Arsenal’s Trip To Manchester City Previewed

Arsenal moved into fourth place in the league during the week when Chelsea were thumped 4-0 at Bournemouth after Arsenal had made a meal of beating Cardiff 2-1 the previous night. Their ultimate goal this season is a top four finish and the reward of Champions League football for next season, but it won’t be easy. Chelsea bounced back with a 5-0 win against Huddersfield yesterday and Arsenal need to match that scoreline to move above them again today.

Of course the season doesn’t end today and it’s where we finish in May that counts, but we can’t afford to lose too much ground either. As away games go they don’t come much tougher than a trip to the reigning champions who have won 11 of their 12 home games with the only blot on their copybook coming in a 3-2 defeat against Palace. If Arsenal can somehow match that performance from Palace that might be their best chance of getting something from the game today.

Trying to match what Palace did won’t be easy though because City surely can’t be as complacent at the back as they were in that game and we don’t have the players to take them apart on the break like Palace did. Maybe Denis Suarez will be that player now that we’ve got him on loan from Barcelona, but I’d be very surprised if he started today. I would be very surprised to see Mesut Ozil in the team too as he usually sits out tough away games for one reason or another.

We have so many injuries already that the losses of both Granit Xhaka and Ainsley Maitland-Niles will only make things worse and Unai Emery has a job on his hands to put together a strong defence. There will be players like Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal who are just back from injuries themselves and possibly Carl Jenkinson who has hardly kicked a ball for us in two years. Whatever team he puts out has to be disciplined in defence and that’s something we have not mastered away from home even once this season as we’re without a clean sheet on our league travels.

I’m not saying we can’t get a result of some sort today, but all the evidence would point to us losing and probably losing badly too. Let’s hope the manager can pull something out of the hat and surprise us all and astound the critics. I certainly don’t expect anything like that, but we can only live in hope.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.