With 83 minutes gone at the Emirates on Saturday, I found myself rising off my seat as Dani Ceballos strolled off the pitch, having watched the Spaniard illuminate an otherwise engaging but hardly thrilling contest between Arsenal and Burnley. The new boy strode, spun and sashayed in midfield from the very start, providing a stark contrast to the orcish Burnley players and their increasingly irritating, scrotal manager Sean Dyche, whose post-match accusations of simulation obscure the fact that his side play shit, soporific football and try and shove, knee and barge more talented opponents of the park. I used to quite like Burnley, but comparisons to Pulis-era Stoke are hardly unfair now that the new-promoted sheen has worn off.

With 83 minutes gone at the Emirates on Saturday, I found myself rising off my seat as Dani Ceballos strolled off the pitch, having watched the Spaniard illuminate an otherwise engaging but hardly thrilling contest between Arsenal and Burnley. The new boy strode, spun and sashayed in midfield from the very start, providing a stark contrast to the orcish Burnley players and their increasingly irritating, scrotal manager Sean Dyche, whose post-match accusations of simulation obscure the fact that his side play shit, soporific football and try and shove, knee and barge more talented opponents of the park. I used to quite like Burnley, but comparisons to Pulis-era Stoke are hardly unfair now that the new-promoted sheen has worn off.

Enough about Burnley. A lot has been said about trying to reconnect the Arsenal fanbase with their club on an emotional level, to get fans off their seats, oohing and aahing as the boys go about their work like they enjoy it. Last season, as Emery’s side went on an impressive winning run over the Autumn, the chant ‘we’ve got our Arsenal back’ rang out across the terraces – particularly, I remember, when Aaron Ramsey delicately finished a swashbuckling, Globetrotters-esque team goal at Craven Cottage. That proved to be a false dawn as the Gunners became both more stodgy and workmanlike, and less successful, as the season wore on.

What does ‘our Arsenal’ mean in the context of that premature refrain? I think it means, particularly to younger fans, that we have players of quality and class, who want to express themselves and show how good they are, and who are willing to work hard to demonstrate their class as much as possible, by moving energetically and intelligently off the ball, and pressing to win the ball back, so that they can regain possession and use it to attack dynamically and effectively. In short, fans want to see players who want the ball, who enjoy playing quick, entertaining football, and who can back it up with meaningful contributions on and off the ball, in and out of possession.

Arsenal’s midfield – in particular Dani Ceballos – embodied that spirit very well indeed on Saturday. The Spaniard not only wove his way gracefully through Burnley challenges and distributed the ball reliably and elegantly, he also constantly demanded the return ball from his team mates, over- and under-lapped in support of the attack, and responded brilliantly on the rare occasions he did lose possession, recovering from a misplaced pass by getting a foot in on Gudmundsson and poking the ball to Aubameyang, who strode infield and drilled it inside the near post for the winner. He was ably supported by Guendouzi, who maturely marshalled a young midfield in Xhaka’s absence and showcased his quality, and Joe Willock, whose skill and athleticism just need to be married to a little more composure for him to become a really, really exciting prospect. In a tight game where Burnley troubled us in the air and we weren’t as clinical as we could have been in the final third, it was so important that the midfield drove the team performance the way it did.

The Game

Arsenal’s performance on Saturday, whilst not vintage, was definitely an improvement on the opener against Newcastle, included some exciting moments of genuine class and should really have yielded a more comfortable victory. Emery made a statement of intent by dropping Mkhitaryan for the returning Lacazette, and replacing Xhaka – out with a minor injury, apparently – with Dani Ceballos for a more attacking-looking midfield to support two centre-forwards. He also kept faith in Reiss Nelson and Joe Willock, and though Nelson was sacrificed at half-time to introduce Nicolas Pepe as Arsenal hunted the win, once again neither youngster looked out of place playing Premier League football. At the back, David Luiz came in for Calum Chambers, the latter slightly unfortunate to miss out after a solid display at Newcastle, but with the physicality and shithousery of Burnley’s forwards and Liverpool & Spurs coming up, bringing in an experienced campaigner like the Brazilian had to be the main priority.

