Arsenal v PSV: media sows fear and anxiety, and a chance for some rested players

 

 

 

• PSV v Arsenal: could PSV possibly recover – even a bit?
• Is it really true that one more player is all Arsenal now need?

By Bulldog Drummond

Suggestions are being made that Sterling should be given a chance to play as a centre forward tonight as TBR announce that Reece Clairmont has been spotted in Arsenal training ahead of PSV Eindhoven clash.  He is described as a “dangerous young winger inspired by Alexis Sanchez.”

 Reece Clairmont is “currently with Arsenal’s Under-18s and was further “spotted vying with the ball against Jorginho”.   Apparently, he joined Arsenal in October 2020 in Walthamstow and is a “wide attacker,” which is what I think we call “a winger”.   Although, it seems he also plays left-back.

Meanwhile, The Standard tell us that, ” Mikel Arteta might regret big missed opportunity with forgotten man Oleksandr Zinchenko, because Zinchenko’s position switch could have helped Arsenal creativity problems.

It is of course, always good to see journalists exercising their imaginations rather than just downing pints and chasers, although this does not apply to Football London who seemingly found themselves right out of ideas saying, “Arteta was asked if he’ll rotate his side given the substantial lead. Keeping his cards close to his chest, the Arsenal boss suggested that he may not make as many changes as many believe.”

In short, no one has a clue – which is the normal state of English football journalism.  But then equally, the media don’t really want us to think about the clubs that at the start of the season they were predicting to do well in the Premier League.  Although we ought to remember the sort of things that they said at the start of the season since this might help us gauge the reliability of their comments now. 

Indeed as Planet Football kindly put it “We can’t find a single pundit who tipped Liverpool to win the Premier League title.”

So where do the heavily tipped clubs lie at the moment?

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	29	21	7	1	69	27	42	70
2	Arsenal	28	15	10	3	52	24	28	55
4	Chelsea	28	14	7	7	53	36	17	49
5	Manchester City	28	14	5	9	53	38	15	47
6	Newcastle United	28	14	5	9	47	38	9	47
8	Aston Villa	29	12	9	8	41	45	-4	45
13	Tottenham Hotspur	28	10	4	14	55	41	14	34
14	Manchester United	28	9	7	12	34	40	-6	34

 

And that had me wondering.  If I had ever been as bad at the various day jobs I had during my lifetime working, would I have been allowed to carry on as these journos do?

Probably not, but there always have to be more and more negative stories and of course, when it comes to Arsenal, Football.London always has to be at the top of the tree in this regard.   So they tell us today that “Arsenal have several members of their squad at risk of missing a potential Champions League quarter-final going into their clash against PSV Eindhoven.”

Working on this theme, they also tell us that Arsenal are “one game away from Champions League nightmare as Mikel Arteta faces double dilemma”   And this is because “The Arsenal player walking suspension tightrope ahead of PSV Champions League clash.”

That’s a pretty big build up to their point that Timber, Sterling and Martinelli “would have to get through the next three matches in order to avoid being handed a one-game suspension in the Champions League.”   They also remind us that “Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus and Takehiro Tomiyasu all remain sidelined, with Saka the only player expected to make a return before the end of the season.”  As if somehow we might have missed that.

That all seems pretty horrible except for one fact that they seem to have forgotten that   Arsenal are 7-1 up from the first match, meaning that to go out of the tournament, Arsenal would have to lose 7-0 at home.   So one very real possibility is for Arsenal not to use Timber, Sterling or Martinelli since their inclusion would seem to do little to reduce the already zero chances of Arsenal losing 0-7.