The £34m signing was the most impressive of Mikel Arteta’s summer recruits as Arsenal beat Manchester City on penalties in the season curtain raiser
With his arboreal surname, Jurrien Timber will always remember his Arsenal debut as an unlikely tale of copse and robbers.
Of the Gunners’ £204 million trinity in the summer transfer market, the Dutch defender was their most accomplished performer in a Wembley curtain-raiser Manchester City somehow managed to lose.
Arsenal won’t care two hoots that Leandro Trossard’s massively-deflected equaliser, 11 minutes into added time, was scarcely deserved. And they won’t shed any crocodile tears that the predators who hunted them down in the title race last season came unstuck in the shoot-out.
Over the next nine months of footslog, the Gunners will want to see a tangible return on the most lavish spree in the club’s history. Declan Rice, Kai Havertz and Timber have already started paying back their hefty fees.