Summer thoughts. Have we bulked up enough?

Home victory over Athletic Bilbao concludes the overall blend pre-season program.

Now, training matches don't usually tell us much about what's going to happen when the real action starts. However, they can be a cracking opportunity to spot new patterns, see players really turn it on without the weight of a result on their shoulders, and even pop up in positions you'd rarely expect. The only game that truly fit that bill was Saturday's win over Athletic.

Gyokeres opened his Arsenal scoring account with a header and was inches away from bagging another! That’s James Cameron-level script we are talking about after all the header-related criticism Viktor got before signing for us. And even if there’s only gonna be two headers from him in the entire season it’s nice that he already netted one. What goes as a red line through all his chances is the immense determination to make it work at Arsenal. It looks like he’s not going to give up until he starts regularly scoring goals, and that, for me, is half the battle. There have been so many talented players who lost all their confidence because their start was far from being smooth. If they had the same determination as Gyokeres radiates, who knows where their careers would go.

We’ve also seen vertical counterattacks, Saka was on his expected dangerous levels, Zubimendi put in his best performance yet for us. And even Havertz, feeling the heat of competition from the bench, bagged a fantastic goal. While his run was impressive in itself, the way he strikes the ball just won't be enough against top-class keepers like Courtois, Donnarumma, or Alisson. Gyokeres, despite his known limitations, can strike a ball with real venom, a quality this team has been crying out for.

The starting line-up looked like the one that would be chosen in the opening clash of the season at Old Trafford. All the substitutions were like-for-like, no messing about with the formation. I would say that I still expect traditional Havertz and Lewis-Skelly starting against United. Conservatism is one of Arteta's pillars and I'm pretty sure he'll go with the least risky set-up for the first game of the season.

Rest of the games though?

The rest of the games, though? We've seen the same old stodgy football: heaps of possession, a snail's pace in moving the ball, a low volume of clear-cut chances and, consequently, just one goal from open play and even that was clumsy.

The left flank looks unconvincing, pretty much a carbon copy of last season. As a result, the only glimmer of hope for fresh ideas down that wing comes from Madueke- a signing that frankly nobody (except the dedicated fan boys) got too excited about. Just because we haven’t seen him, can we hope that he becomes a saviour of our left wing troubles? It'd be a bit naive to expect him to suddenly turn into a game-changer. After all, he's had two years in this league already, and every team has faced him. But at least having a different option on the left can give a bit of unjustifyable hope. From what we've witnessed so far, he's mostly been deployed as a left winger, despite clearly practising those box penetrations from the right in the training videos.

Do we have enough new players and ideas in the squad to bag us those victories, to turn those 15 draws into three points? As it stands, the only ceiling-raising addition to our team is Zubimendi, once he gets adjusted to the Premier League. The rest? Looks like more firepower to do the same old stuff.

The common positive impression from these games is that our most exciting player is young Max Dowman. I don’t want to get into the teenager hype train, but I can easily see him as the player that comes for the last 20 minutes (not 5 minutes, Mikel, you are doing a disservice to everyone with such subs) to try and open up the defences through individual skill. We don’t have an abundance of players that can open up defenses through individual squads. And if Dowman showed it against Newcastle and Villareal, I can't see why he can't do the business against other Premier League teams.

I genuinely want to get excited about Max, but then I remember there was an identical situation with Ethan a year ago. He looked sharp, he looked ready, he brought that same fresh spark that we usually have to squint to see. Consequently, in the first part of the season, he was electric on the pitch and livened up the game every time he appeared, bagging a decent few goals. As the second half rolled around, he became less inspired and produced less of that magic before being reduced to polishing the bench.

Is it the inherent instability of young players? Or does Arteta shackle them so tightly that all their flair gets lost? Does he teach them that retaining possession should be preferred to any daring move on the pitch?

One contract signed, another one to go?

On the positive side, Ethan has finally signed a new contract. While I am pretty excited for him, I am extremely skeptical of the number of opportunities he can have this season. In order to get regular minutes, he needs to get into Arteta’s trusted circle or "Tier 1" as Arteta mentioned himself, a label I find diminishing, as players should be judged on skill and performance.

While I'm excited about Ethan's potential, Dowman occupies similar areas of the pitch, making it hard to see Ethan playing even 1500 competitive minutes, especially if Eze joins. Currently it seems unlikely due to complete lack of good sales, which is a yet another topic.

