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Preseason Ballers & Fallers: Girona (a) Dowman dazzles, Havertz stays in form, and more from a good start to the 2026/27 ramp-up. Well, it’s about that time. The end of a glorious season is fading into the past, although the urge to keep celebrating into the night still persists. The World Cup has come and gone, as has Argentina fans’ obnoxious behavior throughout the tournament. Now, preseason is upon us once more and the new campaign is just over the horizon. In less than three weeks, this whole thing will start again. In preparation for the cycle of football beginning anew, Arsenal traveled to Spain to take on Girona for their first preseason friendly of 2026. Although the City Football Group-owned club was just relegated from La Liga, they are further along in their conditioning; Saturday’s game was their fourth exhibition match of that process. And yet, a rather cobbled-together lineup of Gunners stormed to a 4-1 win in the northeast of Spain. Goals from Kai Havertz, Christos Tzolis, Max Dowman, and Gabriel Jesus ensured that the English champions got things off to a great start. Now, they gear up for a friendly against Real Betis in Dublin on Wednesday night. While they’re still shaking off a bit of rust from well-earned vacations of varying lengths, the result at Girona should serve to provide encouragement to the side as they aim to get back up to speed. And next time there will hopefully be some additional faces on the pitch, both old and new. Ballers Max Dowman It continues to fascinate me how the 16-year-old can so regularly look like the best player on a pitch filled who adult veterans. He did so again in Girona, scoring and assisting in his first preseason match. Dowman began his stellar performance by setting up Havertz’s opener. Receiving a great pass from Myles Lewis-Skelly, Dowman deftly turned past two defenders before crisply sliding a pass through Girona’s defense to put the German in on goal. He then followed that up by scoring from long range. Just three minutes after Girona made it 2-1 and threatened to turn the match into a closer contest, Dowman once again received an incisive pass from Lewis-Skelly, this time in the right half-space. With his marker having gone down, the young Englishman was free to dribble into shooting position and slot past the keeper from just outside the area. Aside from that, he regularly generated the most threat for Arsenal. He received a ball from Viktor Gyökeres while surrounded by three Girona defenders and was a touch away from scoring from close range. He also played a lovely cross to the back post from near the touchline that Jesus really should have done more with. He also put in a tremendous challenge deep in his own third to prevent the hosts from getting a cross into Arsenal’s box. All in all, it was a great showing and probably advance notice that Dowman will be a bigger feature of this coming season. Kai Havertz The German was great for Arsenal down the stretch of last season and impressive in his World Cup appearances, and he returned from his holiday still in sharp form. Although he played just over half an hour, Havertz made a significant impact on the match during that brief appearance. In the 16th minute, Dowman’s lovely ball in behind put Havertz one on one with the Girona goalkeeper. He proceeded to coolly stroke the ball into the bottom corner of the net, giving Arsenal the lead. It is a welcome reminder of just how good Havertz can be. And his post-match interview, in which he speaks about wanting to win all the trophies on offer next season, is also encouraging. If the German can start off the season in goalscoring form and stay fit, I like Arsenal’s odds of winning some of those trophies. Christos Tzolis It was a good debut for the new guy. From the outset, Tzolis looked on it. He was sharp and zippy and incisive, immediately establishing an effective chemistry with Riccardo Calafiori on the left side of the pitch. To put it perhaps a little too simply, he looked like Leandro Trossard with a bit more burst. Early on, the Greek forward showed that he was very much at the level. He enjoyed a nice sequence in which he combined with Calafiori, Piero Hincapié, and Ethan Nwaneri before being played in on goal. He should have attempted a shot when he entered Girona’s six-yard box, but instead attempted to assist Gyökeres. But of course, his most memorable moment came in the 30th minute when he cut in from the flank onto his right foot and fired in the Gunners’ second goal of the match. It was the trademark finish we have come to expect from watching Tzolis ahead of his move to Arsenal. What I found particularly impressive was the short backlift that allowed him to get his shot off with limited space. Hopefully the goal and the performance it capped off are the first of many. Myles Lewis-Skelly