The Athletic

So after six weeks away, the Premier League is back and it did not disappoint.

And with the January transfer window around the corner, Liverpool have moved quick to snap up one of the World Cup's bright talents from under the noses of Chelsea and Manchester United.

I'm Dan Bardell and this is the Athletic Football podcast.

It's a free header. Itresistible from Arsenal.

It's a free header.

It's Joel Lenton, and it's three for Newcastle United.

He also got plenty forwards here.

Diori cuts it back in a break to eight.

Nuri, he fires's move for Cody Gapot.

We have the Athletics Manchester United writer Laurie Whitwell and the Athletics Dan Barnes. Laurie, how you doing? Do you have a good Christmas? I love the Christmas, thanks, Dan. Yeah, with family, drank a fair amount, ate even more, and watched some good football yesterday. I'm glad the Premier League's back though, missed it. Yeah, it was great to be at Villa Park for myself yesterday and enjoyed being back at the Premier League games. I imagine your Christmas may have been tempered a little bit by the news that Cody Gakpo is looking likely to join Liverpool, but we'll come on to that later. And Dan, sign question to you, good festivities. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Lovely, thanks, Dan. I must say it's probably the first time in around about 10 years that I've not been kind of uh working from an office on boxing day so yeah it was nice to sort of have the

warm embrace of the premier league back whilst you uh tuck into those leftovers well we've got

you working today on the 27th and there were 25 goals across the seven games on boxing day

and there's great entertainment everywhere you look i enjoyed match of the day last night, except for the obvious, of course. Leaders Arsenal came from behind to win 3-1 against West Ham Lurie, and Gabriel J-Zuz is obviously missing, going to be missing for an unknown timeframe, but Eddie Nkete has got the shirt for now. He's going to have the shirt for the next few games at the very least. At the moment, we don't know whether Arsenal will strengthen or not. But he did a good audition to kick that place permanently because that was a well-worked goal and a lovely turn and finish. Yeah, it was beautiful, wasn't it? And I think that's probably the most pleasing things from Mikhail Artetta that Enketya came in so seamlessly. It's not like he struggled to link up with his teammates. It was very fluid, wasn't it, that sort of front three and Saka was excellent, wasn't they? And Martin Ali took his goal well as also. But I think people would look at that Gabriel-J-Zus situation, think, okay, this is where Arsenal, perhaps going to get derailed. you know, Man City, been there, done it, okay, they've got the five-point lead, but an injury to a centre forward who's as influential as he is, although he hasn't, you know, been scoring at the rate that he started the season at. I think he's so pivotal, isn't he, in that high press and kind of getting everybody involved in team moves, but inetia did the business and I think he'll

probably feel like he he can do that right he mean he finished the season playing for

Arsenal last season before Jay-Zus came in and perhaps might have been a bit bruised by the fact

they went and signed a proper centre forward to be the number one but he's actually shown yeah

straight away I can do the job no No worries. And I saw Gabriel Jesus was there, wasn't he sporting some designer stubble? So I don't know if that's as a result. He's not going to shave until he's back playing first team football. But, yeah, from Mikhail Ateta's position, I think it was a pleasing performance. because I mean, I know they fell behind, but they were playing well even when West Ham took the lead, really. And to kind of come back and win quite comfortably in the end, I think is a real good sign for them. Dan, I think obviously Jay-Zus' all-round game is very, very important for Arsenal. He maybe hasn't been as potent in goal as perhaps the Arsenal fans and Mikhail Arteta would like, but there's no doubt that he's all-round game. It's very

beneficial to the way Arsenal play. In this interim period, you know, Laurie mentions that

they fell behind. Having someone like Enkete, his record at the Emirates is absolutely phenomenal.

It's almost like, is he the right kind of player for some of these games at the tight Christmas period, the tight festive period? Because he is an assassin in front of goal. He's finishing. He's very, very good. Yeah, I think having someone like that who just feels like when the chance comes, you know, he's going to more often than not get that shot on target, you know, if that sort of, the way of how clinical and Ketia is just feels, you know, Arsenal fans potentially don't need to worry too much. You know, he might not necessarily bring the same sort of amount of kind of link play that Jay Zeus does because he's really sort of transformed the way that Arsenal attack. With the way that that team's playing, I mean, James at Nicholas has published the piece on the

athletic talking about Arsenal's attack and really just saying, look, this was, there were a lot of eyes on the fact that this was the first game without Gabriel J-Zus, but don't forget about everything else that Arsenal have got. You know, he made notice of the fact that Martin Oedegard didn't go to the World Cup, so he's been fresh, ready to go, and then you obviously add in Bacay Saka, you add in Gabriel Martinelli.

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