Belief renewed despite a lack of options and focus
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The only way to score is, of course, to play with a hand break off.

I'm sure you don't want to be reminded, but we're going to do it anyway. The Arsenal drew 2-2 with Aston Villa after throwing away a two-goal lead. To reflect on the game and discuss where it leaves Arsenal in the title race, I'm joined by Amy Lawrence and Adrian Clarke. Good morning. Good morning. Morning. Morning.

Now, obviously, it's only been a few hours since we last saw each other because the entire podcast crew, not just the three of us, but also James and Art, did come to a swanky London hotel for the Football Writers' Dinner to honour one of the greats.

Dennis Bergkamp, the star-studded evening, Ian Wright, Thierry Henry, Alcevenga, Dave Seaman, Martin Keown, Ray Parler, amongst others, and one young chap called Miles Lewis Skelly. Amy, I think that every time there's a disappointing result, we need an embrace from our Gouda family, right? Yeah, it definitely perked everyone up a bit, didn't it? It did, a little bit. You met Miles Lewis Skelly. He seems like a fine young man. I think it was exemplary of him. I mean, he's been...

a beacon since he came into the first team. And then when you see these little extra things such as coming along to an event like that so that he can touch base with the history and lineage of the club and have some sort of insight and contact into some of the legends of the past, I think shows the character of the young man. You know, you don't have to do that stuff. Some people might prefer to spend their Sunday evening with their feet up and he got himself spruced up like the rest of us and he

came to pay his respects to Dennis and see, you know, see a little bit of that other side of life. I think his, you know, his world is moving very quickly suddenly. But, you know, again, another little insight is he went home early so that he could get his sleep. He didn't stick around like a lot of people who were not current Premier League footballers and made sure he looked after himself. First priority. So, yeah,

Top marks all round that young man. Quite. Adrian, did you meet him, by the way? Did you chat to him at all? I didn't, no. No, I didn't. No, I didn't even... I didn't see him. I found out later that he was there. But, yeah, no. I chatted to a load of old teammates, bumped into a few. Saw Keown and Parler. Saw Colin Lewin, Gary Lewin, people like that. It was great. I did say hello to Dennis from across a big table. He was the other side of the big table. And we caught eyes.

And I was chuffed to bits. He was like, yeah. He sort of clocked me and it was like, hey, how you doing sort of thing, you know. A little bit of miming across the table because it was too noisy. But that was nice. I loved the evening. Well, we had a montage. We had a montage of Dennis's best moments, which, by the way, lasted for about three minutes. Could have been an hour. I'd have been happy to sit there and so would everyone. Yeah, yeah. It was glorious, wasn't it? It was just nice to reminisce. It's nice.

to remember how good it was. And look, things are pretty good at the moment, but it's nights like that where you think, yeah, that was a little bit special. And I thought with all the speeches from Wrighty and Arsene Wenger in particular, where he sort of admitted he didn't really sort of always appreciate it at the time, but he's had time to reflect and it's made him realise what a special time it was, what a special group of people that he was working with.

It was a brilliant night for anyone that loves the Arsenal. Yeah, quite. And Amy, one more thing before we talk about the actual game. When Dennis was talking to John Cross, who's the head of the Football Writers, and he did a little interview, and he said he always thinks about Johan Cruyff and what Johan Cruyff said. Oh, that was amazing. When he said that winning without entertainment is not really what you want and entertaining without winning is also not what you want. And I have to say that sort of,

He stabbed a little bit when he said that. I don't know what you thought about that particular moment. Oh my God, I think time stood still. That was probably one of the highlights of the evening when he said that. And I love the fact that he, you know, paid homage to Johan Cruyff in that moment as well. It's kind of bringing the, you know, he was someone who, there was a passing of the baton from Cruyff to Dennis and Dennis took that on and he brought it to Arsenal.

