No messing around from Mikel

Morning all.

Here’s a quick Saturday round-up for you, starting with Mikel Arteta’s answer to a question in his press conference yesterday as to whether he might be concerned about some players lacking rhythm because they haven’t started many games. His response:

They need to train more then. What I don’t want is an excuse. So what do we do then? We send you on holidays? So you play, you have to be available. When you don’t play, you have to make sure that you do everything you can to impact the team there.

Because otherwise, the ones that are playing a lot say, ‘No, but I don’t perform because I’m tired!’. So then it’s always an excuse. I hate excuses.

We know the role. We know that the competitiveness that we need in the team is at the maximum level. And they are doing amazingly well.

I don’t see any player that is playing that lacks rhythm or lacks this. Everybody’s involved. Everybody has played minutes. And it will continue to be like this because they have really deserved that. So hopefully we can maintain that because it’s a massive asset for us.

I think we all know he is a very demanding manager, and that’s a big part of what makes him so good, but sometimes you get a little reminder just how much! I get it though, and maybe that tough love, if you want to call it that, can be formative and useful. Look at Myles Lewis-Skelly, he made a breakthrough in one position, Arsenal went out and bought an established and experienced international player to play in the same position, and he spent most of last season on the bench.

In the end it finished strongly for Myles. Circumstances helped a bit but when he was given his chance in midfield, he took it with both hands, so much so that he started a Champions League final, and has now established himself as a regular in his favourite position. It took a while but I’m going to guess that if there was some disappointment in the early part of last season, the reason he got his chance was because of how he upped the ante in terms of his training and his attitude.

At the same time though, things like rhythm and confidence are important for some players. You can really see when they don’t have it. Viktor Gyokeres, for example, hasn’t even played an hour yet in the Premier League this season, he’s yet to score, and on Tuesday against Lille he was probably the one player who has been peripheral so far this season who didn’t really make an impact. On the striker, Arteta said:

These are moments in a player’s career, or in a season, I would say, and we are trying to help him as much as possible. He has some very good moments; three or four times he’s been in front of goal with no keeper, and the ball should arrive to him, and it doesn’t. Then maybe they are talking about something else, but these are the strikers. It’s very small margins – scoring or not scoring changes the narrative. We should know the perception of how much he can help the team.

I’m not sure I necessarily agree that there were three or four moments like that in the Lille game, but referring to what the manager said above, he does feel to me like a player for whom rhythm is important, and right now there is none for him. Clearly there’s no mollycoddling here though. The message is very clear, when you get to play, make an impact or train harder to ensure the next time you get a chance you can take it.

There was also a question about William Saliba being missing from the team photo, and Arteta spoke about how despite a key player being absent for a medical appointment (🤔) they had to go ahead with anyway because there were commercial demands:

What happened was that we have tried to do that picture three times already, but we have had to cancel it at the last minute for different reasons. We have some commercial obligations and had people who came and flew over to do that, so we decided to do that picture at least. We’ll have another picture with the whole family. Hopefully we can get them all together at some point one day, and will announce that as well.

I realise it’s not the most important thing in the world, but to have an official team photo without someone of Saliba’s importance and stature does feel wrong. He played a huge part in our title win last season, so regardless of why he was absent, for him to not be in the picture where we have the Premier League trophy front and centre is wrong needs to be corrected. Fourth time lucky, hopefully – leaving Stuart MacFarlane to ponder how to fit the Frenchman into what was lovely symmetry in the one they actually took!

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Finally for today, and you may have seen this already, but for the last couple of months I’ve been working on something really special with my friend James Clifford Kent. He’s someone I’ve known for 22 years through this website, we’ve played football together and lots more down the years. He’s a superb photographer (among other things), and captured some incredible images of the parade after we won the title.

So, to commemorate that very special moment in all of our Arsenal supporting lives, we’ve put together a book we’re calling ‘The 22’. It features the story of the season in words from me, all the ups and downs, hopes and dreams, fears and worries and special moments, and amazing pictures from James.

It has a foreword from Ian Wright, and each one comes with a collection of postcards, a double-sided A2 print, stickers, a bookmark, and a premium presentation box. It is strictly limited edition, with only 2026 individually numbered copies available, so it’s a real collector’s item. We’ll be having a launch in London on the afternoon/evening of November 6th (venue to be announced next week), which we’ll ask people to register for. We’ll give you details on how to do that in due course. Pre-orders will be available to Arseblog Patreon members from November 2nd, with a final batch going on general sale online on November 7th.

So, whether it’s for your own Arsenal collection, or perhaps even the Christmas gift for the Arsenal fan in your life (yeah, we’re closing in on that time of year again!), hopefully we’ve got you covered.

Right, I’ll leave it there for now. Have a great Saturday folks.