Arsenal’s Trip To Wolves Previewed

It looks like the fight for a top four finish is going to go right to the wire this season with Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea and United all still holding out hopes of qualifying for next season’s Champions League. As it stands Spurs are in the best position of the three and their run in is probably the easiest too. Arsenal are still in a pretty good position too despite losing at home to Palace on Sunday, but that defeat ended the room they had for an error with four games still to play.

They’re a point behind Chelsea with a game in hand and superior goal difference going into tomorrow night’s game at Wolves. United are a further two points behind Arsenal before they play at home to City tomorrow night and their goal difference is in a real mess. With United playing at home to Chelsea on Sunday one or both of them will drop more points and I will be very surprised if City don’t beat United too.

While the ball is still in our court we really need to get something from Wolves to move ahead of Chelsea and move further away from United. We still have three more games to go after Wolves and having three of our last four games away from home doesn’t help when you consider our away record this season. Those away results have improved a little recently with victories at Huddersfield and Watford and a draw at Spurs in their last four away games.

We also lost at Everton in that run and to be honest the only good performance was at Spurs. We were very lucky to beat 10 man Watford while the win against bottom club Huddersfield was far from convincing. The defeat at Everton was possibly our worst performance of the season and another performance like that will not be good enough to get anything from Wolves.

Our biggest problem at the moment is our fixture congestion added to a small squad and Unai Emery is struggling to put out a team that can get a result from game to game. Our midfield on Sunday just wasn’t up to the task while individual errors at the back handed Palace their goals. While the manager might have got his original team selection wrong he changed it enough at half time to get the win we so badly needed, but those errors proved so crucial.

If he can bring both Lucas Torreira and Granit Xhaka back into the team against Wolves I think we might exert enough control in midfield to give ourselves a real chance. At least we can recall Sokratis Papastathopoulos from suspension, but I would be very surprised if Laurent Koscielny starts again considering how much game time he has had in the last two weeks as well as his age and the fact he’s not too long back after a long term injury.

The manager has to balance his team selection enough to leave something for Sunday’s trip to Leicester while giving ourselves every chance of beating Wolves too. It’s not going to be an easy task and it’s made tougher by our upcoming Europa League semi final first leg at home to Valencia on Thursday of next week. After Wolves it’s Sundays and Thursdays for us until the end of the season unless of course we beat Valencia to make it to the final which is two and a half weeks after our last league game.

Our other two league games are at home to Brighton and away to Burnley and I think we will probably have to win them both to finish in the top four. We could lose to either Wolves or Leicester as long as we beat both Brighton and Burnley and more than likely still finish in the top four. If United lose to City it should take only seven points in our last four games to finish ahead of them while the same amount of points should be enough too if Chelsea were to lose to United next weekend. It’s all getting very tight and complicated, but at least it’s in our own hands.

I digress just a little from my Wolves preview and to be honest there isn’t too much I can say. They have a very good record against the top six teams in the Premier League and we were probably a little lucky to get a point at home to them in November. They will look to hit us on the break and that’s where we are probably at our weakest. Palace might have scored their three goals from set pieces, but until that game we had a very good record defending set pieces this season.

I can’t say I’m overly confident of Arsenal getting something from Wolves, but then again Wolves haven’t looked good since they lost their FA Cup semi final to Watford. They might raise their game against one of the big boys, but then again with little to play for they might not quite be at the races. It’s a game where the result is all important and performances aren’t overly important at this stage of the season with so many games, such a thin squad and so much at stake.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.