Morning all.
It’s Chelsea today in the Premier League, and after three games without a win, it’s time we put that record straight. I suspect we could all probably give the starting line up a good guess, the only real question for me is whether or not Gabriel Martinelli is fit enough to start.
He was kept on the bench for most of the Wednesday’s game against PSV. Perhaps it was fitness, perhaps it was because he was carrying a yellow card into the game and ran the risk of a suspension from the first leg of the quarter-final. He did get on for a bit towards the end, so it’s hard to know if it was physical or Mikel Arteta thought he could manage a few minutes without a booking.
If he is available today, we could see Leandro Trossard play in the centre-forward position, but my gut feeling is that it’ll be Mikel Merino again with the Brazilian on the bench. The absence of Raheem Sterling (who is ineligible against his parent club) won’t upset too many Arsenal fans, but it does leave Martinelli as the only other natural attacking player if he does start on the bench. Having that option might well be something the manager considers useful if he does need to do something to change the game.
If you combine that with some concern about whether or not he can do 90 minutes, it might make some sense to keep him in reserve, even if the Merino up front option is a fairly blunt instrument that hasn’t really worked. It’s not to pin it on him, per se, but if that’s your option to change a game that needs something else, it’s a significant risk. Martinelli would, at least, bring something different to the table in that context.
Beyond that, I think everyone reading could predict the rest of today’s team (bar a coin flip at left-back), and then it’s about being better than we have been in recent games. The run of West Ham, Nottingham Forest and Man Utd has felt like a chore. Not just because Arsenal goals have been at a premium, but because we’ve faced teams who have sat deep – whether that’s deliberately or because the way we have played has forced that doesn’t really matter, it’s still been a problem.
I don’t expect Chelsea to play like that today, so there should be more room to create and attack, but a lot of this is about decision making. I noticed Declan Rice on Wednesday consistently making runs from his position as the ‘left 8’ across to the pitch towards the right hand side, looking for someone to play the pass from deep behind the opposition defence. It never happened, and he grew visibly frustrated – presumably because he wasn’t just making those runs for fun, it was part of the game plan.
Arteta was interesting in the build-up to that game, asked in his press conference about low blocks, he referenced the game against Man Utd, saying:
Against Man Utd we had 11 situations where we had open spaces to attack, 11 big ones. We used one. Top teams, they use nine. And in the past, and against other teams, we have used 60-70% of that situation. The situations were there.
We didn’t use them.
I can’t recall those situations myself, but Arteta and his analysts obviously identified those in their postmortem, so being more efficient as and when those scenarios arise again today could be key. It’s not as if the players we have at the back, or deep in midfield, aren’t capable of making those passes, and if it means we’re a little less controlled a bit more direct, the pay-off could well be more attacking situations for us. Or, at least, a game which is a bit more stretched and open. Hopefully that’s a message the manager has imparted ahead of this one.
The bottom line is that Forest’s win yesterday leaves them just a point behind us, we’ve under-performed in recent weeks, and it’s high-time we got back to winning ways. Three points going into the Interlull would be very welcome too, we don’t need two weeks of introspection and navel-gazing while fretting about injuries to our international players. So, Arsenal, if you wouldn’t mind just winning today, that’d be great.
Right, let’s leave it there for now. You can find a preview podcast over on Patreon if you need something to pass the time until kick off. Join us later for live blog coverage, plus you’ll get the match report, goal clips, reaction, player ratings and much more over on Arseblog News.
Come on you reds!
