Welcome to Matchday Eve, which for the first time this season, is otherwise known as Friday.

Although it’s great to have Arsenal play in the Premier League on a Saturday for the first time in what seems like about 33 years, it does mean that once we’ve devoured our Gunners-flavoured goodness by 3pm tomorrow afternoon, it’ll be an eternity until we’re back in action thanks to the international break.

Anyway, before we have to endure that excruciating absence of Arsenal, we have the small matter of a trip north to St James’ Park, to take on a very new Newcastle, boasting new players, a new manager and in the form of wannabe Mario Balotelli – Aleksandar Mitrović – a whole new level of striking spike.

Thank God then for Gabriel, whose likely inclusion in our starting line-up tomorrow because of Per Mertesacker’s illness, should provide the requisite bite in our back four to counteract Mitrović’s nastiness. And Arsene Wenger, speaking at his press conference yesterday morning, revealed the latest team news ahead of our fourth league game of the campaign, starting with his centre backs. He said:

Mertesacker is still sick and we will know more about Koscielny today. He might have a test on his back today and I will certainly know more tomorrow morning. The less likely to be fit is Mertesacker. I would like them to be available but that’s part of the season, you can’t complain about that.

He then provided an update on long term absentees Jack Wilshere and Danny Welbeck, as well as suggesting his squad as a whole should now be nearing peak match fitness after a relatively disappointing start to the season results-wise:

Danny Welbeck is progressing well. He should be available, if all goes well, after the international break. Jack Wilshere is just behind Welbeck, maybe one week after the international break he will certainly come back into full training. I think we are ready to play 90 minutes but maybe it’s normal as well that after two or three games, you are not completely at 100 per cent. That comes slowly. We have started late and as well some players, like Alexis, have come in on August 3 and are not completely there.

The boss refers to Alexis Sanchez not being completely match fit above, and conceded his team hasn’t achieved full flow collectively so far this term, suggesting we’ve been too rushed with our finishing. But he also pointed out we have been more dangerous away from home in recent times, with Arsenal’s hosts less inclined to act like Mourinho and park a bus, than visitors to Emirates stadium:

Our results away from home, with goalscoring opportunities and our finishing percentage has been higher recently. Teams come and defend very deep at our home, so as long as we have not scored the first goal it is maybe more difficult to open up the defences and in the recent two games that is what happened to us. Maybe we are not firing on all cylinders at the moment. By definition, the finishing is a little bit cyclical and it goes in cycles. Finishing qualities come and go and you do not always know why, but certainly at the moment we want it so much at home that we’re trying to force it a little bit. It doesn’t look natural enough in our finishing qualities because we want to force the situation a little too much.

And although we go into the game with the Magpies unbeaten in 9 meetings and off the back of 7 consecutive wins, Arsene highlighted that Newcastle are always a force to be reckoned with at home, with a vociferous support backing them all the way:

We want to do well at Newcastle but it’s always very, very, very tight and very committed there because the crowd is always behind their team. They have just come out from a good result at Manchester United so it’s important that we prepare well and we give absolutely everything to win this game before the break.

Which brings me to what our starting line-up might look like come 12.45pm tomorrow. I think if Koscielny has recovered from his back injury (and snaps of him in training today suggest he has), then he’ll come straight back into the side with Gabriel shifting to the right of him and Calum Chambers dropping to the bench.

The rest of the back five picks itself you’d have thought, so the only real question marks, I suppose, revolve around the potential inclusion from the get-go of Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

I really can’t envisage Arsene bringing both in and I doubt he’d drop Olivier Giroud after the Frenchman grabbed two goals in the same fixture last season. That said, I think we could do with a little more pace in the side and although I felt he preformed very well on the whole against Liverpool on Monday night, if anyone was to be dropped to accommodate one of Theo or the Ox, I’d be leaning towards leaving out Ramsey.

We’ll find out soon enough I guess.

COME ON ARSENAL.

Back post match tomorrow.

Welcome back. Just one more sleep until The Arsenal are back in Premier League action and it’ll be a slightly sounder one tonight, thanks to Chelsea dropping points after twice losing the lead to draw 2-2 with Swansea.

