Well, it’s another must win game in the fight of Champions League football. There is enough reason to be hopeful if you are a gooner; we are sitting in 5th position, only 2 points behind Manchester United with FOUR GAMES in hand. Mikel & team has to do only what is expected for the rest of this season – beat the teams we should!
Leicester has been poor this season under Brendon and sitting in 12th place. In addition to that, they have a few very important players missing for today’s game – Jamie Vardy, Timothy, Bertrand, Johnny Evans, and Fofana are all out. Although Teilemans and Maddison are fit to play and will probably start, a counter attacking Leicester without Vardy is much easier to beat.
From Arsenal side, everyone is fit to play except probably Tomiyasu. Cedric has been a brilliant cover at RB and didn’t let us miss Tomi in earlier games. ESR has recovered from Covid and can be an impact sub later in the game.
Frankly, the big difference in recent games has been Thomas Partey. He is brilliant and it’s joy to watch him play when is fit and plays to his potential. And his rocket shots are at least landing on the earth these days, lol. Odegaard is the creative link we had been missing, Saka looks to be back in scoring form. The one thing I would love to see is Martinelli drifting more towards Penalty Box. He gets isolated very often at that left side when Laca mostly dropped deep finds it difficult to return in the time. Xhaka has been playing further with no real intent but I’m still happy he can’t commit a foul in dangerous places.
In last few games, players have shown characters at times and it does look like we have moved pass the Mustafi and Ozil era of mediocrity. Few young guns are blazing, some are waiting in line to be given chances. Future looks better, we just have to capitalize on the present.
Every game matters, every point lost can come back us to haunt. Players knows this, manager knows this, we as a fan know this. Lets go to war! Grab those 3 points against a mediocre Leicester. Champions League awaits for the best club in the world!
See you in the comments.
#COYG
Heavy on the optimism today Mb, fair play. It really is looking like 4th place is Arsenal’s to lose now. Leicester missing Vardy is a huge boost for us, it’s one of football’s idiosyncrasies that certain players tend to haunt certain clubs and he is one of our greatest nemesis,no doubt. They won’t be able to sit back and hit us on the break. My one fear is that that might not suit us either. If Leicester attempt to have more possession Arteta could decide to play deeper. I hate when he does that. We are most definitely best on the front foot. Going for 2 1 to the gooners.
Almunia
To be fair – my negativity is mostly towards the manager. We are on a 4 game winning run so he gets a pass for today 😀
I hope so too we play an attacking game. I doubt Mikel will try sitting deep against an out of form Leicester without Vardy, at Emirates. If it’s Liverpool, it’s okay, but not today.
I am going to be more optimistic 2-0 to the boys with Laca on scoresheet finally.
Team News:
Ramsdale
Cedric, White, Gabriel, Tierney
Partey, Xhaka
Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli
Lacazette
No changes there, Pepe, ESR, Nketiah on bench who might come up as subs.
This is what I hate,1 up against a team that played Thursday night and are missing several players. What do we do? Back off and concede possession. Now I don’t think it will cost us today. But this seems to be Arteta’s natural inclination, what we have we hold. It’s not a formula for success in the future if we are serious about challenging for the big titles. Granted he will look to improve the squad in the summer,but I just think that Arteta is too negative naturally in his thinking. Time will tell I guess.
We do have gone a bit on backfoot in last 15 min of first half. Thanks to the splendid Ramsdale’s save we keep the lead.
We need to kill this game, we have had enough heartbreaks after 1-0.
2 nil and laca scores. Mb you entered the realm of prophets, well done!