4 – Arteta knows his starting XI (for now)
The Women’s Euro’s proved to us what continuity can do to a side, after Sarina Wiegman became the first coach in history to choose the same starting XI for every game of the tournament.
And it looks as if intentionally or not, Arteta is looking to adopt the same sort of principle after he named the same eleven players to start for the third consecutive game.
Following 4-0 and 6-0 wins over Chelsea and Sevilla in pre-season, it was always going to be hard to argue any changes to the line-up and Arteta has stuck to his guns.
Not only do I think this works for the strength of the players on the pitch, it also works up a considerable amount of determination for those not getting any minutes.
The likes of Emile Smith Rowe, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Fabio Vieira and Eddie Nketiah are going to have to work considerably hard to get in over what appears to be Arteta’s favoured XI.
And like we saw during those final two pre-season games, Arteta opted for late substitutions with the first of three coming only in the 83rd minute.
A Twitter feed filled with criticism given what looked like a tiring squad against a fired up Palace, it appears Arteta proved his doubters wrong as Saka made it 2-0 just second after the first substitution.
What will be really interesting to see is when Europa League football kicks in and how this squad can remain content with chopping and changing personnel.
Arsenal seem to have the quality in depth now and with a few more departures, will have a squad in which I see almost everyone getting a good amount of minutes throughout the campaign.