They need to put those defeats behind them against Burnley and get back to winning ways by any means they can. It’s certainly well within their capabilities even with the team getting more tired with each passing game. The lack of depth in the squad in certain positions is becoming very obvious and it’s something that might have to be addressed in the January transfer window.
There’s little we can do about it at the moment though and the early kick off against Burnley gives the players little time to recover from the defeat against Spurs on Wednesday night. Unai Emery played more or less the strongest team he had available in that game and that could come back to haunt him over the busy festive season. After Burnley we face trips to Brighton and Liverpool before we play at home to Fulham and those four games take place in just 10 days.
Laurent Koscielny wasn’t risked from the start against Spurs and it was understandable given that he has just returned from a long term injury. Nacho Monreal played in that game and he’s just back from injury too while Stephan Lichsteiner wasn’t risked having picked up a knock in the defeat at Southampton. The chances are the three of them will have to start against Burnley with Shkodran Mustafi and Sead Kolasinac both doubtful and they have a combined age of 99 years.
At least Sokratis Papastathopoulos is available to play in the centre of the defence and we can only hope the manager doesn’t decide to deploy Granit Xhaka there too. Not only is it not his natural position, but we miss his influence in midfield too much when he plays in defence. Xhaka and Lucas Torreira have formed a very good partnership in the centre of our midfield and it’s something that has to be allowed to grow.
On top of our defensive woes it appears Mesut Ozil is “persona non grata” with the manager and his days at the club could well be numbered. If that is the case it’s not going to be easy to move on a player on his wages who signed a lengthy contract extension less than a year ago. I hope he can sort things out with the manager, but it doesn’t look that way at the moment. Ozil is an incredibly talented player who can help us win against any team and we will suffer without his creative talents if he continues to be left out of the team. As the games come quick and fast I suppose it will become more obvious if the manager doesn’t want him or not.
I thought Henrikh Mkhitaryan played quite well against Spurs with the exception of the great chance he missed to put us ahead shortly before they scored and he could find himself playing a more important role if Ozil doesn’t play. The Aaron Ramsey situation is less complicated than Ozil’s and he will play at times, but it appears we will lose him too. It appears two of our most talented midfielders will be plying their trade elsewhere next season or even next month and it could leave a gaping hole in our squad.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang seems to have been given the nod as first choice striker and he has scored the goals to deserve that role, but he has missed his fair share in the last few games. I wouldn’t be surprised if the manager decided to rotate him against Burnley with Alexandre Lacazette the obvious candidate to replace him. Aubameyang has had a great impact off the bench when he hasn’t started this season and that could be the case again against Burnley.
We couldn’t really ask for a better opponent as we try to get three previous points in our pursuit of a top four finish. Burnley have only taken one point in their last five away games and they failed to score in four of those games. They have tightened up in defence in the last few weeks, but only two teams have conceded more goals away from home. They’re in the relegation zone at the moment and we’re not going to convince anyone we can keep our challenge for a top four finish going if we can’t beat them.
If we’re going to keep that challenge going we are going to have to start playing well in the first half of games at some stage. The last two games have shown we can’t always depend on our second halves of games to get us out of trouble and we need to do better from the start. It’s quite incredible that we haven’t led any of our 17 Premier League games so far at half time and I think today has to offer an ideal opportunity to end that statistic.
We have tough trips to Brighton and Liverpool coming in quick succession, but we can only concentrate on the job in hand against Burnley. I think we will win, but if we don’t it could make the rest of the festive schedule very difficult for us.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
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