PHASE 4: NINE GAMES, THREE POINT MARGIN OF ERROR

ARSENAL IN THE MAKE UP PHASE OF THE SZN

I had a friend that got so drunk on a night out in London, he ended up on the train, and he woke up in France the next morning. When I go into the comments section on this very site, sometimes that’s what I feel like. God bless the people who bring some of the premium ‘not cut with anything’ spicy hot takes to Le Grove, but my word, when I wake up in France and I’m arguing whether Bukayo Saka was at the level of Mudryk or the possibilities of sacking Arteta 11 games in… I know I have to leave the comment section to those who can handle the intensity of raw internet savagery.

I just don’t got that dawg in me these days…

Let’s get the bad news out of the way, early.

Ben White is out for months.

Ben is going to be out for months. It’s been different kind of struggles, it’s never been the same thing, but we had to make a decision in the last few weeks, unfortunately. We know that Ben is going to push every boundary but it got to a point where we had to protect the player and we decided to do the surgery. He agreed with that, and obviously it will keep him out for a few months.

This is not great news. Ben White is about so much more than just ability on the ball. He leads the fight, he shows everyone how to fight, and he has the two dawgs in him. We’re going to miss his right back-ery, but we’re now missing a right-sided centre back should the worst happen to Big Bill. This isn’t great. But sadly, it seems like even the most rugged of players are succumbing to injuries this season.

Arteta was also pretty clear that we shouldn’t expect much from Tomi over the next month. This is a different type of problem. His body can’t handle when he needs it to do and I think that’s how it’ll be for the rest of time. We shouldn’t have given him a new deal. It was only a two year extension. My worry here is it’ll be really hard to shift him on for good money because everyone knows he’s badly damaged goods.

The good news?

Ricci trained today, so his rehab is going really well. He was able to do certain things last week with the physios, and trained on the pitch this week with us and today, so he will be in the squad.

Trossard seems to be OK, he trained this morning and seems to be feeling good. We will assess everything with the doctor right now, as he was able to be part of that session, so that's good.

There was also a lot of praise for Zinchenko in one of the embargoed pressers. The Ukrainian had a blinder of a game and he scored the first goal in their 2-1 win. Arteta said he’ll be important over the coming months, so it’s massive that he’s feeling his way back into contention.

The broader issue we have at Arsenal right now is we’re putting a lot of faith in players who aren’t reliable fitness wise. Calafiori has had a stuttery start to his Arsenal career, Timber has been in and out, Zinchenko has wallpaper-paste calves, and Thomas Partey is about 5 games past his bi-monthly catastrophe.

Phase 4 of the season carries a lot of risk. The games come thick and fast.

• Premier League: 9 matches

• UEFA Champions League: 3 matches

• League Cup: 1 match

14 games need to be dealt with in 42 games. That’s a game every three games. The full squad is going to be needed and Arteta is going to have to make some choices. You can’t have all your best players in all of the games. There will need to be rotations, squad players will have to be brought in, dips in form will have to be expected in certain games.

December is when teams with small squads need to make big decisions. Palace have a doubleheader at Arsenal. Before they play us they have Brighton away. After they play us twice they have Bournemouth. Two away days on the south coast for a team in a rele battle as we speak. Will Arsenal in a cup and the league be a priority for them?

Arsenal needs to use this run to make up at least 4 points on Liverpool. 24 points from 9 games should be the objective - if we do that, we’ll be within spitting distance of the summit.

Arteta spoke intensely about expectations and how those have shaped silly commentary after just 11 games.

I know from my insides when I plan the season and I have a start and finish, it’s a journey.  We all go travelling on the bus together. It's going to be bumpy, there’s going to be bad weather, things are going happen. My thing is how I'm going to navigate, how I'm going to make the others navigate in the midst of all that, because it's going to happen. It's guaranteed that it's going to happen unless we become invincible and win every game, and then, fine we didn't have to go through it. But in the way that I predicted the season, it was going to happen. [Was I expecting] as many things that have happened? No. But I love how the team reacts and how the club reacts when there are difficulties.

The season is long. We’ve played a lot of hard games. Had a lot of bad luck. But we haven’t been bad by any stretch, anyone saying that is misleading themselves. But, we’re now about to approach a really good run of teams that would should rack up points. This run of the season is do or die for us - if we exit the phase with 19 points, it’ll be really tough for us to win the Premier League. Arsenal need to make hay when we have the more comfortable games - we need some of that post-Dubai magic without having stepped foot on a beach.

Key things we have going for us?

Bukayo and Declan sound like they are at least in contention for a place. Martin Odegaard stayed back and he will be ready for tomorrow. Thomas Partey stayed back and he will be raring to go. Martinelli had a lovely run out for Brazil and he’ll be cooking tomorrow. Merino had a good game for Spain and looks like he’s finally settling into the Arsenal mindset.

We have our best players coming back at the right time - and these players have a history of sending the ghouls back into their boxes. I’ve no doubt they can do it again and there’s no better team to start the phase against than a really good Forest team.

They’ve defended really well this season, we haven’t. They have power and pace in the forward line. They have a manager who has found his mojo again and he had Forest looking formidable. But formidable enough to deal with us away from home? I hope not.

A packed house tomorrow, a three o’clock kickoff, and the hopes of global fanbase resting on the right result.

Should be fun. I’ll be there for an On The Whistle. Sign up to Le Grove below to get the content in realtime and join our conversation! Go on, do it. x