A Costly Canter
From a footballing perspective, we couldn't have wished for a better home start with a 5-0 stomping of Premier League new boys Leeds United.
From an injury standpoint, it was nothing short of disastrous, especially with Anfield looming large on the horizon. Arsenal isn't Arsenal these days without multiple injuries, it seems. Odegaard departed first half with a shoulder injury, followed by Saka limping off with another hamstring problem, not even ten minutes into the second half.
Let's focus on the positives first, specifically the performance and result.
We always feel it's better to play newly promoted sides early in the season for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, early in a campaign, they often look like deer caught in the headlights, unsure of how to approach games. Do they park the bus, or do they stick to the footballing philosophy that earned them promotion? Leeds, we felt, were kinda stuck between the two.
Secondly, they tend to flood their team with lots of shiny new signings that take time to gel. Leeds were the exception to that. They only had 3 new boys in their starting line-up. The downside of going down that route is that you tend to find the players that got these sides promoted, a high percentage aren't Premiership quality. Leeds, again, reflected that yesterday.
From our viewpoint, there were lots of positives to take from the game.
The first was Eberechi Eze's introduction to the crowd before kickoff. It got the place buzzing. His signing is now looking like a timely one.
As for the performance overall, we enjoyed 66% possession, 18 shots, 5 on target, 5 goals, and only conceded 1 shot on target (from a set piece). Yes, we scored 5 goals from 5 shots on target. Call it ruthless or fortunate, depending on which side of the fence you sit on.
Timber was outrageously good again on his first start. 2 goals and 1 assist in 64 minutes. We tweeted that there isn't a better right back in the league. He's just a tremendously talented footballer.
Zubimendi impressed. His effort in the 80th minute said it all. With a 4-goal lead, he sprinted 30 yards back towards his own goal, diving into tackles to stop a counterattack. Top stuff.
The other two are obvious. Gyokeres got off the mark with a goal that we think will typify him. All raw power twinned with elite finishing ability. We will gloss over his embarrassing miss in the first half.
The last one is, of course, Max Dowman. He's just a bundle of energy who knows no fear and won a (soft af) penalty. We also tweeted that he should have taken it. Yes, our centre forward should be taking penalties going forward, but we were 4 up in the 94th minute, and he'd won the spot kick on his competitive debut. Give the kid the penalty.
Another huge positive was that our attacking set-pieces seem to have found their mojo again. That's 3 goals in two games from corners. Farkes chat pre-Everton about signing taller players to defend set pieces didn't age well.
The only niggle performance-wise was conceding a huge chance from a set piece. Raya pulled off a brilliant save at 0-0. As good as our attacking set plays are, we conceded way too many set-piece goals last season. It has to be addressed or will prove costly over the course of the season.
The real negatives from yesterday were, of course, the two injuries. Odegaard's shoulder injury was the result of a tackle. These things are unlucky and happen.
The Saka one is more troubling as it is a muscular issue. We mentioned in our Man Utd review that he hasn't looked fully fit all pre-season, and did we overcook things? He injured the other hamstring this time. While we're not doctors, it's possible he over-favoured it due to the long recovery of the first one. Who knows? What we do know is that there is no way he will be fit for Anfield. Odegaard, hopefully, will be different. He hasn't dislocated anything, but we'll know for sure early in the week after X-rays.
Below is our usual man of the match award. This one was easy. I don't think many will disagree.
So it's really a case of job done up to this point. Two wins out of two. Think that's easy? Only us and the spuds have managed it so far. The Premier League really is hard work every week.
We will drop a Liverpool preview on Friday afternoon after the pressers are done. In between, we might do a piece on where we are at, squad depth-wise. With the arrival of Eze and hopefully more than a few outgoings, we'll have a better idea of where we are and where our young guns will fit in.
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