Good morning Gooners! If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you’ve had a good couple of days celebrating, eating and a nice couple of days off, if you are lucky enough to not have to work it!
For Arsenal, it is very much back to work today as they welcome Brighton to The Emirates in what is another really key game. With Arsenal’s lead now standing at a tight 2 points, every game is must win, especially with Manchester City playing before us at lunchtime. The performances of late have not been great, it has to be said, with the Wolves game in particular being really poor. However, this hasn’t stopped the team from picking up some decent results, aside from the Villa game, so I’d really like to think that we’ve come through our inevitable sticky period, that every team goes through at some point during a season, and today is a good chance to show that the aforementioned period is now at an end.
Brighton have historically been a bit of a tricky customer for the Gunners, with mixed results both home and away, and the visitors have been in good form this season as well so Arsenal are definitely going to have to work hard for three points this afternoon.
Areas of encouragement
As I mentioned above, the results lately have actually been pretty good so Arsenal should come into this one in good spirits and with a bit of wind in their sails. A number of players also managed to get a rest in the week against Palace, so they should actually be relatively fresh for this one.
Arsenal’s squad is also gradually healing and the options from the bench are getting stronger with each game, with Kai Havertz the latest player to return to training. That will give the whole squad a massive boost coming into the busy Christmas period.
Areas of concern
One area where Arsenal weren’t able to rotate too much against Crystal Palace was in defence, and the lack of options back there is really concerning. At present, there is no obvious rotation option for either Jurrien Timber or William Saliba, which is greatly troubling, given how key both players are to this Arsenal side.
Arsenal have shown a really lack of ruthlessness in front of goal in the past three games and need to start taking some of these chances, as the margins are too small to be hanging onto one goal leads into stoppage time for much longer.
What I’d love to see
Recent form against Brighton should also be heeded. Mikel Arteta is a big advocate of using old wounds to drive the players to bury the demons born out of previous encounters so I would be amazed if he hasn’t done the same again with this one, given everything that happened with Declan Rice’s red card and the resulting equaliser last season. I’d love to see a real determined performance from Arsenal, who look hell bent on correcting mistakes from yester year.
Given the amount of chances Arsenal missed against Palace on Tuesday, I’d love to see the forward line take some of the pressure off the battle weary defence of ours and putting a couple of chances away and generally being much more clinical.
I think this one is too much to ask, but it would be really nice to see Joel Veltman sent off for kicking the ball away. That must have been top of Declan Rice’s Christmas list this year!!
What I’d hate to see
Boring answer, but I’d hate to see the opposite to the above and therefore another really wasteful showing from our frontline. We have serious quality in our attack and it’s about time we started to see that turn into goals. If we are going to sustain this title challenge, I think that clinical edge is going to have to come at some point!
Another greatest hit, but I’d hate to see any more injuries as well. Let’s get our players back and keep the ones that are playing fit and healthy please!
Key Battle
Every time I see Yankuba Minteh I’m both equally impressed and terrified by him in equal measure. The raw talent and pace is there for all to see and he’s capable of creating goal scoring situations pretty much on his own, so whoever is playing left back is going to have to keep a close eye on the flying winger. That job will likely come down to Riccardo Calafiori so it will be interesting to see how much licence to roam the Italian will be given when Arsenal are in possession, with the obvious threat Brighton will have on the transition with Minteh left in space. On the flip side, from what I’ve seen of Minteh, he’s not the best at tracking back so that may also allow Calafiori a bit more space either down our left hand side or wherever he decides to play! It might not be a game defining battle, but it be fascinating to see this one play out.
Lineup and Team News
After the significant rotation in the League Cup Quarter-Final on Tuesday, several changes will likely be made for this one too, as the rested players all return to active duty. There’s not been much talk about Piero Hincapie’s injury, but I suspect his absence in the last outing was more precautionary so I’m expecting Hincapie to return at central defence, with Riccardo Calafiori moving back to left back, despite an excellent showing against Palace.
David Raya will clearly return in goal and there is no other option than to play William Saliba and Jurrien Timber, so the rest of the defence picks itself.
Into midfield, the starting trio of Martin Zubminendi, Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard all had varying levels of rest last time out, so should all come straight back into the starting eleven for this one. I don’t see anyone challenging these three as first choice right now.
There were some really good performances in midweek, most notably Gabriel Martinelli in the first half on the left-hand side, yet I expect Mikel Arteta to revert back to his starting frontline of Bukayo Saka, Viktor Gyokeres and Leandro Trossard for this one. The boss does have a penchant for playing players in great form though, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Martinelli given the nod ahead of Trossard.
Kai Havertz is back in training, but is unlikely to be ready for this one, so the bench will remain much the same, with players like Eberechi Eze, Gabriel Jesus and Noni Madueke all chomping at the bit to come on and provie their worth, should the starting team fail to shine at any point. There’s talk of Gabriel travelling with the squad however, these are yet to be confirmed so I’m going to assumed that this one will come too soon for him as well. Nice to hear he’s so close though.
Predicted lineup:
Raya
Timber
Saliba
Hincapie
Calafiori
Zubimendi
Rice
Odegaard
Saka
Gyokeres
Trossard
Substitutes:
Arrizabalaga
Lewis-Skelly
Norgaard
Merino
Eze
Nwaneri
Jesus
Madueke
Martinelli
PREDICTION
Sooner or later, we’re going to have to really put a side to the sword in front of goal and as much as I rate Brighton, I think it could be this one, if we put in the kind of performance like we did against Crystal Palace. I’m going 3-0 to The Arsenal.