As weeks go, it’s been a lively one for Arsenal fans.
Since their heroics at the Etihad last Sunday, the Gunners have found themselves somewhat under seige, with rival fans, pundits and journalists alike queuing up to disparage them.
‘Dark Arts FC’ has been the phrase of the week while the manager has had to fend off allegations of cowardice and a lack of ambition in performing as they do against the reigning champions.
Quite how Manchester City acquired such a legion of compliant patsies in the footballing world I’ll never know. A club mired in the biggest cheating scandal in the history of Premier League football played off as some form of hapless victim. Irony is dead.
Mikel Arteta and his men, meanwhile, have just got on with things. They notched up an excellent 5-1 win over Bolton in midweek and, in the build-up to this weekend’s clash with Leicester, there was a raft of positive updates about some of the players we’ve been missing.
That has served to lift the mood.
But there isn’t room to get carried away just yet. After a difficult three weeks of away fixtures, travel and tribulation, the Gunners at last find themselves back on home soil and with the opportunity to play what you might describe as an easier fixture.
Leicester, however, won’t beat themselves. Likely as they are to struggle against the tide this season, they won’t simply roll over and, in Steve Cooper, they have a manager who has shown before how canny he can be. This may feel like an opportunity for a statement win but, for me, a 1-0 will do. Getting the job done and getting the points on the board today is all that matters.
I’m always wary when we go into a match thinking of little else but how many we might score. Although we are a more robust, more focussed side then we have been for many years, complacency is an inescapable human trait and something we must guard against today.
I would expect the manager to field as strong a team as he is able but I would be surprised if we didn’t see a little rotation in the positions in which we can get away with it. That means we’ll likely see Ben White start from the bench and perhaps Gabriel Martinelli too, with Jurrien Timber and Leandro Trossard stepping into the breach.
Despite a positive peformance in midweek, I don’t think we’ll see Raheem Sterling from the start but the manager may view this as an opportunity to build his minutes and his momentum. Elsewhere, I think the likes of Thomas Partey, Kai Havertz, and William Saliba will come back in from the start and Bukayo Saka and Declain Rice will resume their duties from the outset too.
The only question mark appears over the goalkeeper. It seems likely that Neto will be called into the fray for his Arsenal debut today and, while I don’t doubt his experience, he is clearly no David Raya. How he performs could be crucial to the outcome of the match because the Spaniard peforms a key role behind the defence and his impact is oft underappreciated. Hopefully, we won’t see just how underappreciated this afternoon!
There is some consolation in that Neto will be coming into a much smoother set of circumstances than if he had been called into action last weekend. For today, however, he will need every bit of back-up from his defence that he can get – no dodgy back-passes please!
Come the end of the 90 minutes, I would like to think Arsenal would have enough in the tank for a comfortable win. We’re certainly a better side than Leicester and find ourselves in decent form for all our recent tribulations.
After a noisy week, there would be no better tonic than a thumping win.
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