You know, that very iconic way of not just playing, but thinking about the game. Cruyff was a poet when he talks about football, never mind what he actually could do with his feet. And I just think that got to the nub of what Dennis and to an extension of that, all that team was all about.

but winning beautifully. Yeah, quite. It's the Holy Grail, isn't it? That's what we're all after. And that group managed it. And hopefully this group can get there. At the moment, you know, we just had a few setbacks. But, you know, you never know. We crave for those days again, don't we? We have. And by the way, for our younger listeners, Joanne Cruyff,

If you watch modern football, it's sort of... A lot of it is him. By the way. I mean, a lot of it is him. But anyway, have a look on YouTube. There's plenty of clips. Arsenal 2, Aston Villa 2. 12 points dropped from winning positions compared to Liverpool's 4. Already the most we've dropped in a season since 2019-2020. Adrian, we...

we can't be giving up two new leads at home in a title race. Dennis Bergkamp's team, the team of the players that were sitting in that ballroom last night, would not have done that. No. Yeah, you've got to be more resilient. You've got to manage games better. And you've got to concentrate until the end. And unfortunately...

That's where we've sort of had issues. Obviously, in this case, Thomas Partey makes a really bad decision to come out and play offside when there's no pressure on the cross and no one else is stepping up. And that's a bad call. It's a lack of focus, concentration and a city away. It's been a brilliant performance with 10 men, but that last corner, we were slow to react late on in the game.

I think Brighton against 10 men or when we had 10 men rather, we sort of sat back and invited pressure and paid for that. So yeah, even the sleeve of pen, which was harsh, was a ragged piece of play when we were in a position of ascendancy. So there's been various moments in the season where,

We've made rash decisions, bad calls, lost focus in the second half of games. It's hard to explain, but it's something that you've got to cut out. You have to. Personnel makes a difference. We'll get to that, Adrian. Of course we'll get to that. Yeah, exactly. But if you have your back four in place of, I don't know, even white, you know, white and the two centre-backs and a left-back, you know, I think some of these errors wouldn't have occurred.

No, and I mean, I would add to that, by the way, the first goal when Luca Dina gets the ball on the left. And all I could hear in my head at that point was Lee Dixon going, stop the cross, stop the cross, which is what he would have done. Thomas ambled out there. Luca Dina has got a wicked left foot and he put it in the right place. And obviously, Mikel Moreno lost his man and Telemans makes it 2-1 and they're back in the game. Amy, what is this? What is going on? Are their brains a bit scrambled? Are they feeling a bit tired? No.

Is it all a bit high risk or something? I genuinely wonder what you think is the issue if we're making those sort of errors. In a funny way, if you kind of look at them all individually, I don't know whether there's necessarily a collective thing you can point the finger at. I think these were lots of different nuances in matches that for whatever reason didn't quite work. And I just looked at that team... Do you know...

I'm just going to start by saying I had a bit of a rant about the atmosphere and the fans and so on a couple of weeks ago after the two cup games when it was just weird and low and flat. And I have to completely backtrack on that and compliment the fans and the atmosphere in these last couple of games against Tottenham and Villa. I think that the...

There's such commitment and will to get behind this team if they can see something on the pitch that they believe in. And I think in these last two games, Arsenal gave us something to believe in. Yes, the result was really annoying and giving away the two goals was really frustrating and not being able to find the winner was just a gutter. But I thought the way that Arsenal played in that match overall, 95% of it, was almost exemplary given circumstances.

After 120 minutes in Pens against Man United, a couple of days later you're playing the North London Derby. It's absolutely full on. And then you get like a half a minute of rest and you're at it again. Home to Aston Villa, who are quite a physical big side. And we couldn't change a thing. Those same guys had to just pick themselves up and dust themselves down and go again. And there was almost no room for manoeuvre. And obviously people made that connection between...

It was a killer, that contrast between Liverpool going into stoppage time level and Arsenal going into stoppage time level and then what occurred for both teams and the difference that that made. I just even looked at Villa's bench. They had three good quality forwards that they could bring on. Obviously, Duran is a danger. They've just signed Daniel Marlin and Bailey, who's done damage to Arsenal in the past, I think. And

You looked at Arsenal's bench and really there was very little to be done. And, you know, I felt for those lads because I almost felt like it was a game where one more player would have made a difference. Now, ideally, probably that one more player is Ben White or Saliba or Tomiyasu or Calafiore, which enables a kind of proper back four. But, you know, or...

a forward that can get you a goal and make a difference, or maybe both, you know. But to be that squeezed in terms of resources, especially given, you know, the game's coming completely non-stop at the moment, it's just, I feel a little bit, I feel quite a lot of sympathy actually because I think they're doing their darndest. But one of the reasons these mistakes happen is

is that they've not been able to change games or they've not been able to rest players and everybody's just on their last legs, giving it whatever they've got left.

