Mikel completed his 6 years as the Arsenal manager 4 days back and he won his only trophy – an FA cup – in Aug 2020. It’s been a long journey for him and the club and of course the supporters, we have spend more than a billion GBP and have 2 playing XI that would finish in top half of the table. But as the former British F1 Champion, Damon Hill, used to say, “the only ones who remember when you come second are your wife and your dog”, finishing 2nd and making into the semi finals means nothing.
And in the pursuit of greatness and the trophies, Mikel and Co. are going head to head against Crystal Palace in about an hour in Carabao Cup. Newcastle and Man City have already qualified and will play each other in the semi final and if we win today, we would be playing Chelsea. It’s not going to be easy, but to come to that stage, we must beat Crystal Palace first.
We have beaten them in Premier League at home, thanks to an Eze goal and we can do that again. The line up is out and Mikel has gone with some changes –
Kepa gets his start today in the goal. Timber and Saliba keeps their position while Calafiori shifts to CB to make way for MLS at LB. We will see a midfield of Norgaard, Merino and Eze. Saka gets some rest and Madueke starts in his place, Martinelli gets the nod ahead of Trossard and Gabriel Jesus makes his first start after 23 years and 6 months. With all the players we have, Mikel couldn’t have picked up a weaker playing XI that us. A midfield without Declan Rice or Zubimendi will struggle and Calafiori / MLS are LBs and only one should be on the pitch at any point of time. Also, I am not sure how fit Jesus is, and will he hold on for 90 minutes. If he can’t, there was no point playing him ahead of Gyokeres.
But, hey, I won’t care if we come up with a win. Personally I think Nwaneri could have started ahead of Merino and must be sulking to not make into the playing XI. We have a strong bench though, so Mikel can certainly make some changes if something goes wrong.
WE NEED A TROPHY. See you during the game.
we should get a rather easy victory by playing bully-ball against this depleted and diminutive side, unless they can find a way to be incredibly efficient on the counter…Emery has outmanaged MA on a regular basis, but this might be his toughest test…fuck me Sancho’s getting his first start and Unai’s has 3 teenagers on the bench
Unai has 3
Watkins has got to score there.
we’re lucky that we’re not a goal down
surprised Rogers didn’t take that on considering his present form
I worry about our midfield spacing…massive gaps everywhere
MA must have felt that Unai was going to play his usual first-half rope-a-dope strategy
They’re cutting through us on the break – a manager who wasn’t a quarter wit would look to cover that.
thank fucking god Villa appears to have no cutting edge in and around the box, well at least thus far
Marc—we don’t have a “real” defensive midfielder on the pitch and Hip is new to the whole inverted gig
TRVL
I thought that was what Zubi was bought for?
Beyond that we really can’t break at speed – its get 3/4 of the way up the pitch and then wait for the opposition to get 11 behind the ball.
Marc—Zubi is much more of a pviot man than a DM, he was a clutch and grab defender, which you seemingly can get away with a lot more in La Liga…Merino was Sociedad’s more advance midfielder and a bang average defender
more advanced midfielder
looks as if Unai tried to flip his script a bit tonight in the hopes of trying to snatch a first-half tally or two…it’s like he was baiting us to commit more men up top then counter from deeper positions
TRVL
Arteta’s far too easy to read – Sky put up a sat earlier about out results against the other top teams this season.
It was shocking.
That was world class defending by Saliba.
in regards to Rice, MA’s record when it comes to.inuries on the heels of a good shoehorning is unmatched
Onana out for McGinn should help us, as the former was rather effective in the first half and the latter has been out of form for awhile
Villa look the more composed when they decide to play football, they should concentrate more on playing the game rather than milking every challenge which destroys the rhythm of the game.
As for Arsenal, we have had probably the 2 best chances with gyokeres unable to find the target from 5 yards out on both occasions.
This may be a game that ends up with a scrappy 1-0 home win , saka has been strangely quiet as does odegaard, it could be a time to bring on martinelli , Eze and jesus unless things improve.
I’ll be interested to see if villa do focus more on trying to win the game instead of using every opportunity to slow the game down, it doesn’t make sense to me as they look more than capable of winning tonight.
I thought for a second a foul would be given but seeing a reply the keeper fucked that right up.