelly works and Rice and Lewis Skelly and Erdegaard and you know it just it just feels to me I don't come out of this thinking god this should be our midfield and like no one else is going to be able to get in I come out of this thinking okay that's another midfield that works because we're going to need all the

55:08Elliot:combinations all the time clive yeah it's funny when and you know what the old declin rising the sixth thing i sort of riled against it for a couple years but i thought changed a little bit and in this game wait wait wait this is important never update your opinions come on don't back down double down well it's because it's funny how people look at this because miles was far more six in this game than rice was right and if you look at their heat maps you can see it so so if you look at it now so when we got the the one game about what i wobbled last year shall we say maybe two villa away and um and the carabao cup final not born myth at home nah you can sense that in the water better man than I am I watched it you can sense it in the water I was in the ground early like I was petrified you sense it in the water for those who were there on the day you know what I mean you can feel the defeat coming sometimes but since that Carabao Cup final we used to build up in a 4-2 with our fullbacks varying heights and our midfield two on the slant behind two centre backs we've gone to a 3-1-6 now and that three so we're rather than building a in like a almost like a six we're building in a four and we're pushing more people up the pitch so you think back four diamond in that back four diamond miles spent a lot of time in the middle of the three and sometimes when declin rice dropped in he dropped into the right center half of the three and he drove out from the right hand side and so you can see in the future that you're giving your build up to your back four diamond and they're going to rotate in positions within that four depending on where they are on that time and they've got to be comfortable doing it so we're lucky that rice and and um miles have spent time in the back lines they're not bothered about being in the last line so they can do it whether they were either to left or the right they're not bothered but that guy at the tip must be there and available to sweep to be part of the exits with our fullbacks higher up they can drop in and so I really like this 3-1-6 and we've looked so much better since we've done it.

57:19Elliot:We haven't lost a game since we've done it. You know? And that's been the major tactical change. So you can see, if you can take it out of your mind, obviously we defended a double pivot, but you can see as we're in settled attack and we're starting to flow, you can see our mid-4-3, you can almost imagine the magic roundabout, they're going to rotate around. You can see that coming, can't you? When Bruno comes in, when Zubmendi comes in, the other guys are all there, they can all play, all the positions so why stand in position and with miles now who's developed as a sixth this pre-season which he's never really done in adult football that's a major step forward for him to hold that central role at 19 and drive the team i think that's massive absolutely massive yeah yeah really well said i i think it's going to be so interesting to see how the pieces fit together but i do think that maybe this also gives michael an opportunity to say hey there are games because Ben White was sensational in this game.

58:16Do I want Ben White starting when there's a dynamic, tricky, difficult-to-mark left-sided attacker lining up opposite him? Maybe not. But if Timber gets back fit, maybe you can protect Timber a little by recognizing that what Ben White can do for us with our buildup and our attack against teams we expect to dominate is so valuable. Because this game was dead by halftime. It's dead by halftime. If you can kill games that early, that changes your season substantially. And I'm not saying that Timber's not effective in the attack. That's not my point. My point is, in games like this, do you need to keep flogging Timber?

58:55And Ben White, if he's this fit and can run this many sprints and cover this much distance, and he had cutbacks that were fantastic, the one for Odegaard is a brilliant, flowing arsenal move, redolent of the 23-24 season when it was all clicking, and Odegaard gets his goal from it. And if he can do that, then I think that gives us a lot of options. Calafiore, what a player we have there and what a capacity to just disrupt defensive alignment because they don't know where he's going to show up and what he's going to do. And he just pops into such interesting places. And Tim, actually, I thought one of the things that really struck me was how free the role was for some players.

59:33Mikel spoke this summer and I thought it was interesting. And Clyde brought it up on a previous podcast. He said, I've had to do a lot of coaching. I've had to do a lot of leading. but they know their jobs now. These players are more experienced. They're in their prime. We played together for a while. They know their jobs. So now they can have a little bit more leadership on the pitch and more decision-making. And maybe you're seeing that. Mikel is trusting them to have freer roles, to move around, to go where they need to go because they know what they're doing. And watching Solis pop up on the right or Calafiori go where he wants and holes still being filled and not seeing us get countered on.

1:00:09I mean, they had four shots in the whole game. and one of them, their only decent chance was in the 86th minute. Otherwise, they produced.05 XG in the first 85 minutes, three shots in the first 85 minutes, three touches in the opposition box for them. So, you know, it didn't leave us vulnerable. It just gave us more dynamism to how we attacked. So did you pick up on that, sort of the free rolls, the way Solis and Calafiore were allowed to move, the way players seem much more fluid in their positioning than maybe we'd seen in the past? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think, again, a lot of that comes from having some of our, I'd say, smarter players.