Arsenal started with plenty of intent, the first big chance coming when Sokratis looped a header back into the danger area and Lacazette nodded it towards goal, forcing Pope to tip it over. The Frenchman might have done better, but he made amends from the resulting corner, collecting a ricochet, and managing to turn under pressure before squeezing a finish between Pope’s legs whilst almost lying down. That’s something that Lacazette has really improved upon over the last year or so; he has real strength, tenacity and the low centre of gravity needed to hold the ball and turn in a tight spot, and fantastic awareness of where he is in relation to goal, allowing him to finish on the turn with real accuracy – I can think of times where he’s done that against Chelsea and Valencia last season off the top of my head, before his goal on Saturday.

Arsenal didn’t quite take the game by the scruff of the neck as much as Emery might have liked after the opening goal, with decent chances coming and going for Reiss Nelson and Matteo Guendouzi after good work by the excellent Monreal and Ceballos respectively, and Burnley troubling the Arsenal defence and eliciting some slightly uncertain moments from Leno under various high balls. Just before half-time Burnley punished Arsenal for allowing the half to meander, McNeil’s pass ricocheting into the path of our latest bogeyman, Ashley Barnes, and the forward slotted in with Guendouzi arriving too late to prevent the damage. Arsenal responded quickly, Ceballos dovetailing with Monreal for some build-up slicker than the midfielder’s barnet and the left-back squaring it back for Nelson to fire it into the roof of the net, but the offside flag cut the celebrations short and there were a few anxious murmurs as the half-time whistle sounded.

Despite that neat finish for the goal that wasn’t, Nelson was hooked at half-time to make way for Nicolas Pepe as Emery sought to reestablish the lead. The Ivorian got involved immediately with some quick feet and powerful running down the right hand side, creating a good chance for Aubameyang with a clever slide-rule pass, but all the same wasn’t quite at 100% fitness. Ceballos continued to drive us forward and tested Pope with a curling effort from the edge of the box, before making a crucial intervention to set up the winner, nipping in to allow Aubameyang to run infield and find the net. The fervour of Ceballos’ celebration endeared him to the fans further, as he sprinted to the corner flag, roaring as Aubameyang’s strike rippled the net. If players like Özil have been accused of ‘not fancying it’, then the same certainly couldn’t have been said of Ceballos yesterday – early days, though.

Burnley created a decent headed chance for Westwood, and continued to put us under pressure in the air, but didn’t really create many meaningful chances as they chased the game, and really Arsenal should have extended the lead late on. Willock showed great skill and stamina to burst down the right and cut it back for substitute Lucas Torreira, whose shot was well saved by Pope, and Pepe & Aubameyang should have made more of a late counter-attack, but Pepe underhit his final pass and Aubameyang got his feet in a tangle. You could forgive the striker that lapse though, given the importance – yet again – of his contribution earlier in the half as Arsenal weathered a few late set-pieces and held on for the win.

Reflections

Having won our first two games of the season, off the back of a successful transfer window, I think it’s fair to feel a qualified optimism about our prospects for the next few months. So far there’s some good reasons to think that we might be stronger in all three of defence, midfield and attack than last season, and if the various different areas of the team can keep integrating into a cohesive whole then we could be in for a fairly strong campaign.

The midfield was clearly an area of strength yesterday. Granit Xhaka is a player with good technical quality, and Torreira/Guendouzi are clearly both capable all-round competitors in midfield, but what I like about Ceballos’ and Willock’s introduction into the squad is that it gives us a certain dexterity and poise in possession, and ability to carry the call through midfield, which we’ve lacked since the departure of Santi Cazorla and even someone like Jack Wilshere. Willock is clearly a good athlete, full of confidence and talent, and Ceballos is classy and nimble in tight spaces.

The hope is that the skill and energy of those two – in combination with the spirit and tenacity of Guendouzi & Torreira – will help the midfield become more dynamic, quicker at moving the ball, and less reliant on Granit Xhaka – who has numerous flaws in other areas of his game – to be the one setting the whole tempo for the midfield. I’m not anti- the Swiss midfielder per se, but I think it would be beneficial in the long term if we could control games without him and Saturday was a positive step in that direction. Willock still has maturing to do, and Saturday’s midfield does perhaps lack a little bit of bite and physicality in defence, but there’s a lot of promise there.

