Of course things have changed a lot during that run with the exit of Unai Emery and the short term run of Freddie Ljungberg while we waited for Mikel Arteta to take the reins. The signs are very promising so far under Arteta and I genuinely think he can be the man to lead us into the future, but results haven’t taken the massive upturn they needed so far to correct the damage done. Our only league win so far under Arteta was at home to United and we lost at home to Chelsea after taking the lead.
We are still struggling away from home with draws against Bournemouth and Palace under Arteta too and we had the lead against Palace, but at least we did manage to come from behind against Bournemouth to get that point. As poor as our away form has been it’s our home form which has us lying in 10th place at the moment. In the last few seasons as we struggled desperately away from home it was our ability to continue getting results at home which kept us close to the top four.
This season has been completely different and the win against United was our first win in seven games at home. We have struggled against teams fighting against relegation and have been nowhere near putting any team to the sword on our own ground. In fact our best home league win so far this season was that 2-0 win against United and it was our best performance too.
If we’re going to beat Sheffield United tomorrow we’re going to need more of the same as they have proved to be a very effective outfit since getting promoted last season. We’ve already lost 1-0 away to them and they have shown themselves more than capable of giving any team in the Premier League a real run for their money. They won’t try to change the way they play against us and it’s up to us to find a way to break them down at one end while keeping them out at the other.
Make no mistake this is a game we quite simply have to win because the rot that has set in cannot be allowed to continue under Arteta. We saw some of that rot in the first half of the FA Cup game against Leeds and Arteta at least managed to get much more from his players in the second half. That first half showed these players are still more than capable of failing to show up no matter who is in charge and that still worries me.
If we can get the better of Sheffield United then we go to Chelsea in midweek knowing a win would close the gap on fourth place, but realistically hoping to close in on at least challenging for fifth. While we have become more difficult to beat away from home we have only scored 12 goals in 11 away games with nine of them coming from the suspended Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. I don’t think there was any malice intended in the challenge which saw him sent off at Palace, but it was very difficult to argue with the colour of the card. The glaring inconsistencies of red card decisions (or not) are another matter altogether.
With Aubameyang suspended for three games the spotlight will definitely switch to Alexandre Lacazette and he currently couldn’t hit a barn door from five yards. His overall play and ability to win the ball back has been very good at times recently, but he seems devoid of confidence in front of goal. I think he just needs one goal to get him back on track and hopefully he can get it against Sheffield United tomorrow.
I hope Gabriel Martinelli is the player to benefit from Aubameyang’s suspension as he is our next highest scorer in all competitions this season after Aubameyang. He still hasn’t seen an awful lot of action in the league, but he might just be the man to net the goals we need in the next three games. If he does play on the left tomorrow it will probably be in front of Bukayo Saka who looks like he will have to fill in as an emergency left back again with Sead Kolasinac and Kieran Tierney both injured.
We certainly have our injury issues at the moment with Hector Bellerin, Lucas Torreira, Rob Holding and Callum Chambers all unavailable too. For me Torreira is a real big miss for the way Arteta wants to play and Matteo Guendouzi is not a direct replacement. It’s going to be a tough slog in midfield, but Guendouzi and Granit Xhaka need to get a grip on the game whilst also protecting the defence.
I hope Arteta can come up with a solution to the problems Sheffield United will cause with the players at his disposal. If we can come up with someone capable of putting the ball in the net then Sheffield don’t score too many goals and a victory is well within our sights.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment