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.
Here’s to a good weekend folks. See you at the far post.
(Top photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)
