Two Premier League games away to Spurs and at home to United are really tough challenges and we have the two Europa League games against Rennes either side of the United game. As tough as those games will be they also offer us a real opportunity to cement a place in the top four before a run which doesn’t include any of the rest of the top six in our last eight games. Our ultimate aim this season is to qualify for the Champions League and we need to give ourselves every chance possible of achieving that goal.
Alexandre Lacazette had to sit out that win on Thursday night due to suspension and he’ll miss the two games against Rennes because of that suspension too. The chances are we will see him play all of the next four Premier League games as a result with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang possibly on the bench for a few of them. Aubameyang isn’t on a great goalscoring run at the moment and maybe he could do with a rest ahead of those very important games.
Elsewhere Unai Emery will probably have to replace Laurent Koscielny with Sokratis Papastathopoulos after Koscielny went off with a slight knock on Thursday night. It’s a straight swap and it shouldn’t affect the team too much although we will miss Koscielny’s ability to intercept at the near post and his improvement with each game since his return from his very long injury lay off has been a real plus recently. The manager might also be tempted to put Sead Kolasinac in on the left of the defence although Nacho Monreal does offer more defensively while Kolasinac offers more in attack.
The big question could be the inclusion or not of Mesut Ozil and I hope he gets the nod. A home game against a team in the bottom three can be a bit of a dog fight, but I think the manager will trust him more against Southampton than he might away to Spurs in particular. If he doesn’t opt for Ozil I imagine Aaron Ramsey would be the player to come in, but I thought Ozil’s link up play on Thursday night was very promising and we all know exactly how good he can be. If he doesn’t opt for either of them maybe he will give Denis Suarez a chance, but I’m still not convinced we’ll see too much of our January loan signing.
We could also see Lucas Torreira return in midfield and either Matteo Guendouzi or Granit Xhaka could make way. Personally I like the Torreira and Xhaka partnership which doesn’t mean I have any problem at all with Guendouzi and he is surely going to be a fantastic player in years to come. A combination of any two of those three would suit though once we don’t play all three as it takes an attacking player out of the team.
Southampton might be in the bottom three, but I would be very surprised if they stayed there too long. They’re surely too good to go down, but that has been said of better teams in the past who have ended up in the Championship. They are unbeaten in four away games even if they have only won three of their 13 away games this season. A draw would be enough to move them out of the relegation zone, but it would most certainly not be a good enough result for us.
While Thursday was relatively comfortable if unconvincing we could do with not only a win, but a good performance too today ahead of the upcoming challenges. A little bit of momentum in terms of performances and results could go a long way to helping us achieve our aims for this season and if we’re going to get there those performances will have to start very soon. At the end of the day I will of course be happy with three points, but it would be good to make others sit up and take notice of us for the first time in quite a while.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
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