The visit of Nottingham Forest later today presents Arsenal with the perfect opportunity to put their indifferent recent form behind them and get back to something like the sort of form that propelled them to the top of the Premier League table.
After a barn-storming start to this month, Mikel Arteta’s men have somewhat staggered their way towards the end, with a string of indifferent performances culminating in defeat to PSV on Thursday.
And while that wasn’t the most damaging of reversals in the grand scheme of things, it was a long time in the making and symptomatic of a wider funk hanging over the club at the moment. Now would be a good time to get a win on the board and finish the month as we started it.
Apart from anything else, more dropped points for Chelsea and Liverpool yesterday offer up the perfect motivation to get the win and move further clear of those who might be our main rivals this season. If only Bournemouth had held on to take something from Spurs yesterday, it could have been a near-perfect weekend.
What Manchester City do is largely irrelevant to us because of their existence on a separate plain, one which we cannot inhabit and likely never will unless something is done to address state-ownership of football clubs. That’s not something I particularly want to expand upon at this juncture, though.
All we can do for now is to collect as many points as possible and Forest, for all their admirable pluck, are a side we should be looking to beat, especially at home.
After a pretty abject display in mid-week, I’d like to think Arteta has worked quite hard with the squad in these last few days on resetting and refocusing minds. Fatigue has unquestionably played a part in our dip in form but there have been some on the fringes who might have performed a little better for the manager too.
If he can just get them re-energized and motivated for the next fortnight, however, he can send a group away to the World Cup and make the most of time on the training ground with the group who remain behind. Some time away from the rigours of thrice-weekly football will do them no end of good and allow the manager and his team to work with those who could use a few extra hours.
So long as that remains a few weeks away, however, attention must return in full to the task at hand. Forest may have beaten Liverpool last week but their form remains patchy and inconsistent, as you might expect of a newly-promoted side carrying a lot of new squad members.
I suspect they will look to play as PSV did, offering up possession to the hosts in favour of winning the ball back in key areas and moving swiftly to counter. While it failed miserably for PSV at the Emirates, it worked particularly well in Eindhoven and Forest may just fancy themselves to do a better job defensively if they can get their noses in front.
For Arsenal’s part, they simply must be better in front of goal. While performances in other areas of the pitch have left much to be desired too, our efficiency in attack has been short of what we need it to be. When you’re not playing well, taking the chances you do create when they arrive is vital. A failure to do so has cost us in particular in our last three of four fixtures.
I have to say, I feel confident Gabriel Jesus will find the net again today after a tricky period but I know it is hard ploughing away alone up front when the rest of the team isn’t quite firing. The treatment he received at Southampton last week was particular brutal.
Elsewhere, I don’t expect we will see many selection surprises from the manager, though I think the experiment with Takehiro Tomiyasu at left back might come to an end. It worked undeniably well against Liverpool but in the longer-term, it is starting to look a little incongruous and largely blunts our potential on the left-hand side. For me, it would sensible to put Kieran Tierney back into the starting line up.
I’m not suggesting for a moment that Tomi’s introduction to the starting line-up has precipitated our downturn in form, far from it, but I wonder if the manager’s quest for tactical supremacy here might have hindered rather than helped.
Whatever set-up he goes with, however, I think we have to look at this match as an opportunity to collect all three points. With due respect to Forest, anything less will be a failure.
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