I mean, I have to say, Adrian, I agree with Amy. I think the reason that a lot of people weren't, obviously people were despondent, a bit downcast. We'd given away a two-goal lead. But I think everyone also appreciated the effort. You know, they come out there, they tore into Villa. We were miles better than them for most of that game. But we just, you know, when we needed to change it, when we had those little hiccups and we come back to 2-1,

we've got no one well Raheem Sterling and we can maybe get to him but we essentially no one on the bench and we can bring on who can change the game yeah context is everything isn't it and yeah Amy's bang on I enjoyed the performance I thought it was really good and I thought that we deserved to win the game I love the commitment of the team and

Yeah, there's a real drive and purpose about them, particularly down the wings. And I thought that the two wingers were excellent. Martinelli first half was outstanding. Second half faded a bit. Trossard was great throughout. But wasn't it nice to see wingers come on the outside of their fullbacks and whip dangerous crosses along the face of goal? I've been screaming about that all season with so much of our players come infield. And it...

It made a real difference in this game. Well, Adrian, before you go any further, I saw a stat just now. I know how much you love a stat. Yeah.

about this one. On average this season, 44 and a bit percent of our attacks have come down the right wing, 32.2 have come down the left and just 23.5 have come through the centre. So we are a team that attacks down the outside. We are second only to second bottom only to Manchester United in terms of attacks through the middle.

We don't shift the ball quickly through the middle. We get it out wide. And this article was talking about Mikel Arteta's risk aversion and the fact that he likes to play that way.

So we do attack down the wings. We do. Yeah. I was a winger, so I love that. I would have loved to have played in the team, but it's both a positive and a negative. You know, you've got to stretch play. And if your wingers go around the outside and put balls across the face of goal and score and assist, it's a fantastic tactic.

For me this season, too much play has been funnelled out wide slowly and definitely not enough penetrative passes down the centre of the pitch. Havertz isn't being used enough as a centre forward. Well, he's not in the centre of the pitch, is he? He's out on the wings of everyone else. Exactly. Erdegaard isn't dominating games in those pockets. I think there's a balance to be struck and I feel we really need to attack down the centre of the pitch more.

more often as well because it draws centre-backs out of position and that's when you can slip teammates into the box. You know, when everything's 40 yards away from the goal out wide...

It's not as impactful, unfortunately. You know, the damage is done. I don't have the stat, but I would say that, you know, three quarters of goals are scored between the width of the goalposts inside the box. You know, that's where you've got to get the ball. And I don't think we get the ball into those areas quite enough. That's my honest opinion. Adrian, do you think that somebody was suggesting to me the other day that

the kind of balance of midfield, you know, which has been problematic all season, is really hindering this team because obviously you're saying attacking through the middle of the pitch and it's not really happening that people are driving through the middle to help out from midfield. But also, is that a reason why, at the moment, it feels like almost every time opponents attack midfield,

They either score or there's some kind of last-ditch miracle defending that keeps it out. But we seem to be kind of punished or close to... It felt like that with the Villa goals. It was like, really? And they had one other opportunity in between that was very, very close.

But it just felt like all of a sudden having not felt any threat or danger. And it was a bit similar when Man United suddenly got a goal out of nowhere. But the goals came from wide, didn't they? But yeah, you're right. Everyone seems to be super efficient against us. But is that about the lack of a kind of midfield screen that's really doing it? What, you mean because Thomas Partey has been taken out of the midfield and put a right back? Thomas Partey has been playing absolutely brilliantly all season and he keeps playing with a right back. And our record...

With Thomas at right-back, he's 1-1, drawn 1, lost 4. What do you suggest he does, Stoney? Well, he maybe plays... He's gone his fourth choice right-back. Well, then he plays Timber at right-back and he plays Kiviora centre-back. That is what you do, right? You play people vaguely in their position. Are you sure that that would be better? No, I'm not. Do you think maybe Mikel thinks that it's better for a reason? Do you think it'd be worse? 1-1, draw 1, 4, lost. Yeah, but maybe it would be worse.

