Rust and dust everywhere in preseason opener

It wasn’t any football master class on Tuesday in Edinburgh, Scotland, in fact, it looked more like the early preseason scrimmage it was.

The rust and dust was everywhere. Obviously, training camp has only begun and the players definitely need more conditioning and drilling to get match fit before August 13th.

The final, Hibernian 2 – Arsenal 1.

Mikel Arsenal told Arsenal.com after the match, “Well I’m always disappointed when we lose a football match but it is the first game, we played with many kids and we only had four training sessions. We’ve trained really hard and you could see that the players were a little bit leggy. I think we conceded the first goal, an accident, and the second goal was clearly offside. We created many, many chances but we didn’t score. That’s what pre-season is for, to take the things that we haven’t done well into a training session and then improve.”

Yes, there were boggles and blunders, missed opportunities and rookie mistakes, however, at the end of the day there were also two good performances. Both Emile Smith Rowe and Reiss Nelson played well. Nelson almost scored, while Smith did get the club’s only goal.

To say the least, this wasn’t the Arsenal we want to see when the season opens in 30 days. There will be players coming and going, tactics to install, new set pieces to learn, and so much more to jam into the next month of preseason training. There is also a trip to the U.S., plus two London preseason derbies to be played. All of this before the regular season opener on August 13th at Brentford.

The key now is for Arteta to build his squad, get them playing together as a team, plus have them fit and ready for the long campaign ahead.

Next up, the historic Rangers on Saturday at 9 am EDT.

Cheers.

Gunner1953