Arsenal will bring the curtain down on their US tour a little bit later on when they take on Liverpool in Philadelphia.
It’s been another successful trip across the Atlantic for the club and Mikel Arteta would love to round it off with another victory to add to the one they picked up against Manchester United a few days ago.
We could potentially see Riccardo Calafiori for the first time. Arsenal’s latest signing did join in with the squad for parts of yesterday’s training session and I would imagine the plan is to give him 20 minutes or so in the second half.
It will be interesting to see where he plays if he does come on and it will also be interesting to see if Eddie Nketiah features, given the news from David Ornstein that Marseille have made a new offer for the Arsenal striker.
We’ve seen Arteta leave out Emile Smith Rowe for the games this tour while his move to Fulham progressed. So if Nketiah is left out tonight that would be a clear sign that things are heading in the right direction from Arsenal’s point of view in terms of the negotiations with Marseille.
I have to say though, with the reported bid said to be below €20 million (£16.8m), Arsenal really should be telling Marseille to start getting serious if they really want to land Nketiah.
I have no problem with him going this summer, in fact I think the time is certainly right for his exit, but not at that price. He’s a proven goalscorer at Premier League level, has years left on his contract and is only 25. No chance should Arsenal even be entertaining offers unless they are around the £30m mark in my opinion.
I love Smith Rowe, but how can a player who has barely played for two seasons supposedly be worth £15m more than Nketiah? It makes no sense to me.
This is a summer when Arsenal want to make good money from the players they let go. So I would expect them to stand firm in the talks with Marseille, even if Nketiah does want to go there.
I think we’ll probably see a bit of a stronger team against Liverpool than we’ve seen so far in the games against Bournemouth and Manchester United.
We could see Gabriel Magalhaes start for the first time in the heart of the defence, potentially in place of Ayden Heaven. Gabriel Martinelli could also be in with a shout, although there are plenty of other options on the left side of the attack which means that he does not need to be rushed.
I really hope Ethan Nwaneri keeps his place in midfield because he absolutely deserves to. Seeing how Nwaneri was going to grasp the opportunities given to him on this tour was always one of the most exciting things about the trip and he’s taken his chances with both hands.
He’s shown he’s totally at home within the first-team environment and given everyone a glimpse of why he needs to be given a good amount of game time this season.
So he deserves another chance to show what he can do alongside Martin Odegaard later on against Liverpool.
Right, that’s it for me today. Enjoy the game everyone.