Well good morning my darlings and welcome to a footballing FEAST of a weekend.

Arsenal have locked in Martin and Aaron.

Aaron’s name was given to him because his grandad was called Ron and in Birmingham, people say ‘arrr Ron’ when they mention people… so his name is basically a family pun and I’m out here crying like a child.

Anyway, strong interview from Ramsdale. He’s very likable and he also added some propaganda to the mixer by letting us know he actually won player of the year at Wimbledon as well. 3 players of the season awards, that’s quite something at 23. There seems to be a huge discrepancy between fans that watch him every game and Arsenal analysts that have watched 6 seconds of him. He’s a keeper that seems to be a bit of a fan on the pitch, and the fans like that he engages with them. Last player that did that at Arsenal was Partick Vieira, he used to make the fans sing, I loved that.

I also like that alpha comment from him that he was here to take Leno’s #1 jersey. Love that. Let’s hope he can deliver it.

Another thing I noted. He made a special point to highlight that his distribution is the thing. He basically says he mixes it up, which I think is what Arteta wants, because Leno is very predictable with his passing and he makes a lot of bad decisions.

My guess is the Edu strategy this season is to push Leno out by the end and force him to take a transfer next summer.

I also thought it was noteworthy that Aaron said part of his experience was going through a slump in form. He’s very much self-aware and he seemed to know he is not the finished article.

On a side note, I loved the welcome fans gave him. They well and truly drowned out the attention-seekers. Young players need to feel the love, let’s make sure we’re doing all we can this season.

Martin Odegaard had his second welcome video. Interesting that Madrid wanted him at the start of the summer and told Arsenal where to go, then they opened the door later on. From what I understand, it was an Edu/Arteta gamble to wait on him, as they suspected he might be let go. Buendia was the ‘just get it done move’ we passed and held out for the main target. Risky business, but in fairness to Edu, he got it done like he always seems to. I cannot believe he can BBQ, go on a yacht, and have 6 holidays… whilst getting deals done. His ‘HOW TO MAKE IT AND VACATION’ business book is going to be a best seller.

The player seems excited, extremely grounded, and keen to kick on. There’s no stronger motivator in life than being told you can’t do something by someone at your previous company. I was fired from Ted Baker when I was 16 because they said I couldn’t sell. I moved to First Sport and no one sold sneaker polish like me, I was the best in the game. The sky is the limit with Odegaard, I think we’ve made a sharp signing, and hopefully the 5 months prior will give him a good springboard to adapt.

Arteta said in his presser that there was still more business to be done.

We can register 25 players this season. There’s about 7 that will need to be culled in the coming week or so. I’m not sure there will be many sales, but there will be loans, no one wants the ignominy of being cut from the squad.

Kola, Torreira, Runarsson, one of the centre-backs, Willian, Eddie, Reiss, a loan for Balogun… they all have to be looking to find clubs if they want to stay relevant or get experience.

If we can sell, especially in the right-back position, we’ll target a new signing without doubt. I don’t think we’ll move on any of our strikers, though I do desperately want to believe we’re targetting Arsenal fan Calvert Lewin. Imagine him beasting Tierney crosses all season. It’d be a sight to behold.

However it ends up, this squad is now Arteta’s. The dregs of yesteryear are mostly out the door, we have the specificity to play the way he wants to play, and we have the boys that dropped a second half of the season masterclass.

You have to accept that gelling all those players is going to take some time. The next 2 months will be a bit rough as we integrate and bring players back from injury, the key for Arteta is staying in the chasing pack. If he can massively improve on last season’s first 14 games, we should be in the mixer for top 4 come what May.

It’s on him now. He can talk about the negative people outside the club causing problems, but it’s not true, the problems have been caused by him. There are some correlations to how Frank was in his second season, everything was someone else’s fault, he started to sound paranoid, and his behaviour went from chill to erratic.

Arteta needs to get a grip of the situation, deal with adversity in a positive way, and start showing what he’s about on the pitch.

No more playing around the edges.

No more slow football.

No more listless starts.

No more petulance in the media.

I want the fire we saw in the first 6 months of his tenure. We need to see aggression, hard pressing, and sexy combination football.

The time is now.

Let’s see what he has for tomorrow… and remember, after the game, we’re going on the whistle with a live twitch where you can ask elite questions and comment on my hair.

Right, see you in the comments you sexy beasts x