Results are not important in pre-season, particularly when you’re missing a lot of your players. Arsenal’s pre-season tour of the USA got underway in the early hours of Thursday morning UK time, with the Gunners facing off against Bournemouth in Los Angeles.
The match ended 1-1, with the Gunners winning a penalty shootout thanks to a couple of spot-kick saves from Karl Hein. Missing the likes of David Raya, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice, a number of young stars got their opportunity to impress Mikel Arteta.
One player it was clear to see they would miss if he was not available was Martin Odegaard. The skipper oozes quality, even this early in pre-season and proved his importance to the team in just 45 minutes.
What was also clear for all to see was this is a team that is united. And unity is a bit of a buzzword for Arteta.
Speaking in 2021 he said: “For me, if I have to define our identity, it is one word now: unity. Without unity, you can’t achieve what we want to achieve and unity means every person that works in the organisation, it’s our way of playing, it is our way of transmitting our values, our way of connecting with our fans, our ownership is everybody, uniform, thinking in the same way, with the same purpose, without any individual agendas, without any egos, just that’s the task.
