Just four goals in the last three PL games and still 9 points. The reason for this is of course our mean, lean defence-machine. Open up the Arsenal laundry cupboard and you will see where Raya and co have been squirrelling away their treasured clean sheet. Make sure you’ll put sunglasses on, though, as you may be blinded by their radiant whiteness.
The depth in defence is just incredible. I have not seen Hincapie in action much, but I sense he will be awesome too. We have double cover in all five positions (including the goalkeeper) and that’s so different from our squads over the last twenty years or so. The king of the defence and Set-Piece FC is Big Gabby, and Arteta needs to try and keep him fit for the whole season as he is quite irreplaceable at the moment.
The win against Palace was a vital one for which the team had to dig deep. Fulham, Atletico Madrid and Palace in just eight days was challenging, but three clean sheets and set-piece magic saw us through. There is a lot of talk about the strength of our squad, but not much is said about the fact that we have been missing four internationals for quite a while now: Madueke, Havertz, Jesus and Martin Odegaard. That is a hell of lot of creative/fire power unavailable to Mikel. I thought Bukayo and Viktor looked a bit jaded, and Eze, despite his beautifully taken goal, also lacked spark and concentration yesterday.
The Eagles are a solid team with both strength and penetration up front, and I thought the boys managed them very, very well. The Gunners won three very important points in the PL and many should now get a rest for the Brighton cup game. The next big one is on Saturday in Burnley. We don’t play that many games in the North-West any more; remember the days when we had to go up there a lot to play the likes of Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn (and Stoke)? It was never easy, was it?! If Arsenal push through now a nice gap with the likes of Citeh, Pool, Chavs and MU can be obtained. It is my experience that during the busy December schedule teams more or less gain and lose the same number of points, so now is the time to make the gap as big as possible. Burnley will be no push-overs, so our focus needs to be on that match.
Having said that, I do look forward to the Brighton game on Wednesday. This is a great opportunity to use the wider squad against a very good team that will give us a tough game. Fabian Hurzeler loves to get one over Arteta, and this competition is a great way to win some silverware for the South-Coasters.
What do you think will be our line-up?
**By TotalArsenal**