Morning all.
After a disappointing defeat to West Ham, Mikel Arteta’s problem this night is to do higher in opposition to a greater facet as we go to Nottingham Forest afterward. Their place within the desk may be one thing of a shock within the grand scheme of issues, however it’s on no account undeserved. They’ve been very good this season, regardless of just a few ups and downs, and I suppose we have now to hope they’ve one of many latter performances this night.
However, I feel they’ll be licking their lips on the prospect of taking part in this iteration of Arsenal. We struggled in opposition to Leicester till Mikel Merino got here up with the products, however when West Ham sat deep and mentioned ‘Come break us down’, we couldn’t try this. When you think about Forest’s game-plan is about permitting groups to have possession then hitting them on the break – slugging them on the break may be even higher – we’re going to should be at our greatest defensively tonight.
Then it turns into a query of how we enhance when we have now the ball, and that’s the tough one. Does he proceed with Mikel Merino as a false 9/centre-forward? Choices are so, so restricted, and from all the pieces we’ve seen he appears reluctant to choose Raheem Sterling it in any respect potential. If he did select him on the left, might Merino because the left 8 play that Kai Havertz supporting position to Leandro Trossard up entrance? That may imply one in every of Declan Rice or Jorginho on the base of midfield – and in a sport like this Rice would the plain selection. It has labored to respectable impact earlier than, so it could possibly be value a attempt if he feels Sterling will be efficient on the left (though I feel that’s unlikely).
Past that, maybe Merino continues up entrance, he goes with a Jorginho, Rice, Odegaard midfield trio, simply so as to add that little bit of passing vary from deep? Is Ben White match to begin a sport to present us a bit extra overlapping thrust on the best? May we do one thing a bit left-field and begin Kieran Tierney as properly, a extra conventional left-back overlapping on the left would assist us make the pitch greater fairly than extra slender which tends to occur once we face sides who sit off? However then does that give Forest extra room to interrupt into?
The truth is none of those choices are superb, however I don’t assume we will choose the identical workforce we did in opposition to West Ham and simply count on it to be higher. I did say after that sport that the gamers had must have been able to extra, however at this level I actually consider he has to make a tweak or two – and make sure that we have now one thing efficient on the bench if this can be a sport we have to change late on. That’s simpler mentioned that finished, though in his press convention yesterday he mentioned he relishes the challenges this season has offered:
It’s been extremely satisfying to work every single day with the gamers, the coaches and the workers to attempt to overcome sure conditions. If any individual tells you at first of the season that by this time you’ll have performed 5 instances with a crimson card, over half an hour in every of them, and you’ve got misplaced this quantity of gamers, what’s the guess you’re in the course of the desk not less than, and you’re out of the Champions League?
However that’s not the scenario, in order that tells you the resilience, the assets and the ambition the workforce and that each particular person has, and that point has in all probability been one in every of my proudest moments to work, in that sense.
If these are qualities he’s happy with, and I can perceive why he may be, he must elicit them in an enormous method from his gamers this night. If we’re going to win, I feel we’ll win ugly. I could possibly be mistaken, I typically am, however I don’t see us placing collectively the sort of attacking efficiency that may blow a workforce like Forest away. It may be a conflict of attrition to some extent, and we have now to make sure that we don’t give away a crap purpose just like the one we did in opposition to West Ham. After that, if we will nick one, and grind it out, I’d take that proper now.
This seems like a interval of the season, earlier than we hit the Interlull in March, the place the necessity to dig deep and present resilience – and a bit {of professional} satisfaction after dropping on Saturday – might be badly wanted. We have now an enormous Champions League sport subsequent, so going into that one on the again of a win can be very helpful. It’s value mentioning that Saturday was our first defeat in 16 Premier League video games, the slate is clear now, so let’s go once more.
For extra on this one, we’ve received a preview podcast for you over on Patreon, and as ever you possibly can be part of us later for reside weblog protection, plus all of the post-game stuff on Arseblog Information.
Till then, fingers crossed!
