{"id":10482,"date":"2024-12-13T17:56:59","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T17:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10482"},"modified":"2024-12-13T17:56:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T17:56:59","slug":"arsenal-face-whack-a-mole-contest-with-relegation-threatened-everton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10482","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal Face \u2018Whack-a-Mole\u2019 Contest with Relegation-Threatened Everton\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Whackable Opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 14 games played, Everton, the Gunners\u2019 Saturday midafternoon opponents at the Emirates, occupy 15th in the league table with 14 points, having played one game fewer than their nearest rivals.  The bad news for the Toffees is that their game in hand is against Liverpool after last Saturday\u2019s scheduled ultimate league Merseyside derby at Goodison Park was postponed due to bad weather.  But in their last ten league matches Everton have lost only twice, by 0-1 at Southampton and 0-4 at Manchester United.  In that stretch Everton won three games, defeating Ipswich, Crystal Palace and Wolves; but stabilized the ship a bit by drawing five times after losing their first four league matches to Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Tottenham and Brighton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everton have flirted dangerously close to relegation for the last few seasons at a time in their history when they no doubt would have hoped for much better results.  The club has been building a new stadium at Bramley-Moore dock on the Liverpool waterfront which is planned to become the heart of the area\u2019s redevelopment.  Once the stadium opens next year, it will be the eighth largest stadium in England, a host venue for the 2028 Euros, and, as Everton must hope, their new Premier League home assuming they haven\u2019t been relegated in the meantime.  Toffees team news ahead of Saturday\u2019s postponed match was that Sean Dyche, their manager whose features bear an uncanny resemblance to the scurrying rodent pictured above, had no fresh injury concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal XI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Wednesday\u2019s 3-0 Champions League clean sheet victory against Monaco, Mikel Arteta is likely to pick a similar team while attempting to ensure that the team has fresh legs, and that the makeshift back four maintains a modicum of continuity, so Trossard for Martinelli on the left and Timber for Lewis-Skelly at fullback are the most straightforward of any changes he is likely to make.  I\u2019m predicting that Arteta will pick a team resembling this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partey  Saliba  Kiwior  Timber<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard  Rice  Merino<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka  Havertz  Trossard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his post-Monaco press comments, Mikel Arteta was pleased that his squad rotation, including four changes from last Sunday\u2019s draw at Fulham where Jorginho started in midfield, was repaid with some big performances. El jefe<\/em> said he was \u201cvery happy \u2013 it\u2019s always very difficult to win in the Champions League\u2026 3-0 and a clean sheet puts us in a really good position in the group. I\u2019m really pleased as well to see some players that haven\u2019t played that much \u2013 Myles (Lewis-Skelly) coming in and having his debut in the Champions League at 18 years old and performing the way he did, it was great\u2026 He played with a lot of personality, a lot of courage and competed really well in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Lewis-Skelly or Nwaneri make another appearance against the Toffees it would be great but I expect that we will be more likely to see them appear off the bench in the second half.  Another youngster who had a big game on Wednesday was usual suspect Bukayo Saka who notched two goals and an assist to boost him to 21 goal involvements this season.  Seeing as how the team has struggled to score from open play this season, Saka\u2019s attacking threat has been the team\u2019s biggest weapon.  Based on my detailed analysis of our recent games, I\u2019m backing the Gunners to win this one by 2-0 or better with one goal scored by our Star Boy from open play, and another one scored by one of our defenders on a corner kick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wherever you are watching the match, \u2018holics, have a good one and if the opportunity arises, be sure that you effectively whack any moles that appear in your vicinity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Whackable Opposition After 14 games played, Everton, the Gunners\u2019 Saturday midafternoon opponents at the Emirates, occupy 15th in the league table with 14 points, having played one game fewer than their nearest rivals.  The bad news for the Toffees is that their game in hand is against Liverpool after last Saturday\u2019s scheduled ultimate league Merseyside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10482"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10486,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10482\/revisions\/10486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}