Football Is Back As Arsenal Play Bournemouth

After what seemed an interminable two week wait real football returns for Arsenal today when they travel to play Bournemouth. After yesterday’s games we’re four points behind fourth placed Chelsea and a win would put us only one point behind them. Our main goal for this season is a top four finish and we need to keep as close as possible to that top four as the season progresses.

Our next two league games after today will be really tough challenges for us and three points today will put us in a better position going into those games. I don’t think Spurs have been at all impressive this season, but they’re winning games and we will have our work cut out against them next week, but it’s certainly a real opportunity to put one over on one of the teams above us. We travel to play United only three days later and again they have been far from impressive, but they’re never easy to beat at Old Trafford.

Before those games we play a Bournemouth team today who have been very impressive so far this season. They slipped up away to Newcastle in their last game, but they will be only one point behind us if they can get the better of us today. They play some good attacking football, but their defence is their weak point and that’s something we have to exploit.

We haven’t exactly set the world alight this season either, but a great run of seven wins in a row after losing our first two games put us on the heels of the leaders. Three draws in our last three games have seen us fall back a little, but we didn’t really deserve any more than those draws against Palace and Wolves in particular. The performance against Liverpool was impressive though and it’s that level of skill and commitment we need to aim for far more often.

Unai Emery should have a few more defensive options today at least and I wonder if he will be tempted to pair Rob Holding and Sokratis Papastathopoulos in the centre of the defence. Holding’s performances this season make him a first choice for me and it’s a case of whether he opts for the error prone Shkodran Mustafi or goes with Sokratis now that he’s available again after injury. We have the prospect of the return of Laurent Koscielny fairly soon I think and he will certainly make the job of choosing a central defensive partnership more challenging.

With Nacho Monreal still injured and Stephan Lichsteiner doubtful the full backs pick themselves in Sead Kolasinac and Hector Bellerin. Kolasinac needs to improve, but injuries have limited his game time this season and hopefully he can improve now that he’s fully fit. On the other side Bellerin has done very well going forward and he’s an important part of how the manager wants to play even if his defending still needs improvement.

Both Lucas Torreira and Granit Xhaka have to be nailed on in midfield with Matteo Guendouzi as back up. After that I can only assume we will see both Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette in from the start even if it means we don’t have an experienced striker to make a difference from the bench. The real poser for the manager could be who he picks to pull the strings behind the attack and wide.

He has to choose two from Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Alex Iwobi and Aaron Ramsey and he needs to make the right choices. We have struggled in attack in our last few games and he might need to change things around a little to give us the creative boost we need. Before this weekend only Spurs had scored more away goals than us and they have played three more away games.

I think we can make the chances we need to score a few goals today and the outcome will depend on how we cope with a Bournemouth team who have been very good going forward this season. They have some very dangerous players who play well together and we have to be very mindful of their movement off the ball. We have been far from convincing in our defending all too often this season and they will take advantage of that if they’re given the chance.

Despite having a new man at the helm we are suffering from the same problems that have plagued us for too many seasons and Emery has his work cut out to change what seems like a mindset at the club. We have the ability to go out and win comfortably today, but none of us would be too surprised if we put in another performance like the ones against Palace and Wolves. At least we drew those two games, but a draw really isn’t enough today and we need a performance and result to boost our confidence and belief ahead of the upcoming games.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.