{"id":9380,"date":"2024-04-03T00:57:12","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T23:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9380"},"modified":"2024-04-04T05:57:22","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T04:57:22","slug":"lootin-and-shootin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9380","title":{"rendered":"Lootin\u2019 and Shootin\u2019"},"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\/1833762195\" 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:72.72727% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1833762195?et=GSQ-P2sTQE5BWnLCWh5g4g&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=GuW-CUYYi1ZsASxu31H02VzRKRrV_z8dKNDCyqk0MX8=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"432\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>With apologies for the title to The Slickers, whose reggae classic Johnny Too Bad (including the lyrics \u201cyou&#8217;re looting and you&#8217;re shooting now you\u2019re too bad\u201d) runs through my head whenever Luton is mentioned, Arsenal will hope to demonstrate their superior footballing skills when they host 18th-placed Luton Town on Wednesday evening, three days after the emotions and exertions of Sunday\u2019s 0-0 draw at Manchester City.&nbsp;&nbsp;They certainly wouldn\u2019t do wrong to put some special emphasis on the defensive side of the game in comparison to what they did in the reverse fixture in early December when they prevailed by the skin of their teeth thanks to Declan Rice\u2019s 97th minute header, finishing off a crazy 4-3 win at Kenilworth Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a slow March that featured one of the most tedious interlulls in memory prior to Arsenal\u2019s return to action with Sunday\u2019s masterclass in how to execute a low block against Manchester City, the Luton game will be the first of at least eight fixtures for the Gunners in April.&nbsp;&nbsp;It goes without saying that Arsenal must be completely focused in this one, so as to avoid slipping on the proverbial banana skin and to maintain their momentum in the title race by collecting all three points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the reverse fixture Luton scored two goals directly from corners on headed balls, one each by Osho and Adebayo.&nbsp;&nbsp;After his side nearly took at least two precious points away from Arsenal, Hatters manager Rob Edwards commented \u201cArsenal wanted a game of order and we made it chaotic at times.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;In retrospect, Arsenal\u2019s close call at Luton was a harbinger of the points that Arsenal dropped later that month, at home to West Ham and away to Fulham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luton&#8217;s away form is not so good but they are in the middle of a relegation dogfight so they won\u2019t be short of industry.&nbsp;&nbsp;On their away forays the Hatters have 2 wins, 4 draws, and 9 losses. They have scored 43 goals this season overall in the Premier League, with three of the 43 scored against Arsenal.&nbsp;&nbsp;Those same three goals also represent a significant chunk of Arsenal\u2019s league best of 24 goals conceded, so the Gunners must do much better in that respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With injuries and whatnot Luton could have as many as 13 players out on Wednesday. Edwards commented this week: &#8220;It is the most difficult and challenging period I&#8217;ve ever faced, I&#8217;ve never known anything like it, and we are coming up against the best teams in the world in this period as well.&#8221;&nbsp;&nbsp;After facing Arsenal, Luton&#8217;s next away game is at Manchester City on 13 April, when all their injured players hopefully will have recovered and be able to contribute to a famous upset of our title rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal XI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was encouraging to see our injured players (Thomas, Tomiyasu and Martinelli) come back on Sunday and contribute to our valiant team effort.  All three of them are contenders to be in the starting XI against Luton, but something tells me the Japanese defender will be the only one that the manager picks to provide a bit of rotation.&nbsp;&nbsp;With only nine league matches left to play, and a the team in contention to win the league for the first time in a generation, I think Mikel Arteta will keep personnel changes to a minimum, although the sage Mike McDonald at Gunnerstown predicted quite a bit more rotation with Partey coming in for Jorginho, Tomi for Kiwior, Trossard for Saka and Martinelli for Havertz, and Jesus moving to center forward.&nbsp;&nbsp;But my predicted team is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Raya<br>White &#8211; Saliba &#8211; Gabriel &#8211; Tomiyasu<br>Odegaard &#8211; Rice &#8211; Havertz<br>Saka &#8211; Jesus &#8211; Trossard<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The \u2018holics pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the Gunners did not score on Sunday, since January the team has been scoring goals for fun in most of their league fixtures, and I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if they put at least four goals into the Hatters\u2019 net.&nbsp;&nbsp;As a matter of fact, you might not be able to find very good odds on Arsenal scoring that few, but based on our recent attacking exploits I don\u2019t think I am being outlandish with a prediction of: Arsenal 4 Luton Town 1. Remember, as we focus on avoiding that banana skin this is another opportunity to improve our goal difference so more than four goals would be most welcome if they happen to come our way. Have a good one, \u2018holics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images With apologies for the title to The Slickers, whose reggae classic Johnny Too Bad (including the lyrics \u201cyou&#8217;re looting and you&#8217;re shooting now you\u2019re too bad\u201d) runs through my head whenever Luton is mentioned, Arsenal will hope to demonstrate their superior footballing skills when they host 18th-placed Luton Town on Wednesday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"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\/9380"}],"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=9380"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9387,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9380\/revisions\/9387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}