We have already won 3-0 away to Eintracht Frankfurt and 4-0 at home to Standard Liege and a win tonight would almost guarantee a place in the knockout stages with three group games still to play. Vitoria have lost their first two games and they’re probably the weakest team in the group, but they are fourth in the Portuguese league and cannot be underestimated. Our midweek cup performances so far have been really good and more of the same would do very nicely tonight.
As has been the case so far this season Unai Emery will make wholesale changes to the team that lost to Sheffield United and hopefully those players can take the opportunity they’re given again. We might well see 11 changes from that game and it shows the manager has plenty to choose from, but he doesn’t seem to know his best team. I would definitely argue that quite a few of those in the team tonight should have played on Monday night and maybe their inclusions could have helped us to get a better result.
Emiliano Martinez will play in goal and the back four will probably consist of Kieran Tierney, Hector Bellerin, Rob Holding and Shkodran Mustafi. The sooner Tierney, Bellerin and Holding are playing regularly in the Premier League the better as far as I’m concerned and I have no doubt the majority of fans must feel the same way too.
In midfield Lucas Torreira and Dani Ceballos should start and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ainsley Maitland-Niles played too which would again more than likely leave no place in the team for Mesut Ozil. In a team who are crying out for some attacking creativity it beggars belief that Ozil cannot get a game. However, it seems the manager is not keen on him so it doesn’t matter whether the team suffers as a result or not.
I imagine Gabriel Martinelli will play on one side of the attack with Reiss Nelson on the other which would leave Alexandre Lacazette to play centrally now that he’s fit again. He looked like he needed to find some sharpness to his game when he came on on Monday night and hopefully playing tonight will help that. I’m still not sure whether he can always be accommodated in the team with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, but he is certainly a very important player for us.
I expect another good cup performance and probably a comfortable enough win, but it’s not overly important in the grand scale of things. It’s the home game with Palace on Sunday that matters most and the manager has to find a way to make the team perform in the league. We lost at home to them last season in one of the games which cost us a top four finish and they are perfectly set up to play away to us.
Belief in the manager is fading fast among the fans and performances like Monday night would suggest the players might not be too far behind. I still expect the fringe players to do well tonight, but when the going gets tough all too often we get going or don’t if you get my meaning.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
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