MIKEL ARTETA had warned us to expect the unexpected when he announced on Friday afternoon that he wanted to make Arsenal more unpredictable.

So maybe we shouldn’t have been quite so surprised when he dropped a major bombshell in their very first game of the new season.

Arsenal had a winning start to the Premier League season

Eddie Nketiah opened the scoring

Bukayo Saka added a second for Arsenal

.

He fired a brilliant effort past Matt Turner

Taiwo Awoniyi did get Forest back into the game late on

Thomas Partey started the game at right-back, exactly as he had done against Forest in the Gunners’ season-ending matchup that resulted in a 1-0 loss.

But five minutes after the scheduled start time had been postponed, he switched places with Ben White and was now a center-half.

Five minutes later, Partey joined Declan Rice in midfield, and Arsenal immediately switched to a three-man defense.

.

It was all very Pep Guardiola and that certainly shouldn’t have surprised anyone at the Emirates because Arteta has been borrowing from his mentor’s playbook all year.

There was one early let-off when Orel Mangala’s clearing header passed right through the middle of the Arsenal defence to send Brennan Johnson haring in on goal.

The Forest striker missed his attempt wastefully since he was unable to take advantage of the communication error.

.

.

After that, Arteta’s squad scored goals from Eddie Nketiah and Bukayo Saka, forcing Steve Cooper’s team to concentrate on containing the damage.

However, given that Arteta now has so many options, nobody can be counted on to show up regularly, thus Arsenal’s players will need to adjust to the winds of change that are sweeping around the Emirates.

And if Gabriel felt unjustly left out as he sat on the substitutes’ bench, consider what Kieran Tierney and Rob Holding must have been thinking after being left off the 20-man roster.

.

.

Jurrien Timber was forced off with an injury on his Premier League debut

Takehiro Tomiyasu is another who has gone from stalwart to back-up in recent months, but at least he got a 40-minute run-out after Jurrien Timber limped off at the start of the second half.

The £34.5million Dutchman had injured himself making a yellow card challenge on Johnson just before the break.

So when he went down clutching the back of his leg with no one near him just after the restart, it was obvious that he was in trouble.

Timber had initially been signed from Ajax as a right-back, but with Oleksandr Zinchenko still recovering from a calf strain he has so far been operating on the left.

Declan Rice was one of three to make their Prem debut for the club

Kai Havertz was also handed a start by Mikel Arteta

Now it looks as though Arteta is going to have to come up with another defensive permutation.

And it was apparent that Gabriel was sent on to stabilize the situation when he needed to finish the game after Taiwo Awoniyi scored a consolation goal for Forest.

That goal revealed White’s lack of speed as Anthony Elanga had beaten him to the ball before Awoniyi’s goal.

And it created a situation that was considerably more difficult than it should have been for a squad that might just be considering starting over.