{"id":9604,"date":"2024-05-12T09:15:31","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T08:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9604"},"modified":"2024-05-12T19:29:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-12T18:29:40","slug":"gunners-aim-to-keep-title-hopes-alive-amid-turbulent-times-at-red-mancs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9604","title":{"rendered":"Gunners Aim to Keep Title Hopes Alive Amid Turbulent Times at Red Mancs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sunday\u2019s agenda for the Arsenal surely must be to stay focused and visualize the positive.  Mikel Arteta says he has been doing exactly those things, and wants his team to do likewise when they step out to face Manchester United in their penultimate league match at Old Trafford: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy brain always takes me to the players lifting the Premier League.  That’s what my brain is doing at the moment. I just follow my brain and my gut and this is how I feel, and this is the way that I want everybody to think and hopefully we can achieve it\u2026. At the moment it\u2019s not in our control (but) being focused and determining what we have to do is the only thing that we can do, which is a lot. There\u2019s still a lot to play for against very difficult opponents. We know the turns that can happen in this league, You just have to look at the history.\u201d<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation is this: Any win will do to keep Arsenal\u2019s hand in the title race but any points dropped simply will not do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many times this season Arsenal have won games by multiple goals, and if you watched Crystal Palace dismantle Manchester United last Monday you probably got the feeling that Arsenal should beat United easily, but it normally doesn\u2019t work like that.  Arsenal will once more need to demonstrate their title credentials in a difficult away fixture as they near the culmination of their magnificent and still potentially title-winning season against Erik ten Hag\u2019s unpredictable Red Mancs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Other Guys<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It hasn\u2019t been the best season for the Red Mancs.  As Jonathan Liew wrote in The Guardian this week, \u201cThanks to Ten Hag, United fans are being treated to sumptuous counterattacking fare on a near-weekly basis, even if \u2013 unhappily for Ten Hag\u2019s job prospects \u2013 most of it these days seems to be getting played by the opposition.\u201d<\/em>  Liew ended the piece saying \u201cWelcome to Manchester United, where the transition never ends.\u201d <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday in The Athletic, Michael Cox wrote that Ten Hag \u201ctook United to third place last season, his side kept the highest number of clean sheets in the Premier League, and he reached both domestic cup finals. Since then, however, United have gone backwards in almost every respect.\u201d<\/em> In the fairly unlikely event that he is not sacked at season\u2019s end, ten Hag\u2019s \u00a39 million salary would drop to \u00a36.75m next season in the final year of his contract because he missed out on a Champions League place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With three fixtures remaining United stand eighth in the table with 54 points, three fewer than Chelsea and Newcastle but with a game in hand on both clubs.  United have scored 52 goals in the league, or three fewer than they have conceded.  The challenge for Arsenal is that even though United have lost almost as many games as they have won, they tend still to be very tough opponents in big games, and this one is exactly that.  United\u2019s loss at Palace on Monday was their 13th league defeat this season, their highest number of losses in a Premier League campaign. Ten Hag\u2019s team are eighth in the table, one spot below the lowest league place that could lead to European qualification, so they will need to beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final to secure a European place if they don\u2019t move up the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Injuries to ten Hag\u2019s first choice defenders have limited Mart\u00ednez to only nine league matches; Luke Shaw to 12; and Tyrell Malacia to none.  But two injury-plagued stalwarts of the team, Rashford and Martinez, returned to training this week, and the team\u2019s pride should bring a performance out of them after their poor showing at Palace.  If they are all healthy, I would look out for the energetic threesome of Mainoo, Martinez, and Garnacho.  If Martinez is unavailable we must hope for an encore selection of Casemiro and Evans, the makeshift centre-back pairing that gifted Palace multiple goals.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Arsenal have won four must-win games in a row, and during that stretch Arteta has put his confidence in Tomiyasu, Trossard and Thomas so I expect them to continue in their places along with the other familiar faces we have seen throughout the season, with Kai Havertz leading the line rather than playing the left-8 where he started back in August. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

White – Saliba – Gabriel – Tomiyasu<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard – Rice – Thomas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka – Havertz – Trossard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Holics\u2019 Pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not expecting a straightforward win but as I said, any win will do and there\u2019s nothing more satisfying, at least in retrospect, than a good old 1-0 to the Arsenal so I\u2019m going with it and predicting Gabriel to get on the end of a Bukayo Saka corner, and possibly early in the second half so that could be a good time to emerge from behind the couch.  Wherever you are watching, enjoy the game and be sure to cheer on this great Arsenal side to a great finish of a truly great season, no matter what happens from here on out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday\u2019s agenda for the Arsenal surely must be to stay focused and visualize the positive.  Mikel Arteta says he has been doing exactly those things, and wants his team to do likewise when they step out to face Manchester United in their penultimate league match at Old Trafford:  \u201cMy brain always takes me to the […]<\/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\/9604"}],"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=9604"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9612,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9604\/revisions\/9612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}