Who knows? I mean, there is no perfect solution here. I'm not talking about perfect. Amy, I'm not talking about perfect.

because who would be the first four choices at centre-back? Gabriel, Saliba, White and Timber. Yes. And Tommy would be fifth and Saliba and Kivior would be sixth. And I agree with you, but it seems to me that it upsets the midfield as well. Maybe, but it's just a very... Adrian, what do you think? ...easy kind of thing to slaughter the team about. I think they were a bit stuck. You know, what do you do? Back me up, Adrian. LAUGHTER

I'm keeping out of this one. Don't do that. Don't do that. Come on. Jordan Campbell, obviously friend of the show. He was on our table last night. He's a great lad. He told me, and he's got the stats there, that 16 of the last 17 games, we've had a different number six, which I think tells you

a lot, you know, in regards to Mikel and the configuration of the midfield, you know, but unable to find any kind of stability in terms of team selection for that role. Who is first choice? Genuinely, who is first choice? Is it Partey? Is it Rice? Yeah, and surely that affects everything behind him. That affects the two centre-backs, that affects the full-backs. Look,

I don't know, Amy, and you might be right. Obviously, Mikel knows a thousand times better than me, but I reckon there's a decent chance that we'd have a better record than 1-1, drawn one, lost four if we had someone else at right back. We might not. The alternative, by the way, is something no one spoke about, and it surprised me because he started his career there, is you could use Declan Rice as a centre-back.

You could. I'm not saying that's the answer, but if you wanted to keep timber in place and keep parterre in place, you could drop deck climbers, especially...

Let's be honest, in matches where we're absolutely dominant, you know, we're pinning teams in, you know, the centre-backs are having touches midway through the opposition half, aren't they? And Declan has got the pace. He's got recovery pace to get back and defend. So that is an option that maybe should be considered. I mean, Villa played on that tactic, by the way. We'll have all seen it with Watkins making those runs from inside his own half.

because Gabrielle and Timber were, I don't know, 20 yards, 25 yards into the Villa half. And of course, if you lose the ball, and they've got a quick striker, you're in trouble. And we had some hairy moments, but the goals didn't come from those moments, did they? So we can't say that that cost us. And when you were earlier, you were talking about being risk averse and that's,

Just to explain it for some of the listeners, if you keep funneling everything wide and that's where you lose the ball, in theory, it should hurt you less than if you've lost it down the middle. That is where that line of thinking comes from. But do you think that risk aversion is costing us, Adrian? That is the question I'm asking, right? I mean, you know how much I love this team and how much I love this manager. But when you see the way that Liverpool just go, you know what? Sod it.

If we lose the game, we lose the game, but we're going to try and win the game. And it doesn't feel quite that way with the Arsenal. Yeah, I've got some stats for touches in the box from this game only, but it kind of sums up where we're at. For me, even though the shape is always fluid, Havertz is your striker, Erdogan's your number 10, OK? These are the two players that should have the most touches inside the opposition box. Havertz had three against Villa.

Erdegaard had two. So Havertz had the same as Rice. And then on two, Erdegaard was level with Partey, Gabriel and Myles Lewis-Skelly. Marino five, Trossard seven, Martinelli ten. You've got to get in the box. You know, you need those two guys getting into goal scoring positions more often than they are. It's lovely to get the build up out wide and to, you know, do little one-twos and whatnot. But you've got to go and hurt teams and

And I think our approach is, yeah, it's making us slightly easier to defend against. But then again, we're not having an issue creating chances, are we, particularly? So I'm sort of, you know, it's confusing. We just need to be a lot more efficient. You've got to come and see.