1:00:49I mean, like, again, I'm talking Havertz, Odegaard, Saka, like our really, really kind of clever players. I'm not saying the rest of our players are dumb, but I think the football IQ of those players is incredibly high. But also a lot of it's to do with continuity as well. You know, I said earlier, like looking across the Premier League, that a lot of teams aren't ready. And actually that goes two ways. A lot of them aren't ready because they've still got business to do, like everyone, like we have as well. But a lot of them are integrating lots of new signings or have lost lots of players. Like, you know, watch the United game.

1:01:25They've got a whole new midfield there that they're trying to bed in at the moment. And that took its toll on them. Whereas we had one debutante in the team. And what we're actually talking about is that the team from like two, three years ago is playing together and we've added solace to it really. Because there's no Bruno in this game. There's no Konza in this game either. And we've got like the white Saka-Udegaard thing back. So in many respects, I'm not that surprised that it looked very, very cohesive. Look at another team who looked really, really cohesive this weekend, Brentford against Spurs.

1:02:04Obviously, we were focusing on it correctly at the laughing at Spurs angle, but Brentford have had their first stable summer maybe in a decade where they haven't lost the manager, they haven't lost the big player, and they just look like Brentford again. And that was actually pretty huge for them. And I think it is quite similar for us. Again, I'd be more inclined to take a kind of a temperature check on us after Villa and Chelsea. Maybe we're playing those good, maybe we won't be, but maybe we're playing those teams at good times as well while they're kind of sorting themselves out and maybe going to those places, well, going to Villa and playing Chelsea while we've got a bit of continuity might really help as well.

1:02:49But it all looked very familiar to me, actually. I didn't pick up on that much that was really, really brand new. I just kind of thought, yeah, this looks like Arsenal, but not with like three or four players either injured or on the team sheet, but clearly not fit. hey really really quickly before we get to maybe some of the other late in the game takeaways clive uh we had some really good short corner routines and i thought it was really interesting and it's something we've been working on over the summer i think it's going to make our regular corner routines more dangerous because teams will obviously have to be prepared for it but it just proves that arsenal are not just some big physical group of you know bullies that bully the ball into the back of the net that actually our corners have always been about technical quality and there was some excellent excellent corner routines in this game that could have resulted in uh goals from short corners so did that stand out to you at all it did and i love it because when

1:03:48Elliot:you chuck in the middle of the box referee can just blow up and you can't do anything about it particularly in europe sometimes they blow up when the ball's in the air you think what's happened here and as we saw i actually think the turning point the champions league finals was on a corner that didn't actually happen you know and um because we are so looking forward to that corner and we said we took too long i think got into our head psychologically so i like it because the guy thinking strategically right so but having short corners you can't load the middle when you come out to the edge area then you take a you take a normal in swing and we've got more space to run into he's keeping everybody guessing and it's just brilliant when we want to go big we can when we want to be you know show some ingenuity we can we've got various corners i know that tim's absolutely right he says that no one's ready well we look like we're ready look like we've been rehearsing and we're trying you know this sort of so when you're bringing new things to the to the party like this we look prepared and we give off that aura elliot and i don't want to everyone's talking about the d word dynasty word but i actually think there's there was a dominance about us in every single phase of play.

1:04:56And, you know, even in the City game,

1:04:58Elliot:when we didn't have the ball, I felt we were dominant. You know, so we showed a bit of dominance off the ball. And on the ball here, obviously we showed a bit of dominance. All phases of play, settled attack, set plays, you know, transition attack. Transition defence were good luck trying to outrun Army field. And still there was a couple of collisions there that were YouTube clips, weren't they? You know, and at the moment, it looks quite good. It looks quite good. And how comfortable are you with that? I mean, because I... I have to admit, now that we've won the title, quite comfortable. You know what I mean?

1:05:30And that's something that I do wonder about is, no, if this was last season and we looked that good, I'd be like, well, it's just Coventry. We finished second three seasons in a row. We haven't performed under pressure. Like, let's pump the brakes. I'd be worried because I didn't know we could be champions yet. But now we're champions. There's no reason to doubt how good we are. And I mean, I think I saw someone, we have our predictions still open, And I think they're still open today. Let me double check that before I lie to you. So as of right now, you can still make your season predictions at predictions.arsenalvisionpodcast.com.

