The Champions League. Confused? You will be… Napoli v Arsenal
By Tony Attwood
Last season Arsenal were the second highest scorers in the league. Yet still we are told that we need to change the line up (see for example “8 goals in 6 games: Attacker in red hot form is being targeted to replace Gyokeres at Arsenal”)
What I think is not always realised, and is certainly not always reported, is that top scoring forwards don’t always settle down in a new club with new team mates at once, and thus there is every chance that whoever Arsenal buy in to become their next “top scorer”, could well take a long time to settle in.
In short the success from one team doesn’t follow to the next. So for myself I am quite happy to see us continue with the same centre forward as we had last season. As I have said so often, we were the second highest scoring team in the league.
And with that said, moving on to today we can turn to the line ups….
Yahoo gives us a line up of
Raya;
White, Konsa, Gabriel, Hincapie;
Zubimendi, Rice;
Saka, Odegaard, Tzolis;
Havertz
Goal give us the warming news that we might well see
Raya,
White, Calafiori, Konsa, Gabriel,
Rice, Guimarães,
Saka, Tzolis, Ødegaard,
Havertz
And that is looking rather good, even with delays to the plane journey, since Napoli are by no means at full strength right now. They are without star midfielder Scott McTominay until next month and Alessandro Buongiorno, Luca Marianucci and Pasquale Mazzocchi are also unavailable. They will however probably have Kevin De Bruyne back in the starting midfield.
The Standard tell us that there could be a change at left-back because Riccardo Calafiori has a history of injuries and Arsenal don’t want to overdo his time on the pitch. They also point out that Piero Hincapie “was Arsenal’s only defender on the bench against Chelsea and there is every chance he comes in to start in Naples.”
So there is a fairly general agreement on the players we will see across the game. Goal.com are in fact particularly positive on this occasion noting that the Napoli defeat by Inter was “damaging” to the Napoli psyche. And they tell us that “Napoli will be without Scott McTominay, who has been one of their most effective ball-carriers and a key source of goals from midfield. With an implied probability of 57.1%, backing Arsenal looks fair given the Gunners’ superior form and fitness.”
Which by and large is good enough for me.
After this game today our next two matches are Sunderland away in the league on the evening of 12 September and then Ipswich away in the third round of the league cup on 15 September at 8pm. That game will give Arteta a good chance to offer playing time to those who haven’t made much impact thus far – so I’d look to see the normal solid first team line up against Sunderland, even though they are only 12th in the league. (Ipswich are currently 13th).
Elsewhere: we have just published the latest article in our series tracing the early days of Arsenal and its move to north London. You can find it at