NLD SATURDAY MOODSETTER

BIG GAME. BIG POST. LET'S GET STUCK IN

Indulge me this one time with a more personal tone…

This journey into a new space has been quite interesting for me. I like the platform—no need to worry about anything outside writing—and the modern, fancy tech seems to have connected me with more people who send lovely messages. Thanks to everyone who has signed up to the email, dropped in to read a post, or just sent me a message.

I’m not entirely sure what it is about this year, but I’m finding it to be quite an introspective one. With a new child on the way (HEIR TO THE THRONE), a 'what the fu*k' age milestone, losing someone I worked with and deeply respected, thinking about who I spend my time with… or who I haven’t… it’s all a bit strange in 2024. Anyone else had a year like that?

I’ve had moments recently where I’ve considered packing in all the writing and podcasting… Is this important enough to invest so much time in? Could I be doing better things? Will I look back when I’m knocking on the door (of death, to be clear) and say, f*ck, my LE GROVE Screen lifetime report was massive—166 hours podcasting, 49 editing, 325 writing p/a—I could have spent that time touching a lot of grass, sand, and seawater.

But then I came to the conclusion that I am, in fact, an Arsenal lifer—how could I head into a North London derby and not pen some thoughts to share with the LG crazies?

It is, indeed, a privilege to have anyone read your work, and there are many of you who check in every day—thank you to all the folk who make a point of telling me I am their toilet read of choice in the morning. So, thank you. I’ll stop feeling sorry for myself and get stuck into some of that primo, grade a, S-tier, monster content.

Arsenal vs Spurs—it’s massive. Yeah, I know, all that nonsense you just had to read and that was my way in on this post. Kind of bland, but here we are, you’re on the toilet, and I’m giving you toilet intros.

Spurs is not season-defining, but delivering an open-handed, back-of-the-hand slap to Big Ange and his merry band of Champions League look-a-likes would be absolutely sensational this early in the season.

The counter? If we drop points or lose, certain noisy folk will start getting twitchy, and the ‘I understand elite mentality’ brigade will swarm YouTube to cry about how the race is over.

If I could take a moment to bring some Perspective FC to you all: As it stands, we’re missing just one starting XI player tomorrow—Dekkers.

Martin, surely, is out? Well, I said this when he was reported out.

Mikel Arteta followed my lead with this:

“We need some more tests so let’s see what happens in the next day or so,”

“Let’s see what happens, what the extent of the injury is and how quickly we can get him back. He’s super positive about everything. We know Martin - he wants to be there every single day but we have to wait and see.

“He's willing, there's no question about that. He wants to be present every game and obviously in a big game like this one, but we need to make sure that we know first of all how good he can be or not.

“Players with 48 hours to go are always available, but let's see what happens.”

So, let’s qualify this:

• Arteta isn’t necessarily lying about the injury.

• Arteta is very capable of lying about the injury to keep Ange guessing.

• Martin Ødegaard is an absolute monster who’d take an injection to get out on the pitch and give his team the boost they need.

My advice, after watching 12 minutes of YouTube videos on ‘are injections good for players’, would be to not risk our captain so early in the season. But let’s be real—Arteta is a madman, and so is Ødegaard. If either think playing is on the cards, he’s going to play, risk be DAMNED.

If he starts, magnifico—if he doesn’t, then Arteta has a squad capable of springing surprises.

Ethan Nwaneri is in the mixer because the club believes he can play at the highest level. His assist in preseason against United shows he has the talent, and Manchester City have shown they’ll put the best kids on the pitch if needed. Are we about to show the world how good he is? Who knows. But I could fully imagine a Sunday afternoon of Ethan Oscar Bobb-ing.

Kai Havertz had his best spells at Bayer Leverkusen from the right. He’s no Martin, but he can take up that role, and with the confidence he has at the moment, why not?

Bukayo and Raheem could be the dream. I was fizzing like a road beer on a quad bike to hear Mikel speak so highly of him.

I see his hunger - he’s a player who wants to play every minute of every game, and when that’s not the case, he’s not happy. He loves football, it’s what he likes doing every single day and I see that. His commitment, the level of energy that he’s bringing to the team, and the quality is a big boost. You can feel that in the players as well when he walked through the door, we are better with him. He’s going to make us better.

