Hi all! Welcome to Arsenal Today, our new daily bulletin from all of us on The Athletic’s Arsenal beat.
Thankfully the Carabao Cup trip to Preston North End went well, a 3-0 win seeing Arsenal through to this year’s quarter-final. After last year’s fourth-round exit to West Ham, a deeper run is refreshing. Arsenal will play Crystal Palace at the Emirates for a place in the last four, with the quarter-final due to take place the week of December 16.
Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, though. Here is what’s going on with Arsenal today:
- Jordan Campbell was our correspondent up at Deepdale. His deeper match piece is live this morning, with a focus on Ethan Nwaneri after he became the youngest Arsenal player to score in his first two starts for the club at just 17 years and 223 days.
- On Nwaneri’s goal, the finish was outstanding but should not come as a total surprise. He attempted a very similar finish in his cameo against Leicester City, and against France for England Under-19s last month. Speaking of France, he actually did score a left-footed curler from outside the box against them in the summer’s Under-17s European Championship. The technique of his finish last night was pure, but do not mistake it as a fluke — he has been crafting it for some time.
- Mikel Arteta handed out two more first-team debuts last night, with goalkeeper Tommy Setford starting in goal and Ayden Heaven coming on at centre-back. Setford was unlucky to miss the Bolton game through injury, but showed promise at Deepdale. He showed confidence in his keeping and distribution but also had a couple of moments of uncertainty, which is to be expected for an 18-year-old goalkeeper. Heaven’s introduction was encouraging after his involvement in pre-season, and also saw Myles Lewis-Skelly move into his more natural midfield position. If there is an appetite for pieces on those two then do let me know, as some bits and pieces may already be in place for when the time is right.
- There will now, of course, be an element of looking forward to the weekend’s trip to Newcastle United. This will be the 10th Premier League game of the season and our data analyst, Mark Carey, has written a piece on how much can actually be read into the league table at that point in the season. The piece looks at match data from 1995 to 2017, and has some Arsenal-related sections, so read it here.
Thanks for reading, and do shout with any thoughts on the above. Hope you all have a good Thursday before we return to press conference action on Friday.
(Header photo: Matt McNulty/Getty Images)
