Pre-Season 2025/2026: Page 43 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Pre-Season 2025/2026

TambourineMan

Kel Varnsen it's not just pre-season though. it was the bulk of last season too, and what we’re seeing is a continuation of the same patterns. so it's not out of character for us to play the way we have been in pre-season so far, it's become the baseline. Nothing suggests anything is going to change - that is the concern.

if we killed it last season and are now struggling in pre-season, we could reasonably expect that things will pick up again. but when we were shit last season and are now looking shit again, it's blind optimism hoping that things will miraculously change when we step onto the pitch at OT in 10 days.

Segway

TambourineMan We were not shit last season come on. Not perfect but certainly not terrible either. United were shit.

Gurgen

It’s not blind optimism though. We have much better players than last season. For example, we finally have a real striker and a competent deep playmaker. Also, Saka and Odegaard are not injured.

JazzG

Gurgen We got second last season with an unprecedented injury crisis, we’ve improved our CM. Added good quality in defence, midfield and in attack, Nwaneri + MLS are a year older, Dowman looks a generational talent yet I’m hearing we’ve gone backwards and people are already mentally thinking up different options to Arteta!

Preseason of 23/24 we lost to Man Utd, drew against Monaco and Nuremberg and for a good few months took us time to find the right mix. Only when Havertz went to CF and Rice moved to 8 did we really push on and nearly won the title.

awooga83

JazzG this works both ways though,we had a lot of bad luck last season so I can see saying what an achievement that is.

But the previous season we had a lot of good luck with injuries and form stringing together an exceptional second half to the season and still came second so is that a bad achievement when things ran for us we couldn't close it out. It's human nature to remember and point to the bad luck but to disregard good but if you appraise things that way you have to apply it to both sets of outcomes.

flobaba

United is not the standard we should be comparing ourselves to. And we were very poor last season. Hard to watch. Saved by set pieces. Imagine no Dowman penalty and no corner goal yesterday. We'd have lost 3-0.

To Villarreal.

At home.

The sky isn't necessarily falling at this moment, but the earth surely is trembling.

Burnwinter

Glass Half Full (or Sunshine Kid in rainy season) bulletin:

We've recruited well. At minimum we've signed a fine backup defender, 6 and 9 and we're still hunting the ideal left-sided player. This is not a problem.

We look leggy and battered but it's preseason. Season long condition still has to be tapered into life.

Having both Madueke and Dowman knocking round is one of those good problems.

Having a much stronger bench than last season, and seeing those players given chances to figure things out in preseason is not a problem either, not even when they fuck up a bit.

We've got a relatively tough start to the league season so if we don't drop loads of points from our first few we'll be in decent shape. It's all about process and staying the distance.

Qwiss

Liverpool shipped 4 goals and lost against Milan who we managed a comfortable win against. They beat Atleti twice in a day so I'm not sure what was going on there and they won against Yokohama F.Marinos. Citys last game was a competitive loss to Al Hilal and they haven't even started pre-season. Chelsea lost their only pre-season game to some non-league side called Sholing.

We've had the most intense pre-season of the top 4 and its normal we looked a bit off it with mixed up sides and a lot of tough games in quick succession while unfit. Don't forget we beat Milan and Newcastle too. We were sloppy at the back yesterday, that's a bit concerning but we've big players returning in the back line. I don't understand why people are so upset about us playing the same way as the last few seasons, were you really expecting big tactical changes? Our style will likely develop into some different attacking patterns due to Gyokeres arrival but that will take time, this was his first real game with the team so the chemistry isn't there yet.

We might need to grind out some results before things really click but thats usually what we are good at. I don't understand how people are so down on the team after such a crazy summer and finally signing a real striker. No point being pre-emptively miserable. Its a new season, lets go!

Klaus

Qwiss Yeah this is the correct attitude. It was a shit game yesterday. I got a bit disheartened by it, slept on it, and have moved on.

Ultimately preseason results means nothing. The only correlation between it and the actual season is that if you don't have a full preseason you're not going to be ready for real football because you can't cope with the intensity. That actually spells bad news for both City and Chelsea, who you'd assume would be two of our biggest rivals this year.

Burnwinter

Qwiss Thank you, I can understand a bit of expectation management and not walking into any jinxes but the sport's meant to be fun.

Tam

Qwiss Our style will likely develop into some different attacking patterns due to Gyokeres arrival but that will take time, this was his first real game with the team so the chemistry isn't there yet.

