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No margins for Arsenal – we have to beat United

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo BIG game today. Very big game. I touched on it yesterday about how the pundits are pretty much all siding with us and that ‘Jones Knows’ chat on Sky even went for a 4-1 thrashing. Lawrenson has gone 2-1 Arsenal Sutton has gone for a 3-1 to us.

We shouldbeat them. We have a better team, we are playing well, we are at home and although they have a new manager bounce, there will still be plenty of learning and adapting they’ll be doing to their system and set up under Amorim. Even he has said that difficult days are ahead and a ‘storm’ will be coming to them soon. That’s clever management if you ask me. He is laying the foundations for a defeat tonight, whilst at the same time probably laying down the gauntlet to his team, as well as taking off the pressure. The pundits are already saying that they don’t expect anything from United, so in a way, the pressure is off them.

It’s on us though. Liverpool keep on winning and they’ll beat Newcastle tonight, of that I’m sure, so it means nothing other than three points will keep Arsenal chasing. Defeat to the Red Devils and we’re probably done for the title race. You don’t come back from 12 points with over a third of the season gone.

Then there’s this, which I agree with, from Yankee Gunner:

We’ve faced a lot of very bad United teams the last several seasons and I’m not sure we’ve produced the performances to properly punished them. Really does feel like the cliche of “playing the badge.” Hopefully this time we just play the team in front of us.

— Yankee Gunner (@yankeegunner.bsky.social) 4 December 2024 at 04:24

I totally agree with this and it’s why I think it is going to be a tight game, probably decided by just one goal. Whether they score and we have to get a couple to win, I don’t know, but I don’t think come 85 minutes I’ll be patting my fellow block five residents on the back and saying “job done, lovely stuff lads” by any stretch of the imagination.

Arteta’s press conference was standard Arteta fare yesterday; he gave nothing really away and he wouldn’t be drawn on the availability of Partey, Merino, Calafiori and Gabriel. By them all being lumped in to one question by Sky Sports Gary Cotterill, he didn’t have to though. So all he said is ‘we’re going to have a meeting this afternoon’. My gut feel is that most of those players will be available. But I don’t think it’ll be the same team as West Ham. I think he rotated very much with this in mind, so I suspect we might at least see Gabriel, Calafiori and at least one of Partey or Merino. If I was given a freebie pound to place a bet on which one, I’d say Merino over Partey; if Thomas has a muscular injury and he’s borderline, better to not risk it. The absence of Tomiyasu and White means that the Ghanaian is our de facto back up right back, so risking him would be dangerous.

In Mikel Merino we have a guy who looks to be finding his feet too and I think he’s been good when he has got on the field. He played the full 90 minutes against Forest and was good. He only got 20 against Sporting, then wasn’t in the squad at the weekend against West Ham and with the players that United are likely to play, having him on the field feels like the right move for us. His high pressing, winning the ball up the field and going up against the likes of Casemiro and Ugarte feels like an approach that would work for me. Then behind him you have Rice in at the six and right at is Odegaard. With Amorim likely to go with a back three, it feels like this is a game that Martinelli might get a bit more space – or at least we have to hope so – and with him having been rested against West Ham, surely he’s ready to be unleashed?

I don’t really need to draw out the rest of the Arsenal team because everyone else’s positions should be pretty locked down.

And then we need to go out there and deliver. Last season we went behind in what has become an annoying consistency as Marcus Rashford bagged yet another goal against us, before we hit back immediately through Odegaard and then won it in stoppage time. The season before that at home it was Eddie Nketiah’s heroics on 90 minutes after Rashford had again opened the scoring. The season before it was Nuno Tavares, the Saka with a pen, before Ronaldo brought it closer to us but ultimately Xhaka finished it on 70 minutes. So basically in everyone one of the last three games this game has been tight by halftime, so I’m expecting the same today.

United are going to look to soak up pressure against us and hit us in counter. They’re going to look to use the pace of Hojlund and Rashford and move the ball quickly from back to front. So our back line absolutely needs to be prepared for it and for a change I’d like us to keep Rashford completely silent. Then, if we do that, it comes down to what we do in the sharp end of the pitch and if you listen to some of their fans (like that Goldbridge fella, for example) then they’re expecting to see Luke Shaw in at left centre back. That would be a shrewd move in my opinion, because he’s a left back who can operate as a centre back and so him up against Saka with Dalot also dropping in means that United can double up on our Starboy. So many teams have done it but that’s two defenders who are actual defenders doing a number on Saka. Which is why I am hoping that we get a good game from Martinelli, because if they are occupied on our right hand side, maybe Martinelli can have some joy?

Whatever Arteta goes with, our margins are so fine that we have to respond, from the off. We need to be at them and put them under pressure.

Finger crossed it goes our way. Back tomorrow for a match review.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.