Clichés abounded on the first weekend of the new Premier League season. We were treated to the reassuringly familiar sight of Soccer Saturday’s Jeff Stelling holding court and Paul Merson tripping over his own tongue. Garth Crooks decided that having seen Harry Maguire play 90 minutes for his new club that the £80 million fee had gone from a joke to a masterstroke. Graeme Souness did his best impression of a shit, grumpy radio commentator by stating the bleeding obvious very, very slowly. Football was back.

One cliché was missing though, probably due to the reset expectations of Arsenal following our fall out of the Top 4 and Liverpool’s & City’s dominance last season: our ugly win in Newcastle wasn’t followed with ‘That’s the sign of champions’. Nevertheless, an away win, a clean sheet and a reasonably untroubled defensive display provides an excellent starting point in a season which should hopefully see this side start on a trajectory towards being genuinely competitive once again.

The Game

As anticipated on the basis of his pre-match comments, Emery opted for players who had proven their fitness and impressed over the course of pre-season, rather than immediately deploying the considerable array of incoming talent acquired over the transfer window. With Lacazette & Torreira also still returning to full fitness and Özil & Kolasinac still embroiled in a deeply disturbing gang feud which rendered the two unable to travel to the North East, that meant playing a side which looked a little way from our strongest.

Joe Willock’s confidence, gazelle-like running through midfield and defensive maturity in pre-season earned him a start ahead of our well-oiled Spaniard, Dani Ceballos, and Reiss Nelson was given a chance to show why we needn’t miss the influence of Alex Iwobi too much down the left-hand side. Elsewhere, Mkhitaryan’s erratic pre-season didn’t preclude his place in the side, whilst our worryingly makeshift defence would be marshalled by Sokratis & Calum Chambers, given the nod over the not yet fully acclimatised David Luiz.

The first-half reflected the relative weakness of our side. Nelson and Willock worked hard and didn’t look out of place, but struggled to have a major influence on the game going forward. Xhaka, typically, struggled to cope with the intensity of Newcastle’s pressing in the first half-hour. Mkhitaryan got himself involved but overhit so many simple passes that you wondered if he had a vendetta against the ballboys. The Armenian was involved in our two best moments of the first half, blazing a good chance just out of Row Z’s reach from 12 yards out, and then finally finding the right ball over the top for Aubameyang, who forced the save from Dubravka. Other than that, it was pretty anodyne – and with Newcastle coming close through record signing Joelinton and the ‘only turns up when Arsenal come to town’ Jonjo Shelvey, it was a mildly concerning half of football.

With the second half starting more or less in the same way, Newcastle not showing the same intensity or threat but Arsenal still lacking penetration, the game looked set for some attacking changes from Unai Emery. In the end though a defensive lapse from Newcastle flipped the script, Dummett’s pass out left to Willems sticking in the sodden turf, and with the Dutchman caught on his heels Maitland-Niles swooped in to intercept. The young man’s rapid drive up the right wing was reminiscent of a teenage Hector Bellerin in full flight, and with Lascelles drawn towards Mkhitaryan, Maitland-Niles picked out the far more lethal Aubameyang at the back post. The striker made a tricky take-down and finish on a slippery surface look utterly effortless, flicking impudently past Dubravka. As Arsenal cavorted in the corner, Maitland-Niles got some satisfaction for his part in the goal by taking a flying leap and clonking Ceballos in the face – Hola Dani, welcome to the Premier League.

From then on, a deflated Newcastle barely threatened; their new winger Saint-Maximin looked bright but couldn’t produce a moment of decisive quality, and only a late flick on from a free-kick came close to scuttling past Leno. Three of the new boys got their bow, with Ceballos growing into things after a slightly profligate start in possession, while neither Pepe nor Martinelli really got a chance to stretch their legs in transition – though there was time for Pepe to perform a deft feint to beat his man and show a glimpse of what’s to come from him. Clearly the lack of a 5 minute debut hat-trick provoked some mockery from rival fans on Twitter, but I think we have to manage expectations around the Ivorian and accept it will probably be more like mid-September by the time he’s fit and firing. Having failed to produce the transfer review and season preview I intended to before Sunday, I’ll write a few pieces this week about the different parts of our side and what value I think the new boys can add.