Tottenham lost at Man United, but then they get beat most weeks so no melatonin boost there sadly. I only saw parts of each game and despite beating Arsenal’s shadow dwellers, United looked like a team who weren’t yet a team, if you now what I mean. All parts and no packaging.

The other realistic title contenders, Man City and Liverpool, like us, haven’t played yet but almost every year, there is also a team that shoots out of the blocks like Frank Lampard chasing an ice cream van and breaks into the top four for a while before inevitably falling away.

I still remember Sheffield Wednesday doing exactly that one year in the mid nineties, inspired by the left foot of the man a presumably pissed Johan Cruyff once described as ‘the next Marco van Basten’ – Ritchie Humphreys. Anyway, Arsene Wenger was asked at his press conference on Friday who he thought might be the early-season pretenders this year, and also who he felt were favourites to win the league. Here’s what he said:

Every year, especially in the first part of the race, during the first part of the season, one team always gets in. Who will it be this season? I don’t know. For a long period last year it was West Ham. When we played at Christmas at West Ham they were fourth in the league so it could be another surprise this season. Chelsea won it by a margin last year so they are the favourites. After that let’s see how it goes. After 15 games you will know more about who will win the Premier.

Arsene was then asked whether his club could cope with the pressures of expectation and how confident he was Arsenal would win the league this year, and responded in a typically honest and realistic manner, saying:

I believe we are able to handle it and we want to handle it. We can talk and talk about it but in football you have to accept that you can win, draw or lose. What you expect is that you give your best in every single game and we are determined to do that. The other thing we don’t know is how good our opponents will be. I don’t know how good Man United will be, how good Man City will be, but if you look at their squads they can have the same ambition that we have. The pressure is the same at Liverpool, Man City, Man United and Arsenal. That is normal. The only place where you don’t have that situation now is in France because everyone knows that PSG will win the league. Here what is interesting is that the pressure is on everybody, at least on six or seven clubs. That makes the Premier League so interesting.

The boss then expressed his belief that qualifying for the top four in seasons past presented a far more stressful proposition, given our annual loss of star players due to financial constraints which left us with far weaker squads to the one we currently boast. He said:

We had much more pressure before when I knew I had at least to be in the top four and we did not necessarily have the potential to do it. The pressure is really on you when you know you are just on the border of achieving what is absolutely requested. When you know you cannot miss an inch or you are out. That is much more difficult.

Right, team news. Arsene confirmed Tomas Rosicky and Danny Welbeck would be unavailable for West Ham when he spoke with the official site on Thursday, and on Friday said he didn’t think Alexis Sanchez would be involved as it’s a little early for him, so I full expect the Chilean to start on the left of the attack tomorrow afternoon and score a hat trick.

Jack Wilshere is obviously out for the forseeable so given all of the above I think we’ll be unchanged from last week in all honesty, lining up as follows:

Cech, Bellerin, Mertersacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ozil, Cazorla, Walcott.

Unless there are late knocks from today’s training session, the only alternatives to that eleven I can envisage are Giroud coming in for Ramsey, with Cazorla moving central and Walcott dropping to the left, or Giroud coming in for Oxlade-Chamberlain or Walcott. But I doubt it, given our win over Chelsea last week and Arsene’s preference for keeping a winning formula fermenting until he’s forced to adjust the ingredients. We’ll find out soon enough I guess.

And I suppose all that’s left to be said tonight is COME ON ARSENAL!

See you Sunday.

Evening all and there is only one place to start after Arsenal rounded off their Far Eastern tour this afternoon with a classy 3-1 win over Everton to win this year’s installment of the Barclays Premier League Trophy.

With the Emirates Cup to come in a week’s time and a Community Shield date with Chelsea the weekend after that, Arsenal could conceivably begin their Premier League campaign with three ‘trophies’ already safely tucked away – not a bad way to prepare for a season which many feel could see us end our long wait for the title.

