Takehiro Tomiyasu played 45 minutes for Arsenal’s under-21s as they beat Manchester United 3-1 win in their opening game of the new Premier League 2 season.
Sidelined with a thigh problem for most of the summer, the chance to play competitive football marks a positive step towards full fitness for the Japan international.
Tomiyasu missed a huge chunk of the second half of last season with two separate calf problems and finished the campaign back in the treatment room after hobbling off in the 2-0 defeat against Newcastle.
He was called up by his country for international friendlies in June but didn’t actually make it onto the pitch as his struggles continued.
On the eve of the new season, manager Mikel Arteta revealed that the ex-Bologna man was closing in on a return and predicted that he and Kieran Tierney would avoid the problems that hampered them last time out.
“The reason they got those persistent injuries are for different reasons,” explained the boss.
“Probably because the squad didn’t enable them to recover, and [we] don’t play them when it was necessary and it was too tired when they weren’t fully recovered so sometimes we had to rush them.
“It was a combination of things with those two players, they’re so pushy and willing to contribute with the team. We know that with those two fit and performing at their best, we are much stronger as a team.”
In Tomiyasu’s absence, Ben White was selected ahead of Cedric Soares to start last night’s win over Crystal Palace. Tierney came on as a late substitute and played a part in the Gunners’ second goal.
Tomiyasu wasn’t the only first team squad member to play at Boreham Wood today. Having missed out on a place on the bench at Selhurst Park, new signing Marquinhos grabbed a goal and assist.
Good stuff.
Nice to hear Marquinhos made an instant impact, how did he look? Next Martinelli?
The next Marquinhos.
Marquinhos gives me Douglas Costa vibes. Admittedly whenever I’ve seen him play he’s only ever been very conservative, but I assume that if he were to go for it he would play like Douglas Costa.
Marquinhos looked good—a cut above the U21 level. He was dangerous down the right all game. Very good at using his body to shield the ball and turn the defender. The final ball was lacking a few times when he got himself into a good position on the right side of the area. But all in all, I think the game will have given him confidence. My son and I were extremely excited to see Marquinhos and Tomiyasu in warm ups, after expecting to see the academy boys.
Was it shown on Arsenal.com?
A knockout punch from M. Ali in his first game in charge.
how was Azeez but
I wonder, one of the best passers of the ball I know but never gets mentioned
That is great news.
Great to have Tomiyasu back on the pitch and to read that Marquinhos was very effective. Also good to ingrain those good habits – beating United – into our academy players early
Come back strong, Tomi, you’ve got a fight for your spot now! Shaping up to be our best defence in years!
I think he is still a better rb than white, who has to fight for his place at cb in my opinion as saliba looks too strong to drop!
Good to see Tomi back although I think the reintegration might be slow. The series of injuries he picked up in quick succession suggests there may be a few niggles along the way but I hope we can get closer to a full season out of him. He’s so reliable. Like a right sided Nacho Monreal. Mr 7/10
Quite often 8 to be fair
At least with White freed up to play RB, we shouldn’t have to rush him back like we did once or twice last year
Tomi is pure class. I always relax when he is playing – so solid and pretty much always makes the right choices. Definitely Mr 8/10 at least.
That’s fair. What I meant is he’s never below a 7.
Wishing you better soon Tommi.
Meantime, thank God for Ben White.
Keeping Cedric out of the lineup will produce better results in terms of playing within the managers tactical approach. Nothing against Cedric, he plays hard and does the best he can, but he’s not at the level as the rest of the squad. It happens.
Feeling very good this time last season we was fd we are looking much better now
Great news to see Tomi & Kieran getting back to full fitness, our squad is looking so much stronger with these guys included, one game in one without conceding, these two top players are going to have to fight for their places, Benjamin had a tricky zaha in his pocket most of the game & Zichenko was very tidy and was never out of position which Kieran can sometimes find himself to be in which in all fairness is not his own fault, not mentioned a certain CB on his PL debut, lets just see how good he might be,… Read more »
Don’t agree. Think Tierney more solid – Zinch was definitely not as defensively minded. He moved inside a lot more an swapped with Xhaka which we don’t tend to see Tierney do.
Now we have a bigger squad (and potentially bigger in the next few weeks) we can allow players the time to recover completely and achieve full fitness before bringing them back to first team football.
We were rushing him only for him to be injured once again.
I actually though Ben White did a good job there on Friday night – it provides more flexibility…
He’s massively important.
As is KT on de other side.
This year we won’t have nearly as a big a drop off when Tomiyasu is out as we did last year with Cedric playing since White should be the first choice at RB when Tomiyasu is out since we have Saliba with the squad this year.
Lolllllll at man poonited