1:06:03And you can see the results of the community and what we predicted. But someone sent me, one of them is your wildest prediction. Someone sent me a screenshot of their wildest prediction, which is Arsenal are the only team to finish above 75 points this season. And, you know, it's called wildest prediction for a reason. But it really got me thinking because it's like, yeah, I think we're good but I also wonder what good looks like in this current Premier League when Brighton can beat Villa 4-0 and Brentford can beat Spurs 3-0 and other teams are still in a bit of disarray so I trust it Clive I do trust it even though it's just Coventry because we're champions and that gives you a level of trust and we've made the Champions League final and the Champions League semi-final like that gives you a level of trust you know yeah I mean I'm asking both of you

1:06:45Elliot:really how comfortable with you are both of you really with the fact that everyone says we're the best team and everyone without fail i just can't find anyone who doesn't think that we're the best team by a mile and i'll be honest here it's been a long time since i've had that that come as trust me i look for i look for things that criticize us i can get angry i can't even find them but you know what's funny clive like what everybody's saying where the best team means what the betting market's having us top means is as it stands the most logical outcome of the season would be for arsenal to win it again and that's where you don't want to be is having to come from a position where people don't think you're good you don't want to be in that position i mean it is i get why it would be nerve nerve-wracking but it's still the better position to be in now we should sort of round out some things on this game and I think and by the way as we're recording the news continues to come out that it looks like Gabriel Martinelli is edging a little bit closer to that move to Saudi Arabia around 60 million looks like the price and he could make as much as 12 million a year so you know good for him but Tim one thing that people are going to notice is the sub patterns as it came on and we saw him play on the left which that's a big question right who is going to be the left side or if we don't buy someone and Martinelli goes will as a be seen as an option there and it looks like he will based on one game he played there um Marino came on which was fun to see love his song and Capier came on Nani came on and did some Nani stuff ironically like I think a lot of people were frustrated Nani because he had that cross to no one he created the most chances in the game in his 25 minutes on the pitch, which I think is worth noting just for balance.

1:08:36But the Jokeres not getting on thing is interesting to me. It's interesting to me simply for this reason. In my mind, you know, trying to be fair to what Jokeres is, I think he's a good player who was important to our title winning season, and he deserves huge credit for that. In my mind coming into this season, my thought was if Kai Havertz is fit, Kai Havertz is the guy up front, especially for the big games. I think if there's one thing we could probably all agree on, it's that Yoko didn't necessarily get to the level in the biggest games. But Kai Havertz can do that. We saw he scored a goal in the Champions League final.

1:09:08We know we can do that. That Yoko might be the one to beat up on the lesser lights of the league, and that's something he did really effectively last season. Well, if a 3-0 lead at home over Coventry isn't a Yoko-esque game, and we don't think the big games are Yoko Ress games it does start to get a little bit of is he simply an emergency option when Kai isn't available or am I reading too much into one scenario because a lot of people I think were curious that he did not get on in this game I think it's a case of reading too much into one scenario we had to I would never do that though so it can't be that so I think Marino and Zubimendi had to come on because they're still in preseason we had to get them their minutes um yeah Ezra on the left on the left rather that's that's probably a bit interesting Calafuri I think I think he could be really really key player for us this season but we got my breakout player prediction Tim so good he was my breakout player prediction but I think one of the better we've got in Capier there who's brilliant as well so like don't play Calafuri for 90 minutes basically he's not a 90 minute player we ask him to do a lot as well we ask him to like look at his heat map like that's a 90 minute heat map in 65 minutes get him off getting capier on absolutely fine with that that's a part of looking after him jokeres had a relatively full pre-season as well so i think in this scenario it's just we had to get marino and zubimendi on to get them their minutes let me ask you this if it was nil nil with 20 minutes to go do you think jokeres is an unused sub in this game no chance absolutely no chance so is he going to come on for Havertz.