Theo Walcott, starting the game in Alexis Sanchez’s position on the left of the front three, rediscovered his goalscoring form from the FA Cup final by latching onto Santi Cazorla’s pin-point pass and guiding a first time half volley past the Everton ‘keeper to give the Gunners the lead in the 22nd minute.

The England international’s run and finish – intelligently controlled by manoeuvring his right foot over the ball and striking it downwards off the turf and skidding past the goalie – made a mockery of the misconception that Theo can’t finish and lacks a ‘football brain’. This was Walcott at his best; a superbly timed and directed dart from wide combined with a clinical strike on goal. From coasting to celebrating in the blink of an eye.

As for Cazorla’s chipped assist from inside the centre circle, well, the vision and execution using his ‘weaker’ left foot was as majestic as his all-round display. We’ll have a real problem replacing Santi’s outstanding skillset when he does eventually depart, because for me there isn’t another player in our squad right now who can replicate his talents in the middle of the park – a velcroed virtuosity that has become vital to our performance and overall pattern of play this past year or so.

We then doubled our advantage 13 minutes into the second period when Ozil fed Cazorla on the right following a short corner and having weighed up his options, the Spaniard decided to go it alone, twisting and turning to bamboozle the defending James McCarthy on the edge of the area before drilling home at the near post leaving the ‘keeper motionless.

And Cazorla was at it again just four minutes later, exchanging passes with Mesut Ozil to allow the German to sidefoot emphatically into the net for three nil, making it two assists and a goal for Arsenal’s captain on the day. I would tie him to as long a deal as possible as he shows no sign of being debilitated by age.

The one sour note in a dominant display arrived with 15 minutes to go when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – otherwise his usual, buccaneering best down the right flank following his introduction at half time for Jack Wilshere, allowed himself to be dispossessed by Gareth Barry who in turn fed Ross Barkley to strike a venomous left footed shot past a helpless Petr Cech.

The former Chelsea ‘keeper had looked confident and composed throughout, producing one brilliant, finger-tip save to turn a Stephen Naismith header onto the crossbar in the first half, before parrying away a fierce long distance strike by Luke Garbutt in the second.

Overall a pleasing start to life in Arsenal colours for the Czech and you can be sure the Ox would have received a bit of a rollicking from the ‘keeper had this been a competitive fixture. He’ll have no doubt been disappointed not to keep a clean sheet but impressed by his new team’s controlled yet expansive display. Especially after a decade and more of pragmatic, painfully dull ‘football’ at Stamford Bridge.

Afterwards, manager Arsene Wenger praised his side’s victory and the cohesion of our play, saying:

I’m pleased with the performance because the focus in pre-season is to find the quality of our game back and I think for long periods we played in a very convincing way and the way we want to play – together, with good team play. Everybody shared the same vision on the pitch of the game we want to play. That’s positive.

He then shared his views on Walcott’s work in the win, and explained how the modern-day footballer no longer returns from his summer holidays three stone overweight after a few weeks of hard drinking and binge burger eating:

He is sharp and prepared well. He is like every player – they look fit, close to full fitness. It’s quite amazing how the players are back to a good body shape and a good [level] of fitness because they prepare well. Now football has changed – they come back after holidays and they don’t start from zero. They have done their homework and he is one of them

Moving on and there are a number of Arsenal-related transfer whispers to either get super excited about, or dismiss with the scorn that horseshit clearly deserves, including Mathieu Flamini moving to Galatasaray, our interest in Napoli’s left back Faouzi Ghoulam (with a first name like that, he was born to be a Gunner), which ties in neatly with advances from Athletic Bilbao for Nacho Monreal, a bid for Borussia Dortmund’s Pierre-Emerick Aubaeyang and finally, ongoing negotiations with Roma for highly-rated Italian central defender Alessio Romagnoli. And breathe…

Till Sunday.

Hello and welcome to Friday on TremendArse. I don’t know about you, but for me, this week’s flashed by like Hector Bellerin overlapping an opposition left-back. Frighteningly fast. Perhaps next week will feel slower – I certainly hope so – because at this rate, Euro 2016 will be upon me in about a month.

