Derby Party Without Rice

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Not in a while have I been anxious about games against Tottenham, despite the rivalry as we've had the better of them in recent times and this first North London Derby was no different. The absence of two crucial players in Martin Odeegard, who got injured while on international duty with Norway and Declan Rice following his controversial red card against Brighton, however, gave a lot of us something to worry about.

This is one downside to the international break that teams and players always dread, but again, players can't be stopped from representing their nations. They also get injured at the clubs anyway, but one can argue that those are the ones that really pay their bills. I just hope the injury is not more than expected and we can have him back on time. We missed his creativity in that hole on Sunday.

Prior to the game, I heard calls by many fans for Arteta to start Ethan Nwaneri in Odeegard's absence and while I'm really rooting for the 17-year old, I seriously doubted Arteta would risk so much for his first start to be in such a game. My thinking, which was what eventually played out, was for him to play Trossard in that role instead.

My other concern was having to play Jorginho and Partey together in the middle, given they're both not very mobile. With how valid that was, they found a way to play the Tottenham midfield without having to do too much running.

Alas, Nwaneri came on for a cameo as I expected and it was not a bad outing with the few minutes he spent out there, showing glimpses of what were to expect from him this season. Hopefully, he'd get a starting place in the Carabao Cup game against Bolton after this crucial run of games that ends at the Etihad on Sunday.

It was good to see Sterling come off the bench too and show flashes of why he'd be valuable to the team. I believe he should have had a shot at goal after a driving run from the left, but he tarried too much. But of course, that's more of what we'd get from him and hopefully, he can help us do great things this season.

Timber was also very impressive, further making a case for his selection ahead of Zinchenko and with Calafiori back in training ahead of the Atalanta game today, it's good to have such quality depth that you can count on.

We should expect to see a few rotations in this run but we're definitely in a good place to consolidate last season's performance.