{"id":2602,"date":"2021-03-21T04:00:13","date_gmt":"2021-03-21T04:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=2602"},"modified":"2021-03-21T20:15:34","modified_gmt":"2021-03-21T20:15:34","slug":"what-me-worry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=2602","title":{"rendered":"What, Me Worry?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Arsenal play away at West Ham on Sunday, for a traditional 3 pm derby kickoff (8 am PDT for those of you in the ex-colonies, we’ve sprung forward our hour where in England they wait for March 28). The game comes on the heels of about 105 minutes of poor Arsenal football, and so the question tomorrow obtains: do we feel lucky? Or are we going to worry? Do we expect to continue the panicked, backs-to-the-wall effort the Middlesex Marshers forced us to endure using ten men<\/strong>, or the off-kilter, sloppy, slow-to-react profligacy that lost us the game at home to the non-gift-bearing Greeks (who also were down to ten men<\/strong> by the end)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One can only hope not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We looked rather jaded against the Greeks, though we’d done enough in Athens to pull us through to the quarterfinals in spite of of our North London loss (unlike those aforementioned woad-daubed marshdwellers, whose odious leader considers his squad lacking, not in defensive nous, not in goal-scoring prowess, but, he believes, in “the basics of life, which is to respect our jobs and to give everything”. Always good for a laugh, they are, and thank goodness.). Saka missing through his bad hamstring was almost as costly as Auba missing when he had pretty much the whole goal to use to score. Willian’s absence was less costly (especially to my liver, which appreciated not needing another drink seeing him strip off his warmup vest to come in to a game we should have taken by storm).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it’s really our defense that makes me push the couch away from the wall, drag a blankie there and a bottle of Irish whisky, and decide to mute the announcers only to peep over the top of the couch through my enmeshed fingers to watch the game. Can I please ask that David Luiz not start this game? I’m not quite sure what Rob Holding did to be so abjectly dropped, but I’d really love to see Capitola Rob paired with Pablo Mar\u00ed in front of the outspoken Leno in the center of defense, flanked by Cedric and our “little Scottish boy”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The midfield is also a concern, because it seems set in stone that Xhaka will start, hopefully alongside Partey and \u00d8degaard. Ceballos really didn’t shine (but then, who did?) against Olympiacos, so I’d leave him on the bench. Saka should return to the right flank up front, opposite (most likely) Smith Rowe, though I hope Laca or Martinelli will get the nod over our underperforming captain. Willian, again, fortunately for my liver, faces a late fitness test. If Saka can’t start P\u00e9p\u00e9 is his natural replacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that’d be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Cedric — Holding — Mar\u00ed — LSB<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xhaka — Partey<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka — Martinelli — ESR<\/p>\n\n\n\n

West Ham have performed well this year under another Scotsman, David Moyes (didn’t he used to manage some club from Manchester?), who has them seven points and five places higher in the table than our beloved Arsenal. Their form over the last five is about as mixed as ours, and they lost last time out against United. We’d certainly hope to do the double over them this season, and perhaps we can get another late strike in this game to beat them as we did in September at the Grove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They welcome back Jesse Lingard after a loan-enforced absence against that same Mancunian club, but will be missing Fornals, Ogbonna, and a few lesser-knowns. Ex-Gunner Fabianski will be in goal for them, with Diop taking over for Ogbonna alongside Dawson in a 4-2-3-1 that mirrors our own. Lanzini will be in for Fornals, and the Hammers will hope to use their pace on the flanks to get the ball to frontman Michail Antonio. We will also have to watch late runs into the box from Sou\u010dek, who leads their squad so far this season in goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Arsenal have a few options to win, though it will depend on how you think our defense will play (and if we can get over our profligacy!) as to what you might want to pick. A 2-0 victory is available at 12\/1, you can double-plus that to 25\/1 for 3-0, but the real juicy punt might just be on Arsenal 3-2 West Ham, available at 33\/1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We really, really have to find a way to keep all 11 Hammers on the pitch<\/strong>, though. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COYG.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Arsenal play away at West Ham on Sunday, for a traditional 3 pm derby kickoff (8 am PDT for those of you in the ex-colonies, we’ve sprung forward our hour where in England they wait for March 28). The game comes on the heels of about 105 minutes of poor Arsenal football, and so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602"}],"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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2602"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2617,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions\/2617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}