- Arsenal v Wolverhampton. What Arsenal need to be wary of.
- Are Wolverhampton the worst team ever in the Premier League?
- Another staggering win, as Arsenal players take another kicking
By Tony Attwood
And so we are getting closer to kick off, which means it is time to contemplate any last-minute news and, indeed, the possible teams.
The sensible thought is that with Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli doing rather finely in the last game they should be running things again in this match. But Arteta does not always work that way as we know. And indeed only one of the newspaper predictions that, as usual, we finish this final piece with, includes just one of them. No one includes both.
But there can be a bit of logic in NOT bringing in Saka and Eze straight away, as some of the tackling of Wolverhampton can be a bit juicy at times, and the last thing we want is either player injured just before some much harder games that are on the horizon.
Plus, we don’t want either Madueke or Martinelli thinking, “I’m never going to get a regular spot – I’ll try for another team in January. After all what else does Martinelli have to do to get a regular starting place?
Against this thought is the notion that Madueke has scored four goals against Wolverhampton. On the other hand, Eze has scored in five of his last six Premier League appearances against Wolverhampton Wanderers, and that includes goals in each of the last three games. Then again, Saka has scored in each of the last three home league games he has played in against Wolverhampton.
Saka has also had a few assists of late and this is an increasingly important part of the team’s approach. He has two men marking him and can’t get into a scoring position, so he picks out the perfect pass…
Then again, Madueke scored four goals against Wolverhampton in each of his games against them for Chelsea in 2024/25, which could mean that maybe we’ll just give up on defence and play a bunch of forwards instead and try to get into double figures.
Then again, and again, and again, Madueke scored two against Club Brugge, and that normally means a reward of playing in the next game, even if he did once play for that bunch of n’er-do-wells from down the Lane.
Certainly, in the most recent matches, there has been a move away from scoring from free-kicks to scoring from open play, so the question turns on what we think Wolverhampton will be doing in terms of defending.
The key point here is that Wolverhampton are top of the fouling league, creating 14.5 fouls a game. Arsenal are penalised for 10.3 fouls a game according to WhoScored statistics which puts Arsenal 14th in the Premier League fouling table. That means Wolverhampton give away over 40% more free kicks because of fouls in each match than Arslenal do.
But then again a lot of clubs are now reduced to just fouling Arsenal players rather than doing anything else, and as a result Arslenal scored 12 of their first 17 Premier League goals this season from set-pieces, according to WhoScored.
However, of late the number has dropped, as opposition teams have got wise to Arsenal’s style. But then again, Wolverhampton will most likely get desperate. They might start with the instruction, don’t give away fouls, but panic is liable to set in.
So what of the team? Sports Mole give us
Raya;
White, Timber, Hincapie, Lewis-Skelly;
Odegaard, Norgaard, Rice;
Saka, Gyokeres, Eze
Raya;
White, Timber, Hincapie, Calafiori
Odegaard, Zubamendi, Rice;
Saka, Gyokeres, Eze
The Standard chimes in with something of a combination …
Raya;
White, Timber, Hincapie, Lewis-Skelly;
Odegaard, Zubimendi, Eze;
Saka, Gyokeres, Madueke
So it is going to be something along those lines. A win by anything less than four goals will be something of a disappointment, but the main thing is just to keep winning so that, come the end of the season, the issue of goals and goal difference really is forgotten among the celebrations and street parades.