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And Amy, William Saliba, I mean the stats, when he plays, we win 71.8% of the time. When he doesn't, we win just about half of that.

we concede another goal a game. Mikel Arteta said he was very worried about Saliba's injury, although I did have a chat with someone who had a chat with someone else last night who said it wasn't too bad. So I'm happy to accept that as a comment on his injury. We need him fit, don't we? We so need him fit. Yeah, I mean, I think somebody said when was the last, you know, when you have Saliba and Xhaka both out of your team at the same time.

arguably Arsenal's two best or most important players it's a bit harsh on Gabriel but you know what I mean so yeah it's a lot to contend with it's a lot for others to step up and cover and I think they did their utmost and I keep coming back to that I think I was surprised by how I felt at the end of the game I felt

As much as I was disappointed by the result, I was uplifted by the performance and it renewed my sense of belief in this team. And rather than being doom and gloom and it's all over and it's gone and it's six points and the ground that was made up has been frittered away. It's not gone. Obviously it's real, but I still think there's life in this team.

They're really scrapping for it. And I do think that things will turn in the second half of the season. Maybe it's naive, but I felt for a while if we could just somehow get fairly safely to when they can go away to Dubai, I think Arsenal are equipped to come back from that and really have an amazing springboard to launch themselves into that last stretch.

I think a lot of people have been feeling it will feel a lot better and they'll feel unified. They'll feel rested. They'll feel reinvigorated. And maybe this is extra optimism, but maybe there's even a new face that comes in and helps that. But who knows? Well, it is Monday, January the 20th. We are recording this anyway. It's only 10 days to go. Or is it 20 days too late? Uh,

Well, obviously that's what a lot of people are saying on social media. But Bev has written to us. Hello, Bev. What's the old chant? 2-0 and you f***ed it up. Liverpool refuse to accept 0-0 and win ruthless. Bournemouth at Newcastle, ruthless. With a lot of injuries as well, by the way. Arsenal...

Toothless. I mean, there is a question mark. I will say that. When you're up, force the issue. Don't sit back thinking it's done. If any money is spent in January, it has, in capitals, to be a striker, loan or buy. Anything else is tin-eared or negligent. Please don't throw it away again. Love the pod, Bev. Thank you.

Bev, Adrian, do we agree? Ten-eared negligent if we don't buy a striker? I'm not going near that. All right, then, Amy, what do you think? Amy used that term the other day, so, you know, that's out there. Look, when we let Eddie and Kezia go,

Had to be someone that comes in. You know, had to. You know, Eddie didn't play loads, but he had, you know, he contributed. And, you know, too much of a reliance has been on Havertz and Jaysus. And neither are natural centre forwards, neither are explosive strikers that can run in behind opposition defences. We were a player and a stylistic player.

a short. You've got to have something else in your armoury. You know, Nunez is a great example actually. Nunez, a lot of the time he's terrible. And he hasn't been scoring really very much. But he's quick and he can score. He's proven to have scored at the highest level plenty of times before and he's a threat and he gets on the end of chances because he's quick and he's

And we need a quick striker badly. We really do. And one of the numbers that really stands out to me is on fast breaks. We're a team that like to control games, but at the same time, there's always a place for the counter. Only three teams in the Premier League this season have had fewer shots than Arsenal from fast breaks. So we've had 13. Liverpool have had 44.

Liverpool have a lot of possession, but they also have that threat because of the pace and because when they go, they go bang and they go in numbers and they go forcefully. Chelsea have had 33. City, a team that... Control the game. You know, pin teams on the edge of the box. They've even had 20 shots from fast breaks. So, and actually our percentage of scoring from fast breaks is excellent. We've got four goals from them. So...

That is something we need. That's a tactic that we need to use more often. But for me, you need a little bit more pace down the middle at times. And that has to be one of the key traits outside of actually finishing when we identify who comes in. And someone surely will come in. Surely. Amy, there was a point when Martinelli, Gabriel Martinelli broke and he had to turn back.

Because there was no one with him. And it was so frustrating. And it was so... Two years ago, I would have... You know, that would have resulted in a chance. And this time he's turned back because of the way that we play. It was a frustrating moment, wasn't it? Yeah, I think it probably crystallised that sentiment that people have. Exactly that. You know, what's happened to the kind of dynamic moves. And Arsenal have had that under Arteta at times where they've really gone for it. It's been part of the...

makeup of what made the team successful and getting close to winning big stuff in the last couple years.

But, you know, it does just seem that things have dipped back. But I think that's partly confidence. That's partly tiredness. It's all these things that take a percentage point away from doing things quickly. And he talks about fine margins, doesn't he, the manager? Those are the fine margins, right? And I'm assuming we're all in agreement that it was a handball from Kyle Havertz. I think I'm saying clearly there's a hand, by the way. That's what I saw.

