I don’t think Arsenal are ready to start the new season, do you?

Compare it to last season when we recorded a 4:0 win over Chelsea and a 6:0 thrashing of Sevilla, it’s night and day. Last year’s pre-season was an introduction of what’s to come.

 Our momentum carried into the season and a major reason was having a solid starting 11. This year we’ve been chopping and changing each game and I’m confused all over the pitch.

Let’s start with the defence. Who is our starting left back? Why was Zinny on the USA tour, apart from PR? He didn’t play, yet he’s to feature in a friendly game, just before we play City? Something is not right here. If he is going to focus on personal matters I’m fine with it, but let’s then leave him to it, and have him back when he’s mentally ready to play for us.

We’ve tried KT, Timber, Kiwior and Tommy at LB. For me the best options were KT and Timber, who’s been the shining light of the pre-season so far. Who will play against City is a wild guess though.

Bar a miracle or injury, I’d be shocked to see someone other than Saliba and Gabriel in the middle, but on the right I’ve really enjoyed Timber, so Benny Blanco is under pressure.

In the midfield, I think Thomas Partey is a must and pre-season showed again what only he can do in our midfield. He gives us control over games we just lack when he’s not on the pitch.

Odegaard is the best number 10 in our team by a country mile, as the Fabio Vieira experiment failed again. So there’s one spot left and it’s between Rice and Havertz and I think the German is the one seen as the Xhaka replacement.

Up front Saka is the obvious player on the right, due to form and lack of any real competition, but on the left Trossard really left some questions for the manager on whether he or Martinelli should start.

Up front is what really worries me. Jesus is out again for weeks, and we again haven’t solved the obvious striker issue. I know Eddie scored a goal and played alright against Monaco, but he’s not a title winning striker.

City have Haaland up front and we have Eddie, and they are the team we’re trying to fight against. That game against City means something. We haven’t beaten them in forever, we need to get one over them at some point, why not Sunday?

My overall reflection of the pre-seaaon is that some expectations adjustment will be required. I don’t think we’ll be title challengers based on what I’ve seen. I’m not sure we’ll be comfortably second either.

We started so well with the signings, but we haven’t addressed the striker situation, we’ll actually miss Granit Xhaka, as we haven’t settled on his replacement and new signings will need time to adjust.

I think, last year, Arteta just stumbled upon a system that works. He was probably surprised by how good Saliba was, Ben White worked at RB and Jesus and Zinny lifted us. The right pieces just fell into place.

Now we start the season with 3 really good players in addition and only Xhaka gone, but somehow our team feels weaker on the pitch, so here’s a quick note of warning. Just the fact that we’ve spent 200+ million, doesn’t mean we’ll be better on the pitch.

Declan Rice will need to be eased into our system. He may have captained West Ham, but this is Arsenal football club, expecting to challenge City for the title. We’re a team that demands the ball every game and we have to dominate midfield, battle low blocks and so on.

Anyway, Man City on Sunday will tell us some things, but I’ll just say that I’ve seen us beat City in the community shield before and then they go on to lift the title… So the result of this cup may not mean a lot for them, as they always hit the right form at the right time, but for us it does.

I want to see what our starting line up would be, I want to see intensity, good pressure, confidence in possession, and I wanna win. We need to show that were ready to battle with City again, because right now I don’t think we are…