It seems strange to say it on December 8, but Arsenal have a football game today. Normally, it wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary.
On this day in past seasons we have beaten Huddersfield 1-0 (Torreira, 83′); tied 1-1 with Everton (Ozil 80′, annulled by Gerard Deulofeu’s goal 4 minutes later); and dispatched Partizan Belgrade 3-1 thanks to goals from Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott and Samir Nasri, despite a late red card for Bacary Sagna.
But today, in an interrupted season, we face Lyon in Dubai in the Dubai Super Cup, the trophy every footballer dreams of one day lifting. Arsenal took a 27-man squad when they left London, with the non-World Cup players and a significant cohort of Academy boys to fill in the numbers.
They will be joined by some of those who left Qatar. I’ve seen reports this morning that Matt Turner is already there, and Granit Xhaka spoke after leaving Switzerland to say that he was going straight to Dubai to get back to work. He said:
Of course, emotionally it is not easy. But this is part of our business, part of football. You have to recover well. The Premier League is waiting and of course I wanted to be here longer than this. But we lost today’s game and I’m happy to be back with the team now.
I’m flying back to Dubai, getting back in the team, and going back to training and trying to forget about the tournament now.
You can see how for someone like Xhaka, diving headlong into Arsenal would be a way to help with the disappointment of coming out of the World Cup and coming out the way they did. That 6-1 defeat will certainly sting, but from what we know of him, I don’t expect him to suffer any kind of continued despondency. In any case, he will be determined to compensate him through his domestic commitments.
But every player is different, every person is different, and I saw in the Japanese press that Takehiro Tomiyasu was going to Dubai instead of going back to Japan. But he seemed particularly dejected when he spoke after his penalty shootout loss to Croatia. He said, when asked about his plans:
I don’t know. Hopefully, I can rest a bit. I need time to forget about football. I need a little time.
My performance was a disaster today so I feel sorry for the team.
I can’t be proud. I am not satisfied with what happened.
Which again is understandable. He was highly critical of his own performance against Croatia, and I suspect that the tournament as a whole is probably not what he had envisioned, despite how well Japan did. The injury he suffered a few weeks before the tournament clearly had an impact. He’s a nailed starter when he’s on form and there must have been significant frustration for him to sit on the bench. Going to a World Cup and not being 100% is hard. He may still be struggling with his physical condition, and now he may well be in a place where he’s dealing with it, with regret and disappointment, for himself and his country.
This is where Mikel Arteta’s man management skills will be put to the test. We have seen in years past how the World Cup, or even the lack of a World Cup, can affect players long after the fact. Per Mertesacker, by his own admission, found it hard to get fully motivated again after Germany’s victory in 2014. Andrei Arshavin went into a cookie-eating slump for months after Russia failed to qualify for a year. So while someone like Xhaka might come back and be eager to go, it might require a different approach with Tomiyasu.
We still have players in the tournament, and the circumstances in which the World Cup ends for them may also be something we have to deal with. We care a lot about the physical impact of it for obvious reasons, but we must not ignore the psychological aspect as well. I can’t imagine any of the players whose World Cups ended this week are involved today, they will need a bit of time, but maybe we can see them when we face AC Milan next week.
Ok, let’s leave it there for now. We’ll no doubt hear from Mikel Arteta at some point down the line, probably after the game, so let’s see if anything interesting comes of that. And, of course, may all our Super Cup dreams come true.
See you tomorrow.
