It’s going to take a long time for the new manager to change everything he has to change, but in the meantime we have to stay competitive and keep winning as many games as possible. Our defensive weakness is the real concern in the team and it looks like it could take a long time and maybe a few new faces for it to change. We’re still not defending as a team and we’re far too prone to individual errors, but hopefully time and hard work will cure those ills.
The biggest problem last week, besides our defending, was our inability to control the game and we made a poor West Ham team look good far too often. The manager is still trying and testing his players and he hasn’t yet found a balanced midfield who can control the game while protecting the defence. Lucas Torreira arrived at a fairly high cost in the summer and the time for him to play from the start must surely be upon us. He looks like he could be the disciplined defensive midfielder we need and it’s important for him to become an intrical part of the team as soon as possible.
Mesut Ozil missed out on that win over West Ham through illness, but he should be fit to play against Cardiff. He has his doubters, but when he’s at his best he has few who can match him and the manager has to find a way to get the best out of him. Ozil has had his much publicised problems, but he is the player who can make that team tick and create the chances for our strikers to score.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang arrived in January and immediately started scoring goals like the striker we had been hoping for. I was very confident he would keep scoring those goals this season, but it hasn’t happened for him just yet. He has missed his fair share of chances in the first three games, but surely it’s just a matter of time before the goals start coming quick and fast. He is one of the best strikers in the game and I think he just needs that first goal to get the ball rolling.
With Aubameyang as first choice striker it has meant Alexandre Lacazette has had to take a back seat and it can’t be easy for him. He’s only been at the club just over a year and he arrived with a great scoring record too. He has looked good when he has come on in each of our games so far, but it doesn’t look like the manager is prepared to play both him and Aubameyang together from the start.
We know what to expect from Cardiff tomorrow and it certainly won’t be pretty, but Neil Warnock teams never are. They’ll be as physical as possible and try to harry us and intimidate us on and off the ball. The one crucial factor they are missing is genuine quality and that’s where we have a huge advantage and we have to make that advantage count.
They have kept clean sheets in two of their three games so far, but crucially they have failed to score in all of those games. If we can defend properly we can make sure they continue that scoreless streak and then it’s a matter of opening up their defence enough to get the goals we need. We showed plenty of attacking intent in our only away game against Chelsea and we need to continue with that attacking intent while keeping our defence intact.
We seem to be making real inroads on the right side of our attack at the moment with Hector Bellerin almost playing as a winger rather than a defender. In a four man defence that’s a big risk unless someone can cover for him and that’s where Torreira comes in. If Bellerin and Henrikh Mkhitaryan can continue to cut balls back towards the penalty spot we should make the chances we need to win the game.
Our away form was pretty dismal last season and it was the main reason we finished so far outside the top four. That away form needs to improve drastically and it needs to start improving tomorrow against Cardiff. We have the players to get the win and we just need those players to get it right on that day to continue our improvement.
Elsewhere the draws for the Europa League group stages and the third round of the Carabao Cup have been made and we know our opponents in each of them. It’s a home game against Brentford in the Carabao Cup later this month while we’re joined by Sporting Lisbon, Qarabag and Vorskla in our Europa League group. All of those fixtures will certainly stretch our squad and give plenty of opportunities to those players who are looking for game time.
Before any of that can happen we have a dreaded international break and we have to hope all of our players come back intact and injury free. One player who we don’t have to worry about is Reiss Nelson who has gone out on a season long loan to Hoffenheim after signing a new contract at Arsenal. He really looks like one for the future and hopefully he can get plenty of first team football in Germany to help him progress as a player.
International breaks can be long and tedious, but they’re always a lot better when you go into them on the back of a win. Here’s hoping we can do just that tomorrow and then spend two weeks talking about the progress we’re making rather than having to listen to the recriminations that would inevitably follow a defeat.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
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