I guess in the sense that typically after the summer off-season, there is a certain cadence to how things go and that leads to a huge build up to the first match of the season. This over 100 day break is unprecedented in the middle of the season and soccer has easily been among the least important things.
I suppose that some of the regular things that happen in the summer are starting to get going. There is a major transfer rumor about Thomas Partey (which is quite controversial right now and because I am a content producer I should weigh in on that) and then there is the contract sagas for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Bukayo Saka starting to move in to concerning areas.
The last thing that is nagging me is how in the hell do you account for a three month break when you write about things from a stats perspective? My best guess is that you have to be even less certain about things than you would (or should) have been before the break.
Enough preamble I guess let's get into the Arsenal at Manchester City Preview.
I don't expect that this will be a particularly even battle between the two teams but it will be a very interesting test of how Mikel Arteta sees his team and how they should take on matches like this. It will be interesting where on the two kind of extremes he chooses to go towards with the Arsene Wenger style of playing to his team's strength vs the Unai Emery style of looking to neutralize the opponents strength.
I think that because of where this falls on the schedule of things that we might see a higher return to playing more towards the Emery style with more time to train for a specific opponent in mind compared to the weekly league grind where there just isn't that much time to put in specific game plans.
