After last Thursday’s purposeful and penetrative performance in Prague the pressure that was building up on the Arsenal team and their rookie manager should now ease up a little. The manager and the players alike should now feel that if they play to their strength – which most definitely is in the opposition’s final third – and approach each match with the intent of playing positive football from the first whistle, they have enough sparkle (individually and collectively) in the team to end the season with a noticeable and healthy glow of progress.
The team’s enjoyable performance mid-week was accentuated further by their laudable togetherness to take a stance against the cancer of racism, and their visible support of each other at every phase of the game. Those who had just started to pander to their negativity about the club must also be disheartened by the news that our talismanic captain’s latest performances and body-language that had generated such concern – to be honest less among Arsenal fans but more amongst those who have always liked a cheap shot at the club – as a potential Mesut Özil saga part deux was caused not by his hairstyles or fast cars but by the most potent assassins in human history, mosquitoes. Away on international duty he must have been assaulted by a cluster of female Anopheles mosquitoes, flooding his bloodstream with Plasmodium parasites to wreak havoc with his internal organs. Thanks to the miracle of modern medicines – especially when it reaches a malaria patient at the right time, which unfortunately still isn’t the case in many corners of this global village – Aubameyang is on the path to recovery.
However, he will not be anywhere close to fit enough for this weekend’s match against our west London rivals. We played Fulham away in our opening match of this league season where captain Auba had simply carried on from where he had left off last season. Kieran Tierney and Martin Ødegaard too remain sidelined for this match. Whereas the Norwegian playmaker is expected to be match fit in the coming days, Tierney still has a few more weeks to go. If you add David Luiz – who has lately shown more of his unquestionable quality and leadership and less of his unpredictable calamitous tendencies – to that mix, we have four key players missing. But when has that not been the case towards the end of an Arsenal season?
Fulham has had a difficult season until now where a lack of defensive solidity and not enough goalscoring threat have undermined their effort and often pleasing on the eye football. They are in a relegation battle and will have to put together a string of very good performances and results to avoid immediately dropping straight back into the Championship after being promoted last season. We should be ready for a tough game and not take our matchday one performance and result as any indication of how the game may unfold.
Curiously, our away form has been significantly better than our home form this season. We can theorize a lot about why that is so – mine is that the team and Mikel assume more of a demand on themselves to get results at home, and respond to that pressure of responsibility by overelaborate game plans at the expense of throwing some unnecessary caution to the wind – but whatever might be the reason, we must rectify this trend (that is, make our home form at leastas good as our away form) if we are to end the season positively: four of our remaining seven matches in the premier league are at the Emirates, as well as the second leg of the Europa semi-final against the yellow submarines.
The changes in personnel, formation and tactics that Mikel had brought in to compensate for the absence of Tierney and Ødegaard in the last two matches have been quite effective, and despite a degree of predictability in how we play without possession we have been more precise and dynamic with the ball. I think he will continue with the same strategy and will keep Xhaka as the left-back with Dani Ceballos rejuvenated in a surprising left sided midfielder role, especially given that before our next league match against Everton we have a bit of time to rest and recover. Then comes the crucial Europa semifinal double header against Villareal sandwiching a league match away at Newcastle. Given that Tierney will remain unavailable for all of those matches, building familiarity and consistency with these latest changes will serve us better.
The only change I would like to see is Saka getting a rest as not only has he played a lot of minutes, but all oppositions have targeted him relentlessly and I would like to see his minutes managed to make sure that we have him available at his sharpest in matches against oppositions stronger than tomorrow’s opponent. His replacement – Gabriel Martinelli – is particularly useful against teams sitting deep and defending in low blocks as he will drive at them relentlessly. We may also want to bring Bellerin or Cedric in for Chambers though right now he performs better than either of them. Given that Chambers is coming back from a long injury lay off a break will do him good as I think he should – just like Saka – start against stronger oppositions.
My preferred line-up would be:
Leno
Bellerin – Holding – Marí – Xhaka
Partey – Ceballos
Pépé – ESR – Martinelli
Lacazette
In addition to the last two away wins being by noticeable margins, it was also very pleasing finally not to concede goals after a run of every conceivable way of gifting goals to the opposition. So, let us start positively from the very beginning, stay on the front foot and take the inevitable chances that will come our way. I predict another 3-0 win, though this time the match will be harder than the score shows.
Come on Arsenal!
And, in case you don’t have the dates in your diaries:
And, it’s probably worth giving this historic moment from the last 24 hours a further airing:
