Morning all, welcome to a model new week.
Arsenal Ladies had been in motion yesterday, coming from 3-1 right down to beat West Ham 4-3 in the long run. Very important factors within the WSL marketing campaign, and yow will discover the match report – together with the purpose clips – and the post-game response over on Arseblog Information.
Clearly now consideration turns to our Champions League tie with PSV tomorrow night time. Mikel Arteta received’t be holding his pre-game press convention till this night, and I don’t assume there’s going to be a lot in the best way of workforce information. At this level, all we will hope for is that we don’t have any extra points, and that everybody we presently have stays wholesome.
Then it’s about how we arrange, and what means the supervisor thinks one of the simplest ways to method this tie is. PSV have only one win of their final six video games, so not precisely in flying type, however the opposition and the event can do humorous issues. I assume you’d ordinarily say Arsenal are favourites, however with the problems we’ve up entrance, it’s in all probability a bit extra even than it will be.
We’ll hear extra from the supervisor later, I can’t think about he’s going to be too open about his plans, and the fact is his choices are so, so restricted till we get Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka again. So, except he’s had a brainstorming concept on the coaching floor over the weekend, put together your self for one thing similar to facet that drew with Nottingham Forest final week, and hold fingers crossed we will perform a little higher in entrance of purpose.
Trying a bit additional forward, it’s a visit to Outdated Trafford subsequent within the Premier League, and even with Man Utd within the doldrums, the taking part in subject is levelled by our personal points and lack of attacking availability. It’s attention-grabbing to have a look at the fixtures that encompass this recreation although. We have now our two legs in opposition to PSV to take care of, whereas United face Actual Sociedad within the Europa League.
I do surprise if, maybe, they could prioritise these video games. Which isn’t to say they received’t need to win on Sunday or put out a massively weakened facet, however for them the Premier League is just for delight now. If they need European soccer subsequent season (and so they’ll want it or Sir Jimmy will lay off one other couple of hundred folks and make them actual eat stale crusts and gruel from a van within the automobile park), then the Europa League is now their solely pathway to that.
They went out of the FA Cup yesterday to Fulham. I watched a little bit of that in a pub, however I used to be distracted by a 3 month outdated Bernese Mountain Canine pet referred to as Bjorn who was way more attention-grabbing than the sport itself. His fur was so smooth! After which I checked out Bruno Fernandes and I wager his scraggeldy beard stuff is just like the bristles on an outdated broom. Anyway, the FA was one other avenue to Europe which is now gone, so it’s all in on the Europa League for them.
I realise I’m making an attempt to dream up eventualities that are useful to Arsenal (it looks like we want all the assistance we will get proper now), however a primary leg which leaves United within the tie however with a variety of work to do within the second leg can be excellent. It may need little influence on our recreation on Sunday, however maybe if there are workforce choice choices that must be prioritised for one recreation over the opposite, United having to give attention to their second leg could possibly be useful. Let’s see.
Not lots else happening proper now, so I’ll go away it there for right now. The podcast schedule is a bit tousled this week as a result of James is away, so we’ve moved the Arsecast Additional to Wednesday for a post-PSV chat relatively than put one thing out right now. Nonetheless, what we’ll do is make our Patreon preview podcast obtainable to everybody on the principle Arsecast feed to make sure you have one thing to hearken to. There’ll be an Arsenal Ladies Arsecast a bit later too as Tim and Jamie focus on the aforementioned win over West Ham.
For now, have a very good one, and we’ll stay up for PSV in additional depth in tomorrow’s weblog. Till then.