And speaking of our Spanish speedster, he’s put pen to paper on a new long-term deal with the club following his remarkable rise to first-team prominence last season. Bellerin made 28 appearances and scored twice in his breakthrough campaign, having started the season as third-choice right-back behind Mathieu Debuchy and Calum Chambers and finished his first season with an FA Cup winning flourish.

Manager Arsene Wenger has revealed that despite being convinced by the 20 year old’s ‘special’ desire to develop into a top-level competitor very early on, even he didn’t envisage the progress Bellerin would make quite so soon. He told Arsenal Player:

His progress has been huge because if you had asked me that question last year, exactly on the same day, I would not have guaranteed you that Bellerin would be a regular player in the club by the end of the season but he managed to do it. He’s a very serious, mature boy. I met him when he was 15… and I could see straight away that there was something special on the hunger side, on the desire and maturity side. He was a very mature boy very early.

But the challenge now for the former Barcelona youth team product says the boss, is to prove he can continue his form into the new season – a gauntlet he also laid squarely at the feet of last season’s other surprise story, Francis Coquelin:

Bellerin and Coquelin were not necessarily planned last season to come out and they have to confirm that this season. That’s always very difficult, to produce a similar performance in the second season. That’s their challenge. He’s a very mature and very focused player. I’m confident he will have a good season again.

Arsene alludes to it above and the phrase ‘second season syndrome’ is often bandied about the year after a player’s arrival into the first-team fold but for me, it’s no more than a mythical malaise for the most part, tending only to affect the few who were only ever convincing due to circumstance in the first place, or at an age when a natural decline was almost inevitable. I think what Arsene’s highlighting here, is more the need for mental focus from the duo.

For instance, Phillipe Senderos played an integral role in our run to the Champions League final in 2006 but never looked close to being accomplished enough, purely as a footballer, to make his form last into the succeeding season and over a sustained period. It’s just that he was part of a well-drilled defensive unit that heart-breaking year, and as harsh as it may sound, was made to look far better than he ever was.

Bellerin and Coquelin are different I think, with both still relatively young and so improving all the time, but crucially, both outstanding individual footballers in essence, as well as being cohesive components to the Arsenal collective. With the pair also said to have fantastic attitudes, I’d say only injury could prevent them from at least reproducing the level of performance they managed this past season. Don’t prove me wrong lads!

Moving on and as we prepare to face Everton in the Asia Trophy final on Saturday afternoon, Wenger has praised the level of fan attendance at the tournament, the facilities in the Far East and revealed his expectation that Roberto Martinez’s men will provide a stern test for his team.

He said:

I must say that I’m surprised by the number of fans and overall the Asia Trophy is a good surprise for us because it was on a good pitch, good training facilities and the quality of the games has been surprisingly good at this stage of the season. The first half was very, very competitive between Stoke and Everton. The challenges were Premier League challenges and I expect that from Everton. They came out of a season where they did less well than the season before and they certainly want to start strong. They look focused and prepared.

Elsewhere, Ajax have confirmed a season-loan loan for Yaya Sanogo, CEO Ivan Gazidis has been waxing lyrical over Wenger, whilst the manager himself has distanced the club from any imminent move for Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema, without completely dismissing interest in the player.

The talk around this particular rumour seems to suggest the player is happy where he is but with a new manager at the helm at the Bernabeu, any change in his status as a first-choice starter may lead to his departure. We’ll see.

See you on Saturday.

Evening all. A very short round-up for you today and I’ll begin with our vice captain Per Mertesacker’s belief that we haven’t see anything yet, from his compatriot and assist king Mesut Ozil.

As the former Real Madrid schemer prepares to start his third full season at the club, Mertesacker says that after two injury disrupted campaigns in north London, Ozil can take his game to a whole new level – providing he stays fit.