1:10:49I mean, Havertz didn't like, if you said to me going into this game, Tim, three players are definitely coming off, pick them. I would have said Rice, Saka, Havertz. Havertz played 90. That surprises me. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, I do just think it's more like, I think, for example, let's say Zubimendi hadn't been in the Spain squad, right? And he had a full preseason. I think Jokoraz probably comes on instead of him. But again, it's also linked to who we have to get off the pitch as well, right? So Saka has to get off rice has to get off the pitch like i think at this stage of the season it's much more about stacking minutes i think if the game would have been in the balance with half an hour to go jokeres probably would have been the first one to come on quite frankly even if it's not for kai even if it's for like miles or something and you put kai in midfield like i think it'll come on i think this is totally a game state and pre-season state scenario personally yeah okay clav yeah i

1:11:44Elliot:agree 100 % we've got an injury in midfield and so supermending minutes are really important because we need to get him up to speed for two more testing challenges at Villa and Chelsea right so um just makes sense and I felt for Jokeres a bit because obviously his commentary fans were there um and he sort of clapped him at the end I felt for him a bit and obviously your mind it wanders isn't it oh we're gonna get Alvarez we're gonna trade for Jokeres are we not playing him because he doesn't get injured you might want a little bit but i don't see much beyond that although i did must admit i did hear a commentary sort of podcast popped up on my feed sort of thing and they were talking about your careers and the way they described him it's really quite interesting they say he's a really really good bad footballer and that came for the commentary fans and i sort of know what they mean he's really good but he's really bad and it's like that probably describes the debates we all have but what I will say and I've said it I was talking to Tom earlier on today I just feel that he's been he was so important last season that he's just he's just so important but when you see us flowing like this you're wondering how he would cope with that if you see what I mean but football changes Elliot forget the sunny lovely wet pitch football, soon we'll be in the mixer, mate.

1:13:08Elliot:And when we're in the mixer, we're going to need some people to borrow their sleeves. Yeah, I also think, to be fair to Jokeres, we asked him to play a lot with Nani on the right and Martinelli on the left and, you know, no Odegaard in midfield. You put Odegaard and Saka and Solis out there and a Ben White who's good with delivery and a Calafiore who pulls people out of position, and suddenly Victor Jokeres is getting on the end of some stuff. You know what I mean? So as a striker, you're only as good as the players that are around you. The one thing we can agree is that the Martinelli, Nani, Jokeres front three didn't do any of the many favors.

1:13:42And now we will almost certainly not be seeing that ever again. We'll wrap with this. I mean, Clive, look, we go to Villa Park, and I think you've got to be a little careful. Newcastle are in a bit of disarray, but Newcastle have a special home environment, and they used it to nearly beat Liverpool. Villa are in more disarray in my book, but Villa Park is a great atmosphere as well. And it will be under the lights, Monday night football, a manager who is always up for us. I mean, he may have rested players for the game against Brighton just to be ready for us. They won't have João Gomez because he got a red card, which is a huge boost to Villa.

1:14:22Let me read you their lineup, though. Bizot, Marco, Bizot. Cash Lindelof Torres Mattson Kamara Gomez Barkley McGinn Buendia Hemmings I mean that would struggle to get out of the championship seriously that is not a Premier League level lineup with a manager who asks players to play in a certain way where if they cannot play that way they're going to get exposed and embarrassed which is exactly what happened to Villa against Brighton Brighton had 3.03 expected goals Villa managed 4 shots in the game .16 xG I mean they were destroyed you gotta be a bit careful with hubris when you're going to Villa Park on a Monday night but it feels an awful lot like a chance for Mikel to really push the gas pedal against a team that we don't like and a manager that we don't get on with

1:15:21Elliot:yeah and to see you and I trot off again we can all predict it can't we when he goes down the tunnel, thinking, yeah, we know those moves. Hey, look, how do I look at this? Villa hurt us last year. They've hurt us in previous years. They've cost us a lot. So no sympathy from me for where they are. I do have a slight sympathy regarding maybe some of the UEFA cross-squad cross-ratio pressure they're under. And again, much like Spurs, this is not going to be the Villa team. They've got money in the bank. is how they're using the last week of the window. And they are quite smart. They've got a left back, I think, from Athletic Community called Ruggieri, who I actually think is not a bad player.

1:16:03Elliot:He played well against us. Again, I saw him in my own eyes. I thought he was one of the better players against us. They know what they're doing in the market. And maybe they've just come to the end of their cycle, but they've accepted it. Oli Watkins seems to want to go to Saudi and maybe with the same team as Martinelli. So again, he wants his money and that's his prerogative. He started his career. At Brentford, didn't get paid, you know, when he was younger. So now he's got a chance, much like Ivan Tony, to go and get his money later on in his career. And so they're going through change. And I think the big pressure, Gary Neville said this at the weekend, and he sometimes drops a line in where he knows there could be something there.

