Good morning friends. Welcome to Arsenal Today, our new daily bulletin from all of us on The Athletic’s Arsenal beat.
With the weekend fast approaching, thoughts zoom towards Mikel Arteta’s press conference today. The atmosphere has been a bit nervier in the past week, with injuries mounting and the quality of performance dipping. James McNicholas will be at the training ground to assess the all-important fitness updates.
Arteta can be ambiguous on that front and with Liverpool looming on Sunday, everyone is sweating on the availability of Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber, plus the results of any scans on Riccardo Calafiori. May they all feel wonderful as soon as humanly possible.
Here’s what’s going on today:
- We may — or may not — find out more from Arteta, but in the meantime, James has written about the dilemmas facing the manager going into the Liverpool game and has been thinking about solutions. You can have a read of that here. James is making up for having been away for a while and is super busy — he’s also going to be having a chat with one of our Liverpool reporters, Gregg Evans, for a piece previewing the match, which you’ll be able to read over the weekend.
- James and I will be at the Emirates to bring you updates and analysis on the all-important outcome. Remember to join The Athletic’s Arsenal WhatsApp channel if you want a little extra.
- There is also some news, broken by James and David Ornstein, concerning the running of Arsenal, with James King returning to the club to take Richard Garlick’s old role as the contracts expert, or more precisely, director of football operations. Honestly, that man James can’t have slept this week.
- Elsewhere, set pieces might be critical to Arsenal in the coming fixtures, as they haven’t been as free-flowing lately. It certainly helps to have a load of 6ft-plus players in your team, but how important is height in football these days? In case you hadn’t noticed the basketball team effect, the graphic below shows Arsenal are steadily getting taller under Arteta. More on that here.
- In case you missed it, we relived the Battle of the Buffet on the site this week. It was good to catch up with a few old Arsenal voices, including Lauren, Gary Lewin and David Dein, as part of this oral history reflecting on the spicy events from 20 years ago. Arsene Wenger is not the only one who still laments that refereeing performance. Judging by their comments, some of the Manchester United players relished the fight after a slice of pizza whizzed through the air and landed on their manager.
- It hasn’t been an easy start to the season at all for Arsenal Women. Jonas Eidevall lost his job last week and Charlotte Harpur reported on Wednesday that Nick Cushing — head coach at City Football Group-owned New York City FC in MLS — is the primary target to replace him. Jessy Parker Humphreys has written about Cushing here, expressing the view that the 39-year-old would be a logical choice, but that any appointment would raise plenty of wider questions. Talking of the women’s team, defender Leah Williamson is on England duty and is set to lead the Lionesses out against Germany at Wembley this evening. She’s been talking about being “happy to be in a different environment” given what has been going on at club level.
Here’s to a good weekend folks. See you at the far post.
(Top photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)
