On the Whistle: Arsenal 2-1 Man Utd (3-4 pens) - “20 years of covering Arsenal!”

Hello guys, full time at the SoFi Stadium. Arsenal won the friendly match, two goals to one, came from behind to win it. There was a penalty shootout afterwards which Manchester United won but the lesser about that the better. You know, it's all a bit of silliness at the end. Arsenal won the game in the 90 minutes and that of course is what counts. I'm stood outside the stadium now, it's about nine o'clock. Today's actually a really significant day for me, I'll just talk briefly about that but I look back through my diary and the first public article I ever wrote about Arsenal which was for my own site gunnerblog.com way back in 2004, that was 20 years ago to the day I was inspired by the Invincibles and that team and their success and I started writing my own blog, my own website. Here I am 20 years later covering the team professionally for the Athletic in Los Angeles. It's been a hell of a ride so I just want to say thank you so much first of all to you guys who have been a massive part of that. I think I'm one of the lucky people who has a really nice community on YouTube and quite a few of you come up to me out here and said how much you enjoy these videos, how glad you are to see them back now that the football's underway again. So thanks for supporting me and following me on this journey, it's been a hell of a ride over 20 years and yeah we'll see what the next 20 years hold hopefully. Anyway to talk about the game, the lineup again was quite strong I thought, only a couple of younger players in there, two 17 year olds though, Aidan Heaven starting at centre-back and Ethan Ranieri in central midfield alongside Martin Odegaard and Jorginho, Gabriel Jesus came in up front, we had Trossard and Rhys Nelson on the wings, Timber alongside Heaven at centre-half and then at full-back White and Zinchenko, Karl-Hein continuing in goal. It is Karl-Hein not Karl-Hein, I need to remember that moving forward. Well Heaven didn't have the best start to the game necessarily, I mean he was out-muscled, out-paced by Rasmus Hoyland who went through on goal and scored the opener, I don't think Karl-Hein would be particularly pleased with it either and he feared for him at that point in time but credit to him for a player who's 17 years old playing in a huge stadium, 60,000 fans there against established internationals, he really regained his composure impressively. I think what they like about him most in the academy is his ability on the ball, his technique, his passing, his touches and as the first half went on he began to show that, there were some really neat little touches to take him away from the attackers and I've got to give him huge credit because yes he was second best in that early challenge but he came back from it in a big way and settled into the game and grew into the game. Ethan Ranieri made a really positive impact yet again, he got the assist for the equaliser, running in behind in that Granit Xhaka position, that inside left channel and crossing to the far post for Gabriel Jesus to tuck home. Now I'll be honest, in my opinion both looked offside, I've not had the benefit of too many replays so we might need to see it again but an offside goal against Manchester United, I'm sure Eric Ten Haag would have been furious about it, unfortunately he didn't do a press conference so we didn't get to hear about it, maybe he was sulking a bit, who knows but Jesus tucks it home, it's 1-1 and actually you know, Arsenal grew into the game from that point on, Gabriel Jesus would have been delighted to score, Miklacic spoke a lot about him in a press conference afterwards, he said he's really happy with how sharp he looks, how fit, he says the spark has come back into his eyes, he says he's changed a lot in his lifestyle, wouldn't go into further details but you imagine that must be to do with conditioning, strength and conditioning, diet, sleep, all these kinds of little marginal things which can make a big difference in performance and Jesus did indeed look strong, quick, determined, maybe could do with getting his shots off a little earlier but pleased to see him back on the score sheet, my friend Kaya pointed out to me he hadn't scored for Arsenal I think since January, so good to see him hit the back of the net again. United lost Hoyland to injury, they lost Lenny Yoro to injury as well and I think they began to suffer, they probably started the better team but Arsenal grew and grew and eventually were on top, I thought Leandro Trossard had a very good game, Guarneri people are going to talk about, he's got so much talent and at the moment he's making a real case for inclusion in the first team squad next season, I think he will be involved, quite how much he's involved might depend on how he performs in the remainder of the pre-season period. Timber again looks very calm at seven and a half, Arteta said afterwards part of the reason they're playing in