The performance was hardly spectacular, but you can’t argue with the result, and given how many players were either missing or not fully fit to start I’m encouraged by the result and the solidity we showed. There were only a couple of moments of real defensive concern, and Chambers and Sokratis generally kept the strong, physical Joelinton pretty quiet. I thought Chambers in particular showed composure in possession and maturity in his positioning, building on a positive loan spell (despite relegation) at Fulham last season. Likewise Maitland-Niles barely put a foot wrong in defence, and looked a lot more secure on the ball than he has for most of pre-season; perhaps his calamitous own-goal in the Nou Camp was a wake-up call. He also showed great anticipation and superb pace to set up the goal for Aubameyang.

Joe Willock wasn’t at his best in possession in what was a disjointed team performance in the first half, but he continues to display confidence, composure and tactical acumen well beyond his years, particularly with a fantastic recovery tackle on Shelvey which provoked a delighted jig from Emery. The lad will build on this and has a very bright future. Nelson also showed glimpses of quality and a real willingness to keep himself and the ball moving quickly, pulling opposition defenders out of position, which bodes well for our fluid attacking strategy with lots of overlapping from the full-backs. Guendouzi also showed admirable spirit and ownership in midfield – all in all, a promising if not scintillating game for our young starlets.

Despite the fact that he typically gets the most attention of any player from Arsenal fans, I think Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang also deserves a word here. The man is surely as confident as he’s ever been in an Arsenal shirt after a strong pre-season following on from an excellent run at the end of last campaign, and he took his goal so effortlessly you almost expected him to celebrate with a nice cold mojito and a pair of shades on. Whilst he’s not always the most influential player in terms of getting on the ball and driving build-up play, having a striker who only needs one decent chance to stick the ball away is priceless, especially in a tight away game with a weakened team. Robin van Persie was certainly a cleaner and more accurate striker of the ball than Aubameyang, but great goalscorers always seem to make the right run, and have so much time when they get in front of goal – and in terms of being able to finish chances at close range and in tight spaces, or convert tricky passes with ease, I don’t think we’ve had a better striker since Thierry Henry.

All in all a solid result, and I’m very much looking forward to being at the Emirates for Burnley this weekend!

Elsewhere

With so much excitement surrounding the return of the Premier League, I also tried to catch the other big teams’ first games to see if there was anything to learn. City and Liverpool continue to look well ahead of the pack, although Liverpool seem perhaps a little more vulnerable defensively than last time. Spurs were fortunate to beat Aston Villa; I feel that, given how skittish they were on the ball until Eriksen came on, the Dane could be a big miss for them, although Ndombele settled well after scoring the equaliser and no.1 Gooner Kane got himself up and running with a late winner and then a tidy finish to add a probably unmerited gloss. Aston Villa could be dangerous opposition this season; their midfield looks compact and capable and they’ve got some exciting wingers – certainly better than the Fulham side of last year they’ve been unfairly compared to.

Manchester United then thrashed Chelsea 4-0 in a bizarre game which should really have seen Chelsea one or two up at half-time, not that that stopped the rhapsodising over Maguire. Chelsea looked a little frenetic in possession – though they did threaten regularly especially in the first half – and all over the place defensively. However they will surely improve on that performance, and I still think they’ll challenge for the top 4, even if they certainly didn’t show anything we need to be particularly afraid of. United meanwhile generally looked pretty average, but they were certainly clinical when they did get chances and the result will be a big confidence booster for them after a miserable end to last season. Pogba had one of his less sulky days, producing one sumptuous pass over the top for Rashford to score, and I do feel that United will continue to set up fluidly in attack and could do a similar job on us if we defend against them like we did last season. I agree with Mourinho though that an approach like that will be more difficult to pull off against sides sitting deeper and more compact – sides who don’t make it as easy to play against them – and so over the course of the season I don’t think there’s too much to fear from them either. That’s not to say they won’t finish above us, only that I think it’s pretty realistic that we can beat them to a top 4 spot.

That’s it – more this week on the new lads and how they change the shape of our squad for the season!