Man U V Arsenal – the team, and the question of Arsenal’s failings

 

 

• Man U v Arsenal: would we really be better off with the new number 9?
• ManU v Arsenal, how one referee gives 5 times as many penalties as another
• Manchester U v Arsenal: the mighty haven’t just fallen, they’ve disintegrated

By Bulldog Drummond

My point in the last article is that the argument being made by journalists and the supporters who follow them, with the claim that without a new centre forward Arsenal are either going nowhere or are going backward – as witnessed by coming second two seasons running, and perhaps a third season as well.   

  Tell that to Liverpool fans and they will laugh themselves stupid in agreement.  What with them coming third, second, fifth and third in the previous four seasons.

Tell that to fans of any other club not funded by a state, and they will tell you how much they would love their team to come second, just once.

Or what about if you supported a team that had just come 6th, 7th, 4th, 8th and 5th in the last five seasons and had been tipped by the media to be making the big step forward after each of those seasons, only to fail.  Especially if this season they find themselves sitting 13th.   (You can work out who).   Or Man U who have been sixth, third and eighth in the last three campaigns and are now 15th.  Or… well, you know….

The issue of Arteta out, is at the moment based on the simple notion that he was too pig-headed to buy a striker.   But suppose he had bought a striker, and like maybe around 50% of the purchases made by Premier League clubs in the past few seasons, he wasn’t as good as expected.  Or supposing he too had got injured, what then?   Would the idea being put forward that we should have bought TWO strikers?

And then what – when our forward line returns from injuries and the club starts to score again as it has done in the last two seasons?  What then?  Do we drop the striker or say, no, having a striker is important even if we are scoring fewer goals?

Arsenal still have in the squad Saka, Havertz, and Martinelli.  I’ll leave out Gabriel Jesus because, given the severity of his injury, I am not sure he will return, and I suspect he will be replaced.  Because now we also have Nwaneri, and I can’t imagine he is going to be dropped when the fit players return.

In fact we already have four undroppable players for a forward line of three.  And everyone seems to want us to buy another undroppable player.

The fact is, Arteta has been crafting this team carefully since he joined the club, and suddenly to change his plans (which have been very successful since he arrived), just because we havne’t won the league this season when our entire forward line has been decimated (and despite which we are still sitting second) seems ludicrous.  Ludicrous not because the scheme won’t work, but because history tells us that this sort of purchase which changes the whole approach of a successful team, rarely works.

And this is all rather relevant because today we play ManU, which the Guardian article calls “the most wasteful desperation-spenders in world football.”

ManU is however one of the small number of clubs that has beaten Arsenal more than the reverse – it is 90 to us and 102 to them.  But the last four league matches have all been won by Arsenal, 3-2 in January 23, 31- in September 23, 0-1 in May 24 and 2-0 earlier this season.  So we look forward with anticipation.

As for the team in what will be Arteta’s 200th Arsenal match as manager, for the game Sports Mole suggest

Raya;

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;

Odegaard, Partey, Rice;

Nwaneri, Merino, Trossard

 

The Metro have exactly the same prediction.

The Mirror gives us a piece worthy of a “better late than never” accolade although really I am not sure even late it is worth it, when they tell us that Arsenal have “ONLY 17 senior players available for selection.”  I guess they thought we hadn’t noticed – perhaps because we had been reading the Mirror.

Anyway, they do also have the grace to say that this doesn’t include Lewis-Skelly or Ethan Nwaneri – listed as Arsenal Academy players on the Gunners’ official site – who will be included in the squad as usual.    Academy forward Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, who has been a regular on the substitutes’ bench recently, could also receive another call-up to offer an extra attacking threat.”

Who Scored do give us a slight variation to the squad, however.

Raya;

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;

Odegaard, Partey, Rice;

Sterling, Merino, Trossard

So now all we need to do is watch the game.