Morning guys.
Champions League football returns this evening with Arsenal playing Athletic Club in Spain. It’s a 5-45pm UK time kickoff. Arsenal and Athletic Club have never faced each other in competitive football although we did beat them 3-0 during pre-season just a few weeks ago. For Mikel Arteta, he’s going home as he was born not far from Bilbao in San Sebastián – right at the top of Spain in the Basque Country.
During his pre-match press conference Mikel Arteta said:
We’re excited to start again from scratch in a beautiful place, in a stadium that is going to generate something special. We’re looking forward to that and I’m very excited again to step by step build some momentum, and start to have some wins. We landed in Bilbao, that’s normally where I land when I go back home to San Sebastian, it’s an hour’s drive from there. All my family is from there, and you just sense the passion, the rivalry, the football atmosphere. It’s great to be here – I’ve never been in this stadium before, so it’s a good experience.
He also confirmed that Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka, Ben White, Kai Havertz and Martin Odegaard are ruled out of tonight’s fixture. I didn’t know this until I read it on the official website but should we win tonight, we’ll be the first club in the history of the European Cup to win six consecutive matches against Spanish sides, having beaten Real Madrid and Sevilla twice, as well as Girona during our first couple of campaigns back amongst the elite.
I know little about tonight’s opponents other than Nico Williams plays for them and if my memory serves me right, he was awful when we faced them in pre-season. He’s ruled out of tonight’s fixture anyway with an injury he picked up whilst on international duty. New summer signing Aymeric Laporte wasn’t signed in time to make Athletic’s Champions League squad and on top of that, the hosts have a number of problems in defence. Yeray Alvarez has just been handed a 10 month doping ban and Unai Egiluz is ruled out for the season with a cruciate knee ligament injury whilst Benat Prados recently suffered a knee injury which requires surgery. That’s a lot of defensive injury for any manager to deal with, including one as experienced as Ernesto Valverde.
Valverde loves to play fast-paced, pressing football in a 4-2-3-1. They average just 48% possession in La Liga and tend to be much more direct and incisive when they burst forward. They are strong from corners and wide free-kicks too, racking up 18 set play efforts on goal in less than 400 minutes of league action. Athletic Club, who tend to attack with pace and panache down the sides. Inaki and Nico Williams are usually their wide forwards, but also look out for right-back Jesus Areso. He has produced 18 open play crosses in four La Liga games, flying forward on the overlap. Alex Berenguer [above] is another to keep an eye on as he can play anywhere across the front line and chips in with plenty of goals and assists. Bright and technically excellent, Berenguer has made seven chances this season.
Valverde will want his players to press us, but given our quality on the ball, he may set up slightly more pragmatically than usual. If we begin to play through the thirds, they will switch to a hostile mid-block. Boasting La Liga’s best expected goals against number (2.0xGA), they defend well as a team and are not easy to break down. If we press Athletic, we could experience plenty of joy. Their defensive players have made several errors during the early weeks, so it could be a good idea to apply pressure in a bid to force fresh mistakes. Viktor Gyokeres, our new pressing machine, has a big role to play in this regard.
I think this has the makings of a really good game. Both teams are defensively strong, although Clarke has hinted at Athletic being prone to making mistakes of late, and both teams will want to start the campaign on a positive note.
Catch up in the comments.
Good morning Rico.
Off out shopping very shortly, back later.
Shopping done and dusted for another week
I believe this evening’s match is also being shown on Amazon Prime Video
Afternoon Cicero, I’ve been to indoor cricket 😝
TNT/Discovery+ for our game I believe. Prime is showing Totts..
Arsenal very much second best , lucky to be only one goal down. Too many passes going astray. Thirty one minutes, Arsenal get their first corner..it doesn’t clear the first defender.
Afternoon lads and lasses
Good post Rico. Enjoyed reading it much more than CL motivating me. I feel more motivated and forward looking to the EPL. And tbh even the FA Cup is more exciting for me. When we are out of CL I dont feel gutted as much as when we are out of the EPL and FA Cup. Each to his own I guess.
I hope today Kepa, Nwaneri and other players like MLS get to play. So thank goodness they have many problems as well. We dont have many problems atm but its always nice to see everyone get to play. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hincapie make his debut today with Eze taking the place in midfield and Martinelli playing on the left. Calafiori needs to be rested imo today.
I was at the new San Mames before Arteta :-). I was there three weeks ago where I visited the Museum and the Stadium. I predict a very tough game.
Dreadful mistake by Arsenal ‘keeper 2 – 1
Penalty. 3 – 1
Afternoon Devil, Jm.
I think Arsenal will prove to strong for Athletic regardless of who starts…
I take it it’s not Arsenal 3-1 up Cicero
I guess that Eze, Zubimendi, Mosquera and Hincapie will all start since they are new signings. Gyokeres and Trossard will begin as well while MLS will replace Calafiori. I dont think Madueke will play from the beginning since Saka is out injured atm so he will be rested.
My guess is that the following team will start the match.
Kepa; Mosquera, Gabriel, Hincapie, MLS; Zubimendi, Rice, Eze; Trossard, Nwaneri, Gyokeres.
Just a question which I asked last time …… who was captain against Forest after Odegaard went off since Saka was injured as well?
I believe the armband ended up with Gabriel, he was given it by Rice so whoever Rice replaced, had been captain I guess.
