Laura Woods

Good morning and welcome along.

This is the Football Show and today we will be joined live by the Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta.

Not only that, we'll also be speaking to Jolyon Lescott, Matt Murray and Millwall manager Gary Rowett coming up in just a moment.

We will be hearing too from Burnley keeper Nick Pope and alongside me for the duration of the show we have Alan Smith and Andy Hinchcliffe.

Good morning to both of you.

Alan, I'll come to you first because...

We have Mikel Arteta on and that is a huge guest.

We're very much excited to catch up with him and see how preparations are going for the new season.

Last night, one of their friendly games to get them warmed up and ready was against Brentford.

They lost 3-2.

But in these kind of situations, Alan, what are these fixtures used for and how important are those results really?

Andy, the Merseyside derby has been confirmed that it won't be played at a neutral venue.

It will go ahead at Goodison Park.

In terms of the atmosphere that we normally expect at a Merseyside derby, it's going to be completely different with no fans.

So how important is the venue?

How important does the venue become in this fixture?

Absolutely.

Now we can introduce our first guest of the football show this morning, and it is Mobile Manager Gary Rauert.

Gary, good morning.

Thanks for joining us.