Arsenal’s line up today, and watch out for the Timber twins

 

 

• Arsenal sign new throw in coach as improvements continue to flow
• Forest v Arsenal: how the referee will affect the game

By Tony Attwood

One of the things I have come to dislike about Unai Emery is his desire to cover his own tracks by complaining about everyone around him.  Of late Arsenal have been one of his pet hates, as since the game, he has been claiming that Morgan Rogers was sent off because of Arsenal’s dirty tactics.  (Medical support is on the way).

The fact is that all managers can complain about the opposition’s approach to matches, and indeed in Arsenal’s case, complain about the bias of referees, but most don’t because they know it just makes them look a bit silly.  It is part of the way English Premier League football is at the moment, and the analysis of what PGMO and their employees are doing needs to be done carefully and with proper statistics, not just occasional calling out of other clubs.

The fact is that Emery became Villa manager near the start of the 2022/3 season, and their results before and after his joining the club have shown an improvement, although not that much of an improvement.   The key point about all this is that Villa already had a top scoring centre forward on the books long before Emergy appeared and although he has improved their league position quite a bit, it is way below the three second-place finishes that Arsenal have had, and for which Arteta has been pilloried in the media, before this season.  Here’s Villa’s progress…

Season	Lge pos	FA Cup	Lge Cup	Europe	Top scorer
2020/1	11th	R3	R4		Watkins 16
2021/2	14th	R3	R3		Watkins 16
2022/2	7th	R3	R3		Watkins 16
2023/4	4th	R4	R3	Conference SF	Watkins27
20204/5	6th	SF	R4	Champions QF	Watkins 17

 

Anyway, we can move on to this evening’s match.

The big issue of course, is what to do about Kai Havertz’s and Gabriel Jesus as we also have Gyokeres, who played 82 minutes against Chelsea.

The media are ready to kick up a big storm if Gyokeres continues to play and doesn’t score – carefully ignoring the fact that Arsenal are the second-highest scoring team in the league.  And yet it is that simple fact that gives the clue as to what is going on.  Gyokeres drew defenders to him, which is why so many different players are scoring for Arsenal.

But these journos and their supporters do like to whip up controversies even when they don’t exist.   So we can see what they have come up with for tonight.

The Metro offer us

Raya

Timber Saliba Gabriel Lewis-Skelly

Rice Zubimendi Odegaard

Saka Gyokeres Martinelli

And Sports Mole go with so modest differences, which could be how the team starts out, but could also be how they end up after the substitutions.

Raya;

White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber;

Odegaard, Zubimendi, Rice;

Saka, Gyokeres, Martinelli

Sky Sports don’t go in for anything as mundane as an actual team (or maybe I just couldn’t find it on their website0 but instead they have the news that “Gabriel Magalhaes is quietly becoming a magnet for fouls. Not because he’s theatrical, but because of how Arsenal use him.”

It’s an interesting point – all the things he does are not likely to get the ref to blow a whistle, but he “steps in aggressively during build-up” and is “constantly involved in physical duels at set pieces.”    

In fact, it turns out that Gabriel “has been fouled at least once in nine of his last 10 starts, averaging 1.53 fouls drawn per 90.”  You can even bet on Gabriel being fouled two or more times in a game, but there is a problem – the referee has to see the foul and give it.

I do like to look around at sites that we don’t normally quote, and so I came to Last Word on Sports, which gives us their own team.    It set it out below exactly as they have done, and you might care to look for the oddity within.

• GK: Raya
• LB: Lewis-Skelly
• CB: Timber
• CB: Saliba
• RB: Timber
• CM: Zubimendi
• CM: Rice
• CM: Eze
• LW: Martinelli
• ST: Gyokeres
• RW: Saka

Yes indeed, it seems that for this game we are playing the Timber twins.  I shall look forward to that and indeed to the final table at the end of the game.  But also let me add, I’ve made cock-ups far worse when working against the clock, and the need to get into the car in good time.  It happens.  But this is a day when, for once, I would welcome a bit of deforestation.