Arsenal, expectation and the trouble with being champions of pre-season

It’s back! The best league in the world at saying it’s the best league in the world returns to our orbit on Friday night, and The Fiver is ready. We’ve lined up the essentials – tin hat, Tin – and will be foregoing the not inconsiderable pleasure of George Clarke’s Remarkable Renovations on 4Seven so that we can watch Crystal Palace v Arsenal. There’s been a remarkable renovation – pick that segue out – at Arsenal. According to our chirpy and occasionally decipherable nephew #5r, they’ve already won pre-season. We think he’s referring to the bargain buys of Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, though he also swears by Fábio Vieira’s Fifa ratings.

Arsenal are top of the Premier League form table, or they would be if Bournemouth didn’t insist on calling themselves AFC Bournemouth. Arsenal did win six of their seven pre-season games, scoring 26 goals in the process – compelling evidence that The Fiver has lost the plot and now appears to be using friendly results as a guide of what will happen when the real thing starts. But these are upbeat times at the Emirates, even by traditional opening-weekend standards, and we wouldn’t be doing our reliably half-@rsed job if we didn’t acknowledge as much. Arsenal have the most exciting young squad in the league, and their probable XI at Palace includes only two players over the age of 25. No wonder their fans are daring to dream that, if all goes to plan, this could finally be the year they reach the promised land of fourth place.

Their coach, Amazon Video sensation Mikel Arteta, shares the optimism. “We are ready to go to a different level,” he said, unveiling plans for Werner Herzog to direct season two of All or Nothing. “[Breaking into the top four] is not going to get any