It’s Nurnberg v Arsenal, on Arsenal TV tonight

 

 

 

By Sir Hardly Anyone

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• What will the first three matches of the new season tell us about Arsenal?

The game will kick off at 6pm UK time, (or to put it another way 1800 BST) and all 90 minutes plus an hour-long build-up show can be viewed by purchasing a Match Pass from Arsenal which was originally £4.99 – but if you don’t already have one the price has gone up to £6.99.   Cheeky blighters!

There is also a Pre-Season Pass for  £15.99 which gives access to all the pre-season games.

Now it has to be said that this is not the fiercest of opposition so we are not going to see Arsenal’s first team.  And just to give a clue as to how today’s opposition did last season here is the full 2. Bundesliga table for last season 

 

2022-2023 German 2. Bundesliga

			H	O	M	E		A	W	A	Y
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Heidenheim	34	12	4	1	41	16	7	6	4	26	20	+31	67
2	SV Darmstadt 98	34	11	5	1	27	13	9	2	6	23	20	+17	67
3	Hamburger	34	11	3	3	38	20	9	3	5	32	25	+25	66
4	Fortuna Dusseldorf	34	11	4	2	38	19	6	3	8	22	24	+17	58
5	St Pauli	34	9	7	1	24	11	7	3	7	31	28	+16	58
6	SC Paderborn 07	34	12	0	5	46	20	4	7	6	22	24	+24	55
7	Karlsruher	34	9	3	5	32	25	4	4	9	24	28	+3	46
8	Holstein Kiel	34	6	4	7	29	29	6	6	5	29	32	-3	46
9	Kaiserslautern	34	6	6	5	26	26	5	6	6	21	22	-1	45
10	Hannover 96	34	8	3	6	27	26	4	5	8	23	29	-5	44
11	FC Magdeburg	34	6	4	7	23	22	6	3	8	25	33	-7	43
12	Greuther Furth	34	8	7	2	28	19	2	4	11	19	31	-3	41
13	Hansa Rostock	34	6	1	10	18	25	6	4	7	14	23	-16	41
14	Nurnberg	34	7	4	6	18	17	3	5	9	14	32	-17	39
15	Braunschweig	34	7	3	7	23	22	2	6	9	19	37	-17	36
16	Arminia Bielefeld	34	5	4	8	28	29	4	3	10	22	33	-12	34
17	Jahn Regensburg	34	4	7	6	17	28	4	0	13	17	30	-24	31
18	SV Sandhausen	34	4	4	9	18	33	3	3	11	17	30	-28	28

 

So at home it was seven wins and six defeats, 18 goals scored and 17 conceded.  The bottom three teams were relegated.  Nurnberg missed by five points.

Nurnberg’s last ten games of the last season saw them pick up just two wins, five draws and three defeats.

So obviously this is not a game against a top German club and we can expect few if any of Arsenal’s international stars to be playing.

Last season the same game was played and Arsenal won 3-5 but not until Nurmberg had gone into a two goal lead which they held at half time.  But after halftime Arsenal scored three quick goals and were 3-2 up after 57 minutes, adding another on 63 minutes, and with two more in the last 20 minutes.   The Arsenal line up was

Turner;

Bellerin, Walters, Mari, Tierney;

Lokonga, Maitland-Niles, Smith Rowe;

Pepe, Nketiah, Nelson

Nurmberg have already played three games this pre-season in which they have won two and drawn one.

According to the Standard, this time Kai Havertz might make an appearance but neither Declan Rice nor Jurrien Timber seem to have signed yet.  Gabriel Martinelli, Mohamed Elneny, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu and William Saliba have all traveled with the Arsenal team but it may well be too early for any of them to be part of a game and risk an injury.

As far as we know the complete squad in Germany includes

Goalkeepers: Aaron Ramsdale, Alex Runarsson, Karl Hein.

Defenders: Cedric, Ben White, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Kieran Tierney, Oleksandr Zinchenko, William Saliba, Rob Holding, Reuell Walters, Auston Trusty, Gabriel, Jakub Kiwior.

Midfielders: Thomas Partey, Jorginho, Fabio Vieira, Mohamed Elneny, Martin Odegaard, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri, Reiss Nelson, Leandro Trossard, Marquinhos.

Forwards: Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Kai Havertz, Eddie Nketiah, Folarin Balogun

90 Min predicts a 4-0 win for Arsenal but are rather coy about selecting a team.  But that is indeed quite reasonable since none of us really know how prepared for the game any of the players are.

Sports Mole however do go further and offer up a possible team…  Maybe this is a guess, or maybe they have someone “at the airport” spotting such things.