After defeat against PSV on Thursday, Mikel Arteta said it was time for a reset.
Without taking anything for granted, because Nottingham Forest showed last weekend against Liverpool they’re capable of giving anyone a problem, a home game against the league’s bottom side is about as kind as the fixture list gets in circumstances like this.
There’s no question some of the fizz has gone out of our football in the last few weeks, so today it’ll be interesting to see what kind of response we get from the team. There’s not much to say about what kind of team the manager will pick. I hope Kieran Tierney plays at left-back rather than Takehiro Tomiyasu – I’m making the assumption that if Oleksandr Zinchenko wasn’t fit enough for the bench in midweek, he’s not fit enough to start today). That aside, we’ll likely see the return of Gabriel, Ben White, Thomas Partey, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus to the starting XI after they began the PSV game on the bench.
Last week’s draw with Southampton felt bad because we dropped points, but also because we spurned good chances to the win the game. Gabriel Jesus hasn’t scored since the North London derby on October 1st, and he’s overdue a goal. Arteta says:
We need goals and we need them from our front players, that’s for sure, to win the games and give us bigger margins. That run of lack of goals has to end for us to be in the position for us to win more matches.
Focus is on the number 9, but Gabriel Martinelli has just one goal in his last 11 appearances, and of late the goalscoring slack has been taken up by Bukayo Saka and Granit Xhaka, so let’s hope we get our Brazilians firing today.
The challenge will be breaking down a team who are likely to come and sit deep, which can often be frustrating and difficult. Forest had 25% possession at home to Liverpool last week, but managed as many shots on target (7 each), so they have some threat on the counter. There were signs of Arsenal vulnerability in that regard against PSV, but with the aforementioned players returning to the starting lineup, we shouldn’t be as easily exposed as we were in Eindhoven.
With a home crowd, a point to prove, and a desire to find our best level again, you’d hope this is the kind of game we can get on top of quickly. Fast starts have been something of a feature this season, so let’s hope we can show what we’re made of, and take the three points we need to go back on top of the Premier League.
As ever we’ll have live blog coverage for you, and all the post-game reaction, stats, player ratings and more on Arseblog News.
Catch you later for the game.