Further forward, Aubameyang is clearly full of confidence after two consecutive winners, and Lacazette is now off the mark too. We’re going to need those two in form if we’re going to be successful this season, so it’s good to see them hit the ground running and continue to display the characteristics which made them so effective last season. Pepe will hopefully add a different dimension, and we saw some glimpses of how he could be a destructive, ball-carrying forward in transition on Saturday, and there appears to be a burgeoning understanding with Aubameyang there as well. If he can forge that rapport with his fellow forwards, it promises to be a tremendously exciting front line. Pepe himself will probably need a few weeks yet to get fully up and running, but he is clearly already confident and eager to impose himself on the Premier League, as shown by an outrageous nutmeg on a flummoxed Ben Mee, amongst other feints and embellishments. Hopefully, he can use those crowd-pleasing moments to the purpose of replicating his end product from a prolific previous campaign – if he does, we have a real player on our hands.

Last but not least, the defence looked reasonably well-organised and solid on Saturday underneath Burnley’s barrage. There were a few moments of concern which underlined the fact that high balls are still a bit of a weakness for Bernd Leno in goal, and it was still heart-in-mouth every time the ball looped towards out 6-yard box, but the presence of a physically powerful and experienced centre-back like David Luiz seemed to help the communication and organisation between the defenders. Sokratis was very complimentary about David Luiz in the aftermath of the game, praising the Brazilian’s communication in particular, and if they can form an effective partnership it will make such a big difference to how we defend. We also saw some of Luiz’ dangerous passing range, and once again if we can channel that attacking manoeuvre through him rather than Xhaka it might help prioritise more rounded options in the midfield.

I’d also like to give a shout to Maitland-Niles, who put in another assured performance, and Nacho Monreal, who was superb at left-back. Admittedly Gudmundsson, though a good player, is not the most rapid winger for Monreal’s ageing legs to have to cope with, but nevertheless he was dogged in defence and more effective in attack than I’ve seen for a while. Whether the arrival of Kieran Tierney has spooked him into improving after a patchy season last year, or he was inspired by taking the armband, I don’t know, but if he can continue to perform like that it helps us to be as patient as possible in managing Tierney’s injury knowing that the Spaniard is keeping things ship-shape meanwhile.

Producing another solid display against Liverpool at Anfield next week will be an entirely different matter. Switching from foiling bruising centre forwards and crosses, to negotiating fast dribblers and quick interplay is going to be tricky, and if we defend like we did there last season we’ll lose big. There are still reservations about how well David Luiz can deal with people like Salah or Mané running at him at speed, and so we need to defend as a unit to make sure that our centre-halves are not left anywhere near as isolated as they were last season. At the same time, Spurs (lucky fuckers) showed against City that if you ride your luck, work hard and take the chances which come, you can take points off the top 2. If we could come away from Anfield with at least a point, it would be a very good start to the season for us.

In the meantime, let’s hope Wolves can do a job on United tonight to follow up Leicester taking points off Chelsea yesterday. I’ll be back in midweek with a more general post about player loyalty, so watch out for that!

51. A number associated with paranormal activity, and I’m sure that some of the 51 goals which we conceded last season still haunt Gooners everywhere – incidentally, the second time in consecutive seasons which we’ve conceded more than 50 goals, and also 12 goals more than both Spurs and Chelsea. Throughout the season – and especially towards the end of the campaign – it became clear that the feebleness of our defending was making our job at the other end of the pitch doubly hard – we not only had to score, but out-score most opponents.

A few of our defensive personnel took a lot of the ire for that; Shkodran Mustafi’s Arsenal career is in tatters after two calamitous seasons, Maitland-Niles struggled at times to fill in for the injured Bellerin at right-back (not wholly his fault), and Lichtsteiner was quite simply a mistake. More importantly though, Arsenal defended poorly as a team, committing full-backs forward who couldn’t make it back to defend the counter-attack (Kolasinac), failing to apply the high press with the requisite consistency and intensity after experimenting with it early in the campaign, and exhibiting a general lack of effective communication throughout the defensive unit. This was epitomised by (dare I mention it) Mustafi allowing Zaha in to put Crystal Palace back in front at the Emirates in late April – a shocking lapse in judgement and abdication of responsibility, and an obvious symptom of a wider malaise.

The Task at Hand

To put it simply, Emery failed to sort the defence out last season. This time, he must succeed, at least to some extent. He has to do that without the former captain Koscielny, whose performances somewhat held together a defence more stretched than the Frenchman’s Achilles tendon. His acrimonious departure from the club cast a shadow over the summer which, thankfully, was lifted by the arrival of David Luiz & Kieran Tierney amongst others. Eventually I hope Koscielny will be remembered as a great defender and captain, but the anger right now is not without justification.

