It was a very young Arsenal team that Unai Emery picked to play against Qarabag last night, and the big surprise package was the debut of the 17 year-old Bukayo Saka who looked very calm and assured, never mind extremely skilful!
Arsenal may have made hard work of beating Huddersfield but we have extended our unbeaten run to 21 games and got 3 more precious points to keep us in touch with the Top Four. It may not have been an exciting game for the neutrals, but the Gunners finally broke down the dour and organized Northerners with a wonderful bit of magic from Lucas Torreira. Young Alfie Culshaw was at the game, and he soaked up the atmosphere when Lucas scored to share it with us.
Bernd Leno finally got to show his skills to the Arsenal boss Unai Emery when Petr Cech was out injured, and he obviously did enough to persuade the Spaniard that he was good enough to retain his place against Liverpool and then Wolves last weekend.
We have been listening to all the raving about Reiss Nelson’s brilliant start to the season at Hoffenheim, but we haven’t actually seen much of the action. This video will show you every thing you need to know as to why he was named the Bundesliga Rookie of the Month for October. High Praise indeed.
Everyone seems to think it is a done deal that Arsenal are going to be signing Miguel Almiron from Atlanta in January when the MLS season ends. I must admit that our new scouting team appear to have made very good choices at cheap prices so far, so I am hoping that Almiron turns out to be just as good.
Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey was on the scoresheet as Wales destroyed the Republic of Ireland in Ryan Giggs first game in charge of the Welsh Dragons. Tom Lawrence, Gareth Bale and Connor Roberts also scored excellent goals as Giggsy’s attacking style gave the crowd a treat in Cardiff last night.
We can’t complain about Unai Emery turning Arsenal into a boring team, as every single game has been end to end exciting football. After just four games we have scored 8 and conceded 8 which is an average of 4 goals in every game. Hopefully we will start reducing our ‘goals against’ column if we ever learn to defend! But in the meantime we are being treated to a banquet of attacking football.
Arsenal were imperious against Paris St Germain yesterday in our second friendly in Asia and there were goals from Mesut Ozil, Rob Holding, Eddie Nketiah and a double from Alexandre Lacazette to give us a 5-1 win.
Watch all the goals and highlights to cheer you up this morning….