Good morning.
Today is a trip to Burnley, the first of three away games before the next Interlull. In team news, William Saliba is a doubt after coming off at half-time against Crystal Palace, and Gabriel Martinelli will miss this after picking up what appeared to be a groin injury in the same match.
At the back, you’d imagine Cristhian Mosquera will take Saliba’s place if he doesn’t make the cut, and I think we’ll see Jurrien Timber and Riccardo Calafiori return to the starting line-up. For them, Martin Zubimendi is suspended for the trip to Slavia Prague in midweek, so he will start, and I think it will be Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze in midfield with him. Up front, injuries mean the trio is picking itself up with Leandro Trossard on the left, Bukayo Saka on the right and Viktor Gyokeres in centre.
Speaking about today’s match and the opposition, Mikel Arteta said:
Every game brings different challenges, sometimes we have to be very patient, other times we have to have a different approach. The match against Burnley will be very tough. They are extremely well coached, I know Scott very well and what he has done with the club and with this team is fantastic. If you look at all the games I see, five of the last games they played, a very, very difficult team to beat.
What did I say yesterday?! Burnley have won two in a row and you have to respect any team in the Premier League, especially away from home, but this is the type of game that Arsenal should be looking to dominate in this form. They don’t really play a very elaborate game, so they will sit deep and try to make life difficult for us. That’s often been our kryptonite, but you just feel like we’re handling it better this season.
Hopefully we can get through it early because that often opens up games a bit. The last thing we need is to be at 70′ with a score of 0-0. With all the injuries, there isn’t much on the bench from an attacking perspective, although players like Ethan Nwaneri and Mikel Merino can add a different kind of threat. There is some pressure on the starting eleven to get the job done, but I think there is enough quality to do that.
With Liverpool playing later and Manchester City playing tomorrow, there’s also an opportunity to just put a bit of pressure on them, so fingers crossed.
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Just a quick update on the live blog. We won’t have it anymore today, as we continue to try to make the new version more stable. Behind the scenes here at Arseblog we’ve had a big week on the technical front, with a lot happening under the hood that no one really sees. Tom has done a great job moving everything to new servers etc, so we are doing our best. If all goes well, we’ll be back mid-week for the Champions League match.
As always, you can find all the post-game stuff, reports, player ratings, etc. here Arseblog news.
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Elsewhere, Mikel Arteta was asked about the match surrounding our Carabao Cup match against Crystal Palace. They face four games in eight days, which is both absurd and unfair. I’ve heard whispers from their side that Christmas Eve was mentioned as a possible date, although the manager seemed to play that down in his press conference yesterday.
Regarding the decision, he said:
Every decision we make in terms of a match, I think, has to be guided by two important things: the well-being of the players and then the supporters. That’s it, and the rest must be very, very far away from that, and we must never forget that principle. That’s all I’ll say.
It’s a nice sound, and I wish it were true, but we know that the people who run football don’t care at all about the well-being of the players. They hardly pay lip service to it anymore. And fans know that despite what anyone says about its importance, decisions are made time and time again that don’t have their best interests in mind. This trumps Mikel Arteta, by the way. I don’t blame him at all, but we are where we are now because there is already too much football, and the very simple solution to the congestion in the matches is to play less.
Show of hands, who thinks that will happen? Zero hands. There you go. Either way, hopefully they can find a way to fit this game in that makes it fair for Palace, because as it stands that’s definitely not the case. And it’s an issue that fans must stand together for. When it was put to Arteta that it would be easy to dismiss this as a ‘Crystal Palace problem’, he said:
I don’t think that’s fair because we obviously have other competitions too. We knew at the start of the season which competitions this club plays in and I don’t think that would be fair to Palace. We must try to accommodate everyone in the best possible way.
The expansion of the Champions League, which was only done to play more matches and generate more money, is one of the reasons why this is a problem. UEFA decided it, and that’s that. Player welfare? Pffffff. Supporters? Give me a break. Talk of strike action by players was downplayed by Arteta, but high profile footballers are increasingly talking about it, and what other option is there unless the powers that be do something about it?
The last thing we need to say is that more football does not improve the game – it generally means lower quality football. You can’t ask players to play so much and not have it affect their ability to produce the kind of football we all want to see. Premier League, Champions League, two cup competitions (one with an unnecessary two-legged semi-final), internationals, international friendlies, pre-season ‘tournaments’. It never stops, but something has to be done.
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Finally for today the sad news that before Willie Young passed away yesterday. He was part of my youth at Arsenal, played in the famous 1979 FA Cup Final and also produced a tackle that changed the rules in the 1980 FA Cup Final. Condolences to his family and friends, and may he rest in peace.
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Okay, that’s it for this morning, enjoy your Saturday and on to the right result at Turf Moor.
#Burnley #preview #Field #congestion #Palace #problem