Morning.
Arsenal’s pre-season tour ended in one 1-0 defeat against SP*RS Yesterday, and so much if I like Hong Kong and the many passionate Arsenal fans there, I am happy that I gave this game an outing. It was the essence of the preseason, exacerbated by the fact that we played that plot. For all the talk about how historical it is to have a derby elsewhere, there is just something fundamentally terrible about that club that we should have as little as possible with possible.
You never want to lose from them, even in July, when this means nothing in competing terms, but we must apply the context here. This part of the preseason is about conditioning and fitness, performance levels can be better assessed if you are a bit closer to the start of the season. That is why the matches against Villarreal and Athletic Bilbao will be a bit more interesting in that respect.
Yesterday we played in 32C heat with 90% humidity at a pitch that still looked very bad, even before the kick -off. Yes, it is the same for both parties, but this was our third game in a week in such circumstances, and that does demand. I don’t think we were particularly good, we looked wobbly as the hell of Set-Pieces-de constant absence of Gabriel is a factor that we don’t talk about too much about. Everyone concentrates on their targeted bravery, but he gives us considerably present when we also defend. Nevertheless, he is only one man and Nicolas Jover has to figure this out before the new season.
The purpose we admitted would not have been in the Premier League. Perhaps it was a demonstration of how much faith David Raya has in Myles Lewis-Skelly and his midfield capacity that he gave him the ball in a busy room, but perhaps he could have taken another option. We know that Myles always supports himself with the ball, so he took it, but there was a very obvious trip from Richarlison before he had put the ball over the Arsenal keeper and the net in the net. VAR would have excluded it for the error, so technically this game was a 0-0 (I know!).
We have hit the heat in the heat and I just looked up the statistics and it seems that we had 16 shots in the game. It didn’t really feel that way, but the fact that we only had 1 goal seems good. In the second half there were some changes, we saw Crisphian Mosquera for the first time when he threw in the defense, while all eyes were focused on Viktor Gyokeres while making his debut. He didn’t get much service to be honest, and it is probably just A bit too early for the headlines about him.
I have seen people express some concern about how known yesterday was in terms of our attacking game, and I am not here to police how someone thinks about it. I will only say that our new striker has just arrived, there is an attacking addition to become a member of the group and we should see him a bit this week, and the mix and match team selection that we have seen during the course of the preseason plays a role in how fluently you look. There is clear room for improvement, but this week should be more informational if we start to look at how we continue and make risks.
The only worries of yesterday was Leandro Trossard like a sub then had to go off less than 20 minutes later. Mikel Arteta said he felt something muscular, so fingers crossed it is not serious. That said, it brings the left back into the spotlight. Gabriel Martinelli had an indifferent afternoon to add to his collection for the season, and if Trossard is going to struggle for fitness for a few weeks, could that speed up further movements that we would like to make in this window? Let’s look.
Despite the loss, Arteta was positive about the Tour and what he received from his players in Singapore and Hong Kong, and said:
I am very positive, everything I have seen in the last 10 days gives me a lot of encouragement and we are ahead of what I expected in many areas. Although the result of tonight gives you a taste, I think that will also be very positive. To realize the margins that win or do not win must also be checked and again, we go again. We start again on Monday with two great matches at the Emirates to complete the preparation and be ready for Old Trafford.
And that’s the key. Just over two weeks from now on we will concentrate on the first game of the Premier League season and a difficult start of the new campaign. That is what is really important, so if the training starts on Monday, those preparations will start seriously. The games next week, at home, a good pitch and in more cromulent weather conditions, we are the benefits that Arteta says the Tour has brought. In the meantime, we can just hang out and talk about Eberchi, because that seems to be the only topic topic!
Exactly, I’m going to find out for the time being. We will have an Arsecast for you for a while, so standby for that. Until then, have a good one.
#Arsenal #Hong #Kong #Observations