William Saliba is ready and Arsenal seem to be on a roll

 

 

• Arsenal v Slavia Prague – close encounters of the first kind
• And so tomorrow for Arsenal it is Slavia Prague away

By Tony Attwood

That Arsenal are top of the Premier League is one thing.   That Arsenal are only ninth in the Champions League table is another.    That Arsenal have a game in hand is the third point, and that William Saliba is apparently at last fit again is surely a fourth point equal to all the others.   Whether he will be a substitute tonight or play from the start and be substituted we don’t know – I would guess the former, but I think it is fairly clear he will be back.

Of course the Champions League table has only recorded three or four games per club in that competition so far, but even after tonight there are still four more games to go for Arsenal.    And what is really affecting the table is that we have as we can see  no less than four  clubs that have 100 percent records, so it is looking a big less certain than in the first run of this format a year ago.   But I am feeling quite confident about the remaining games, especially if Sabliba really is full functional.   Here’s the tablle

 

		P	W	D	L	f	a	Pts
1	PSG	4	4	0	0	20	5	12
2	Barcelona	4	3	0	1	14	6	9
3	Aston Villa	4	3	0	1	12	6	9
4	Liverpool	3	3	0	0	12	7	9
5	Real Madrid	3	3	0	0	10	5	9
6	Sporting	4	3	0	1	8	4	9
7	Bettis	3	3	0	0	7	4	9
8	Bayern M	4	2	2	0	12	5	8
9	Arsenal	3	2	1	0	6	2	7

 

A win will take Arsenal quite a way up the table, although a draw won’t be much use in tht regard.  But then you might have noticed a lack of English clubs in the table above.  And that is because Manchester City are 12th in the league and Manchester United are 17th.   Mind you, Inter Milan are 14th so there is a big of  shake up going on.

And to return to the issue of Saliba, Arteta said yesterday, “Now he’s in a really good place. He’s built the capacity that we needed, and now it’s about giving him minutes. He’s a centre-back, and when that’s the case, it’s not like an attacking midfielder or a nine that you can change. A centre-back normally has to be able to play 90 minutes, and that’s why all the preparation that we’ve done to build him.”

The Guardian is backing all these comments up although it is interesting that they added that William Saliba played 45 minutes of a match behind closed doors last week.  So Arteta’s comments need a little bit of adjustment when it comes to preparation matches.

Plus there is a point that we have touched on before.   Arsenal have been doing very well in the league even without Saliba, which itself is something that surely gives reassurance to the whole squad, and indeed the crowd.

Of course one of the problems with the new format in the Champions League is that it is likely to be giving the same outcome of who goes through as the old format, so after the league process is over it may well be that we will be back to “as you were”, in terms of the clubs, but it does make a bit of a change for the opening matches.

And so after weeks of negativity about Arsenal the nature of the commentary is changing and now we have…  This from the Guardian:

“Ezri Konsa and Gabriel Magalhães were outstanding in Arsenal’s landmark victory over Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday and Arteta admitted that Saliba’s return is likely to give him a selection headache. Konsa is also capable of playing at right-back, although he will face competition from Ben White and Jurriën Timber.”

Also, because of the congestion of Arsenal matches, it turns out that Max Dowman has now served his punishment for the sending off and so could play against Slavia Prague.  So this could be an opportunity to break the “Arsenal youngest player record” in the Champions League which is currently held by Cesc Fàbregas.

Certainly the manager has been saying all the usual things about Downman, and the issue that resulted in him getting the red card is something that is being seen as being over and done, and has apparently had quite a chat with the manager.

In October Arsenal played six games and lost one of them – to Fleetwoood Town, made all the headlines, knocking the rest of the games of the back pages.   But in fact the other five games resulted in four wins and one draw – the draw being away to Bayern Munich in the Champions League.  Otherwise it has been Everton, Forest, Lille and Leeds – quite a mix and the results have gone out way.  I imagine that trend will continue.