there is it could be quite disruptive to move Ben White to centre half and put Timber at right back, it's two changes rather than one, also physically playing at centre half a little bit less demanding, as a full-back you're running up and down the pitch, you're covering a lot of ground, long big spaces, less so the case at centre half but he looked very composed and assured. Second half a lot of changes again, we saw Salah Hedin come on, I think he was really impressive, a very tidy technical player, very intelligent, good use of the ball, he's a little bit older than the likes of Nguyen Airy, does that mean his time has passed? I'm not so sure, I think he'll go out on loan this season, I'm not convinced he'll be an Arsenal player in the long term but he's done himself no harm at all on this tour. Lewis Skelly came on and was involved in the winning goal, again playing from left back, a number of changes were made, of course some players coming back from international duty as well, we saw Gabriel, we saw Kai Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli who had done just one day's training and yet was out on that pitch and scored the winner, a typically determined run from the inside left channel down the wing, knocked it inside, I think it was quite poor defending from United, it was a quite heavy touch from Martinelli and you'd expect the defender to clear there, he didn't and Martinelli finished at the near post. 2-1, you wouldn't ask for two other goal scorers really, Jesus and Martinelli, we need them confident, fit, firing, we need them probably more like the players of the season before last than the ones of last season, we need more goals, we need more end product and they provided it today. Anyway then we get into the penalty shootout, Kai Havertz saw his penalty saved and Jakob Kivijor put his wide and United win the shootout, Karhain who saved two on Wednesday night against Bournemouth couldn't get to any today, well good luck to them, it's a bit of a bizarre thing I think the penalty shootout after the games, I know the idea is to kind of replicate the intensity of that situation, the environment but you just can't, you just can't, especially after a game which hasn't ended in a draw, Arsenal were the clear and deserved winner, 2-1 during the 90 minutes. We move on to Philadelphia, Arsenal fly out tomorrow, it's halfway home I guess, five, six hour flight and they play on Wednesday night against Liverpool which will be another stern test, maybe Gabriel, maybe Martinelli, maybe one or two others, Havertz might be ready to start that game and who knows, maybe Riccardo Calafiori will be in the squad, he's expected to sign imminently flown to London for medical tests and expected I believe to join the squad in the US, whether they throw him in straight away or not I don't know, I guess it all depends on timings but it would be exciting to see him nonetheless, perhaps he'd even get out on the pitch, we shall see. What an amazing stadium this is, had a tour of it this morning, this lunchtime actually, Theo Walcott and Gilberto, the Arsenal legends travelling with the group, joined the media on the tour and I think were quite taken with the stadium, it's incredibly impressive and what's exciting for Arsenal is that KAC have the capacity to share these resources, these technology, this experience and know-how across the different teams, saw a bit of that yesterday at an event with Sean McVay and Mikel Arteta together with the ownership at a community event, I think it was called Football Meets Football, doing some coaching and skills sessions with both sports, with young people in the local community. Yeah, it's been a great trip to Los Angeles, I'm staying here tomorrow joining the team in Philly on Monday, can't wait to see some more of you there, the fans I think thoroughly enjoyed being out here today, it was a great atmosphere, I know there were some fears over ticket sales but over 60,000 in the ground in the end, a few celebs as well, I saw Justin Bieber on the Alison would be united, that's a nice thing, avenging the result in this pre-season friendly, last summer, winning is an important thing, winning is a culture and results are how you achieve that, I know it's just a friendly but as Mikel Arteta said, it's a test, every game is a test. I'm going to leave it there guys, thanks for watching and I don't just mean today, thanks for the support over the years, special day for me, 20 years, makes me feel very old, I'm 38 I suppose, I started quite young and in some respects I feel like I've only just started in terms of covering the club professionally but it's been a real privilege to be here, there's the flights landing at LAX, that's why they had to build this stadium into the ground because of the flight path that goes over it, quite an amazing feat of engineering but I'll leave it there for now, take care guys, I'm off to meet Andrew and Clive and Elliot and Kaya for a drink, so speak to you soon, bye-bye.