Arsenal v Wolverhampton Wanderers Preview

It’s back to Premier League action for Arsenal today as they have their first Saturday afternoon 3pm kick off of the season at home to Wolves. After the thrills and spills of Wednesday night’s 5-5 draw and penalties defeat at Liverpool we can expect to see a fairly different game today. As good as Arsenal were in attack at Anfield they were equally as bad in defence and that’s been our Achilles heel for far too long.

Unai Emery made 11 changes from the team that drew 2-2 at home to Palace last week for that game at Liverpool and he’s likely to make nearly as many changes today. There are a few questions to be asked and answered in his team selection, but we already know Granit Xhaka won’t be in the squad after the events of last Sunday. He hasn’t actually apologised for his reaction to the fans booing him, but he has at least explained his reaction from his point of view at least. Hopefully we’ll hear no more of it, but in the present climate I doubt that in the extreme.

The big question of course will be whether Mesut Ozil plays or not and at this stage who knows. He showed exactly what he can bring to the team in that game and his flick to assist Ainsley Maitland-Niles for the fourth goal was a real piece of Ozil magic. In my opinion his creativity is something Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Nicolas Pepe should thrive on and exactly what we have been missing, but what do I know.

Wolves are not an easy team to beat and have hit some good form after a slow start to the season. Like Arsenal they have midweek Europa League football to contend with and it can certainly stretch a squad as well as tiring the players who have to play twice a week. If memory serves me correctly we drew at home to them last season and lost away so that’s something we need to put straight today.

My feelings on the manager and his inability to find a style of play for the team or do anything to make us stronger defensively are well known at this stage. I hope Ozil plays today and helps us to find some sort of attacking fluidity which has been absent for so long, but it’s difficult to believe the manager will decide to show some belief in him overnight. If we’re going to try to keep chasing a top four place we cannot afford to keep dropping points and particularly from winning positions.

I honestly don’t know who will play in defence and it really doesn’t seem to matter with consistent basic mistakes from anyone who gets picked. I’d love to see Hector Bellerin, Kieran Tierney and Rob Holding in the team, but our setup does nothing to make me believe we would defend any better as a unit no matter who is playing. We have given away more penalties since the start of last season than any other Premier League team and we show no signs of remedying those errors.

As poor as we have been at times this season we are still unbeaten at home with six wins and two draws in all competitions. We might not be showing attacking fluency, but we have still scored our fair share of goals at home due mainly to individuals rather than a team effort with Aubameyang the main man so far. Wolves will certainly make things hard for us, but with the right team and tactics we should beat them.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.