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If a friendly against Bournemouth in front of a rather modest crowd didn’t get the juices flowing, maybe Manchester United at the SoFi Stadium will do the trick tonight? There are obviously wildly different stances on pre-season — how much it matters and how much attention people give it — I just think it’s nice to see Arsenal playing football again.
Clearly it isn’t quite the same and sleep won’t be lost if we don’t win this one but I have just really missed watching Martin Odegaard and co. in action. The team against Bournemouth earlier this week was a real mix of first team and academy players but I think we’ll see the scales tip more and more towards getting the first team ready for the new season as this tour goes on. Gabriel, Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz have all joined up with their team-mates now and I’m sure they’ll play some part on Saturday (or Sunday, depending on where you are) after training on Friday.
I’m interested to see what this season holds for all three players. Gabriel could see his playing time reduced with the return of Jurrien Timber and the possible signing of an Italian defender. Havertz seemed to have the number nine role nailed towards the end of last season but a return to form for a fit-again Gabriel Jesus (or some fresh competition) and things could change quickly. And Gabriel Martinelli had a slightly disappointing season and seemed to lose his place to Leandro Trossard by the end of it. If we’re going to succeed this season, you’d imagine we’ll need all three of the returnees for tonight to have good campaigns.
Of course, transfer talk continues to teeter on in the background. Mikel Arteta doesn’t tend to give much away but there was a little smirk from him, and another from Odegaard, when Kaya Kaynak asked about the Riccardo Calafiori deal in the pre-match press conference.
The club will stay quiet until the ink is dry but it would be nice if we could get this one done and over the line in…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/07/kai-and-the-gabis-to-face-man-utd-artetas-transfer-smirk/
Author : Lewis Ambrose
Publish date : 2024-07-27 06:39:47
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