While Ethan staying with us is undoubtedly a great piece of news, there are a couple of big games that still didn’t put pen to paper. And I have a strong suspicion that some of them won’t After much thought, I've concluded that Saliba has no logical reason to sign a new contract with Arsenal. He's young, already one of the world's best in his position, and would be a starter for any top club like Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern, or Barcelona. He and his agent know this, as do other clubs.

What can he gain by signing a new contract with Arsenal? Perhaps an extra year with an improved salary, at most an additional £100,000 per week, totaling an extra £5 million annually. This likely wouldn't even cover half of Real Madrid's sign-on bonus if he moved there as a free agent, and we know how much Don Perez favors such deals.

Even if he refuses to sign a contract and gets his gaming time reduced or becomes even totally benched (which I highly doubt, because Arteta needs and wants to win something and Saliba is our best RCB), it wouldn’t in any occasion deter the potential buyers. A 24-25 year old centre back already at a world-class level is as hot as it gets.

At the same time, if Saliba decides to wait for the next summer to make his decision, he can see where Arsenal and Arteta’s project is moving. Are we winning something big? Do we reach the Champions League final? At the same time, is Xabi Alonso still rocking his chair in Madrid? A year later Saliba would have more information to make a correct decision about his future. And Arsenal would still offer him a great contract, because he knows how much of an asset he is. I think Arsenal leadership, including Andrea Berta, sense the risk of this situation and that’s why they’ve pushed for signing Mosquera as a potential successor should William leave.

The only scenario that could motivate Saliba to sign the extension is if the new contract includes a moderate release clause not worthy of Saliba’s talent. Something around £70-75 million that would be widely acceptable to potential suitors.

Two attacking set-ups

Let’s come back to our plans for the season though. Gyokeres, the statement signing of Berta so far, has a different playing style from what we are used to at #9. He is all about fast transitions, running in behind the defenders and getting spaces to shoot. We will have to adapt, if we want to get him on the scoresheet regularly. We saw glimpses of vertical attacks from the team yesterday, but will this trend hold? Will Odegaard pass the ball forward at every opportunity (just like he did for Martinelli before the second goal) or will he wait until everyone is back in the horse shoe? The wild idea I have in mind is that we might have two completely different minded attacks assembled in the squad.

First is the known horseshoe-shaped one from the last one and a half seasons. They are all about ball control and derisking the game. The way it stands, this is a front four of Odegaard, Havertz, Saka and Trossard. They start, play for 60 minutes, and ask opponents traditional Arteta-football questions.

And that somewhere in the second half we might completely change the attacking set up. We unleash the direct counterattacking front four that includes Gyokeres, Madueke, Martinelli, and Eze or one of our youngsters. We start playing vertical football based on progressive ball carries and through passes without caring about possession, like a bunch of hippies. The opponents won't have enough time to rebuild their defence, because it’s not happening at the half time and the. And Zubimendi + Rice would have to adapt to both styles in which I have no doubts, Saka actually also has qualities for such versatility.

Hard to imagine Arteta sanctioning that though. He (as well as his bald mentor) strikes as the last person in the Premier League to be chill about possession. But we need to bring something new to the table, don’t we?

It’s funny how ALL the strikers that showed themselves as goalscoring prospects in second tier clubs are moving into the big 6, despite some of them missing out on European football completely.

• Man Utd acquired Cunha, Mbeumo and Sesko (who’s that?) is on the way

• Chelsea signed Joao Pedro and Delap

• Marmoush moved to CIty half a year ago

• Gyökeres claiming number 14 at the Emirates

• Ekitike is a Liverpool player and all the rumours around Isak make me believe that after selling Diaz to Bayern and Darwin to Saudi Arabia, Liverpool will splash the received cash out on Isak as well.

• And Newcastle was looking at all those names as Isak replacement and now having their eye on a powerhouse Samu Omorodion from Porto.

I literally haven’t heard of any other young attacking prospects in Europe, except maybe Victor Boniface from Leverkusen. It’s funny how everyone just decided that they need to buy the ticket on the attacker hype train, despite it not necessarily being their major weakness.

But who has made a powerful statement is the reigning PL champions. The front three of Wirtz, Isak and Salah, supported by Frimpong and Kerkez, with Ekitike eagerly smirking from the bench? That looks crap-my-pants-after-an-expired-burrito scary. The only way I can condone myself (and the pants obviously) is that after loading up on so many individual talents, Premier League opponents would just accept their fate that one point is the most they can hope for, that they need to fall back into the deepest of the blocks and hope for a two man counter attack as their only weapon and I am not sure Slot’s Liverpool is comfortable with that.

Comfortable or not, have we bulked up enough to compete with them?

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