He told Arsenal Player:

He is one of our key players. Him in good fitness, him at his best – there’s a lot more to come from him and the second part of last season when he came back from injury, you could see how important he is for us as a team with his key passes, being in between the lines and always carrying a threat to the opponent. We need to find him and make him better, then he can show his real potential. The key will be not to get any injuries or niggles. He’s a good player when he’s fully fit but obviously he needs to gain that little extra, that confidence, to play his best. We will see – I’m pretty confident that he has his best and his first full season in front of him.

I think I know what Per means when he says ‘we need to find him’, because if they’ve lost our number eleven somewhere in Singapore, then they really ought to go and look for him. Of course more likely is the suggestion that the team needs to play to Ozil’s strengths, which for me would entail giving him the ball at every opportunity and providing him with a plethora of intelligent runners to aim his perfectly weighted passes to – something we do very well already in truth.

Fitness aside, the other slight issue with Ozil initially has been his oft-varying starting positions and the lack of a settled side around him. But the second half of last season saw a far more consistent selection with Ozil as the primary playmaker behind the striker and I can’t envisage Arsene Wenger changing that now unless he’s forced to.

Elsewhere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has been speaking about the importance of pre-season and seizing his chance to cement a place in Arsenal’s starting line-up this season.

He told Arsenal.com:

Everyone looks to pre-season and getting going – it’s a good opportunity for all of us to get fitness back. It’s a step in the right direction to getting back to full fitness, not just for myself but for everyone. We’re looking forward to the start of the season. I’ve seen every year as a big one for me and this is no different. I did suffer from injuries for the last two seasons now, which is always frustrating and isn’t something you want. I do see this season as an opportunity. First and foremost, you have to do everything you can to stay fit, so I’m working on that. Then you never know what can happen in football. You’ve got to be positive and take any opportunities you get.

And finally Jack Wilshere, fresh from scoring against a Singapore Select XI on Wednesday, has been speaking about the intense competition for places in Arsenal’s midfield and the need to play a possession game in a climate as warm as in the Far East.

He told Arsenal.com:

It’s unbelievable and it’s down to us as individuals to make that place ours. That’s going to be tough, of course it is, but I’m up for the challenge and I’m sure all the other boys are as well. We want to win every game and the boss tells us that before the game, and stuff that we can work on during the game, but the main thing here is fitness. Especially in this heat, you want to work on winning the ball back high up the pitch and when we have it, we want to keep it because you don’t want to be chasing too much. Everton like to keep the ball so we want to keep it as much as we can.

And I’m afraid that’s where I’ll have to leave it this evening. Have a good one whatever you’re doing and if you happen to be in Singapore, keep your eyes peeled for Mesut Ozil – he may be lost.

Till tomorrow.

Welcome all. Irie. Today we played the first of just four warm up fixtures before our Community Shield meeting with Chelsea, and one man’s showing left fans wondering ‘who needs Lacazette when we’ve got the predatory prowess of Chuba ‘Mr Lovergoal’ Akpom in our Ranks?’

Actually, it probably didn’t because we were playing a Singapore Select XI in a pre-season game, but still. The 19 year old Londoner, who made his first team debut for the club on New Year’s Day at Southampton this year and who impressed, winning a penalty in the home Premier League game against Aston Villa a month later, provided a reminder of his talent with a clinically dispatched treble as we ran out comfortable four nil winners at the Singapore National Stadium.

Jack Wilshere got the other goal – one of two penalties we were awarded and scored – and our pack of promising young guns who have made the trip to the Far East, including the likes of Gedion Zelalem and Dan Crowley, were all afforded some game-time as several first-team stars were saved for Saturday’s Asia Trophy final against Everton. For full match details including substitutions etc, take a look at the official site here, because instead I want to talk a little about Akpom and where he stands in terms of our striking pecking order.

Despite a prolific record for our under 21 side, Akpom has failed to score in three separate loan spells away from the club at Brentford, Coventry and most recently Nottingham Forest. Yet when his contract was almost up last summer, the likes of Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool were strongly linked with trying to snare his services which perhaps gives an indication as to how highly he is rated by scouts throughout Europe.

