Another Arsenal deal confirmed. 3rd Kit launched. The signs are there, but bad habits take a while to eradicate….

Morning all.

There’s a reason for sayings like ‘Old habits die hard,’ ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ or ‘miracles don’t happen overnight’ etc etc, they haven’t just been made up for fun have they? No, they are real and that’s because new things can’t be taught in a short space of time, especially when the teacher has to help the student remove old bad habits first. The mindset has to adjust, in football, the feet too along with every other part of the human body. The Arsenal players from last season have plenty of bad habits to eradicate before they can fully perform in the new way, the Unai Emery way and if anyone expected those changes to be taken on board and shown on the pitch from day one of pre-season, well all I can say is they are living in a fantasy world. Emery and his coaching staff has had just over three weeks with most, less time with others and for the likes of Ozil, Elneny, Iwobi, the last few days in Singapore has been their only experience of the new regime. Torriera, Xhaka and Ospina are yet to join up with the squad so they will be even further behind in their preparation for the new season. As I’ve said before, it took Pep Guardiola a full season to turn Man City into Premier League Champions and he had an bottomless pit as far as transfer funds go so we’re going to have to be patient. For City though, it hadn’t been thirteen odd years since they’d last won the league, whereas for us, it has so the pressure gets piled on. Forget there are seventeen other clubs each season who haven’t won it either let alone other ‘big clubs’ who haven’t won the big trophy since back in the nineties if at all. Yes you Totts, Liverpool, Everton, West Ham, etc etc. But still, it’s always Arsenal who hit the headlines with the old ‘how many years?’ headline…..

Compare these two headlines:

‘Arsenal 1-1 Atletico Madrid (1-3 pens): Emile Smith Rowe scores in vain as Gunners slip to defeat.’

‘Manchester City 1-2 Liverpool: Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah respond after Leroy Sane stunner.’

Er, wasn’t Smith-Rowe’s a stunner? Anyway, their constant anti Arsenal theme will long continue, that’s for sure and I bet they can’t wait for Unai Emery and Arsenal to fail.

We learned a few things from yesterday I thought. Emile Smith-Rowe isn’t afraid to shoot, we’ve ditch the zonal marking and we’re rubbish at penalties. We still struggle to score against a top class keeper and at times, albeit from a few highlights only, the minds seems to wander and a few took their eye of the game. That’ll all change I’m sure and bearing in mind how hot it is in Singapore, perhaps the humidity played it’s part. There were plenty of changes throughout the game too so all in all, nearly everyone had another good run out.

Bernd Leno had little to do during his 45 minute display apart from picking the ball out of the net after Atletico scored. No doubt Rob Holding will be looking at the part he played in conceding the goal, or certainly the coaching staff will be. Guendouzi did well and despite losing the ball on one occasion, he soon made amends by getting it back. Now that’s something new for an Arsenal player to do. As for the rest of the game, well the stats suggest we bossed it but weren’t clinical enough in front of goal but let’s be honest, there aren’t many better than Oblak and thank goodness we won’t be facing him in the league. Nor in Europa as they return to the Champions League this campaign.

Those who didn’t play yesterday will get some time on the pitch against PSG tomorrow when perhaps our new third kit, which has now been officially launched, will be worn. Not sure if I like it or not..

Finally, Arsenal have confirmed  they’ve secured a new global partnership with leading technology company Acronis as our Official Data Backup Partner. Acronis is a global leader in data protection and hybrid cloud storage. As part of the agreement, Acronis will deliver efficient and secure data protection for our data, which includes storage of every first-team and academy training session recorded at our training ground in Colney. This amounts to 8TB of data a year, the equivalent of 875 matches. – From AFC.com.

TGIF, have a good one…