Dinamo Zagreb preview + Arteta on forward spending

Morning all.

We’re in Champions League action this evening, taking on Dinamo Zagreb at home, and having been pushed down the table a bit by some of last night’s results (Barcelona’s win against Benfica was wild!). It goes without saying it’s a game we need to win, they all are these days, but three points would go a long way to securing an automatic place in the knock-out rounds.

In terms of team news, there are a couple of players back, with Mikel Arteta confirming both Ethan Nwaneri and Riccardo Calafiori are available again having been sidelined since the Brighton game a couple of weeks ago. William Saliba remains unavailable due to his hamstring strain, but the manager seems less worried about him than he did immediately after the Aston Villa game on Saturday.

That question of who will play at right-back is one that seemed to irritate him a little bit at his press conference yesterday, although I think he didn’t quite get the question that was being put to him by Jordan Campbell from The Athletic. Ultimately though, my takeaway is that he seems reluctant to put a left-footed centre-half in Saliba’s position in order to allow Jurrien Timber to play right-back. Perhaps we’re getting the wrong end of the stick and he was engaging in some classic Arteta obfuscation, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see Thomas Partey there again tonight.

He was asked about why he hasn’t used Jakub Kiwior there, for example, and said:

Well, the ideal position for Jakub is left-central defender, that’s key. And as well, with the amount of changes that we have to do in the front area, the attacking midfielder area, full-back area, he hasn’t found the consistency that he had for that period of time. But he will play games and I’m very happy with him because he’s a player that, the way he looks after everybody, the way he trains and when you need him, he’s always there. There’s very few in the squad that are like this, so I really value having Jacob in the squad.

He also suggested Declan Rice could do it, but that ‘it’s not ideal’, and:

We know that he has the ability to do that, offering something different, obviously, to the other central defenders, but the reality is that we don’t have right-footers in those positions.

Further forward, take your pick from Rice, Jorginho, Merino and Odegaard for midfield, while I can’t envisage any change in the front three. Havertz and Martinelli both scored, and Trossard had his best game in some time. It’s not as if Raheem Sterling played his way into contention on Saturday either, and now that Nwaneri is back he’ll probably find himself a place further down the pecking order.

I don’t know too much about tonight’s opposition, other than their European form has been patchy this season, and they come into this one with a new manager: former Italian international Fabio Cannavaro. No new manager bounce this evening, please. We can’t take anything for granted, but this is fixture we should be winning. On paper we’ve had more difficult ones at home this season so far, so let’s hope we can manage this one as well as the others.

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There were some questions about the transfer market, as you would expect, but nothing that would make you think anything is imminent. There was a bit about where we have invested over the last few years, with Arteta saying:

I look at a lot of positives and things that we have been able to do in the market. We have had so many to do in the last few years and we haven’t invested, really, the things that other teams have done in the front players.

But we put it in other areas that we believe were really necessary and we have to develop players to have really high standards as well. So every case is different and I’m very happy with what we have.

That’s the second time he’s referenced what other teams have spent on forwards versus Arsenal, but I don’t think it’s a specific message as much as him just speaking the truth. The money has, for the most part, been spent elsewhere. What I would say though is that bringing it up at this time, with a squad full of defenders and left-backs, and midfielders (for now although that will require some summer spending if/when the two veterans leave), suggests that close attention needs to paid where we invest in the summer.

We might do something this window (I obviously hope we do but it feels more likely to be a loan), but I suspect if there’s a BIG signing, it won’t be in January. It’s much more likely to happen when the market is easier to operate in, but at this point it’s one that has to happen if we want to address a key issue in the squad. You can’t say we haven’t invested in forwards, then not invest in forwards again. So, let’s see how it plays out.

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Finally for today, I decided yesterday Arseblog and Arseblog News will no longer post to Twitter. I know we all have to compromise ourselves to some extent when it comes to big tech, but either we have standards or we don’t – and for me the owner of that platform throwing out a Nazi salute at a political event is a red line. I probably should have made this decision sooner, I’ve been mulling it over for some time, but yesterday was the final straw.

I haven’t been actively using it for months now, but our content was auto-posted on publication. That will no longer be the case. The accounts will remain, but no new content will be posted there.

We will exist on BlueSky here – https://bsky.app/profile/arseblog.com and here – https://bsky.app/profile/arseblog.news And there’s an Arseblog starter pack (which let’s you follow most of our folks) here – https://bsky.app/starter-pack/arseblog.com/3laqd44wx4f2z. Which isn’t to say that platform is perfect, I suspect the nature of social media itself will see it encounter its own issues down the line, but for now it’s a better experience for me and hopefully useful to you if you use it too.

This is a move that will unquestionably cost us some traffic and audience, but we hope in time to make up for that through other measures, perhaps some advertising and through the soon to be released updated Arseblog apps for iOS and Android. Those will have notifications fixed as well, so hopefully that’ll make up for a bit of it. Maybe some word of mouth would help too, so if you have Arsenal friends who don’t read or listen, maybe point them in our direction .

This is just a personal decision, albeit one that impacts Arseblog as an ‘organisation’. I’m not telling anyone else what to do, or what they should do. I feel very comfortable this is the right decision for me, and the right approach for the site in general.

As ever, thank you for being here – however you arrive each day – we all appreciate it so much.

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Right, let’s leave it there until tonight. You can join us as always for live blog coverage, as well as all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News.

For now, have a good one folks.

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