Morning all.
Muscle damage to his thigh means Thomas Partey is unlikely to be back anytime soon. He’ll be assessed over the next few weeks, well, a few weeks is all what’s left of this season. Still, if he comes back for the fixtures in May, it’ll be a bonus.
Arsenal are in a pickle as far as injuries and lack of depth in strength goes. Mikel Arteta’s option in midfield is pretty simple because he only has a choice of Sambi Lokonga or Mo Elneny but at left back, he already has Cedric Soares covering for the injured Takhiro Tomiyasu so it looks like it’s a toss up between Nuno Tavares and Bukayo Saka. Unless Arteta moves Cedric to the left, plays Ben White at right-back and Rob Holding central.
I think tomorrow is key to what happens to Arsenal over the next 6/7 weeks. Obvious I know but another out of sorts performance and I think the remainder of the season will be more difficult than it already looks. I’m hoping that playing Brighton at The Emirates with the home fans in full voice, will help us. Graham Potter will have his players up for this one as he’ll see it as a good opportunity to break the poor run of results they’ve had for the last few weeks. Results which perhaps their performances haven’t deserved. They’ll be at us from the first whistle I’m sure, but Arsenal need to stand strong. Mikel Arteta needs to get every single player in the right frame of mind before 2-59pm arrives and Alex Lacazette needs to set the tone from the front.
Tierney and Partey are big players to replace both in the way they play and the experience they bring to the team. Both have been key to the good run Arsenal had been on until Monday night. The question is, can Lokonga step into the shoes of Partey, and fill them? I’d so love it if by the end of the game we’re talking about how good he played rather than how we missed a trick not signing Yves Bissouma last summer. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still love us to sign the latter, who by the way, was released from his bail by police back in January.
It’s now that Mikel Arteta needs to earn his coins. He’s the one who for whatever reason has decided not to rotate his players much since Christmas. Mo Elneny, Sambi Lokonga, Nuno Tavares, Nicolas Pepe, Rob Holding and Eddie Nketiah have had minutes, but probably not enough to keep them match fit for 90 minutes. But, there’s no better way to regain that fitness than playing just as there’s no better way to improve than by playing competitive football regularly. Not ideal at this time of the season with the opportunity of securing European football still very much alive but Arsenal only have themselves to blame for that.
Anyway, let’s see what tomorrow brings…
See you in the comments.
Thanks for the post Rico, season defining game tomorrow vs Brighton, a team quite capable of killing off our top four ambitions once and for all.
Tactically Arteta will need to be spot on, I’m not sure what he’s going to do and nor will Graham Potter. Patrick Vieira knew exactly how Arsenal would play and could prepare accordingly but Potter will be in the dark and that’s a small advantage to Arteta.
Will we go three at the back or Tavares at left-back or maybe Xhaka at left-back, will Lokonga start, will Elneny start, will Holding come in or will Xhaka drop into a three at the back, will Lacazette be dropped and will Nketiah replace him or join him up front?
Personally I haven’t a scooby…
Morning Kev, all.
I agree. Lose tomorrow and forget top four, especially if Totts etc all win.
Morning Rico and All
I don’t think Partey will be back this season unless the last 2 matches are must win.
This weekend will be a hard match but I can see us win it 1 nil but a lose will be the media’s Easter present all in one basket.
Hi Geoff, who knows, depends on him I guess. I just hope Tierney doesn’t rush himself back for the World Cup should Scotland qualify. Hopefully they won’t.
Good day Rico and all.
Thankfully tomorrow’s game is a 3pm kick off so it won’t be broadcast live and won’t have to watch it.
I guess poor old Mikel is going to have to get his tombola machine out, put all the available players names in, a give it a spin and see what turns up.
Guys, I neither want to jinx it, nor do I want to seem overly arrogant, but tomorrow’s game against BHA not only must-win from our top 4 chances and hopes point of view, but if we don’t take the 3 points there we don’t deserve Champions League (maybe not even the EL).
This is a well-defending team, no doubt about that – apart from the top 3 teams only Wolves (27) and Arsenal (34) conceded less goals than Brighton (36) – but at the same time only the league’s clearly worst team, Norwich (18) “managed” to score less in their first 30 games than BHA (26). They have a single player with a market value over 20M, and they have only 3 attacking minded player worth more than 3M(!): Maupay (18M), Trossard (15M) and MacAllistar (9M).
Apart from the first 5 games (where they won 4), they were victorious only 3 times in the next 25 rounds. They are not at a relegation position as they are quite effective at 0:0 and 1:1 draws.
They are fluent when it comes to formations, but being unpredictable mainly benefits top teams. Nevertheless they started the campaign in 3-4-2-1, played some 3-5-2 & 4-2-3-1 mid-season, and recently they played 3-1-4-2 against Norwich last round, but that didn’t allow them to score either.
Furthermore the referee is not a known cheating bastard (at least to me), so let’s put being polite and PC aside and win this bloody game.
Small squad will require shuffling and shrewd substitutions
. Against Brighton I would demand a fast start , Then use the squad to bring on people like Pepe and Elneny to shore things up and keep pressure on them .
Subs at 75 minutes is not the answer we need to keep high intensity from start to finish if someone is struggling then get them off early and give the replacement time to get into their stride
We need these points and we need to act like nothing will stop us getting them.
If we want to start fast Potter, we need Nketiah on from the kick off. Save Lacazette for the final twenty minutes.
Said that the other day , we have a young team that should be able to run defences ragged then bring on the older heads to keep control.
Afternoon Cicero, that sounds like a plan, he might end up shouting bingo…
How many goals have we scored Pbarany? We’re not exactly firing in the department either. Tomorrow has 0-0 written all over it.
Potter/Cicero. If we want a fast start, why not Martinelli through the middle and Pepe on the left? That is if Pepe is fit.
You are right, Rico, although I wish you weren’t.
We have to surprise them. And playing Laca up front is not the unpredictability I am looking for.
Nevertheless I hope that Eddie gets the nod, and Laca will join along with Emile as 2nd half supersubs.
Can’t see it though Pbarany, I don’t think Arteta will bench Lacazette
Good morning all.
Beth Mead scored four goals in England’s World Cup qualifier against North Macedonia. England win 10 – 0.
Vivienne Miedema scored a double hat trick for Netherlands in their 12 – 0 win over Cyprus.
Morning Cicero, all.
New post up now