Of all of Arsenal’s promising young players, with the exception maybe of Serge Gnabry, who have yet to cement a regular first-team slot, Akpom increasingly looks the best prepared to make the step up but faces the daunting prospect of usurping at least Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott and Danny Welbeck for a central striking role.

The fact that he has all the attributes to play wide in a three would help his case for inclusion if it wasn’t for the fact that Welbeck and Walcott can also do likewise. But he is far younger than that trio and also possess more mobility, or at least smoother mobility, than Yaya Sanago – the other young contender for a place at the tip of the Arsenal attack.

A Premier League loan spell at one of the lower ranked clubs did to me at least, seem the best option for him to get games and develop and I think along with the likes of fellow attackers Gnabry and Wellington Silva, Akpom has it in him to make a mark in the English top-flight. But the player himself was pretty clear in his desire to remain at Arsenal for the coming campaign when he spoke to Arsenal Player after today’s game.

He said:

I’m buzzing for the hat-trick but most importantly I’m buzzing for the win. It was a good team performance but it was even better to get a hat-trick. I’m just hoping I can carry on my form for the rest of the pre-season and take it into the season. You’ve got to give 100 per cent because you don’t get this chance often, so when you get it you have to make the most of it. Hopefully the boss has seen that I’ve been working hard in training, that I’ve been working hard on the pitch, and hopefully I can get more game time in the season. I’ve been at Arsenal since I was six years old, so that’s a few years and I really want to stay here. This season could be a big season for me and with a lot of hard work it could be a breakthrough season for me. The main thing is to stay here and I think the loans have helped me gain experience. I’m just getting better every time.

Manager Arsene Wenger also dismissed the idea of sending Akpom out on loan, saying:

I sent him out on loan last year because I thought he needed that. This pre season, during the season I plan to keep him with us.

The boss then discussed the striker’s likely role in the first team, cautioned against getting carried away by a pre season performance and challenged his charge to prove his worth through a consistently high level of performance. He said:

That’s up to him. How much? (will he play) I don’t know but I just believe that it’s an encouragement to do well and to work even harder. He’s a young player and it can lift his confidence. The confidence in the dressing room that you sense from the other players is important as well and that can help him. Let’s not forget it’s a friendly. He’s a good talent but he has to work and show that in games. It’s down to performance and attitude. He has that grade to make between being a big talent and after an efficient talent week in, week out. That’s of course the target.

You sense the league cup remains Akpom’s best hope of a start next season and if we were to exit the competition early, I still wouldn’t rule out a loan spell later in the season for the player nick-named ‘Titi’ – after Thierry Henry – by some of his colleagues.

The wealth of young, and established, striking talent at the club highlights just how difficult a balancing act Wenger faces in meeting fans’ expectations for tangible, trophy-winning success, while simultaneously sating the desire of so many to see players rise through the ranks at the club and make a lasting impact.

Having joined Arsenal at six years of age, Chuba is certainly ‘one of our own’ and I really rate him. His first goal today was an unerringly opportunistic, first-time finish, his second a cooly converted spot kick which sent the ‘keeper the wrong way and his third a towering, close-range header, albeit into an empty net.

He certainly knows where the goal is and has nimble feet and great close control to compliment his naturally outstanding athleticism. But whether I’d be willing to let him learn his trade at the expense of a ready-made, world-renowned striker who would immediately guarantee us goals at the highest level, is another matter entirely.

Till Thursday.

Greetings. I have a crammed, quote-tastic, kit-alicious offering to bring to you today, as Arsene Wenger has been speaking at a press conference ahead of our first game in the Asia Trophy tomorrow, and the club have unveiled our new away strip at an official launch event in Singapore this afternoon.

But first the boss and he’s expressed his hope that the squad can ride the crest of the confidence wave our FA Cup win in May created, whilst also highlighting the importance of concentrating on our own improvement as a team and avoiding any preoccupation with the relative strengths of our opponents.

He said:

We moved forward in the second part of the season but as well the cup means something to the team because on the day, whether it’s the semi-final or the final, you have to win. The trophy improves the confidence of the team. I believe in England, we are always worried about each other because we have so many teams with the potential to win the league that everyone looks around and thinks, ‘What are they doing? How strong are they?’ What we want to do is focus on ourselves, focus on our strengths and see if we can develop on what we did last year. That is the most important thing, not to waste too much energy on looking around us.

