Morning.
An early kick-off means a fast early preview of our recreation towards Nottingham Forest. There was some sudden excellent news from Mikel Arteta in his press convention as he revealed William Saliba was again in coaching, far sooner than had been beforehand anticipated or reported. He stated:
Wilo skilled at present, so we’ll have a call to make whether or not we play him or not, it’s excellent information.
There’s a Champions League recreation on Tuesday, and a giant encounter with Man Metropolis subsequent weekend, and I feel I’d err on the facet of warning with Saliba to ensure he’s out there for that one specifically. However, Arteta and the medical employees have extra data than I do, so let’s see what occurs at present. It’s to not take something as a right, however with the squad we’ve constructed this summer time, isn’t this precisely the form of recreation the place you possibly can get rid of any danger over such an vital participant and use new signing Cristhian Mosquera alongside Gabriel?
The supervisor additionally has Ben White at his disposal too so he or Jurrien Timber may very well be another choice at centre-half. We already took a danger with Saliba at Anfield by taking part in him once we knew he’d turned his ankle within the warm-up, and that didn’t repay. Now we have a giant squad now, let’s use it.
Past that, it’s additional ahead the place the opposite huge resolution is, and that’s who begins on the left. I hope it’s Eberechi Eze, which might imply the staff traces up one thing like this: Raya, Timber, Mosquera, Gabriel, Calafiori, Zubimendi, Rice, Odegaard, Eze, Madueke, Gyokeres.
We’ve talked rather a lot about how Eze on the left in all probability requires one thing completely different from the left-back, so let’s see how that performs out. Once more, Arteta has choices there, with new man Piero Hincapie out there too, however unlikely to start out having solely had two coaching classes. Calafiori has been in good kind up to now, the Arsenal participant of the month for August, so I anticipate him to proceed within the staff. Eze likes to return inside into extra central areas, that leaves room for the Italian to overlap, and he’s bought good supply from broad positions, so I’m curious to see how that performs out.
There’s additionally going to be a really sturdy bench, with gamers like Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard, Ethan Nwaneri, Mikel Merino and many others, who can provide purpose risk if we want it. The fact is that the variety of gamers out there means one or two aren’t even going to make the bench, which goes to be an issue/problem for the supervisor, but it surely’s one I’m certain he’d favor to have than final season the place there merely wasn’t the standard at his disposal for too many video games.
As for Forest, they’re now managed by Ange Postecoglou however he’s hardly had any time with the gamers so it’s laborious to know the way they’re going to method this. Final season their success was constructed on video games which noticed them have minimal possession however targeted rather a lot on a really efficient counter assault. Away towards Arsenal looks like a kind of the place it could make sense to lean into that for the brand new supervisor. Arteta says:
The second the sport begins, after 5 minutes, we are going to see very clear behaviours, what they need to do, and that’s what we now have ready.
I feel that is a kind of video games the place we may have loads of the ball, and as a consequence Forest will play deep in their very own half. It’s been a little bit of an Achilles heel at instances, and as a lot because the dialog has been about how we play to the strengths of our new striker, we additionally want Viktor Gyokeres to have the ability to ship in video games like these. Hopefully at present is a kind of days.
Proper, I’ll go away it there. As ever, we’ll have reside weblog protection for you, and yow will discover all of the post-game stuff on Arseblog Information. There’s a preview podcast over on Patreon now too, so get caught into that earlier than kick-off should you fancy.
Come on you reds!
