Predictably, every Arsenal podcast this week has been discussing depth and how much rotation is the right amount of rotation. City and Real are the two examples held up - while they both have great depth, the star players play star player minutes and they start the majority of matches.

I think the difference between us and them is a) 500M euros, but that’s not important right now, and b) the desire/ability to win games early and shut up shop. The late winners we had last season were exciting, but the additional minutes put into Saka/Odegaard/White/Gabriel/Saliba’s legs add up. That’s why I’m so excited about Merino - say what you will about Route One, but it’s significantly less physically taxing. I would really like to see more of that going forward. We might be able to do this vs Spurs, but we definitely can’t against City. My hope, however, is that between Spurs and Atalanta, we’ll see some different patterns emerge.