Good mid-morning, TSFers! I thought I’d toss this up a bit earlier than usual (can I say usual after two posts in the series?) given the 3 pm ET semifinal match against Chelsea. Ideally, we’ll find a good, consistent time to publish that gets plenty of eyeballs and conversation.
I hope that y’all as the month (and beyond) wears on, you check back a few days and jump into the conversations that you may have missed. There’s some interesting stuff in there! For example, Tony talked about Dainton Connell
in the comments on yesterday’s CF, which led to Konl sharing this article about The Bear of Highbury. I had no idea and now I’ve learned a bit more of the history of the club that you wouldn’t get from official sources.
To today’s topic. The transfer window closed yesterday without Arsenal adding any senior players to the squad. The club had been exploring cover options for Mikel Merino, who is expected to miss almost all (or all) of the rest of the season, but nothing materialized. Bukayo Saka may miss a game or two and Max Dowman is out for a bit longer with his ankle injury. So I’ll ask:
Do Arsenal have the squad depth to compete in all remaining competitions?
I think the answer is yes. A better question might be does Mikel Arteta trust the depth he has enough to use them as necessary to keep everyone fresh. Christian Norgaard will need to play more to not overtax Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi. Ebere Eze will need to step up and take some of Merino’s minutes in the middle.
Those guys are senior pros. You have to expect they’ll answer the bell and pick up the slack. If you’re not going to use them, particularly in situations where you need ‘em, why buy them in the first place?