Which is true to an extent, because clearly nobody should waste time worrying that Liverpool have signed Danny Ings to partner Rickie Lambert, or that they’ve bought Adam Bogdan to battle it out with Simon Mignolet.

But if Man City add Kevin de Bruyne and Paul Pogba to their purchase of Raheem Sterling or Man United land Edinson Cavani and Nicolas Otamendi or Chelsea snare an upgrade on Gary Cahill and Oscar, I’d say we’d be silly not to afford their new line-ups at least a glancing appraisal. You can’t take a pen to a sword fight, or something.

But of course Arsene knows that full well and followed up those sentiments with his now very familiar line about being ready to buy if the right player becomes available. He said:

I don’t close the door (on more signings). If we can find any player who can strengthen the squad then we will.

As many have pointed out, it’s all about incremental improvement for Arsenal now. The squad is at a stage where barring a like-for-like, quality deputy/competitor for Francis Coquelin, we don’t need a lot to mount a realistic challenge for honours at home and abroad.

My hunch is that we’ll still spend, and spend big, on one or two players even if they have limited resale value or come in at the expense of an established squad member. Mainly because we can now. And also because on pitch success is vital for the continuing growth of our commercial income, the maximisation of which goes full circle to helping us improve the team – the commercialcircle©®™ of footballing success, if you will.

Arsene also spoke about the importance of pre-season for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in particular, after the England international’s injury-plagued second-half of last season, saying:

Alex played the first 20 games last season and was after that injured, so he is of course one of the regular players in our team. He is not directly always in competition with Alexis because he plays more on the right side than the left, but it is a good opportunity for him because he is not injured. Pre-season will be very important for him.

And he then outlined the likely time-scale for Alexis Sanchez’s return following his Copa America exploits for Chile this summer, praised his performances in winning the competition for his country, and hinted at the Chilean’s superhuman recovery powers. He said:

He will be back on August 3 and it usually takes three weeks to be competitive. He will miss certainly the first game of the season but with Alexis, it takes a little bit less. When he had to turn up in the final [of the Copa America], he was there. He was the one who was dangerous, he was the one who was always provoking opponents, and he was the one who had the guts to take the final penalty to win the cup. He contributed to his country’s achievement and it’s something special that they’ve done. He was a big part of it.

Elsewhere, club captain Mikel Arteta has become the latest Arsenal player to praise new signing Petr Cech and the ‘keepers difficult but ambitious decision to cross London. He told Arsenal Player:

Even though he has won everything in England and probably in Europe, he is still ambitious. Those types of signings give the team a lift. The decision he made to come here after being a legend at Chelsea is not easy. I don’t think many of them would do it at his age, and he is still hungry, he wants to prove himself at the top level and I think it is a really good decision for us. He could have gone to another league and thought, ‘My name is in England forever with Chelsea and it’s only going to be with Chelsea’. He knows he’s going to get some criticism coming here and that the pressure is going to be on him a lot but he just wants to take it. He says, ‘Okay I’ve got another chapter, and challenge and a chance to make Arsenal champions’. I have no doubt [he will cope well with the criticism. He is very cool, he’s been training really well and that’s what he’s here for. He’s not here just to sit on his back, he wants to compete and he wants to keep winning.

Finally for today, our new away kit is confirmed and available for purchase and I have to say I like it a lot. It’s 2002-ish and we all know what happened that year.

At the launch event, two teams of Arsenal players were formed on stage – one wearing the home kit and one the other the away strip – and in a freestyle skill-off, Santi Cazorla outdid Hector Bellerin to win it for the away team.

Oh and Oliver Giroud mouthed ‘f*ck off’ at a team-mate who was clearly baiting the Frenchman for his perceived, over-zealous penchant for self grooming. Brilliant bantz by all accounts.

Right, I can cram no more.

See you tomorrow.