Adrian? Yeah, we'll take it on the chin. It's just another one of those marginal 50-50 calls that go against us. And then we hit the post as well. Yeah, we've been really unlucky. Trossard was brilliant, by the way. Six shots, three chances created. He was probably our best player. You know, that's a chance really that...

He should bury, you know. So, yeah, we should have won that game 4-5-1. Based on chances. No, we should. Should have won it 4-1. Yeah. But we drew 2-2. Unai loves coming to us, doesn't he? I mean, he really does. He was getting quite irate when he kicked the ball away. Was he? He lost his head. He lost his head a little bit. No, he feels it quite deeply as well. All right.

On we go. We're trying not to repeat ourselves too much on this pod, really, but it's hard because we're doing the same things more than once. Anyway, we'll hear what Art has to say about a women's game that he went to watch yesterday and we'll look ahead to Champions League next week. Ian Stone, Amy Lawrence and Adrian Clarke here on the Athletics Arsenal podcast and break off.

They get a handbrake off and you can see that they are more free to play. This is handbrake off. Let's check in with Art de Rocher, who was watching Arsenal in the WSL on Sunday. Hey guys, Art here on a Sunday after Arsenal women just beat Crystal Palace 5-0. Renee Slager's first game in charge, first official game in charge after she was appointed

appointed permanent head coach on Friday. Funny enough, when we spoke to Leah Williamson on Friday, she kind of joked about not scoring goals and how that's not how she connects with the team. But she's the first one to score under Renee. And it comes towards that near post area. Flips on and in. Wonderfully taken. Leah Williamson in the right place at the right time.

I think really important to get the ball rolling in that first half. And then Alessia Russo with her 11th goal under Rene as well in the second half. Mariona with a couple and Beth Mead too. So a lot of goals across that front line. Good to see. And I think it'll be interesting to see how consistent that lineup is in the next few weeks under Slager because that was a theme of her interim season.

tenure but in the next few weeks how that rotation works I think will be an interesting theme to watch out for but overall a good start to Rene Sledge's first official few days in charge of Arsenal and hopefully it continues that way.

Thank you, Art. Looking ahead, the boys have Dinamo Zagreb up next at the Emirates on Wednesday. Back we go. Fifth home game in a row. I mean, I feel like every two, three days, back we go for another game. I mean, I love all these home games. Amy, I mean, we win this, we're in the top eight and we get two games less. I mean, what are they going to do? They're going to play the same team they had at the weekend? More or less. More or less. I mean,

I mean, it's, you know, maybe Raheem Sterling for one of the wide guys or he comes on after 60 minutes. There's no choices available, are there? Not as far as we can tell. I'd be surprised if someone miraculously comes back from the treatment room. And I think if people are kind of on the verge, they'll probably be being saved for the next Prem game. Just have to try and...

lift ourselves and concentrate and do the job and on with the next and if they come flying out of the blocks like they did on Saturday I don't know much about Dinamo Zagreb but I don't imagine they're as good as Villa we should win this game yeah they're not a bad team but yeah they're not as good as Aston Villa they tend to score goals on the road if you look at their record away from home in this season's Champions League they've scored at least two in all of them

Thanks, Adrian. But they have let in quite a lot of goals. They've got a new manager, Fabio Cannavara. I think you might have heard of him. So we don't really know because he only took over on New Year's Day. They've had a winter break, which again, I think is an advantage for us. So basically, they haven't played since late December. They sort of have a three-week shutdown, I think, over there in Croatia. So they've been playing friendlies. So that should help us, but...

