Saturday 9 April 2022 Ashburton Grove USA “TV”: Peacock 10am ET Seems a good time to bring out that well-worn cliché: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going!” Or is it “goes shopping”? Or “starts the next MD thread”? Turns out I did the thread for this fixture last year... which was our final match... we won 2-0 where some guy named Pepe scored both goals... and my thread run lasted a whole 3 months... until we went to Brentford! Needless to say this match, not to mention the next 6 weeks, is gonna be where Arteta earns his pay. Hopefully him winning March’s Manager of the Month award will juice him up. He needs all the help he can get. For much of our march up the table this season we had a very predictable, steady, reliable and effective Starting XI. But a few days ago we lost 2 vital cogs in that XI (Tieney & Partey), on top of already missing a 3rd for several months (Tomiyasu), and the possible “loss” (in confidence) of another... Tavares. How Mikel solves the personnel puzzle could be fascinating: Keep Nuno in there for psych reasons? Call up Lokonga/Elneny? Creative repositioning of Xhaka/Cedric/White/Odegaard/ESR/Martinelli? I see no new team news so I assume Pepe’s still out due to recent “illness”... but who the heck knows! A win would surely be just what the doctor ordered. A draw would be meh. But I’m NOT entertaining a loss! Nor any further injuries!!!
Nuno seems to be taking a positive attitude. Monday was an extremely frustrating night for me personally, for the team and the fans. It’s important to pick ourselves up, learn from the mistakes and react positively for Saturday’s game. Still a lot to fight for. COYG pic.twitter.com/WrdPHtL9qs— Nuno Tavares (@NunoTavares) April 7, 2022
This lack of depth is what worries me. Esp when injuries occur. Brighton are not easy. I'd take a draw but going for a 1-0 Arsenal.
8 days ago I would not have looked at this match with such nervousness or treat it as a must win, yet here we are. Arsenal has the talent, but so they have the bodies and the heart? Hopefully the home crowd stirs the inspiration.
I’d say the majority opinion by pundits is to leave Nuno at LFB, supporting the player and giving him at least one more chance to demonstrate his worth, and also therefore minimizing the number of creative changes/repositions that the rest of the team hast to undergo. I’m on board with that, but still plenty nervous.
I like the idea of Saka at LB with ESR in front of him, plus Pepe on the right, with Martinelli as super sub. But if we're not going to play Tavares against Brighton at home, we've got a serious problem.
Agreed. As much as I don't rate Tavares I typically favor keeping as many players as possible in their natural/best positions vs forcing too many square pegs into round holes. Maybe with a week of more clear instruction Nuno can do better at playing within himself, while the team as a whole adjusts accordingly.
The ganging up on Tavares is unnecessary. He had a bad game, but it’s being blown out of proportion. He isn’t the first player to play badly, and he won’t be the last. He’s young. It doesn’t mean every game will be like his last. He is more than capable of playing against Brighton.
Others have made this point, but as long as the striker remains a non-goal scoring threat, it's difficult to take your joint-top goal scorer in Saka and move him to LB. Pepe has shown an ability to score in the past, but he can also find himself isolated and uninvolved. Assuming Sambi is playing for Partey and Tavares is in for Tierney, Xhaka will need to go back to playing deeper and supporting those two, rather than getting further forward as a left 8 as he has been.
He has played a combined 80 minutes in his last two starts and hasn't been injured in either game. He was the worst player on either team in the Forest match.
This. Especially the part about not taking Saka out of the forward line. And it sounds a lot like what I've been hearing on the pods. Maybe you've heard those too? Another way of saying what you just said, and a common assumption I've heard, is that although Lokonga will replace Partey nominally, he will likely inherit the Xhaka role, with Xhaka inheriting the Partey role.
I have, which is why I didn't want to take credit for it as an "original" thought Not necessarily, Sambi would still be on the right and Xhaka on the left. Arteta's been playing something closer to a 4-3-3 recently with Xhaka playing on the edge of the opponents box, I think injuries will force him to revert back to more of a 4-2-3-1 with Xhaka and Sambi as a double-pivot. I don't like the idea of Xhaka sitting as a lone midfielder deep like Partey does, I fear that will leave him too exposed defensively.
Can't speak to the validity but I've seen claims that Cedric is expected to play LB this match with White shifting to RB and Holding starting at RCB.
I share that concern. In fact, I was going to add that to my earlier post. That if Xhaka moves further towards our own box, watch out! It would be nice to think his "handlers" could advise/induce him to avoid rash actions that lead to yellows or (shudder to think) straight red. But then we've been living with him long enough to know that Xhaka gonna do what Xhaka gonna do. With how thin we are at certain key positions, including his long-term partner, this is one of the things that's got me nervous about tomorrow (and beyond)... our own little Taz Devil. Please, please, please prove me wrong Granit!
Let’s not forget that when Tierney was out earlier in the season that Tavares had a run of 6 league starts in which he played the full 90 minutes and played well enough to keep Tierney on the bench during the last two or three of those games. He had a bad game against Liverpool, but nearly every Arsenal player had a bad game against Liverpool. In the other 5 games he had an average Got.Soccer ranking of over 7.0 and some, maybe even some on bigsoccer, were calling for him to be the starter ahead of Tierney. He’s young and he hasn’t had minutes for a while, he was going to be rusty going into the Palace game.
No Nuno 🚨 Team news...🧱 Xhaka starts at left-back💪 Sambi in midfield🎺 Laca leads the lineCOME ON YOU GUNNERS!! ✊— Arsenal (@Arsenal) April 9, 2022
Wow! Shows what all the pundits know. Sure hope this isn't another one of Arteta's iffy man-management moves. Glass half full: We get to see ESR & Martinelli in the same starting XI.
Looks like we get our first female commentator today (or at least as far as I can remember). I'm guessing it's Jacqui Oatley, but that's just a guess... on the world feed they don't announce themselves, only their co-commentator, who is old-boy Matt Upson today. Anyway... COYG!!!!!