Friday 16 August 2019

Arsenal v Burnley Preview

Arsenal may not have been overly impressive in their 1-0 win at Newcastle last week, but the got the job done and that was of utmost importance. They were rarely bothered in defence and that can’t be a bad thing for a team who only kept one clean sheet in their 19 League games away from home last season. Newcastle didn’t have an awful lot to offer in attack, but that didn’t stop Arsenal conceding to every team in the league except for Watford on their travels last season.

Unai Emery went with quite a few youngsters and fringe players on the day as lack of match fitness among other things deprived him of much of his strongest 11. Mesut Ozil and Sead Kolasinac missed out for security reasons, but thankfully it seems they are clear to play tomorrow and hopefully their “situation” has come to an end. Both Alexandre Lacazette and Lucas Torreira sat the game out while both Nicolas Pepe and Dani Ceballos came off the bench late on. 

Those six players could all reasonably expect to be among the first names on the team sheet and we’re still awaiting the returns of Hector Bellerin and Rob Holding from long term injuries. Both of them would be among the first names on the team sheet too when they return so it looks like the manager will be spoiled for choice with a fully fit squad. I still haven’t mentioned David Luiz and he will be hoping to start tomorrow, but it won’t be easy to shift either Sokratis Papastathopoulos or Callum Chambers considering how comfortable they looked last week.

I have no doubt Burnley will offer more of a challenge to our defence and they certainly like to “put it up ‘em” given the opportunity. Ashley Barnes is a well known wind-up merchant and we can’t allow him to get under our collective skin. They had a very good 3-0 win at home to Southampton last week and Barnes grabbed himself a couple of goals in that game.

If memory serves me correctly Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is fond of a goal against Burnley and scored twice against them in both of our encounters last season. Whoever the manager brings in I hope he keeps playing Aubameyang through the middle as he’s proven to be a top class goalscorer in any team he has played in. We have a host of players capable of making chances for him and he has the ability to become the top scorer in the Premier League this season.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ozil and Kolasinac return while I think a home game is probably the best place to give Pepe his full debut. Either Ceballos or Torreira could come into midfield and the decision on who to leave out could be made easier if Granit Xhaka isn’t passed fit to play. With those changes it won’t really leave room for either Reiss Nelson or Joe Willock in the starting 11 which is harsh on Willock in particular after his performance last week, but I have no doubt we will see plenty of them over the coming season.

I’m not sure if Henrikh Mkhitaryan will keep his place either and he can be a very frustrating player at times. He played a few very good passes last week and we could or maybe should have scored from at least one of them. He had to be the most wayward player on the pitch when it came to passing at times too and it can be tough to see so many passes go astray or the ball lost so often. I’m not sure whether the output or input we get from him matches up with his game time or his incredibly high wages either.

I think, once we work up a head of steam, we will make plenty of chances against a Burnley team who conceded a lot of goals last season. I’m still not too sure exactly what our style is, but with the players available we are more than capable of playing free flowing attractive football while still being able to protect our defence. It’s that defence that’s still the real worry and they need to work on the best understanding they can ahead of two very tough games in the next two weeks.

Hopefully we can put in a performance to build plenty of confidence ahead of a trip to Liverpool and a home game against Spurs. If we can win tomorrow and come through those two games with two points or more I think it will be a pretty good start to the season. 

David Luiz

Henrikh Mkhitaryan 

Aubameyang against Burnley 

Chance to temporarily go top

2 tough games coming up 

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

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