Morning.
On paper, in the current context, Bournemouth at home isn’t a game that’s going to get the juices flowing, nevertheless, I do think it could be a useful exercise ahead of PSG on Wednesday, and there is still a little bit of work to do after some recent results in the Premier League. Man City won last night and sit just 3 points behind us, so while people’s mileage may vary on the importance of this game (everyone knows success this season depends entirely on what happens in Paris), it’s not one we can just throw in the towel on either.
Which is why I think Mikel Arteta will probably pick a fairly strong side for this one. There are likely to be a few changes, but nothing wholesale. As I said yesterday, it’s not as if we have that many options at our disposal anyway. I think Thomas Partey will come back after missing Tuesday through suspension, Ben White at right-back in for Jurrien Timber, maybe a start for someone else at left-back, and perhaps Ethan Nwaneri for Bukayo Saka on the right.
A lot has been said about Martin Odegaard this week, and if we are to do the job on Wednesday night we’d have a better chance if he had a good game. So, perhaps today could helpful for him if he starts and delivers a goal and/or an assist to regain a little confidence. We’re at home against a team who will come to play, not sit deep, so that might be the right environment for him to find a bit more of what we know he’s well capable of.
Mikel Arteta says of today’s game, and the job of keeping the players minds on today and not Paris:
I will discuss that. Because the only thing we can control is our performances, our emotional state and how well we are performing. We know how important it is still, a lot of the things that we have to do in the Premier League, even though we haven’t achieved what we wanted.
The message is very clear. We have to have the right to win the game tomorrow, be better than Bournemouth and win the game. That’s what we have to do and that’s the way we have prepared since two days ago.
Let’s see how it goes. The ideal scenario is three points, a clean bill of health, then move on and focus on what we have to do next week. It’s probably going be one of those games we have to grind out, but that’s often what they’re like at this point of the reason regardless of the context, so fingers crossed.
The manager also spoke about the possibility of Kai Havertz returning before the end of the campaign, saying:
I think so. I think if everything goes the way it’s going at the moment and the way it’s planned, I think he will have a chance to play a few games here in the season.
I have no info on this at all, but I wonder if we might see him on the bench today, perhaps with a few minutes planned to give us another option for Wednesday night. Pure speculation on my part, I could be way off the mark, but it would be pretty useful to have another forward option on the bench at least. Let’s see, I guess.
And for those eagerly looking at the next graduate from Hale End, the name of Max Dowman is the one on everybody’s lips. You can’t dip into social media at all these days without some clip or compilation of him doing extraordinary things at youth level. Arteta even spoke about him unprompted at his press conference yesterday, saying:
I think everybody at the academy has done an incredible job to constantly protect him, inspire him, challenge him, keep him always up and at the levels that he could produce. And he’s doing really well. I think he’s doing the right steps. Take it slowly, he will dictate how fast we go. You need to understand his age and the way you talk and communicate with him.
But if you’re looking from far and you don’t know that he’s 15 and you see certain things that he does, you have to judge him on that. You wouldn’t treat him any different to any other player.
It’s worth remember he doesn’t turn 16 until December 31st, so it might be something we see gradually over the course of next season. It’s hard, even with all that talent, to envisage a 15 year old playing regularly in the Premier League, but he’s clearly a very exciting prospect. Perhaps pre-season might tell us a thing or two.
Right, I’m gonna leave it there. As ever we’ll have live blog coverage of the game for you later on, plus all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News.
Until later!
