An it wasn’t just Arsenal, who were of course bereft of all of their international players; this was the star performance of Max Dowman, who scored and assisted and took the eye in exactly the way we have all hoped for. It was of course, just a pre-season friendly, but even so. It was a 4-1 win with most of the first team missing.
And the star was a 16 year old who has hardly played for the first team before. He produced runs, through-ball passes, and just showed us all what we had been waiting for. Kai Havertz gave us a performance to note, as did Christos Tzolis, who got the second.
Girona were determined to show us they were not just there for the making up of numbers but really this was Arsenal’s show from start to finish. It was Gabriel Jesus who got the last one as if taking the fact that Arsenal had conceded once as a personal insult.
Of course it was just a warm up, and the managers swapped the players around leaving it hard to follow who was who, and harder for the players to know who was marking whom, but really it didn’t matter too much. Arsenal were superb, and won with ease. Next up is Real Betis on Wednesday.
And it is important to say that Dowman didn’t leave it to the lasts to show us what he could do – he was there on the quarter hour, making up some magic and giving us a sight of what is to come. And if we can have a fit Havertz for much of the season, there won’t be any talk of other incoming players being needed..
Of course the team wasn’t used to each other, of course they were not fully fit, having taken all those thoughts into account, this ws a really good display from those in the team, and considering these are just those who had not been away playing for their country, it was a superb show… The fact is Arsenal kept coming close, and it shows transfers or no transfers there are some wonderful players in this squad, many of whom we have not yet seen come to fruition.
Arsenal scored on 32 minutes when it wass obvious Arsenal had to get a goal sooner or later, and so it was that Tzolis got a deflected goal.
Dowman got a goal on 53, and Jesus got another a couple of minutes later. After that, there really wasn’t too much opposition, and of course no one wants to risk an injury, so we knew exactly where it would end up. There was also a lot of thinking about the game against Real Betis on 5 August in Dublin.
That is followed by the home game against Como on 12 August before the Community Shield on 16 August being played in Cardiff because someone forgot to book Wembley.
The league starts after that, by which time it is quite possible that Arsenal will have recruited one or two more new players. It is looking exciting already..
