Arsenal in Hong Kong – observations
Morning.
Arsenal’s pre-season tour ended in a 1-0 defeat to Sp*rs yesterday, and as much as I’d love to have seen Hong Kong and the many passionate Arsenal fans there, I’m glad I gave this game a swerve. It was the very essence of pre-season, made worse by the fact we were playing that lot. For all the talk about how historic it is to have a derby elsewhere, there’s just something fundamentally awful about that club that we should have as little to do with as possible.
You never want to lose to them, even in July when it means nothing in competitive terms, but we need to apply the context here. This part of pre-season is all about conditioning and fitness, performance levels can be more properly assessed when you’re a bit closer to the start of the season. That’s why the games against Villarreal and Athletic Bilbao will be a bit more interesting to me in that regard.
Yesterday, we played in 32C heat with 90% humidity on a pitch that looked really bad even before kick-off. Yes, it’s the same for both sides, but this was our third game in a week in those kind of conditions, and that does take a toll. I don’t think we were particularly good, we looked wobbly as hell from set-pieces – the continued absence of Gabriel is a factor we don’t talk about too much. Everyone focuses on his goalscoring prowess, but he gives us considerable presence when we’re defending too. Nevertheless, he is just one man and Nicolas Jover needs to sort this out before the new season.
The goal we conceded wouldn’t have stood in the Premier League. Perhaps it was a demonstration of how much faith David Raya has in Myles Lewis-Skelly and his midfield ability that he gave him the ball in a crowded space, but maybe he could have taken a different option. We know Myles backs himself with the ball at all times, so he took it on, but there was a very obvious trip by Richarlison before whoever it was lamped the ball over the Arsenal keeper and into the net. VAR would have ruled it out for the foul, so technically speaking this game was a 0-0 (I know!).
We huffed and puffed in the heat, and I just looked up the stats and it seems we had 16 shots in the game. It didn’t really feel like that, but the fact we had just 1 on target seems about right. In the second half there were some changes, we saw Cristhian Mosquera for the first time as he slotted into the defence, while all eyes were on Viktor Gyokeres as he made his debut. He didn’t get a lot of service, to be fair, and it’s probably just a bit too early for any headlines about him.
I have seen people express some concern about how familiar yesterday was in terms of our attacking play, and I’m not here to police how anyone feels about that. I will just say that our new striker has just arrived, there’s another attacking addition yet to join the group and we should see a bit of him this week, and the mix and match team selection we’ve seen over the course of pre-season plays a part in how fluent you look. There’s obviously room for improvement, but this week should be more informative as we start to look at how we go forward and make chances.
The one worry from yesterday was Leandro Trossard coming on as a sub then having to go off less than 20 minutes later. Mikel Arteta said he felt something muscular, so fingers crossed it’s not serious. That said, it does bring the left-hand side into the spotlight again. Gabriel Martinelli had an indifferent afternoon to add to his pre-season collection, and if Trossard is going to struggle for fitness for a few weeks, could that hasten any further moves we might want to make in this window? Let’s see.
Despite the loss, Arteta was positive about the tour and what he got from his players in Singapore and Hong Kong, saying:
I’m very positive, everything that I’ve seen in the last 10 days gives me a lot of encouragement and we’re ahead of what I was expecting in many areas. Even though tonight’s result gives you a taste, I think that is going to be very positive as well. To realise the margins that winning or not winning have to be controlled as well and again, we go again. We’ll start on Monday again with two great games at the Emirates to finalise the preparation and be ready for Old Trafford.
And that is key. A little over two weeks from now we’ll be focusing on the first game of the Premier League season, and a difficult start to the new campaign. That is what’s really important, so when training begins on Monday, those preparations will begin in earnest. The games next week, on home soil, a good pitch, and in more cromulent weather conditions, are where we need to see the benefits that Arteta says the tour has brought. In the meantime, we can just sit around and talk about Eberchi Eze, because that seems to be the only topic of conversation!
Right, I’m gonna leave it there for now. We’ll have an Arsecast for you in a little while so stand-by for that. Until then, have a good one.
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