Arsenal gear up for south coast trip as Premier League returns with Bournemouth

Arsenal make the trip to the south coast for the teatime clash with Bournemouth, see you there

Hello,

Happy Saturday - and the return of the Premier League!

What’s been evident over the last couple of weeks is that not only do we hate international breaks with a passion, I simply don’t have enough time to pull together the Gooner Fanzine, and write a daily Substack.

With six print issues of the season, and four women’s only digital issues also pencilled in to be published, I’m going to have to cut my cloth accordingly when it comes to also writing my daily Arsenal Substack when it comes to Gooner deadlines.

We’re literally putting the finishing touches to our next print issue of the Gooner Fanzine, which will hit the streets for Arsenal vs Liverpool, on Sunday, October 27, so with the vast majority of work now done and dusted with our forthcoming issue 308, we should have a run of my Arsenal Substacks to come.

With Twitter continuing to implode, and Threads going absolutely nowhere, my Arsenal Substack might soon be the only place you’ll be (un)lucky enough to read my musings, not to mention, actual work.

That is until we start the process all over again with digital issue No2 of the campaign, and print issue 309, both set to come out before Christmas.

Anyway, I’d just thought I’d share that info with you, in case you thought I’d disappeared.

What’s that you say: “You hadn’t even noticed Layth’s Substack was missing…?”

Charming…!

………

Arsenal vs Bournemouth

I always like being by the seaside, by the sea, even if the trip to Bournemouth always takes far longer than it should.

As I always cover this fixture down at Dean Court, or whatever it is that they call the place these days, I never have time to take part in the enjoyable pre-match carousing that seems to take place among so many Gooners I know who attend this particular clash.

Although last year, during a wonderful sunny late September Saturday evening, Arsenal walked the clash 4-0, with the team specifically handing Kai Havertz the ball to score with a late penalty.

Havertz hasn’t looked back since, a nod perhaps to Arsenal’s superb team ethic, rather than all the naysayers at the time, who said it was ‘patronising’ to hand the ball to the previously misfiring Havertz.

Just another reminder that the hate is real when it comes to Arsenal.

…..

Head to head

Played: 16

Wins: 13

Draws: 2

Defeats: 1

Arsenal have won eight of the past nine meetings, with the only defeat in 16 matches in all competitions was 2-1 Premier League loss to Bournemouth back in January 2018, a poor defeat that underlined it was time for Arsene Wenger to move on, which the great man did, a mere four months later.

I’ve been to 14 of the 16 matches in this fixture, dating back to being a Junior Gunner during the 3-0 League Cup victory over Bournemouth back at Highbury in 1987, and while there haven’t been too many classics, the 3-3 vs the Cherries back in January 2017 was a strange match, that still leaves me perplexed.

……..

À la recherche du temps perdu

I think one of my favourite matches was the 3-0 win at Dean Court in August, 2022, not so much for the victory, although that was enjoyably emphatic.

I’d just come back from a week long beach rave in Croatia (long story, don’t ask) and was feeling so mellow as I eased my way back into reporting on the Premier League, that I stopped for a pre-match ice cream on nearby Boscombe beach, during a rare but welcomed summer heatwave.

I even dipped my toes in the sand, as I took a few minutes to stroll along the beach, contemplating the waves, the gulls, the noise of others on a wonderfully sunny and warm afternoon, knowing that would be the last time I would do such a thing anywhere for at least another ten months.

The end of a summer always feels like a sense of things lost, underling time ebbing away, with a vague sense of memory and happiness being subsumed by something darker, as we approach six months of darkness.

Standing on Boscombe’s golden sand, the gloriously restorative clear, cold water lapping at my feet, under a stunning, cloudless blue sky, the sentiment was certainly such that day.

Even while prompting a fleeting feeling of utter calm and contentment.

With life always being so hectic, it was a glorious little moment that I still keep with me now, recalling sparingly, as to not wear out the memory.

It’s normally brought out on cold, dark nights. It always, unfailingly, brings a smile, as somewhere deep in my psyche, I can feel the warmth and happiness of that fleeting moment once again.

And now, as the evenings continue to get darker earlier, and far colder, with the clocks set to go back next week, a trip to the seaside in October feels very much like a full stop, sending notice that we’re done with any further hopes of nice weather until late spring at the very earliest. And I always feel a little sad at that prospect.

However, I have noticed our next scheduled game on the south coast after today is the final match of the season at Southampton.

Here’s to the prospect of another gloriously sunny afternoon by the sea next May.

Let’s hope by then, we’ll all have something to celebrate.

See you in Bournemouth.