Can we get on with the football now?

Good morning.

First up, congrats to Arsenal Women who demolished Hacken 4-0 last night in the second leg of the Champions League qualifier. Having lost the first leg 1-0, there was some real pressure going into this one, but the team came up with the goods and go into the draw which takes place at noon today. You can see the goals in the match report, and read Jonas Eidevall’s reaction over on Arseblog News.

Today, Mikel Arteta will meet the press ahead of our game against Leicester tomorrow, and I really hope there aren’t more questions about the ‘dark arts’. As I said earlier in the week, we should take it as a kind of compliment that people are making such a fuss out of it, but it’s all very boring now. Sure, make it your talking point after a big game with Man City so you can wring every click out of it with your engagement-bait coverage, but can we come back down to earth now please?

Every team does it, every manager does it, every player does it. Trying to gaslight people into thinking this is something unique to Arsenal is both tedious and patronising. Everyone knows better. There have been lots of people in glass houses this week throwing lots of stones. The absurdity of some ex-pros sticking the knife into our second half display on Sunday when you consider some of the stuff they got up to in their playing days is off the charts.

I actually think it’s something Mikel Arteta will quietly enjoy as a way of further fostering an ‘us against them’ mentality within his squad. He’s a man who keeps receipts, as we know. Ivan Toney’s ‘nice kick about with the boys’ Tweet festered with him until we next played Brentford, at which point he used as motivation for his team. I’m sure there are countless other examples that have never been made public, and this could well be one of them.

He might worry about how this stuff being relentlessly regurgitated in the media means we play under a kind of spotlight which isn’t always helpful, but this stuff tends to fade away once there’s something else for them to get their teeth into. Also, it’s hard not to think a lot of this is linked to the schedule. Three really tough away games in a week, and by the end of the last one we were digging in with 10 men against one of most difficult sides to play against in world football, trying to hold them out with everything we had left in the tank. Every team would have done exactly the same as we did.

I suspect the manager will be hoping that a relatively kinder schedule in the weeks ahead will allow us to just play games, score goals, and take points, without all the fuss. Which is to take nothing for granted, but some periods of the season are more difficult than others, and we’ve come through a particularly tricky one. We have three home games before the next Interlull, two in the Premier League (Leicester and Southampton) and one in the Champions League (PSG). Domestically, at least, you have to think those are very winnable fixtures, and while PSG will certainly be a challenge, that home advantage could be very important on a big European night.

I’m also sure that a topic of conversation on the training ground this week will be about discipline. I don’t need to say again how ridiculous I think it is that Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard have been sent off and suspended for something as trivial as ‘delaying the restart’, but Arteta will be making sure his players understand they can’t give referees even a sniff of a chance to do what they seem to love doing most – making themselves the centre of attention. So far this season there have been 263 yellow cards and 6 red cards in the opening 5 games. I don’t know how that stacks up against last season, or previous seasons, but it seems like a lot, and all we can control is what we do – which is a message I think Arteta will be keen to impress upon his players.

For some extra reading this morning, Tim’s column takes a look at how Arteta might tweak things now that the three tough away games are done. There’s a new Arsecast for you below, chatting about the Bolton win if you haven’t had a chance to listen already, and you can join us a bit later on Patreon as we look ahead to Leicester tomorrow.

Bye for now.

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