We’re The Famous Arsenal And We’re Going To Wembley

Arsenal are all of a sudden on a nice little run in the league with five wins in their last six games even if four of those wins did come at home. They managed a 2-1 win away to Huddersfield in that run too with the only blemish coming in a 3-1 defeat away to the reigning champions. That run has seen them climb above United and Chelsea into fourth place and even close the gap to third placed Spurs to four points before they play each other tomorrow.

Only a week ago Spurs were being tipped by some “experts” to mount a genuine title challenge on both Liverpool and City, but two defeats in a row have left them looking over their shoulders and trying to avoid falling back into what looks like a dogfight for a top four finish. The supposed wisdom was they had gotten through the period of Harry Kane’s injury without losing ground on the top two and his return would signal the start of their title challenge. Only a week later after defeats to Burnley and Chelsea their hopes are in ruins and Kane was lucky to avoid a three game ban for violent conduct while Mauricio Pochettino is awaiting the outcome of his FA charge for confronting the referee after the defeat at Burnley.

It’s difficult to believe how these so called experts could have actually believed serial bottlers Spurs had finally changed their spots. They have proved time and again when the going gets tough they head in the opposite direction. If they’re going to keep a safe distance between themselves and the three teams directly below them they have to beat Arsenal tomorrow.

The game will be played at Wembley as Spurs new stadium still isn’t ready six months after it’s due date. They have lost four of their 13 league games at Wembley so far this season and they have actually taken more points away from home than at their temporary home. Their fans would like nothing more than a comprehensive win over Arsenal, but Wembley is a ground with a lot of very fond memories for Arsenal.

They have won the FA Cup there three times in the last five years and it’s an awful lot more than Spurs have won in more years than I care to remember. Unfortunately Arsenal’s away form has been pretty awful for the past few months and even the win at Huddersfield was far from convincing despite their lowly position. If Arsenal are going to close the gap on Spurs to one point they are going to have to put in by far their best away performance of the season so far.

We have a pretty awful record away to the rest of the top six for a fair few seasons now and surely it’s something that must change at some time. We didn’t play too badly in losing 3-2 away to Chelsea or drawing 2-2 at United, but the 5-1 defeat at Liverpool was very poor and the 3-1 defeat at City was nothing to write home about. It’s going to take a better performance than we saw in any of those games to take the three points tomorrow. We have scored in 12 of our 13 away games though so far, but we have also conceded in all 13 of those games so the chances of a scoreless draw seem fairly remote. 

We have a very hectic schedule at the moment and Unai Emery has to manage his resources as best as he can to get the most he can from those games. The wins against Southampton and Bournemouth in the last week were badly needed, but the quality of the opposition takes a step up from here on. After Spurs we travel to Rennes in midweek before a game at home to United next week and then the return leg with Rennes. It’s a daunting schedule over 12 days and the game with Spurs might just be the most important of them.

I expect the manager to play his strongest team possible which leaves him with quite a few decisions to make. His decision on the deployment or not of Mesut Ozil will certainly give us a pointer to how he rates a player who divides opinion for many, but surely has to be included if we’re going to make the chances we need to win. Ozil played very well against Bournemouth on Wednesday night, but Spurs are not Bournemouth.

One player who will surely play is Alexandre Lacazette as he’s suspended for the two games against Rennes and he has a very good goalscoring record against the rest of the top six. I think he has to play Pierre-Emireck Aubameyang up front with him although he might hold him back to introduce his pace from the bench as well keeping him fresh for the trip to France. Both Lacazette and Aubameyang have scored plenty of goals for us this season once we have the players behind them to make chances.

With that in mind Henrikh Mkhitaryan must surely start too as he has shown the form that made him such a hot property before he joined United in recent games. I think Mkhitaryan and Ozil compliment each other’s games and we have a real chance of beating Spurs with both of them in the team. Of course I could be completely wrong and the line up isn’t overly important as long as we get the right result.

While I have little faith in our defence it is at least good to see Laurent Koscielny back in the team and his recent displays have shown how much we missed have him during his prolonged injury absence. He’s going to have to be at his very best to keep Kane quiet and he poses a threat at the other end from set pieces too. I think Sokratis Papastathopoulos is the best central defensive partner for him from those fit and available at the moment and maybe in time they can build a strong partnership.

Our target for this season is to qualify for next season’s Champions League and these four games are very important. Defeats to Spurs and United would certainly dent our top four hopes, but with eight games against mid-table teams to finish our league campaign it wouldn’t finish them. If we come through these four games in the last eight of the Europa League and still challenging for a top four place it will surely have gone very well. Let’s just hope we can get those games off to the perfect start tomorrow against a Spurs team who’s confidence can’t be high after back to back defeats.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.