{"id":13963,"date":"2026-08-02T12:01:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T11:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13963"},"modified":"2026-08-04T07:10:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T06:10:36","slug":"a-canter-in-balmy-girona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13963","title":{"rendered":"A Canter in Balmy Girona"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Premier League Champions kicked off their pre-season preparations with a 4-1 win over recently relegated Girona on a warm summer\u2019s evening in Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite many of our players going deep into the World Cup with their countries, Mikel Arteta was still able to name a very strong side from the start. Ben White, who missed the final couple of weeks of the season as well as the World Cup, was deemed fit enough to start. There were also starts for Piero Hincapi\u00e9, Kai Havertz and Viktor Gy\u00f6keres who had all been knocked out of the World Cup at the first knockout round. There was also a start on the right wing for the mercurial Max Dowman with Ethan Nwaneri playing in a central role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal looked sharp from the off and it only took a quarter of an hour to break the deadlock. Max Dowman got away brilliantly from two Girona players and split the defence with an exceptional through ball for Havertz who slotted away calmly into the bottom corner. It will be interesting to see how many minutes Dowman gets over the course of the season. Despite his age, he certainly played his role in our title winning campaign. His cameo won us the game against Everton in March and who knows how differently the season could\u2019ve panned out had we dropped two points that day. At times he makes the wrong decision, but most 16-year-olds make bad decisions although most 16-year-olds don\u2019t play for the Champions of England! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Havertz, it\u2019s a big season for him after missing so much of the last 18 months through injuries. He popped up with some massive goals towards the end of last season, and it appears that his finishing has really improved since he first joined three years ago. His goal in the Champions League Final was superb and would be talked about a lot more had we won. Let\u2019s just pray he stays fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We doubled our lead on the half hour mark through our only outfield addition, (so far) Christos Tzolis. It took a slight deflection on the way through, but he showed some promising signs that he can provide some big moments for Arsenal. He was prolific with both goals and assists for Club Brugge so let\u2019s hope the fella from Greece can emulate some of that over in N5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Girona pulled one back five minutes into the second half from a corner which will have, no doubt, annoyed Arteta and Nicholas Jover but it only took a few minutes for us to restore our two goal cushion and, what a splendid goal it was from Max Dowman. He received the ball from Myles Lewis-Skelly, drove inside and flashed the ball home at the near post from about 20 yards out. What a prospect he is, if he continues on his current path. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moments later, it was four. After a mix up from Girona, Gabriel Jes\u00f9s found himself in acres of space and poked the ball home to wrap the game up beyond doubt. It will be interesting to see what happens to him over the next few weeks. He has a year left and is on hefty wages, although he is still capable of producing magical moments on occasion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arteta made a raft of youthful substitutions in the final quarter of the game which is always nice to see. There was also a debut for Meslier in goal and whilst he certainly isn\u2019t the most exciting signing we\u2019ll ever make, he made some very impressive saves and his distribution looked up to scratch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the game there was a trophy presentation, as there often is for these preseason games. We witnessed arguably the most lacklustre trophy lift of all time. Ben White could barely contain his excitement. At least there was no penalty shootout!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, it was a good workout and whilst you can\u2019t draw any real conclusions from preseason, we appear to be in a good place going into the season. We will face Real Betis in Dublin on Wednesday evening, followed by a couple of games at the Emirates against Borussia Dortmund and then Cesc Fabregas\u2019 Como side in the annual Emirates Cup followed by the traditional Community Shield curtain raiser as the Premier League Champions take on a Manchester City side now managed by a slightly less odious bald man than the last one but still every bit as bald. That will be in Cardiff and not Wembley. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then five days later the Premier League Champions take on Fat Frank\u2019s newly promoted Coventry City under the N5 lights. Will we have a couple of new Brazilians in the squad by then? Only time (and David Ornstein\u2019s tweets) will tell\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Premier League Champions kicked off their pre-season preparations with a 4-1 win over recently relegated Girona on a warm summer\u2019s evening in Spain. Despite many of our players going deep into the World Cup with their countries, Mikel Arteta was still able to name a very strong side from the start. Ben White, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13963"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13969,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13963\/revisions\/13969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}