Good morning, Gooners! There’s a bit of a game on this afternoon in case you weren’t aware!!! I can’t remember so much riding on a league game for a long, long time. I can’t even think about getting a draw or a win. I just can’t do that to myself. I can’t even entertain the thought. What that would mean to our season, is beyond huge. It would be a generational result. After what has been a truly cruel couple of weeks, this would be a real Lazarus moment in our season.
Form and momentum are undisputably with the hosts. City also have had a week off ahead of the game, so should be fresher as well. So what are YOU expecting?
Do Arsenal have no chance? Are we going to see that ‘fire’ that we’ve heard so much about?
What are the positive that Arsenal fans can cling to? I thought Martin Zubimendi was much, much better in midweek. Here’s a player that we really need at the top of his game to go and get a result at the Etihad. We need the September/October version of the Spaniard to turn up this afternoon. A prime Declan Rice wouldn’t be bad either!! I think that’s where our hope lies. In the centre of the pitch, with those two players. If they turn up and put in 8/9 out of 10 performances, we might have a chance.
Further back, our defence is another reason to be positive. William Saliba, Gabriel and David Raya is a strong a spine as you can ask for. I do worry a little about the right back situation with Jurrien Timber unlikely to be fit, but again Piero Hincapie was excellent against Sporting so that’s another reason to be positive.
Up top is where the concerns are, with very few players who we can point to as being ‘in-form’. The collective numbers of our attackers are pretty embarrassing. Especially if we take Viktor Gyokeres’ goals out of that equation and take into the account that fact that the Swede has contributed very little in the truly key games for Arsenal. Our star man, Bukayo Saka, has had a season to forget and even then, when we truly need him, he’s not there for us this afternoon. I think our hope up there is Eberechi Eze. The former Crystal Palace man is capable of really special moments, moments of magic and it is that sort of thing that he was brought in for. What I wouldn’t give for a few of those moments this afternoon.
Kai Havertz has done it in bits since coming back from injury so is it too much to ask for him to turn back time and bring his form from last season into the game today?! We haven’t seen much from the Eze/Havertz combination, so maybe that’s the winning formula? Clutching a bit? Probably.
Let’s see.
One thing we can’t have this afternoon is a kicking. We can’t ship multiple goals against this City team and lose the goal difference as well. We have to compete. We have to show pride. We have to fight for the bade. We have to show everyone why we’ve been top for pretty much the whole season.
Make us proud Arsenal. Into the breach we go…