Arsenal entered this match without Declan Rice (who is on holiday following the World Cup), Martín Zubimendi (also on holiday following the World Cup), and Christian Nørgaard (who is injured and in any event joining Everton imminently). And Bruno Guimarães has not yet officially completed his transfer from Newcastle, although we are reportedly close to seeing the end of that saga. So they had to improvise at the six position against Girona. To that end, Mikel Arteta turned to Lewis-Skelly on Saturday. Starting at the base of midfield, the young Englishman performed the role with aplomb. At moments, Lewis-Skelly really appeared to be pulling the strings from deep. There was his luscious ball over the top for Havertz to bring down in space within Girona’s penalty area, and the German was unlucky not to then assist a tap-in for Gyökeres. His ball punched through the lines to Dowman in midfield led to the assist for Havertz’s goal, and he again broke the lines to assist Dowman’s goal. Time and again, Lewis-Skelly sparked some of the best offensive moments of the match for Arsenal. Off the ball, he was just as effective. He snapped into action to win second balls, even managing to prevent a Girona player from running in on the Gunners’ goal when a long ball initially went over the away side’s defense. He also won both his ground duels and protected the ball well inside Arsenal’s territory. All in all, it was a heartening display that should help ease concerns about the team’s options at six. Ife Ibrahim Ahead of the match, multiple people whose opinions I trust on this sort of thing posted online that they hoped to see Ibrahim involved at Girona. Sure enough the 18-year-old academy player made his way onto the pitch in the 62nd minute of the match, replacing Lewis-Skelly. I won’t pretend to know much about Ibrahim, but what I’ll say is that I was highly impressed by how he marshalled the base of midfield for half an hour against a team of grown men. Not much was required of him defensively — he finished with one block, one interception, and one ball recovery. But what struck me was how well he kept things ticking in possession. Ibrahim managed 91% passing on 22 attempted passes, including two that reached the final third. He had some smart passes out to the flanks, some good balls pinged through the lines, and multiple drives forward on the ball where he held off the challenges of more experienced players. I’m not sure how much game time is on offer for him in the senior team this season, but there’s certainly a player there. Fallers Arsenal’s IT department At the time of writing, £9.99 is equal to $13.46. That’s how much I paid for Arsenal’s preseason pay-per-view pass. But at the first time of asking, I didn’t get to watch the match I gave my money to see. The club website crashed, sending me a different error message every time I refreshed the page. The app was arguably worse, continually displaying a blank screen when I tried to log into my account. To put it mildly, the whole operation was an unmitigated disaster. I chose to give up early on the club’s ability to solve this issue, opting about seven minutes into the game to watch it somewhere else. I quickly settled on DAZN, who were streaming the match for free. And as I watched, in the back of my mind festered a thought that made me more and more annoyed as the minutes ticked on: “Why are Arsenal making us pay to see the team when the game is available like this on DAZN and Amazon Prime Video?” At halftime, the club apologized by making the remainder of the match available gratis on their YouTube channel. Which was a nice gesture, but it only infuriated me more. It was an open acknowledgement that at any time, they could have forgone the cash grab and just let everyone watch a simple preseason match without charge. Ultimately, that’s the club’s prerogative. And if the money I’m forking over is going toward a fantastic double swoop for Vinicius Junior and Julián Alvarez (a guy can dream, can’t he?) then hey, I’m happy to help. But charging that amount and then failing to provide the promised service is a bit of a slap in the face, especially given Arsenal’s recent history of technical difficulties on their website. At least if the match is free to watch one can more easily tell themselves, “Easy come, easy go” if the stream isn’t available. At the end of the day, it’s not life-changing money or anything that we’re talking about here. Ten pounds can’t even buy you two decent iced lattes these days. But it’s the principle of the matter — things like this can lose fans’ trust over time. And the whole incident was a rather unnecessary dampener on what, in spite of that small failure, remained an exciting occasion. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on Twitter @Shamsdale or on Bluesky @shamsdale.bsky.social. Or you can buy me a coffee here.