Havertz, Gyokeres, and Hincapie returning to training gives us a sense of when to expect everyone else back. Gabriel and Martinelli should be back within the next week (pre-Betis), Odegaard the week after that (pre-Como), and everyone else the week after that (pre-PL start).

Rice now at risk of suspension if he's booked vs Norway and England progress to the semis. Saka, Madueke, Eze, Saliba, and Odegaard all safe from yellow-card bans, as they only have one game to pick them up before the next wipe (post-quarters), and it takes two to be banned.

My winger at World Cups 🫡

Saka assist! As soon as I saw him get away from his man I was on the edge of my seat, knew he’d find the right pass.

Okay, not to harp on about it, but people were so incredibly wrong about Rice’s corner threat being reliant on illegitimate blocking. I’d be embarrassed to be one of those people watching this.

Another excellent Rice corner, should have been another goal. His deliveries are perfection.

Bellingham!!

Great response! These rule changes really hurting Rice’s corners, eh?

Bit lucky to get the retake, but oh well, we’ll take it.

Madueke already having an impact

Fun fact: Arsenal players have taken 1 corner at this World Cup, and it resulted in a goal. Martin Odegaard is the only Arsenal player to take a corner so far, assisting Leo Ostigard on his first try.

Very cool seeing so many of the big-name strikers performing, Messi, Haaland, Mbappé scoring multiple goals yesterday, Isak and both Arsenal strikers with 2+ g/a earlier in week. The World Cup is better when the big players properly show up.

Can’t complain about most of this Budapest trip. Fan park was class and good vibes, public transport worked and arrived when it said it would, stadium was nice. Shame the result goes and sours it all.

Sadly we only had one genuinely good penalty taker on the pitch at full time. We needed Saka, we needed Havertz, we needed Ødegaard, even Merino.

Happy with the team, obviously would’ve liked Timber but it was never likely from the start with 0 minutes of build-up. Glad he’s in the squad. As my brother says, good to have Gyokeres coming on, rather than starting and coming off, in case of penalties.

The “neutral” zones in this stadium appear to heavily skew in Arsenal’s favour. Like, they almost look like they’re just more Arsenal seats.

Decent stadium. Great seats too. Can they kick off already?

They’ve just brought out Gunnersaurus on stage at the fan park

Set to be sunny and 24 degrees at kick-off here in Budapest. Already a warm day, quite cloudy at the moment.

I had to watch the Palace match highlights yesterday, not because I couldn’t wait to relive the win, but because I missed about half the game amid the celebrations in the stands 😭

Said to my brother before Burnley that it was crazy that by the end of the week we could be 8 points clear of City or 4 behind them. Was just making a point about how much could still change, didn’t expect to actually end up 7 clear.

Thought that the stifling heat and my aching legs wobbling as I stood on my seat after an hour of waiting would dull my emotional reaction to the trophy lift. But no, I still teared up. This is our club, back on top.

The stage is set.

85th minute and Martinelli is still charging about like there’s a spot in the Champions League final at stake.

Arsenal fans chanting “we are unbearable” and “we’re the worst champions in the world”

Hard to hear the announcements over the Arsenal fans, but I think they were just announcing that Palace will give out some end-of-season awards post-match, presumably before the trophy lift.

Feels good not to need to turn notifications on for the City game. They can enjoy their 6-0 win.

My younger brother and I on the day of Arsenal’s last Premier League trophy lift. We’ll both be in the stadium again today, 22 years on.

There’s a different kind of emotion looking at the Premier League table and seeing a letter next to your team instead of a number.

On a serious note, cool that the two players who took the most stick for us not winning the league in 23/24 (Trossard & Havertz) because of that one Villa match, ended up scoring the last winners to get us this title.