{"id":1641,"date":"2020-10-24T20:39:20","date_gmt":"2020-10-24T19:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=1641"},"modified":"2020-10-26T16:41:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T16:41:52","slug":"gunners-to-outfox-the-foxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=1641","title":{"rendered":"Gunners To Outfox The Foxes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How time flies? It seems like only last month that I was writing a Leicester preview. In fact on checking I find that it was last month for a Carabao Cup tie that we won handily 2-0 at their place. This time of course it is a Premier League fixture and, as we showed against Liverpool, the result in one can have little bearing on the other. Looking at our team from the Carabao night in Leicester, probably only 3 or 4 players from that victorious XI are likely to start and I imagine that will be similar for Leicester too. Of more relevance perhaps will be the 1-1 draw at our place last July. A game we really should have wrapped up before Eddie Nketiah\u2019s sending off saw us hanging on for a point at the end of a frustrating night. Time to right that wrong and I am sure we would all enjoy the irony if Eddie came on and scored this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, I have been looking forward to this game as well as our next few fixtures because they offer us an opportunity to see where we stand with some of our supposed rivals for a Top 4 spot this season. Over the first five games we have played Liverpool and Man City away, our two toughest games of the season, as well as Fulham, Sheffield Utd and West Ham, who, with the greatest respect as always for their little teams etc. etc., were sides we need to be beating. Now, happily it\u2019s time to see how we do on slightly leveler playing fields. Our next six games include Leicester, Man Utd, Wolves and the Spuds all of whom may be considered by some to be at or around our current level in footballing terms. Not I, I hasten to add, as in my own considered opinion they\u2019re all shit and we\u2019ll wipe the floor with the second-rate lot of them. However, talk is cheap and now it will be up to Mikel and his daring young flying machines to start proving me right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Line-up<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are several decisions for Mikel to make this week. However, goalie is not one of them and Leno will start. The whole \u201cwe shouldn\u2019t have sold Emi\u201d discussion is now starting to make my eyes glaze over quicker than you can say Mesut Robinson and if only for that selfish reason I hope Bernd will be back to his best after a rare bout of hiccups (hiccoughs for the traditionalists amongst you) in Vienna during the week. Honestly, who amongst us has not made a shoddy pass or two on a European trip? Moving on, options are limited at the back now that Rob Holding is out and you know they really are limited when people talk about rushing the mercurial Mus back into the fold. Recently, it seems to be widely accepted that Mus had improved under Arteta, however personally I believe he was never quite as bad as claimed and conversely I don\u2019t believe he has undergone any miraculous transformation now either. We simply defend better as a team \u2013 and that is down to Mikel \u2013 and as a result our defenders are less exposed to embarrassing situations. Regardless of the accuracy of that assertion I hope Mikel will stick with the Luiz, Gabriel, Tierney trio this time though Luiz\u2019s lack of pace is a worry in this particular game. Our next Ropey League game seems a better moment to ease Mus back into the side. With Runarsson behind him come to that, as he needs a start too. Back to today and I think we all expect to see Thomas starting in the center of midfield for this game but it takes two to tango so who will he be partnering is the question. Whether \u2018tis to be Xhaka, Elneny or Dani will partly be guided by the opposition I wean. Leicester plays a quick counter-attacking game and mobility would seem to be essential as we look to counter the counter. I believe you may see where I am leading here but just to spell it out Xhaka would not be my choice of partner for a quickstep. Though it will disappoint some I know, including me really, I think we will see AMN rather than Saka for this one. Another question is around the front three and Mikel has spoken this week of the need to get Auba more involved although he was careful to say that does not necessarily mean starting him more centrally. I hope we will keep faith with Laca for the moment. Considering that he scored in our first three PL games some of the criticism I\u2019ve read recently seems somewhat harsh. I can accept he has not looked sharp enough in a couple of games but his main job is to stick the ball in the net and three out of five this season ain\u2019t bad. If he is fit then my guess is Willian will start again too, though I hope Mikel has been reading to him from The Big Book of Productivity this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My stab at the XI would be…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leno<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luiz – Gabriel – Tierney<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bellerin – Thomas \u2013 Dani – AMN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willian – Laca – Auba<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering Saka and Pepe both scored against Sheff Utd and bring a lot to the table offensively leaving them out feels a bit harsh but I can understand why Mikel would do it, especially when we\u2019re bedding in a new central midfielder and have a slightly unbalanced back three. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

It\u2019s Leicester. They have had an oddly inconsistent start to the season though they have the same 9 points as The Arsenal. Three wins, notably 5-2 against Man City and 2 home defeats to Aston Villa and West Ham. The good thing about Leicester is we know exactly what they will do and there is no need to go into any great detail. We need to deny Maddison, Barnes and Vardy the opportunity to play though our midfield and get behind our defence, we need to be aware of Castagne and Justin overlapping on either flank, and of course we need to watch out for Vardy\u2019s elbow to the side of the head. Jamie has a good record against us, 10 in 11 games I think though they\u2019ve only won three of those, but the fact is he should have been sent off in about half of them from memory. Perhaps if all our players wear headgear a la Cech the referee might get the message though I very much doubt it. I also don\u2019t doubt that Rogers, a noted toad, will say it\u2019s accidental but he does it against other teams too and it is so obviously not accidental that you would have to be conniving or incompetent not to see a pattern. Rogers is clearly conniving so let\u2019s hope the referee is not as incompetent as Kavanaugh in the last meeting. Anyway, just to be clear, you\u2019re not a master of the dark arts, an old-fashioned battler or any other polite euphemism Jamie, you\u2019re just a cheat. Having got that off my chest, I am sure we will all warmly welcome Leicester today. And of course send them home with nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Holic Pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a good win in Vienna to boost our confidence, let us hope that the visions in blue reap the wild wind of our increased confidence and are sent packing to the strains of a softly sighing lament (That\u2019s enough Ultravox thank you, Ed.). I believe it will be another tactical game with Mikel unwilling to expose us on the counter and so we will have to be patient. But we have learned to be patient over the last few months, so that allied to the fact the Leicester defence is not that great, suggests to me we will grind out another 2-0 win. The odds are a fairly skinny 9-1 but a win is a win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally for this preview, the image at the top of the page is rather an oblique reference to a recent issue. I have read that the game is being screened in the UK at an add-on price of 14.95. That is more than I pay a month in Japan for access to all PL games. Just for one game on top of the pre-existing exorbitantly priced bill of fare. It is a disgraceful rip-off and if they had any sense of shame the PL would be embarrassed to even ask such a sum. It is of course entirely your choice but I do know that I would not pay. I\u2019ll stop on this issue there as this was mainly cheap stream of consciousness thinking anyway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have a great day all and I hope we will be celebrating our fourth league win of the season about this time tomorrow!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How time flies? It seems like only last month that I was writing a Leicester preview. In fact on checking I find that it was last month for a Carabao Cup tie that we won handily 2-0 at their place. This time of course it is a Premier League fixture and, as we showed against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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\/1641"}],"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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1643,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641\/revisions\/1643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}