Morning all.
Today sees last seasons top two clubs go head to head in what should be a cracking game of football. Actually, it’ll probably be a game of ten million passes as Mikel Arteta and Guardiola try to outsmart each other.
Mikel Arteta:
We’re expecting a really competitive one. We’re going to the home of the champions, the team that I think in Premier League history has been the most consistent ever, not only in terms of results but in terms of dominance and consistent top performances. This is the challenge, we have to go there and prove that again we’ve made another step and we can compete.
Whether they’ve achieved all they have whilst breaking a lot of footballing rules or not along the way remains to be seen. At least the process of finding out is underway.
Erling Haaland is in ridiculous form having already scored eight goals in his last three Premier League games including hat-tricks against Ipswich and West Ham, and two against Brentford. Arsenal as a team have managed just six in total so far. What I will add though is that City haven’t been away to Totts or Villa yet. They do have a few injuries though with Ake and Bobb ruled out and de Bruyne is a doubt too.
Martin Odegaard, Mikel Merino, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney are still injured. However Declan Rice is available again after serving his one-match suspension.
January 2015 was the last time we came away from The Etihad with all three points. A Santi Cazorla penalty and an Olivier Giroud header secured the win. Nine years of Etihad frustration although at least last season we managed to come away with a point.
Both ourselves and City played midweek although we played a day after them and away from home. An interesting stat for you all, Guardiola’s team have only won two of their last seven matches following a midweek European game, drawing five and losing the other two. No, I don’t know what our numbers look like after a European match. Theirs are far more interesting. lol.
The back five picks itself I think unless Arteta is tempted to bring Calafiori into the side in place of Timber. I say that only because of his lengthy absence and how many minutes he’s already played. I think he’ll play Trossard in the Odegaard role as he did against Totts although Opta predicts that Rice, Partey and Jorginho will start today which if right, would hint towards a massive shift towards the defence with hope of a smash and grab goal or two on the break.
A win today would be fantastic but at the same time, a draw would be good result too. In fact if we replicate last seasons points tally against City, it would be great. Dropping two points at The Etihad didn’t cost us the title last season but a few poor results at home did when our finishing was woeful. Now we have even less attacking players and I’m already worried about where our goals are going to come from. Actually, I was concerned about that long before the season kicked off as were many of us. Sterling, our only attacking player signed in the summer is yet to really find his feet in this team let alone the back of the net.
Not for one minute do I expect Arteta’s team to go toe to toe with City in terms of possession or goal scoring opportunities. I think we’ll see a pragmatic approach with low risk attacking football from Arsenal. Rodri might have felt the need to criticise Arsenal for being too negative in this fixture last season but who cares? The game itself was scrappy because Arsenal didn’t allow City to find their rhythm. De Bruyne and Silva were kept quiet, as was Haaland.
Arsenal’s approach might be considered negative again today but if negative is what it takes to stop City from winning this game, then negative will do for me.
The officials for todays game:
Referee: Michael Oliver
Assistants: Stuart Burt, Dan Cook
Fourth official: Andy Madley
VAR: John Brooks
Assistant VAR: Richard West
Catch up in the comments.
Rico, the worst Reading team I’ve seen in ages, admittingly I don’t watch Reading often if at all but they were terrible. Arteta will need to put a few senior players in the team to play Bolton and to help any youngsters he picks – maybe Tomiyasu and Zinchenko could get a game, Sterling, Jesus and Martinelli all need a goal?
Today speaks for itself, we cannot afford to lose, in fact the need to not lose supersedes the need/risk in going for a win.
On the plus side, after today, that leaves only Liverpool and Newcastle as away games that’ll be problematic – although Chelsea are looking good.
I’ve not watched Reading for a while Kev but I know they’ve had all sorts of problems within.
Agree re today, just don’t lose.
Saka quoted in the papers this morning, “we will be playing to win”. That’s the attitude I like to see.
Good morning Rico and all you hopeful? Expectant? Apprehensive? Excited? Or just plain hiding behind the sofa Gooners. 😉
Morning Cicero, I like that from Saka too, fighting talk. lol
Not expecting a win today but just hope we can defend as well as last Sunday.
Whatever result today I will not be disappointed as I don’t expect to get much. I am more worried about Oliver and his PGMOL merry band and their total lack of consistency.
Yesterday the ball went out for a throw to Leicester and the Everton player kicked it away so they couldn’t take a quick one.
Did he get booked for slowing the restart ? course not
Even the commentators talked about how sure they were that it was going to be a booking even calling it the “Declan Rice Rule”. ( stolen from another site }
Just makes the Rice decision more and ridiculous as the weeks go by.
Arsenal women 1-0 up v City. Cracking strike…
Not sure who will win today, but if we do loose I hope it is only by one goal to keep the goal difference in touch.
Miedema makes it 1-1 courtesy of a huge deflection…