Morning all.
It’s a big one tonight in the Premier League as Aston Villa come to town. Leave aside all the Unai Emery narrative, it’s so irrelevant at this point, but we’re facing a team in great form, who have won 11 games in a row in all competitions, and who beat us earlier on this month with a late goal at Villa Park.
Mikel Arteta was asked what he could learn from that game at Villa Park, and said:
We’ll watch it back. I have a few ideas and things that we have to do better. It was quite cruel as well, the way we lost it, but we’ll learn from it.
I thought it was a relatively even game, but the obvious difference between tonight and then is the availability of William Saliba and Gabriel. At Villa Park the central-defensive partnership was Jurrien Timber and Piero Hincapie who, I think I’m right in saying, had never started together as a partnership before. While it wasn’t terrible, I do think it left us open in ways we rarely are with that first choice duo on the pitch, and all going well we’ll have that available to us tonight. There’s just greater security, and in turn I think it impacts our availability to attack the opposition with greater efficiency.
As yet, we don’t know what the situation is with either Jurrien Timber and Riccardo Calafiori, but having the former in the starting line-up would obviously be very important to the construction of the rest of the team. Declan Rice did a fantastic job at right-back against Brighton, but in a game like this you want him in the engine room, especially when Villa are missing Boubacar Kamara – who has been a very important player for them this season – through suspension. Villa are strong there anyway, but Rice as a full-back is not ideal, and if he’s back in his normal position I’d expect him to be there with Martin Zubimendi and Martin Odegaard.
Where I think there is an interesting decision to make is up front. I’ve seen it reported that Kai Havertz is with the squad, but if he’s included, there’s no way he’s going to start a game of this intensity after so long out. Villa are also missing Matty Cash through suspension, and Pau Torres is out too, so their defensive options aren’t as deep as they might be. Which makes me wonder if this might be a game for Gabriel Martinelli on the left, and that feeds into the decision you might make with the striker.
I’d be really tempted by Gabriel Jesus up front tonight, his relationship with Martinelli is excellent, and I don’t think Viktor Gyokeres is in the kind of form that makes him un-droppable. The Brazilian offers a bit more in terms of his all-round play too, he tends to combine with others to greater effect, and while I can’t say he offers significantly more goal threat, I do have a suspicion that the way he links play might see him get the nod later. And if it doesn’t work, then we have serious options on the bench to change things around.
After that it’s about managing the occasion, and the high stakes that come with this fixture. It’s first against third, it’s a chance for Arsenal to make a statement and put some distance between us and Villa. Not to mention Man City who don’t play until Thursday, so the back and forth of the title race and the pressure we can exert is all part of this too. And, of course, there’s a sense that some revenge is in order after what happened in our last game against them.
Losing with the last kick of the game is cruel, and you could see by the reaction of the players how much that hurt. You can be quite sure that Arteta will be using that as extra fuel for what will hopefully be an Arsenal fire tonight. This feels like a huge game, one where a good performance and win will not only provide the benefit of the points, but also some reassurance after a few games where things have been almost too tight to enjoy properly.
First and foremost though, and most importantly, it’s about the points. If it’s a scrappy 1-0 I’d take that, but if we can win this one in a convincing way, there’d be a lot to take from it. Which is far from a foregone conclusion, we’re going to have to work really hard and play very well to do it, but I also think it’s within our capability to do that. Fingers crossed.
Right, I’ll leave it there for now. We have a preview podcast over on Patreon if you need something to listen to, and as ever we’ll have live blog coverage and all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News later.
Come on you reds!
