Arsenal's latest pre season friendly took place in Dublin on Wednesday evening against La Liga opposition, Real Betis, and myself and quite a few fellow Gooners travelled down from Co.Donegal to cheer them on. Deciding against taking the car mainly due to the uncertainty of parking in Dublin at the Aviva stadium, we opted for the tried and tested supporters bus method. Leaving Letterkenny (Our largest town in Co.Donegal, Pop 23,000 approx) and armed with our home shirts, scarves and snacks of course, we set out on the 240 kilometre journey to Irelands capital city. The mood amongst the supporters was upbeat, and understandably so given that most of them were still celebrating their first title in 22 years and the conversations therefore were positive and refreshingly optimistic.
Guimaraes
Unsurprisingly the recent transfer speculation surrounding Bruno Guimaraes and Vinicus Junior dominated the small talk and an air of excitement surrounded the mentioning of the duo, especially Vini Jnr with most fans daring to dream that the Brazialian international would leave the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium for the home of the champions. On the way out of Monaghan town after a quick stop, the bus continued on its journey to the Aviva with the rain now pelting the windows with considerable fury. Though, just as soon as the rain began, it ended and was replaced by warm sunny rays which pierced into the bus and brought the summer back again. Better news was filtering throughout the bus too, as the Sky Sports webpage now showed Guimaraes as a done deal for Arsenal, 75 million the going rate for the Brazilian with his style of play potentially a perfect match for Mikel Arteta's midfield engine. Guimaraes, a tower of consistency for Newcastle, joined the Magpies in 2022 from Lyon for £40m, he made 195 appearances for Newcastle, scoring 31 goals. His experience and determination will reinforce what Arteta has built in the past few seasons at the Emirates and the fact that Guimaraes has missed just 16 Premier League games since he signed for Newcastle in 2022 is another major plus for the Gunners.
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Having navigated the tolls and the afternoon traffic filtering in and out of the city, the coach rolled to a stop on south bank, approximately 1.3km from the stadium and a 20-25 walk along Sean Moore Road and Londonbridge Road. By now the excitement was really starting to build and the sight of red and white jersey's everywhere made for a stunning visual as Dublin prepared to welcome the Premier League Champions to it's Irish capital. The early morning showers had all but cleared away and the air was filled with the chants of the hawkers selling their ware to the droves of supporters passing by. We managed to squeeze into Slattery's pub just 5 minutes from our designated entrance and the atmosphere inside and out was magical with supporters exchanging conversations of team matters and expectations for the season ahead. I spoke with a fellow gooner over from London for the game and he shared stories from his earliest Arsenal memories at Highbury and how he felt with getting the job done in the Premier League last season and our narrow defeat against PSG in the Champions League final. As the clock counted down towards kick off we queued for pizza and chips at the eatery next door, hungrily consuming the tasty treats as the Arsenal fan with the trumpet got the fans in a party mood with a rousing rendition of 'Tequila'. With barely 25 minutes to go to kick off, we made our way to the orange coded entrance and took our seats in time to see the teams warming up ahead of the match.
The Match
An unchanged line up from the Girona friendly saw Arsenal yet again give pre-season rests to David Raya, Declan Rice, Jurrien Timber, William Saliba (Injured) Martin Zubimendi, Martin Odegaard, Eberechi Eze, Mikel Merino, Bukayo Saka and Noni Madueke. Ben White was given the Captain's armband for the Betis clash and Gykores, Havertz and new signing Christos Tzolis led the line up front.
A 15 minute delay to the kick off time owing to Betis arriving late at the ground due to traffic pushed the start time up to 7.45, and when the moment neared, the sold out Dublin venue welcomed the Arsenal team out onto the pristine Aviva surface with a rousing rendition of London forever. Arsenal had the better of the possession at the start of the match and maybe should have opened the scoring when Viktor Gyokeres had a goalbound opportunity denied by the outstretched boot of Alvaro Valles. But a few minutes later a stunned Aviva watched instead as a corner by Pablo Fornals was somehow misjudged by second-choice goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga and it dropped to unmarked Rodrigo Riquelme who slammed in the opener with a powerful shot at the back post. Credit for a lot of the La Liga sides early chances must go to Betis right winger, Pablo Garcia, the Spanish under 21 player created a lot of havoc in and around the Arsenal box and it was his shot on goal that got diverted for a corner which led to the opener. Arsenal new signing, Greece international Tzolis had a chance to equalise after cutting out a loose pass from Betis keeper Valles, but unfortunately sent the ball wide, failing to hit the target.
Manuel Pellegrini
Real Betis who are managed by former Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini will be in this season's Champions League after a 20-year absence and they had the best of the chances in the friendly, and it was no surprise that their possession paid off again when the impressive Nelson Deossa scored with a superb strike in the 26th minute, firing an unstoppable shot into the top corner from around 25 yards. This was Betis's sixth pre season friendly of the summer and they looked a well drilled and organised side accustomed to playing with each other.
Delivered to perfection 🤌 pic.twitter.com/7FEGnptYd7
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) August 6, 2026
Piero Hincapie reduced the deficit in the 32nd minute when the Ecuadorian headed in a Tzolis corner after Valles failed to deal with the set-piece. Hincapie's goal seemed like a way back into the match for Arsenal and we certainly thought in the stands that a comeback was on the cards for the Gunners, hopes were dashed though on 43 minutes as former West Ham midfielder Fornals placed the ball into the corner of the net from the edge of the area and past a helpless Kepa to restore the two goal margin for the Spanish side. Consequently, Arteta ringed the changes at half-time making seven changes which included Jesus for Gykores and pre-season debut's for Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Magalhaes who only returned recently to club action after representing Brazil at the World Cup. With 30 minutes of action each before being substituted, the Brazilian duo had little time to affect the outcome.
Marli Salmon, the 16 year old defender, and 19-year-old midfielder Louie Copley were two of those changes, but unfortunately Copley was withdrawn just seven minutes after half time when he suffered a knee injury after landing awkwardly. Arteta made further substitutions but the second half failed to produce any more goals and despite a relatively close effort from Gabriel Jesus, Arsenal never looked like clawing back the two goal margin.
Arteta gave his thoughts on the result after the game "Well, the important part is to win it, and we didn't manage to win it, so disappointed obviously for the result. It's true we used 25 players, so you need to give a bit of context to the game. In the first half with more starters, two very different things: how we played and how we competed, because we had some fantastic moments in the time we played, by the way, we competed especially in and around our box, that’s not the standards that we are used to so there are things to improve obviously, some positives to take from the game and a bad result sometimes it's good to create even more fire in them'.
Despite the result, the majority of the fans stayed to applaud the team as Arteta led them around the stadium after the game and the conversations heading back to the bus were already about the first silverware of the season with the upcoming Community shield. COYG!