Rice replaced Gyokeres. So i dont think he was captain.
Then I’ve no idea.
Arsenal used to have an awful record against Spanish clubs, didn’t win a european tie in Spain until an Edu inspired team beat Celta Vigo 3-2 some 20 plus years ago.
Lost 3 of our 4 european finals against Spanish teams and we still haven’t given Atletico or Barcelona a good seeing to…
But we are getting better, loved winning in Valencia a few years ago under Emery, that was some long overdo payback.
In fact we’re doing a lot better in europe in general, the dismantling of Sporting on their own ground last season was very satisfying. We made them look quite ordinary…
Strong team and bench too.Arrizabalaga K.(
Dowman M.Lewis-Skelly M.
Martinelli G
Norgaard C.
Nwaneri E.
Saliba W.
Setford T.G)
Trossard L
Raya D.(G)
Timber J.
Gabriel
(C)
Mosquera C.
Rice D.
Zubimendi M.
Merino M.
Madueke N.
Gyökeres V
Eze E
Raya, Timber, Mosquera, Gabriel, Calafiori, Rice, Zubimendi, Merino, Madueke, Viktor G, Eze.
It’s the Champions League DG, not the Carabao Cup. 😉
I know Cicero, but as you know I rate it below the EPL trophy. I would be happy if we win the big eared tin pot but I would rather us win the league
Athletic have started well
be happy with a point from this . Notice how Eze is suffering from the Martinelli starvation . Madueke getting twice as much
Wow! Boy am I pleased for Martinelli…
Good win. Super subs each with a goal and an assist.
Considering we weren’t quite at our best, that’s a great result.
Quality subs, makes all the difference, I’m so glad we didn’t sell either of them in the summer.
Mosquera! Is Saliba getting him place back this Sunday? I’m not sure he is…
Love Madueke, he just creates chaos in the opposition defence.
Hincapie loves a tackle, he looks pretty tasty and Nordgaard looked assured.
Hard 90 minutes and at times I wasn’t sure we’d come through but great credit to the team.
Juventus vs Dortmund now.
Just looking at Hincapie scares me, Mosquera looks a bit of a tough nut too. Love it..
Rico, I know it was only a small sample size but I’ve not seen an Arsenal defender tackle like that since Nigel Winterburn and it wasn’t just reckless it was simply everything, I like him. 🙂
Good result. A clean sheet. and the best thing??? Martinelli scored and assisted. I really enjoyed it seeing him be involved in two goals after taking some flak from supporters. Trossard too did the same.
They had only one shot in the entire game, the rest all being off target. Arsenal had the lion’s share of possession and shots.
Kev, Madueke is unpredictable so much because he plays instinctively besides tactically. He mixes it and pulls opposition players out of place.
I would love to think that Saka would be tried on the left. And I hate to think that Madueke, on present form is dropped when Saka returns.
Madueke made some seemingly bad decisions, trying for a goal from an extremely tight angle when a cross would have been more productive.
He needs to be more aware of what’s going on infield when he’s gets to the byline.
Really pleased for Martinelli, no pissing about just direct football and a great goal. An assist too for Trossard.
Kev, what is there not to like 😜
I think for Madueke, he is trying too hard. Possibly because he wants to prove a few people wrong and I don’t just mean the fans on social media.
Madueke / Kanu Unpredictable mainly because he is instinctive , He doesn’t over think things just plays with a natural attacking attitude. Sometimes it comes off and sometimes it doesn’t.
I am more concerned with the way Eze is settling , I don’t think that he is suited to playing wide but I can see Arteta having to shoehorn him into the team .
Tonight as usual we played to the right much more than the left and I firmly believe that had Trossard not been on the pitch the ball to Martinelli would not have been played.
The only downer tonight was the stupid way we picked up 4 yellows , they may well come back to haunt us.
Madueke is controlled chaos. He is so instinctive. SPlit second decisions are not always productive and as Cicero pointed out he needs more awareness and better decisions.
However I prefer that to predictability.
The fact that more attacks are still coming down the right even though Saka is out means that it is something that is practiced during training on a regular basis.
Most attacks coming down the right but our two goals came down the left. Just saying.
Morning all, so my take is this.
Not many on here would have named the subs used and the effect they had so Kudos to Arteta.
Numerous defensive combinations can be seen and we look pretty solid in that area.
Midfield still have question marks and the cautious approach seems to still linger.
Eze isn’t a left winger in the old fashioned sense and looking at him I feel he is a bit too laid back at the moment.
Madueke has had most of the ball attack wise these past two games but the end product is missing .Saka is still number one for that position imo
Gyokeres is a real bully of a player but still very raw at the edges and I feel that will take time to get the full benefit from him
Timber so far this season has to me been our best and most consistent player all over the park
Nwaneri should be starting sooner rather than later ..
Finally this fairly new CL system is exacting and winning the first game especially Away should prove more than beneficial.
Oh I sent the Quintin School football team photos to thosewho attended the school but I have not had a reply.
Cicero, what you said does not only count towards yesterday’s game but also towards the majority of the games even last season. How many times have we seen continuous attacks down the right only for the goal to come from the left?
Kelsey, I agree with all you said especially with the midfield. It is still a work in progress and they are still getting to know each other.
Morning to you all.
There’s a new post up..