We go into the game on the back of consecutive victories over West Ham and Cardiff after we had lost our opening two games against City and Chelsea. West Ham and Cardiff might not exactly be the strongest teams in the Premier League, but those two wins were very important for us. They have given Unai Emery some crucial breathing space as he attempts to turn our players into a functioning team.
So far he has gone with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up front in every game, but Alexandre Lacazette keeps coming off the bench and making a telling contribution. We look like a better attacking outfit when they are playing together and he has to decide whether Lacazette has done enough to play from the start. Of course to play them both together would mean someone else has to miss out and he certainly has a few decisions to make.
With what’s mostly a double pivot in midfield it only leaves two other attacking places in the team and at least five players fighting for those places. For me Mesut Ozil has to play and it would leave a straight choice between Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Aaron Ramsey for the other place. With so many games to play there will be chances for everyone to make an impression and it’s important that the manager has some genuine choices when he’s picking his team.
Since his arrival Lucas Torreira hasn’t started a game either, but he’s another player who has made a genuine impact from the bench. He will become a mainstay of the team fairly soon and it’s only a matter of time before he becomes one of the first names on the teamsheet. It’s a question of who will play alongside him and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Granit Xhaka get a chance to show his ability to do so.
Matteo Guendouzi has made a huge impression since joining us in the summer and his progress has been far ahead of schedule so far. I don’t think giving Torreira and Xhaka a chance to play together would harm Guendouzi and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him as the midfield rock for our Europa League campaign. The manager is very fond of making early substitutions too which should mean Guendouzi has plenty of chances to continue his progression.
The defence more or less picks itself at the moment although I would like to see Bernd Leno get a chance to show if he can play out from the back any better than Petr Cech has being doing so far. Cech is struggling with the ball at his feet, but his shot stopping has been better so far this season. Again I think Leno will get his chance in the Europa League on Thursday night and it might take a fairly spectacular fail from Cech to give Leno a chance in the league. That disaster has been coming for a while and I just hope it doesn’t cost us too dearly when it happens.
The other question in defence I suppose is Hector Bellerin managing to keep Stephan Lichsteiner out of the team. I have no doubt Lichsteiner is a better defender, but our two fullbacks are being asked to do an awful lot of attacking at the moment and Bellerin is certainly offering a lot in the final third. Bellerin has his detractors, but I think he still has an awful lot of potential and I hope Lichsteiner can help him to fulfill that potential.
We have made plenty of chances in our last three games and we scored eight goals in those games. The problem has been at the other end where the manager must realise he has a huge job to do to make us defend better. It doesn’t seem to matter who plays or what formation we use the players just seem incapable of doing the basics far too often. As bad as we were defensively under Arsene Wenger for the last few seasons we seem to be almost worse at the moment if that’s possible. I don’t know if we’re capable of shutting up shop and playing a defensive game and I think attack is most definitely the best form of defence for us.
Newcastle have only taken one point so far and that was in a scoreless draw at Cardiff. We put three goals past Cardiff in our last game and probably should have scored more, but Cardiff hadn’t got a goal to their name in their opening three games before that game. If we’re going to beat Newcastle we will have to open up what has been a pretty good defence so far while making sure we aren’t too vulnerable at the back.
Newcastle have lost three of their four games, but the fixture list has been very unkind to them so far. They have lost 2-1 at home to both Spurs and Chelsea as well as losing 2-1 at City and they can’t be looking forward to playing another one of the top six teams. We are the most beatable of the top six though and Newcastle might just decide to have a go at us unlike what they did against Chelsea and City in particular.
I’m not so sure how it would go if they decided to have a go at us, but I think our superior firepower would give us the edge. When supposedly lesser teams did it to us away from home last season we couldn’t cope and our away record was abysmal. Our two away games this season have had 10 goals in them and it looks like a shootout could be the best way for us to improve on last season’s away record.
I hope to see Aubameyang and Lacazette start together and I think they could be the players to give us an edge. With the pkayers we have behind them the chances should come and hopefully they can put enough of them away to take the three points. The manager has a huge job to do and he has to keep trying to win games as he slowly gets the players used to the way he wants them to play. No team in the Premier League is easy to beat, but I think we can definitely take the three points home to London.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
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