On a happier note, it looks like Mustafi might also be leaving, this time more due to the will of the club than his own: Emery has publicly declared his willingness to let the hapless German go. The arrival of Tierney might also see the departure of one of the incumbent left-backs; Sead Kolasinac is the likeliest candidate given that Nacho Monreal is now vice-captain and would hardly fetch a transfer fee anyway. The big Bosnian is a decent player and a bit of a cult hero with his wrestler-style physique, but his slightly haphazard defending, sluggishness in tracking back down the left wing and slightly bull-in-a-china-shop approach to attacking could certainly be improved upon. Add to that the terrible situation surrounding the recent threats to his (and Mesut Özil’s) personal safety by London gangs, and it all points to a possible departure for Kolasinac. Lichtsteiner, meanwhile, is long gone.

Assuming these transfers happen, that leaves us with Tierney & Monreal at left-back, Bellerin & Maitland-Niles at right-back, and Sokratis, Holding, Luiz & Chambers at centre-half (William Saliba – another new summer arrival – is on loan at his former employers St Etienne this season and will likely be part of the first-team picture at Arsenal from next season). Of these, Emery must find a (probably rather makeshift) set of players which can hold the fort for the early part of the season with some of the others still returning from injury, and then work out his best combination going forward – perhaps being a little stricter about maintaining continuity in the defence than last season, when we chopped and changed between a back 4 and 5.

I think that if Emery can find a settled set of first-choice personnel within a definite defensive system by January, then the likelihood of conceding 50 goals again becomes that much lower. The set of players we have now is still a way from perfect, but it looks younger, more talented and more promising than last season, and that’s at least a step in the right direction, even if there will surely be some bumps along the way.

New Bhoy, old flame

In my view, every signing a club makes fulfils at least one of three key motives:

1. The player is of about the average level we have at the moment (or is ageing/on loan) and will backfill in a position where there’s a deficiency in numbers and we need them to do a decent job for now
2. The player is above the average level we have at the moment, and should be an immediate, significant improvement to our team over the next 2-3 years and we’re prepared to spend plenty to get them in.
3. The player represents a strategic investment and has enough potential to be significantly better than our current players in that position within the next 5 years, or at least make us a good profit. They may also be good enough already to contribute or even be a star player from the start.

Clearly, a player who fulfils both criteria 2 & 3 is the ideal, and carries the biggest cost; Pepe is an example of that. Signings like Saliba & Martinelli are both designed to fulfil category 3, and David Luiz’ age means that he is in category 1. The idea behind Arsenal’s recruitment strategy since we started planning the move to the Emirates has been that if we can make enough successful signings which fulfil category 3, we won’t have to splash out on a category 2 player or too many category 1 players for squad depth, since that will be provided by young future 1st XI players.

Things haven’t quite worked out like that, due to poor decisions and execution in the market. Kieran Tierney from Celtic, though, represents a return to form. He’s already shown that he’s a talented and competent player, and can contribute to the team now, and at age 22 he should have a decade of top-level performance in him (injuries permitting, of course). Despite my ancestral obligation to support Rangers, I’ve never watched much Scottish football, and have seen very little of Tierney beyond the fact that he’s already an Arsenal legend on my Football Manager save. Lots of the following paragraph therefore relies on what I’ve read and heard of him from Celtic fans and other Scottish football aficionados.

The left-back position has largely been the domain of Nacho Monreal since he arrived from Malaga in 2013, and with the Spaniard now ageing a little, Tierney should hopefully exhibit some of the same dogged, indefatigable battling qualities, as well as hopefully a little more energy & dynamism going forward. One Celtic fan on Arseblog’s Arsecast described him as ‘typically Scottish’, which suggests to me that he should tackle strongly, win headers, and run down the left wing baying for English blood at the top of his lungs. At the very least, he shouldn’t be fazed by the proverbial wet, windy night in Stoke, or Burnley, or wherever it happens to be. As much as I dislike the concept of ‘British grit’ in football, these are all good qualities in a backline which has rightly been accused of lacking backbone and decisiveness.

The fact that he has already captained both Celtic & Scotland also suggests that he’ll be vocal on the pitch, and a potential leadership figure for Arsenal, another thing we desperately lack right now. There’s no doubt that he’s a Celtic man through and through, and we’ll never mean quite the same, but if he can transfer at least some of the passion and rapport with the fans he displayed in Glasgow to the Emirates, he’ll be an important part in restoring the emotional connection between the team and its fans. In terms of his attacking, he appears to be both very enthusiastic and pretty composed going forward, with solid technique and a more considered delivery than Kolasinac.