I know you sent text messages to your United mates when they were about to sign him—and then had to go into damage-control mode when he showed up at Colney. But I’m all-in here, I’m a Raheem televangelist. Donate £10 to the cause, and the footballing gods will show you the way. Raheem is Arsenal-ready: he can play as a second striker, stay out wide to let Saka in, or come inside and interchange. He offers us so many high-quality options out there. This is a proper piece of equipment. Arteta said he knew Raheem wanted to prove himself after 10 seconds of speaking to him. We are not a retirement loan. We’re his redemption arc. A player of his talent with things to prove? Skip the gums and mainline it into my eyeball.

So, how are we going to play tomorrow? We might see three at the back with Calafiori dropping in as the third centre-back after his dominating performance against France. We could see two holding midfielders if Arteta decides to bring Jorginho out of the freezer as a press-resistant player of top-tier bravery to control the tempo against a team that’s top of the league for intensity. Or, we might see Arsenal roll with Thomas Partey where he’s been for the last three games, with Arteta adjusting what’s ahead and behind to accommodate the absence of Declan.

Mikel was very complimentary of Ange before the game—almost to Pep levels of patronisation. My hope is that Ange has been sussed out in the league. People know that if you give them the ball, they’ll leave you chances in behind. Arsenal have two weapons Spurs don’t like—we’re incredible defensively, so we can nullify their possession game, and we also have incredible speed going forward on the break.

Spurs aren’t going to sit in a deep block—part of the joy Spurs had early last season was that their wide-open, mad style had no consequences because everything went in, and they got very lucky defensively. But let me remind you, they had a terrible time in the back half of the year when clever Premier League managers sussed the system and things went off the rails. No team has ever missed out on top four after the start they had…

I stole this from a Spurs fan on the internet and I shan’t offer a credit.

‘We’ve won 13 league games out of the last 31. Ten of those wins came against teams below 10th in the table. We’ve won 3 times away from home in the last 15 away fixtures. We’ve kept just 4 clean sheets in the last 32 matches. That’s a sustained run of terrible form under Ange.’

Arsenal fans on this very website once said half-season tables were for cucks, but they’re not, and I will die on that hill. If Arsenal beat Spurs at their ground this weekend, the shocking form over 31 games will look like rot, and the clock will start ticking on a manager who has spent €376,950,000 on players since arriving at The Bowl.

Things haven’t been great in the build-up to the game—Bentancur is under investigation by the FA for allegedly telling the media all South Koreans look the same. ‘Experts’ in the language space say he didn’t mean it maliciously, but however you slice it, Ange won’t like having to address things like this in the media.

‘In terms of Sonny and Rodri, they had their discussions about the whole incident and both players understand and respect each other’s position.’

Imagine the chat. Imagine Son walking away with respect for the comment. I can’t.

Injury-wise, things are looking good for Spurs. Here’s what Ange had to say:

“It’s fairly positive.

Micky’s good, he’s trained all the way through the international break, and it was good for him to stay with us to build him back up so he’s ready to go.

Dom’s improved as well and trained in the latter half of this week. We still have two days to go with those guys, so hopefully they get through training okay and are available.”

VdV is a really good defender and an essential asset to a team that plays very openly and is prone to getting caught out in transition. He’s got a tough job this weekend, and we’ll no doubt be testing his fragile body over 90 minutes—something he probably doesn’t want this early in the season.

As for Dom Solanke… I’m very curious to see what Spurs have bought. He was anonymous after leaving Liverpool until he had a breakout last season. Is this guy their version of Ian Wright, or is he a one-hit wonder who’ll go the way of Richarlison? We’ll see. But we know what he’s all about. He’s a monster; he’ll bully our defenders, and if given the chance, he’ll strike.

I’m a little bit nervous about this game, but let’s be clear… the job is ‘don’t lose’, and anything else is a bonus. Big away games like this aren’t must-wins. If we draw, it’s not a crisis. If we win, we’ll celebrate like we’ve won the league, but it’s not that serious.

I’m excited. We have a great squad, a new contract signing bounce, a team eager to f*ck up someone after Brighton, and a group that utterly despises the existence of that lot.

Should be fun. We’ll be on The Whistle. Sign up for a membership below if you want to see that live. xxx