When ESR had us Rockin’ All Over the World

Good morning everyone! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Andrew Allen as much as I have the last couple of days, but he’s passed the torch (more on the Olympics later) to me to accompany you through today and the weekend.

There hasn’t been much in the way of news since the friendly against Bournemouth, so the future of Emile Smith Rowe feels like the only place to start. I have, I’m sure like many of you, many conflicting thoughts and feelings about this one.

I think there’s a very clear and obvious divide between Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal before Chelsea at home in December 2020 and Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal during and after that game. Following a lot of playing time at left-back and wingback, Bukayo Saka played further forward that day and Smith Rowe came into the team for his first Premier League start under Arteta and just the second of his career. Arsenal had picked up two points from the previous seven Premier League games and won just two of the previous 11. We were 15th in the league and, 15 games in, only four teams (Fulham, West Brom, Burnley, Sheffield United) had scored fewer goals.

It was lockdown, it was the winter, the football had been stodgy as it had ever been for months. Arteta was almost certainly hanging by a thread. And then two Hale End boys lifted the fog. Smith Rowe, with Saka, added creativity and energy to a team that had been playing with neither. The game sped up when the ball arrived at Smith Rowe’s feet, moves were knitted together. Not just against Chelsea, but in the week that followed against Brighton and West Brom too. Arsenal started to play watchable football again, started scoring again, started winning again. And we all felt joy again, thanks to these two kids who had never been under contract with any other club.

When fans could return to games en masse at the end of the following summer, every Arsenal match was soundtracked by Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over The World. Arsenal fans were rocking, all over the world. It was the new status quo. And it felt like, even if things are never quite that simple, it was all thanks to Saka and Smith Rowe, inseparable in the task of giving Arsenal a fresh start.

The following season saw the pair both net in the north London derby, just as they had dreamt.

“Yesterday at breakfast we spoke about this, ‘Imagine how it would feel to score in a north London derby’,” Saka said after the game.

“When Emile scored the first goal, I just looked at him and we remembered the conversation. When I scored, he looked at me again and it was just a very, very special feeling for both of us to do it in this stadium as well.”

Smith Rowe described it as the best day of his young life.

“I’ve always dreamt of this day to score for Arsenal against Tottenham. With my family here, it’s the best feeling ever.”

That goal was one of 10 Smith Rowe scored in the league 2021/22 but the return to fitness of Gabriel Martinelli, and the rise of the inverted left-back, meant he was increasingly on the fringes even then. The midfielder kickstarted Arsenal in the number 10 role quickly assumed by Martin Odegaard and excelled on the left with an overlapping left-back, but we all know we’ve moved away from that and the job of the player on the left has become one of a winger — a Gabriel Martinelli — more than a playmaker like Smith Rowe. Martinelli returned from injury midway through 2021/22 and quickly made that spot in the team his own.

Smith Rowe has not started four Premier League games in a row since November-December 2021. He has not started more than two in a row since April 2022. Largely due to injuries, there were 0 league starts in 2022/23, then just three in 2023/24.

I think there’s a lot Mikel Arteta may look back and learn from his reintroduction (or lack of one) of Smith Rowe into the side each time he approached fitness. The reticence to use a player who has not played for a while in tense games is understandable but that player will never be fully fit and prepared to play again unless he is thrown in. We may have to reintegrate returning players better moving forward.

Another criticism against Arteta is his use of Academy graduates and Smith Rowe is a true success story on that front. He was trusted and made the leap into the first team. It shouldn’t be lost that, as he sat on the bench in LA on Wednesday evening (or Thursday morning for those of us in Europe), he was watching plenty of Hale End boys follow in his footsteps. Arteta is still a young, inexperienced manager, and that means he still has lessons to learn — I’m sure he’d be the first to admit that — and I do really believe he’s keen to integrate these young players, he just needs them to show him that they’re ready like Smith Rowe did when given the chance.

Speaking of criticisms, Edu is often a target for his ability to sell players for a good price, but I do think £35m for a player who has started three league games in the last two years is a very good deal and the fact Fulham and Crystal Palace are the clubs who have been linked, with no disrespect intended, tells us how he is viewed within the game right now and it’s not at the level we are competing at. There are plenty of sliding doors moments with Smith Rowe, many injury-related, but ultimately, I think the deal works for everyone at this moment in time. We’re going to have to say goodbye to plenty of players we like if we’re to continue improving.

Arteta likes to say we’re on a journey and Smith Rowe was an enormous part of putting us on it. The 12 months or so when he was a regular will stick with me for a long time.

On the subject of midfield, I opened Twitter yesterday afternoon to see a lot of people excited about Fabian Ruiz. I’ll pay a bit that one a bit more credence once it’s coming from someone other than former chief editor at the Jose Mourinho branch of Pravda respected journalist Duncan Castles.

The opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Paris is this evening but yesterday already brought some Arsenal involvement: Cloe Lacasse (Canada) and summer signing Mariona Caldentey (Spain) both scored wonderful goals, while our Australian contingent will want to quickly move on from a surprisingly heavy defeat against Germany.

That’s me for today, have a good one, and hopefully we’ve got a bit of news to chat about tomorrow because I’m all out of thoughts on Emile Smith Rowe for now!

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