A rocky few weeks plagued by nervousness, indecision and anticipation have seen Arsenal fritter away the advantage they desperately hoped to have for the trip to Manchester City.
In truth, a big part of why they now go to City with their advantage squandered is because they’ve had one eye on this game for far too long and the very thought of it has done more harm to their hopes than their opponents could ever have in just a single game.
The shadow of Pep Guardiola’s robotic, championship-wining metronomes has loomed so large over the last three Premier League matches that Arsenal have simply stopped being Arsenal. All the brilliance of their early season efforts, all of the fight and fearlessness evaporated in just a few weeks and they now find themselves needing to win in order to keep alive their hopes of holding on to top spot.
It’s a tall order made nigh-on impossible given that William Saliba is more or less certain to miss out. The back injury he aggravated against Sporting Club is far more serious than anyone had realised and it seems he can’t or won’t be risked on Wednesday.
Quite what Mikel Arteta will do in his absence, should he indeed come up short, is anybody’s guess. The simplest answer is that he’ll persist with Rob Holding as his RCB in a back four and while that is sensible in some ways, what’s also clear is that playing Holding costs this side a great deal more than it earns it.
That’s not a slight on Rob’s defensive abilities because I think he is perfectly capable but if we consider all the other things this team demands of its centre-backs – the passing, the movement, the technical level, the pace – there is much the young Frenchman offers that his replacement simply doesn’t.
Injury to Takehiro Tomiyasu in that same ill-fated Europa League clash against Sporting has left the manager precious little choice but to persist with Holding these last few weeks but I wonder whether he can afford to do so once more at the Etihad. I wonder whether he will try to engineer a different solution that might involve Ben White, Gabriel and Kieran Tierney in a back three and AN Other as the nominal right wing back (Gabriel Martinelli perhaps?).
It would certainly be bold and, in truth, it’s probably fanciful thinking on my part but I feel like we might be at the point that Arteta is forced to roll the dice because, if Southampton are able to score three against us, imagine what City might do.
As well as a great deal of work with our system of play, the manager will also need to do a lot of work on the psychological side of the game. Fear has doubtless played its part in our recent struggles and we have only really looked ourselves in short bursts of late. The greater part of our time has been spent in panic, disarray and malaise.
If we are to go to City and take anything from the game, we have to re-adopt the mentality of the underdog. We have to display the sort of tenacity and fearlessness that was so much a feature of the early part of this campaign. We can’t wait until the pressure is off before we start to perform because, against this City side, the match could easily be over inside the opening 15 minutes.
There is no need to abandon all caution and reason in pursuit of the win, of course, but we must be on the front foot and we have to be aggressive where we’ve been timid and ponderous. City smell blood like few other sides in this league – in fact like no other side – so anything less than full gas is not an option.
This match is not quite the title-decider but there is a certain inevitability about City at the moment that means a thumping defeat might all but seal it. Their confidence is already sky-high and they have a stack of wins under their belts this month – they don’t need any further encouragement.
So, we must leave it all out there – every ounce of it. We can’t die wondering, we can’t wait and see, we can’t look at who else may come to the rescue. We have only ourselves to rely on and we’ll need to be at our absolute best.
Blog on You Gunners 