When you read about an Arsenal centreback saying the team are ready to ‘explode,’ you should probably check what he means.

Arsenal are ready to explode. I can hear you all now, ‘haven’t they done that already?’

Thankfully, it’s not that type of exploding for once and the defence isn’t going to self-destruct when they handball another own goal past a helpless Bernd Leno. At least I don’t think it is.

More’s the shame, you could be tempted into thinking.

But we won’t do that here. No. Let’s keep this positive.

“Sometimes, these games are games where you can explode,” Sokratis said ahead of facing Manchester City’s not insignificant, if depleted, attack.

“I think we need one good game in our home to explode and I hope we will have that on Sunday.

“I don’t know if it’s a good time [to play them]. City is, I think, the best team with Liverpool in the Premier League and not just the Premier League.

“They have fantastic players. It will be a very difficult game.”

I get what he means. We just need one game where it all clicks and they remember all the stuff that Unai Emery made them forget. Like how to play football.

With Freddie at the helm you can already sense the players are having more fun than they were under the rigid regime of the Spaniard that seemed to punish individuality and creativity. Even if it hasn’t quite clicked on the pitch as a unit for Freddie’s team, happy players are much more likely to make that happen than miserable ones.

“It has only been 10 days, two weeks,” Freddie reminded us before the game on Sunday. “But I feel there are certain things that are much, much better in the games and that I feel really good about.

“I’m happy. The players are smiling at least and that’s important. Of course people that play are smiling more than players that don’t, but in general terms I’ve always believed in that. Of course you need to be professional and all of that, but they’re still human beings and they need to be happy.

“When I played, when I was smiling I played much better. I believe in that but then as well of course there needs to be structure in how you can express yourself. Happy players play better I think.”

Let’s hope we all have something to smile about on Sunday evening.