The caveats, of course, are that he’s had quite a few injuries – always worrying in a young player – although this is apparently in part due to opposition players targeting him in Scotland, perhaps less likely in a league where he won’t stand out quite as much. Speaking of which, there is also some scepticism about his experience at the top level, given the SPL’s lack of quality. Fair point – but he has also shown quality in the Champions League against the likes of Bayern Munich, and Celtic is still a huge club with a massive weight of expectation in the context of Scottish football – to play with such assurance from such a young age is a sign of a strong character, and hopefully a genuine ‘winning mentality’. I for one am more excited than anxious to see how he fares in the Premier League.

What of the centre of our defence? This was the area which presented the gravest concerns going into the summer, concerns which grew graver when it became clear Koscielny would not be a part of the set-up this season. Arsenal acted by selling the captain to Bordeaux, bringing in William Saliba as a long-term investment and then loaning him back to St Etienne, and with the clock ticking and moves for Juventus’ Daniele Rugani and RB Leipzig’s Dayot Upamecano not coming to fruition, eventually spent £8 million on David Luiz in a rather out-of-the-blue manoeuvre. Emery also made it clear to Mustafi that he could leave, promoting the returning Calum Chambers ahead of him in the pecking order to start at Newcastle last Sunday. Decisive stuff, and certainly a refreshing contrast to the indulgence shown towards underperformers and wantaways in the past.

It will be a big season for Calum Chambers. With Holding still returning from injury, and David Luiz getting integrated into the squad, the former Southampton man has a small window of time to stake a strong claim for inclusion in Emery’s plans going forward. Having looked reasonably promising in pre-season, he was solid against Newcastle on Sunday, and looks likely to start again against Burnley this weekend. If he can impress, it gives us some much better competition at centre-back than Mustafi was able to provide last season. I liked what I saw of Rob Holding last season, but the absence of long-term casualties does tend to make the heart grow fonder, and we should be careful to manage expectations around his comeback. Some consistent showings from Chambers would help make that reintegration a lot more seamless.

Now to the man himself. David Luiz was a shock signing in many ways, but on a second appraisal it makes a lot of sense. We essentially needed someone to replace Laurent Koscielny; Sokratis, despite being a good defender and a tough personality, probably can’t do it on his own. Luiz provides a wealth of Premier League experience playing for a top club, he understands the expectations at Arsenal, he is used to the styles of play and physicality within the league, and over the years he’s matured from an erratic, ‘Playstation’-style defender into a pretty consistent centre-back. He’s clearly a passionate guy, and if he buys into the Arsenal spirit despite his Chelsea past, he could become a vital leadership figure and on-pitch personality. He’s also pretty tall, strong and aggressive in the air, which in a team otherwise full of shorter centre-halves could make a crucial difference.

Finally, one of the key differentiators between him and any other centre-half at Chelsea or Arsenal is his ability in possession, in particular, passing the ball over a long distance out wide or over the top of the defence; he created a huge number of chances for Chelsea considering he’s a centre-back, and with the intelligent movement and pace of players such as Aubameyang, Lacazette & Pepe, he should have the opportunity to exhibit those qualities again in North London.

Of course, there was always going to be the part of us Arsenal fans, who, having occasionally made Luiz a figure of ridicule over the years, that thought ‘what the flying fuck’ when the deal started to look real. There’s no doubt he has a mistake in him, but having spoken to Chelsea fans who have followed his development as a player it seems that mishaps in possession are no longer such a problem in his game; instead, his lack of mobility, agility and the odd positional rush of blood to the head. He’s certainly vulnerable to people running at him, in contrast to Koscielny for whom 1-on-1s with attackers was a real strength. He’s also liable to being caught out of position when the game is stretched and the opposition counter-attack, particularly when playing in a back 4.

These are both potential causes for concern, given that Emery seems to be set on a back 4 going forward, and how little protection our midfield offers our defence in transition – although the additional recovery pace of Sokratis might help mitigate that impact. Really, it’s all about whether they build a partnership with a better understanding and greater sense of assurance than some of our other motley crews of recent times.

Buckle up – it’s going to be an eventful season!