The first few episodes highlight how it can be a lot more complicated than we tend to make out when we're arguing about why this or that youngster are not in the team. Nelson strikes me as being one that maybe hasn't yet been able to grasp the nettle and assert himself in the dressing room in the way Smith Rowe has managed to - even if he himself still has a long way to go. For me, that's obvious on the pitch too with ESR, and that's why I love the session he had with Stuivenberg, it was spot on feedback he gave hm. I feel with Emile it's just going to bang one day and he will be an "instant" superstar, even if it will have been years and years of working hard at aspects of his game and mentality to have made it there.
I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 episodes. There's a really good thing going on at Arsenal - from the owners to all the staff - and that has been shown so far.
Arteta is young and working it all out, but there is something very special about the way he conducts himself and the respect he commands as a result. I'm very interested to see how the dynamics will have changed as the series starts to cover the latter part of the season. I suspect Arteta will have these guys on board even more as the squad and the new signings settle and the squad becomes more in his likeness. We definitely saw that on the pitch.
What a very impressive team Arteta and Edu have built though. Stuivenberg, Cuesta, Rowley, Jover, even the team doctor O'Driscoll (you can see why Arteta fought hard to keep him at the club when Liverpool had all but nabbed him - he's fantastic), and I'm sure there are a load of other guys and gals that are extremely good at what they do and very important to the squad too. You can see that high performance culture that Arteta talked about building being reinforced and expanded upon all the time.
Arsenal is headed in a very good direction.