That's my issue. Didn't need to be the case. My initial view was we could have had him in earlier for a couple of million more. If rumours are to be believed, it seems like we could have had him in earlier but dilly dallied due to the Isak situation, then didn't do anything about it.

I haven't seen the last two games so I'm not going to get caught up with being overly concerned just now, but from what I've read it does seem like we would be somewhat better off having had the benefit of Gyokeres in for a few extra games and sessions with the team. If he needs a few games into the league season to get up to speed as a result it could be a costly mistake.

JazzG

Qwiss There is no place for reasonable takes like this on an Arsenal forum, you should know better!

Sicario2

It’s all well and good saying pre-season doesn’t mean anything but a loss v Utd opening game and everything will be unleashed. Gates of hell would open. We just need to be conscious of this.

I honestly feel a win this Sat, albeit in a friendly, would do us the world of good.

Don Pacifico

Sicario2 It’s all well and good saying pre-season doesn’t mean anything but a loss v Utd opening game and everything will be unleashed.

Yes.

Because that's the actual season, not pre-season. 😉

Qwiss

awooga83 But the previous season we had a lot of good luck with injuries

I don't think missing 2 starters (Timber and Partey) nearly all season can really be seen as good injury luck.

JazzG

awooga83 The previous season we had Timber out the whole season and Partey only made 9 starts, Zinchenko was our first choice LB and he missed a large chunk as did Tomi. I think Vieira got injured that season as did ESR as well Jesus who missed a fair chunk of the season

So we had plenty of injuries that season but were fortunate our core players like Rice, Saka, Odegaard, White, Havertz, Martinelli, Gabriel and Saliba played most of the season. Last season we ended up losing a lot of those guys which killed us.

Don Pacifico

Tam not convinced that a fortnight will have that much bearing come the end of a 9 month season. And yes, we do have a tough start but I think this point has been a little over-egged to be honest.

awooga83

Qwiss At that point we hadn't seen the impact of timber in the team. Crucially Saka and Odegaard were available and performing pretty much at the top of their level at that time which is very good fortune I would say and havertz upped his output too. These are all very good things that may not always be repeatable.

Also the run we put together is not a normal outcome it's at the top range of what you would hope for and for me is exactly because we had prepared well but also got fortunate on availability and performance level of our key players. Any season will have injuries but ideally your key players can play most games and that's what happend in that season for be with Ode and Saka. If that season wasn't a good luck season in regards variance I'm not sure what one would be.

awooga83

JazzG yeah I think that's the point the core stayed fit and that is good fortune because there will always be injuries.

Qwiss

awooga83 At that point we hadn't seen the impact of timber in the team.

That doesn't really matter. We had bought him and were paying his wages. He was part of the squad.

awooga83 Crucially Saka and Odegaard were available and performing pretty much at the top of their level at that time which is very good fortune

Having 2 of your best players fit isn't "very good fortune". Its largely expected. Its just further misfortune if you lose them on top of the season long starters we had missing.

awooga83 Also the run we put together is not a normal outcome it's at the top range of what you would hope for and for me is exactly because we had prepared well but also got fortunate on availability and performance level of our key players. Any season will have injuries but ideally your key players can play most games and that's what happend in that season for be with Ode and Saka. If that season wasn't a good luck season in regards variance I'm not sure what one would be.

Of course every season has injuries, and we had our share that season. We were not "very fortunate with injuries" or whatever. We still had plenty of issues. Just not nearly as bad as the 24/25 seasons which was a ridiculously bad season for injuries. Like I say any team that had 2 players as important as Partey and Timber out all season would call it a bad injury season, look at City last year, Rodri is their Partey and that alone was enough for them to cry about their injury woes.

JazzG

Qwiss A few years back when VVD got injured for Liverpool their whole season collapsed, people underestimate how a key player being out can completely mess with the balance of the whole team.

awooga83

Qwiss we aren't likely to agree on this aspect, I think if you want to plead bad luck as undoing us you have to be willing to acknowledge good luck and for me our key attacking players staying fit and pretty much all having consistent and high performance is a variance that doesn't always occur together so to have that happen I think is good fortune. The run of results we got is testament to that as well, I don't think that's a normal sequence but an exceptionally good one which luck plays a part in enabling and is why I didn't think we are likely to replicate that kind of run.

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