Arsenal notched their first win of the season versus Norwich City. The game wasn’t easy. The result felt like a bit of a slog. But the 3 points on the board were more than deserved and will hopefully act as a pivot point for the season.

The starting line-up was pretty wild. Arteta put most of his new players out on the pitch. We saw Tomiyasu, Odegaard, White, Lokonga… and Ramsdale. Those were big decisions. The Premier League is tough, to make so many changes in one go was always a huge risk, especially notable considering Tuchel had to yank Saul at halftime against Villa. Arteta even dropped Ainsley into midfield. When the chips are down for Mikel, he always turns to the kids, and they usually do the job.

The first half was a fairly mixed bag. We dominated the first 20, fell off a little, then came back before halftime. The second half was where it was at, we refound our intensity, kicked up into the 4th gear we haven’t had all season, and finally made the game count when Nicolas Pepe fizzed a shot at the inside post, bundled himself at the second chance, allowing a rebound to fall comfortably for Auba to prod home from a single yard.

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Well good morning to you ALL! It’s so damn good to be rolling into the start of the new season with SIX new players all 23 or under. I cannot WAIT to see what they can bring to the table today.

Today IS the new table after Christmas.

Arteta doesn’t have much fan love left in the tank. Today is a mini-run to a North London Derby against Nuno’s Spurs. We have to see a result today, there’s no more time for flapping around with process, we need to see some delivery.

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A dramatic headline for dramatic times my friends.

Today, we’re announcing our partnership with YouGov and their fancy new ‘Chat’ service. YouGov is all about consumer research. If you work in advertising, your media team has used them to tell you what type of biscuits northerners like. If you’ve seen a poll for the elections, it’s usually them. They are the best in the business, so I’m happy to have them on the site. The tool they’ve given us is called Chat. It’s a little button in the bottom corner of the site. Click it and then follow along. It’ll ask you to answer some very specific questions related to Arsenal. Your reward? It’ll tell you what fans are thinking across those topics instantly. The hope is that we can get a more accurate view of what Arsenal fans are thinking, and it’ll give me some extra content to work with.

My main point of excitement here is tracking fan sentiment around the club in real-time.

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Well hello, I’ve been back in the UK, so the blog has taken a bit of a backseat. In fact, I would say this is the first time in many years Arsenal has not been top of mind, and I’ve been out the mix 3 days and I have ZERO idea what is going on.

So let’s just start on a ramble and see where we go.

Tomi, our new centre back that is a right-back stole the show on international break with a dominant aerial performance. Weird to have two fullbacks at the club that boast 6ft+ frames. I don’t know what the galaxy brain notion is here, but I do remember Olivier Giroud being very important for Arsenal defending set plays back in the day.

‘Tall people are good for high balls’

Maybe this one isn’t so hard to work out. Weird thing with Tomi is he seems to be the player that is most intriguing Arsenal fans. No one has a clue if we’ve signed Kagawa levels of Japanese talent or we’ve unearthed another Inamoto. I’m excited for him, he seems to have a very Premier League athletic profile and he’s young enough to grow. Doubt he’s going to start at the weekend, but I’m looking forward to seeing him regardless.

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Juuuuust a quick one today because I’m back in London doing London things.

Edu put down the grill for 5 minutes to talk to the media about our summer. It was pretty much the same things that Vinai had mentioned.

“I think we have to see the wider context than just the money around it,” 

“We signed six players who are under 23, which means a lot in terms of our planning.

“We started planning this squad a year ago in terms of consolidating the team and trying to get a better foundation. We have to balance the squad better.”

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I’m am SO thrilled to be out the backend of this transfer window.

Now the only pain you’ll be feeling is when Tierney picks up a knock on international duty.

This will be a short post today because I am FLYING WOO YES.

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What absolutely batshit crazy few weeks it has been.

In the end, ignoring the circus around Arsenal, the transfer window was pretty decent.

We signed 6 players.

• Lokonga > Ceballos
• Odegaard > Ozil
• Ramsdale > Runarsson
• White > Luiz
• Tavares > Xhaka (LB)
• Tomiyasu > Bellerin

It’s weird to sign that many players and not feel on top of the world. Most Arsenal fans are sad. Each signing is an improvement, all of them are young, and we’ve moved on some drossy deadwood. But I think the main issue we all have is… can you trust a system that has so consistently let us down?

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