Arsenal enter “different” period…

Morning all.

Yesterday’s results went quite well for Arsenal until Liverpool played Leicester in the evening game. Man City had drawn at home with Everton, Nottingham Forest beat Totts and then Fulham, who’d been trailing in their match against Chelsea since the 16th minute, sprung a late surprise by scoring twice to nick all three points. Utd lost again too and to make matters better worse for them, Bruno Fernandes was sent off. Liverpool went behind early in their game but went on to win with relative ease.

Today it’s Arsenal against second from bottom in the table, Ipswich. Ipswich have won just two fixtures so far this season, both of which were away from home. In November they beat Totts 2-1 and earlier this month, they repeated the scoreline against Wolves.

Arsenal’s Adrian Clarke, writing in the official matchday programme:

Ipswich have used a 4-2-3-1 in every match barring their 4-1 defeat at Manchester City when McKenna used a 5-4-1, so it may be under consideration to repeat that ploy. They like to play fast, adventurous football, and that attitude has helped them score in six of their eight away games. The Suffolk outfit want to pass out short from the back and move the ball through the lines, but they average just 43% possession, the third lowest in the Premier League. This means they have to counter a lot, and they are good at it. From 12 fast break shots they have scored four times this season as they press and counter-press with enthusiasm.

Full-back Leif Davis [above] is always looking to put a quality delivery into the danger zone, and among top-flight defenders he leads the way for chances created (36), and big chances created (10). His buccaneering style is symptomatic of Ipswich’s attacking nature.

McKenna’s men are fast starters, scoring first in eight of their matches, but converting those leads into three-point hauls has been a serious problem, giving up 15 points from winning positions. Individual errors have cost them several goals, and opponents are creating lots of chances against them, with just one clean sheet registered.

Ipswich are without their captain Sam Morsey who is suspended. Massimo Luongo Is a doubt but George Hirst and Axel Tuanzebe are ruled out. Chiedozie Ogbene is out for the rest of the season.

Arsenal are without Ben White, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Raheem Sterling and Bukayo Saka.

Both Jurrien Timber and Gabriel Jesus are one booking away from a one match ban.

It’ll be interesting to see how Mikel Arteta tries to solve our right hand side in the absence of Bukayo Saka.

We have to look internally at what we have and be creative, do a very good exercise again. How can we mould the squad? How can we adapt to the circumstances and be different? We cannot pretend to be the same. We’re going to have to be different and try to find the best way to do it and be very competitive and win a lot of games. –  Mikel Arteta.

The obvious choice seems to be Gabriel Martinelli but he might just be bold enough to start Ethan Nwaneri. The midfield is bursting with options as all four of Mikel Merino, Jorginho, Declan Rice and Thomas Partey are fit. Oleksandr Zinchenko is expected to return to the squad this evening too so even our defensive options are improving. It’s just in attack we’re lacking really although the current form of Gabriel Jesus has been an unexpected pleasure to watch.

Whilst I’m not suggesting Ipswich will make this easy for Mikel Arteta’s players but this is the kind of fixture Arsenal should be winning. Ideally, we’ll score an early goal or two, put the result to bed by halftime and then the manager can make the five changes he has available to him. Either that or we battle hard for a 1-0 victory.

Catch up in the comments…