At Arteta’s press conference yesterday, he was inevitably asked about the withdrawals of players from international duty and – according to the official site version of events, anyway – he played the most impressive of straight bats. To be fair, he will have known these questions would be coming; he’d have been briefed by the Arsenal press team, he’d have been aware of the noise in the media and online, so he would have been ready for it. But you still have to navigate the questions, and his lines about “if you’re fit, you have to play” were spot on. Hopefully, the world and his wife will now move on from this.

What it means for us, as we suspected, is that the team news is sketchy at best. We know that Noni and Ebs are out, but we all pretty much knew that already, so that’s no surprise. The fact that Mikel confirmed that Madueke was ‘days’ is a boost, though; he’ll surely be available for Bournemouth, and that means our attacking pains are short-term in terms of options. Eze was a little sketchy on, and I just hope it is because he didn’t want to give too...