Emirates Cup Preview: Arsenal vs Athletic Club Bilbao

Do performances and results in pre-season have any real correlation to how a side starts the actual season asks Nick Manfredi.

This is often debated by supporters at this time of year.

Arsenal have had a fairly indifferent pre-season so far with two wins and two defeats in the four games so far.

It’s possible that this is largely down to the competitive opponents we’ve been up against in each game.

In years gone by, before the game became fully immersed with commercialism and marketing opportunities, pre-season was often a very low-key affair.

In the not-too-distant past, we would often start with a game against Barnet with whom we had a partnership at the time, followed by a couple of games in Austria then of course the Emirates Cup.

These days it’s all about far flung lands and games against your rivals. The reasons for this are understandable but it can lead to more varied results. Maybe that’s a good thing though.

Emirates Cup: Arsenal vs Athletic Club Bilbao 

Our final game before the trip to Old Trafford next weekend is against more high calibre opposition in the shape of Athletic Bilbao.

A unique club of course. Located in the Basque region of Northern Spain, Bilbao (also known as “Athletic Club”) are famous for their policy of only signing Basque players.

So, when you hear a pundit bring out the famous cliché, “player x would walk into every team in the world”, well unless he’s Basque he won’t be playing for Bilbao any time soon.

This approach of keeping it local makes it all the more impressive that Bilbao have never been relegated from the top tier of Spanish football.

In fact, they are the only club in Spain outside the evil twins, Real Madrid and Barcelona to be able to boast this feat.

They have won La Liga a respectable eight times and the Copa Del Ray 24 times, most recently in 2024.

Their star player is of course Nico Williams who was heavily linked with Arsenal as well as a host of other big clubs before he committed his future with Athletic by penning a new long-term contract rather unexpectedly. They are managed by Ernesto Valverde who managed Barcelona from 2017-2020.

Emirates Cup 

The game will represent this year’s edition of the Emirates Cup which has been played almost every summer since we moved in 19 years ago. it used to consist of a four team, two-day tournament which was always great fun, but we stopped that a few years ago sadly. It’s almost as prestigious as the Club World Cup.

Team news

In terms of team news, Kai Havertz should be available after a slight hamstring issue ruled him out of the Villarreal game and there is a chance Jurrien Timber and Riccardo Calafiori will be involved. Mikel Arteta said in his post-match presser on Wednesday that Max Dowman would be given a few days break so it remains to be seen if he will be involved tomorrow.

Match fitness is more important than the result, but it would be ideal if we could put in a more encouraging display than we’ve seen for much of pre-season.