Dan Critchlow

Stadium-wide round of applause for Ken Friar, including the Lille fans #AFC

Madueke only played five games at left-wing last season. Weirdly, three of them were against Leeds, Bayern, and Everton, three of the teams we're facing this month.

When Bruno’s first moment on the pitch was a pass accidentally forcing Gabriel out of play, I didn’t think he’d be firing home a winner two minutes later.

Not a good performance at all, so I guess I should be happy we won anyway. I’d like to believe it was a lethargic display because of the players just returning from injury and the early kick-off post-internationals. But it definitely needs to be better next week.

Lots of injury positives here. White back, Konsa, Rice, and Havertz fit to start(!), Hincapié in the squad, Mosquera apparently there as the extra man too. Guess we’re trying Madueke on the left over Eze, I’m not entirely surprised to be honest.

Rogers whining to the referee after that goal.

Almost the exact failed save they ditched Sanchez and signed Martinez for.

Huge cheer in the concourse for that Maitland-Niles finish.

T-Rex arms at it again.

There are a few Chelsea fans in the next tube carriage mockingly singing Arsenal songs, but pretty funny they’re singing “1-0 to the Arsenal”. Even in their mockery, we’re still winning.

Big game for Konsa’s debut, but I’m sure he’s up for it. Otherwise an entirely unsurprising lineup, wouldn’t have expected anything different.

The Arsenal transfer haters were right, we should’ve signed Bruno years ago.

We take those. 3 points up on last season already.

Eze coming on for Tzolis

Eze warming up individually with a fitness coach at half time.

New signings need to come on sooner rather than later. We need Bruno for his forward passing in midfield and we need Konsa because White has been awful.

Definitely not quite the same vibe when the away end is next to a construction site.

Nicolas Jackson straight in for Villa, hopefully it’s a quiet debut.

Good to see Konsa in the squad and Bruno back, not a surprising lineup, but that’s a good thing too. No Nwaneri as the loan talk continues.

Perfect start to the new season. Good football, exciting new signing, clean sheet, three points, top of the league. Happy days.

Feeling like Shkodran Mustafi because we are 🔙🔛🔝

Strong team. Sucks about Bruno, and obviously we’re still missing Saliba and Timber, but otherwise I’d say that’s our best side right now. One defender on the bench, we needed this Konsa signing.

Great to see a start for Bruno, and the final World Cup players (bar injured Saliba) back in the squad. Shame they can’t start yet, hopefully they’ll be ready for involvement next Friday.

Someone sent me a picture of the Martinelli offside and I used an online tool to add the lines, and yeah, he’s way onside. At least this one would never be ruled out with VAR. Right…?

Havertz, Gyokeres, and Hincapie returning to training gives us a sense of when to expect everyone else back. Gabriel and Martinelli should be back within the next week (pre-Betis), Odegaard the week after that (pre-Como), and everyone else the week after that (pre-PL start).

My winger at World Cups 🫡

Saka assist! As soon as I saw him get away from his man I was on the edge of my seat, knew he’d find the right pass.

Okay, not to harp on about it, but people were so incredibly wrong about Rice’s corner threat being reliant on illegitimate blocking. I’d be embarrassed to be one of those people watching this.

Another excellent Rice corner, should have been another goal. His deliveries are perfection.

Bellingham!!

Great response! These rule changes really hurting Rice’s corners, eh?

Bit lucky to get the retake, but oh well, we’ll take it.

Madueke already having an impact

Fun fact: Arsenal players have taken 1 corner at this World Cup, and it resulted in a goal. Martin Odegaard is the only Arsenal player to take a corner so far, assisting Leo Ostigard on his first try.

Very cool seeing so many of the big-name strikers performing, Messi, Haaland, Mbappé scoring multiple goals yesterday, Isak and both Arsenal strikers with 2+ g/a earlier in week. The World Cup is better when the big players properly show up.

Can’t complain about most of this Budapest trip. Fan park was class and good vibes, public transport worked and arrived when it said it would, stadium was nice. Shame the result goes and sours it all.

Sadly we only had one genuinely good penalty taker on the pitch at full time. We needed Saka, we needed Havertz, we needed Ødegaard, even Merino.

Happy with the team, obviously would’ve liked Timber but it was never likely from the start with 0 minutes of build-up. Glad he’s in the squad. As my brother says, good to have Gyokeres coming on, rather than starting and coming off, in case of penalties.

The “neutral” zones in this stadium appear to heavily skew in Arsenal’s favour. Like, they almost look like they’re just more Arsenal seats.

Decent stadium. Great seats too. Can they kick off already?

They’ve just brought out Gunnersaurus on stage at the fan park

Set to be sunny and 24 degrees at kick-off here in Budapest. Already a warm day, quite cloudy at the moment.

I had to watch the Palace match highlights yesterday, not because I couldn’t wait to relive the win, but because I missed about half the game amid the celebrations in the stands 😭

Said to my brother before Burnley that it was crazy that by the end of the week we could be 8 points clear of City or 4 behind them. Was just making a point about how much could still change, didn’t expect to actually end up 7 clear.

Thought that the stifling heat and my aching legs wobbling as I stood on my seat after an hour of waiting would dull my emotional reaction to the trophy lift. But no, I still teared up. This is our club, back on top.

The stage is set.