The Arsenal Sentinel
Match19 Aug 2028
The derby belongs to Arsenal
2‑1 against Tottenham, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
Squad21 Aug 2028
David Raya keeps Arsenal in it on his own
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings21 Aug 2028
William Saliba wins the derby
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Arsenal support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Bukayo Saka in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Aug 2028
William Saliba falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Market21 Aug 2028
Gabriel Martinelli wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Market21 Aug 2028
Derby County watching Ethan Nwaneri
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Arsenal have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings21 Aug 2028
Nobody could get near Gabriel Martinelli
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Riccardo Calafiori has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
In brief
- Boardroom Graduation day at Arsenal
- Market One of our own: Jack Atkinson joins the Arsenal first team
- Market Jonathan Roberts steps up from the Arsenal academy