Morning all.
It seems a bit insane to feel like I should start a blog on the day of a Champions League semi-final with something about a game between two other teams, but obviously what happened last night with Everton and Man City has huge repercussions on the title race. Still, I think we have to focus on ourselves first, and with the game poised at 1-1 from the first leg in Madrid, we have a huge opportunity ahead of us later on.
There’s good news on the team front with Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz both available and in the squad. Whether they’re 100% ready to start we’ll have to wait and see, but at this point we need all hands on deck (for Mikel Arteta’s fun boat!), and the more options we have available to us the better.
This feels like a game where keeping things tight early on would be part of the plan, so I think we’ll see Piero Hincapie come back in at left-back, while there is a decision for the manager to make on the other side. Ben White is a player who has put his body on the line for this club, and in an ideal world he’d provide the balance to the more defensive minded left-back. He also has that connection with Bukayo Saka which has been so effective, but his recent form has been a bit hit and miss.
That leaves Cristhian Mosquera as the alternative, who might give you more defensively but going forward isn’t as dynamic. I think I would stick with White, I feel like there’s a moment to come from him between now and the end of the season, and if this is a game we want to go out and grasp from the off, a couple of early combos with Saka would give Atletico plenty to think about.
In midfield, Martin Zubimendi will come back in, for sure. As well as Myles Lewis-Skelly did against Fulham, that selection was in no small part designed to give the Spaniard a little break before this one. The question is will Declan Rice sit deep like he did last week, or will we try something a bit different again? Odegaard could come in, but if that happened, I’d expect Eberechi Eze to shift to the left. If not, Eze central and Leandro Trossard out wide, with Viktor Gyokeres and Saka on the right seems the most likely – particularly after how effective that trio were on Saturday.
We know how tough it’s going to be, and what kinds of threat Atletico Madrid pose. They had a really good spell in that second half when they could have scored another, and I think we’ll have to be prepared for another period in this game where they enjoy a bit of dominance. That’s just how it goes when you get to this stage, but we wrestled back control last week in Madrid, and that’s encouraging for me. Then it’s about being efficient and clinical with the chances we have, knowing we’re one game away from the Champions League final. I also feel like we owe them a bit of pain after the Europa League in 2018 – not the same competition but a painful exit nonetheless.
The manager’s message when asked how he was feeling about it was fairly simple:
I feel the energy in and amongst the team, our supporters. So this is the moment that we want to live together. We are so hungry to get the game that we want tomorrow and go through to that final.
We know the game that we’re going to be playing tomorrow, the games that we’re going to play tomorrow within that game. Be prepared, be ready, big quality, big clarity, and deliver on the day. That’s the most important thing.
I don’t think anyone needs any hyping up for this one. For those lucky enough to be going tonight, it could be an occasion for the ages. Only once in the long history of this football club have we made the final of this tournament, and it really feels like we have some unfinished business to attend to. Two years ago we made the quarter-final, but fell just short; we made the semi-final last year but without the kind of squad depth you need to properly test a side like PSG over two games; let’s hope the logical progression continues later on, and these lads can do whatever it takes to get us to Budapest.
COME ON YOU REDS!
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As for last night, holy cow. I will admit I watched the first half, but with Man City winning 1-0 I decided I was bad luck so turned off to play some Arc Raiders on the Playstation. All was quiet, and then my phone started buzzing. And buzzing. And buzzing. Everton were level, then 2-1 up, then 3-1, but very quickly back to 3-2. Then, right at the end, some more buzzing with a few ‘FFS!’ messages as Doku scored a late equaliser.
Obviously, I’d have preferred that goal didn’t go in, and any late goal – even in a game you’re not involved in – has a big impact on how you feel. However, if you’d offered me that result beforehand I would 100 trillion percent have taken it, because City dropped points and it’s now back in our hands completely. Forget the nonsense about how Arsenal will have been devastated by that late goal, this was a great result for us and it’s now down to us to do what we need to do to become champions after so long. It’s what we wanted, it’s what was delivered, now go and make the most of it.
There is the small matter of tonight before we can really start to consider and discuss the ramifications, but the simple fact is this: if Arsenal win our next three games, there is nothing Man City can do to prevent us from winning the title. That’s a position everyone would have loved to be in at the start of the season, and while the journey has been a bit bumpy at times, we’ve got to embrace it and demonstrate that now is our time.
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Right, I’m gonna leave it there for now, but if you need something to listen to to pass some of the time before kick-off, we’ll have an episode of The 30 over on Patreon later on, with some Atletico Madrid preview stuff in there too. Sign up here for just $6 per month (+ sales tax where applicable) to get instant access for what should be a very interesting episode!
For now, have a good one folks, and I’ll catch you later for the game.