1:16:43Elliot:And he sort of said, I hope Unai stays. And I thought, ooh, I hadn't even thought of that. Because Unai's got his sporting directors there that are aligned to him. he's got control top to bottom in the club maybe what's happening is really challenging him as a manager and maybe he won't stay but i think he will but the fact he brought that to the airways i thought was quite interesting no sympathy for them i'm not i'm normally quite magnanimous about other teams but we had a lot of pain last few years from these teams and sometimes my son always says this he says he always sees tim's tweets when spurs are losing and he says tim gets stuck in know when we said dad you've got to be more like tim you're too nice to spurs you're too nice to you know and so maybe i'm trying to harden up my edge a little bit and um but yeah villa have hurt me directly in games that i've seen my own eyes and it's time for us to move past them and really maybe repay them a little bit what they've done to us and so yeah that's where i am a bit earlier tim anything now to that yeah i so one of the kind of issues for villa maybe in the long term It doesn't sound like it because of the amount of business they do, but in a starting XI respect, they've had a lot of continuity.

1:17:57They had the second oldest starting XI average in the Premier League last season and that's largely because one of the reasons they're in SCR mess is because they waste a lot of money on rubbish. And what keeps happening is, I think like two summers ago they did this thing where they just extended all of the players that Emery really trusts, like Matty Cash, you know, the proper soldiers, John McGinn, and they all got contracts into like 33, 34 years old, you know. And that's quite a short-term approach, and they haven't integrated new players particularly well. What basically happens is every summer they sign a load of players, and then a summer later they're trying to get rid of them all, and then you look at their team again, and it's like, oh that's the same team that's that's John McGinn that's Ollie Watkins that's Emi Martinez that's you know that's Matty Cash that's all the guys that were there like five years ago but the issue now is some of those guys are going um like Konza who they did not want to sell that was not part of their their kind of calculus to sell him so you know you read the team out there Elliot that's that's a lot of new kind of players and that's the challenge for Emory at Villa at the moment that he's they've kind of been putting off for a little while they've been doing all this horse training in the background but when it came down to it the starting 11 had a very familiar feel and and it doesn't anymore so long term that's his challenge I don't really care about that I don't really care how he does particularly I care about next Monday night and if you remember we won at Villa Park two seasons ago and that was the second game of the season as well and I think that was for similar reasons Villa tend to come into season slowly because they have so much turnover and we have to look at this as a very good opportunity to go to a really difficult place that has been very difficult for us for a few years and we've got to look at it as an opportunity it's still not going to be easy I don't think but we've got to look at it and think this is probably better than playing them in November or December when maybe they've sorted themselves out a little bit yeah i think that's absolutely right and well said and i mean it is just the case that villa are difficult to beat at villa park and so and they're gonna have it in for us as well because we're gonna turn up we're gonna turn up with esri esri konza and they don't really like us anyway so it's it's it's gonna be hot in there we're gonna have to take the temperature down so that's game for their monday night it's a monday night and it's a bank holiday monday as well.

1:20:39That's a big drinking day, man. Yeah, that's a lot of people in the Barton arms at midday. Yes, we're going to turn up with Esri Kansa, but on the flip side, they're going to turn up with Lindelof and Torres, who got a 3.6 and 3.7 respectively from Fopham. So, I mean, swings and roundabouts. I mean, you know. And to be fair, how integrated they'll be, how ready they'll be, I'm certain they're going to have a couple of new players. Yeah, probably not ready to start would be my guess. We'll have to see about that. But, you know, it's a big difference. Instead of kicking off the weekend at home against, you know, relegation fodder, you're away on a Monday night after everybody's played, and you're not top of the table anymore.

1:21:21It's the first test, but it's the right time for that test, would be my view. Look, I'm going to try to talk Clive into a rewatch. We're going to try to get a Friday Night Clive this week. We're going to do a main pod on Thursday. We're going to do Instant Reaction on Monday, but that means the main pod next week, instead of Monday, Thursday, will be Tuesday. Thursday because we're not going to do a main pod on Monday when we play Monday that would be silly so um we won't do it but there'll be an instant reaction so that's good we got to leave it there but I just have to say like Tim Clive of all the pods we've done this is definitely one of them uh Clive thanks thank you very much Tim great job my pleasure as always apologies we love any background noise there's some holidays so like my daughter's kicking around entirely fine you have a life even though uh you didn't run it by any of the listeners you still We love you.

1:22:08And we will talk to you after Arsenal 10, Villanova.

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