{"id":4357,"date":"2021-12-11T03:05:42","date_gmt":"2021-12-11T03:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4357"},"modified":"2021-12-12T00:27:20","modified_gmt":"2021-12-12T00:27:20","slug":"unsaintly-gunners-looking-to-get-back-on-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4357","title":{"rendered":"Unsaintly Gunners Looking to Get Back on Track"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1291637874\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:75.420876% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1291637874?et=yTh8x0vORj5IUf4AmPchHw&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=AxnoEWbfACmUguH6DS-Um5LZk1k6TmeFoLzNNTvfei0=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\" width=\"594\" height=\"448\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The sputtering Gunners enter this home match against the Saints, a team fighting to shake off the specter of relegation, on five days\u2019 rest after the poor display on Monday evening against Everton. Arsenal find themselves desperately seeking a potent goal threat, but also have to tighten up at the back seeing as we have witnessed costly errors more than once in recent matches. The sight of one time marksman extraordinaire Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang missing an excellent chance to draw the Gunners level with the Toffees as time ran out at Goodison is emblematic of the decline of our former primary goal threat, and the general impotence of our attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Manager Mikel Arteta was asked about the club\u2019s inability to score more goals this week, and prescribed these steps to develop a more potent attack: \u201dencourage the players to take more risks, put the ball more often in the box when we have the opportunity to have more bodies there and start to score the big chances that we have \u2026 It\u2019s always a combination, who creates the chances for [the forwards], it\u2019s themselves, it\u2019s the team, it\u2019s the collective capacity for the team to arrive better in conditions in the final third, it\u2019s the numbers in the box, we can look at everything, but the reality is that we need more goals.\u201d No kidding, Mikel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the defensive side, the five goals Arsenal let in this week make it 22 goals conceded on the season (1.46 per match) as opposed to the measly 18 goals we scored in those 15 games (1.2 per match). Those are not the kind of numbers that make me think Arsenal will suddenly go on a winning streak but team psychology can change quickly, and it would certainly help if we can recapture some of the positivity we were exuding prior to the disappointing losses at Manchester United and Everton. Our collective psyche since then has hit the skids, but let\u2019s give the lads the opportunity to regain that positivity, see what lessons they have been able to learn, and what bad memories we can leave behind from those two disappointing outings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Any Arsenal fan can tell you that the team has been setting up in a defensive shell whenever they take a lead, but the shell has soon collapsed. What\u2019s more vexing, the team has been no fun to watch as it tries to hold on without managing any sustained control in the opposition end. It\u2019s reassuring then to know that an Arsenal player can recognize the same pattern. After the Everton game Martin Odegaard admitted the side \u201cstopped playing\u201d after they went into a 1-0 lead. The two key questions are, why does the team regularly do this, and what will Mikel Arteta do to prevent it in future games?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his comments in the match preview on the club\u2019s official site, Arteta denied that the team sat back to protect the lead, saying &#8220;sometimes teams can change their way of playing after conceding a goal, we don\u2019t and we go for the second one and the third one and we\u2019re not gonna change that.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s the intention but it hasn\u2019t looked like it. Hopefully the team will be able to play more confidently in those situations, starting now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The opposition<\/strong><br>Sixteenth-placed Southampton will have enjoyed a full week\u2019s rest after hosting Brighton last Saturday when they conceded a 99th minute equalizer while playing with ten men on manager Ralph Hasenh\u00fcttl\u2019s three-year anniversary in charge. Hasenh\u00fcttl\u2019s biggest gripe after that game was with keeper Alex McCarthy, who apparently had not told his manager he was struggling with a hamstring injury. Brighton scored the equalizing goal after a Saints defender played Neil Maupay onside as he attempted to cover for the out of position McCarthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saints will rotate their goalkeeper considering Hasenh\u00fcttl\u2019s comments \u2014 \u201cIf [McCarthy\u2019s] not able to jump, we should change him\u201d \u2014 after last week\u2019s game. Backup Fraser Forster is injured so Saints signed 40 year old Willy Caballero in midweek, and he is expected to get the nod. Arsenal should expect him to play a blinder. Saints\u2019 center back Mohammed Salisu misses out due to the two yellow cards he received against Brighton. Salisu and midfielder Oriol Romeu are both suspended so Jack Stephens and Ibrahima Diallo are expected to deputise for them. Arsenal\u2019s defenders must watch out for Southampton\u2019s Armando Broja, a young striker on-loan from Chelsea, who last week scored his third league goal in four starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t mention it to make the reader feel overconfident about Arsenal\u2019s chances in this one, but Southampton have dropped 71 points in the past three years, 15 more than any other team that has not been relegated in that time; and since the start of 2021, the South Coasters have lost 14 of their 18 Premier League away games. Not surprisingly, Saints have seen quite a turnover of personnel over the last year or so, and personally I had never heard of five of Saints\u2019 eleven who started last week. There is a first time for everything but the Gunners have never lost at home to the Saints in the Premier League. Given some of these oddities, an uninterested observer might even think the Gunners ought to prevail in this one but the proof will only be in the pudding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Arsenal XI<\/strong><br>Gabriel Martinelli, who was finally getting playing time these last few weeks, and doing an impressive job of making his presence felt in the attacking end, is doubtful for this one having picked up a hamstring injury at Everton. Captain Auba, who came on for a late cameo, may be recalled but I don\u2019t see that he has earned the right and would pick Alexandre Lacazette to lead the line. As of Thursday Mikel Arteta was reported to be hopeful of welcoming ESR back to the team, and let\u2019s hope he makes it because his absence was deeply felt against Everton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Ramsdale<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Tomiyasu White Gabriel Tierney<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Lokonga Partey<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Saka \u00d8degaard Smith Rowe<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Lacazette<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The \u2018holics pound<\/strong><br>2-1 is the score-not-to-ignore for fellas like me who speciously claim to have some idea of what to expect. Saints are likely to put in a performance that\u2019s far superior to their billing, but home cooking could be the key to a modest Arsenal recovery, with Gabriel heading in a corner, and Laca sticking away a late rebound to secure the points. Enjoy the game, \u2018holics. Surely it can\u2019t be as bad as our last two outings, can it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images The sputtering Gunners enter this home match against the Saints, a team fighting to shake off the specter of relegation, on five days\u2019 rest after the poor display on Monday evening against Everton. Arsenal find themselves desperately seeking a potent goal threat, but also have to tighten up at the back [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"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\/4357"}],"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=4357"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4368,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4357\/revisions\/4368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}