On the other side, they'll be fresh and potentially full of running, Zagreb. And they are a counter-attacking team. Probably be five at the back or three at the back for sure. And then they'll look to break on us. So, yeah, let's see. I think he'll use some of the guys that were on the bench at the weekend. Might be the opportunity to do that. I think Jorginho's probably nailed onto play, for example. But like you said, there's not...

got loads of other options. You know, it might be a day for Zinni to come in and have a run out. The bench, by the way, against Villa was Neto, who I'm starting to think doesn't exist, actually. I've never actually seen him ever. What's he look like? If you saw Neto walk down the street, would you know what he looked like? No, not a clue. Not a clue. And there were a couple of them. There was one who was running to what I thought, who's that? And we were talking about him and it was Kakuri. It was Muldini Kakuri, right? And,

But Neto, Tierney, Kivior, Zinchenko, Jorginho, Butler, Oideji, Kabiya, Kikuri and Raheem Sterling. That was our bench. So you think one or two of them will start? Tierney? I mean, it'd be nice to get... Tierney's had some good little cameos off the bench, hasn't he? So I'd like to see him. But then Tierney and Zinchenko, are they both going to start? Probably not, unless you put Zinney in midfield. So, yeah, I think it's an opportunity to...

Rest a couple. Not go too crazy because we want to win the game.

Yeah, and then we've got Wolves, which we'll talk about. But this game is huge, I think, Amy, because then we can rest everyone against Girona in readiness for Man City. Do you fancy playing in Girona, Adrian? Amy, absolutely. But my knee is absolutely in bits. I've got to fix it. So even if I was younger, I'm on the treatment table as well. I was just wondering, genuinely, if...

In a kind of fantasy world, if you had to play a few minutes in an emergency situation, how long do you think you could last? Now? I mean... I couldn't last 30 seconds now. Well, obviously, if your knee's knackered, I mean, like, when you've got to a relative level of fitness. If my knee was all right, I reckon I could last 15 minutes and then I'd be absolutely hanging. And I'd be going, giving it the old universal symbol for...

Sub me, please. But it's those little easy passes. You can all do those. It's those explosive sprints. It's the athleticism. When you're near the pitch and those fans that sort of have tickets in the first few rows of the stadium, they'll know this. The pace of the game when you're low to pitch level is so quick. It looks so easy when you're up high.

So, yeah, maybe five minutes on reflection. I'm slightly gutted, Adrian, she didn't ask me. Yeah, yeah. Insulted. Obviously, I wasn't a professional footballer. I'm massively insulted. I've said I can still get up and down. Well, I can get down, but getting up again is obviously a problem. Let's have a song before we go. Amy, do you have a song for us? Yeah. In honour of the maestro, I'm going to go for Blondie and Denis, Denis.

Of course, the spelling of that was D-E-N-I-S, which, as Dennis told the story last night, his dad named him after Dennis Law, which has one N.

So the law in Holland was such, I think you had to have a name that could be properly pronounced in Dutch. And in order to sound like Dennis, it had to be a double N. And I love the way he explained last night the versions of how it might have sounded if you had just one N in his name in Holland. It was like Danish or like Dennis, like Dennis.

That's why they had to have the second N. Anyway, so spelling's not right in the Blondie song, but the song is good enough for Dennis. Oh, Danny, we do, we do, we do.

Adrian, what about you? Unbelievably. Yeah. I had that down. I had it down for the same reason. So you've got to play that. I had it down, but I also had another one in case. Something told me that you might go with that, Amy. That must be the first time we've ever picked the same song. I know, I know. That's how amazing Dennis is. Amy's absolutely gutted at this point. Can I just say that? Look on Amy's face when Adrian said I had the same song. She thought, f***.

I can't believe I've done that. My music credibility is up the spout. She's gone, hasn't she? My alternative is...

because I felt myself doing this last night it's Counting Stars by One Republic I like that song just everywhere you looked there were stars of you know stars from Arsenal of yesterday it was yeah it was really it was some turnout it really was for Dennis Bergkamp so yeah that's my alternative I think having Dennis, Thierry and Wrighty all sort of really close to one another was a really beautiful thing I mean

I don't think anybody will surpass those three in terms of the attacking pantheon of Arsenal legends. No, we could use some of their goals, couldn't we? Really? No point asking me. How long can righty give us at the weekend? His ankle's fused. He can't, apparently. I asked him yesterday. I've gone for fresh by Kool and the Gang. No.

which is a nice little soul tune because I need them to be fresh. We need them to be fresh. I need little oldies. So that's what I've done. That's it for this edition of Handbrake Off. Thank you to Adrian. Thank you to Amy. Thanks to Jay, our producer. And we'll see you after Wednesday. Have a good week, Gooners. Ta-ra.

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