I am sure I speak for all Arsenal fans when I say what a relief it is to be able to watch an Arsenal game again tomorrow after an absence of a long few months.
The World Cup may have been a good distraction (despite a startlingly poor standard of football) but it’ll good to be able to watch us start our preparations for the new season in the annual fixture against Barnet at Underhill. And when you’re an England supporter as I am, even the prospect of us falling painfully short again this season is far more enjoyable than seeing the Three Lions embarass themselves in front of the world.
And pre-season is always a fun and interesting insight into the manager’s thinking, and this summer should be no different. Shorn of Gallas, Silvestre, Senderos and Campbell at the back a lot of eyes will be on how the defence looks even at this early stage of proceedings. Koscielny seems the typical astute signing, the sort we now almost expect to come good as the likes of Vermaelen and Sagna did before him, but what type of player is he? Not many genuinely know, and Barnet will be an opportunity to get a first impression of the 24 year old.
Chamakh I know a lot more about and I will be hoping to see a few little partnerships developing between him and the other forwards. He’s certainly the type of player who will allow creative and attacking players to play off him, and so the likes of Nasri or even Wilshere should enjoy his presence in the squad I feel.
But it’s all too early to really judge either player and so the highlight of the Barnet game has to be the younger players trying to impress their manager and gain a place on the pre-season trip to Austria. Conor Henderson, with his cool reading of the game and fantastic passing range has looked every bit a deep-lying playmaker in the youth team, a type of player we have very rarely produced. Whether he’ll make it is a different question, but he certainly has a continental style to him that I think Wenger certainly appreciates.
Ignasi Miquel is another starlet that seems to meet Wenger’s specification of a centre back, with a calm approach to the game built on good reading and athleticism and the sort of technique most academies would only want in their number 10s.
I won’t go over every youngster but elsewhere there are those who have had loan spells and now want to push on – players like Nacer Barazite, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and Havard Nordtveit in particular will want to prove their worth, whilst obviously the only question many have with Jack Wilshere is whether his time is now or next year.
It feels good to be able to write about a game again, and hopefully the Gunners will put on a show for the Arsenal fans at Underhill tomorrow afternoon.
