The December fixtures have been shifted and TV has had its wicked way with 4 of our games.
AFC PL DECEMBER FIXTURES
Wednesday, December 2: Brentford (A) | 8.15pm
Sunday, December 6: Tottenham (A) | 4.30pm
Sunday, December 13: Bournemouth (H) | 2pm
Sunday, December 20: Man Utd (H) | 4.30pm
Sunday, December 27: Crystal Palace (A) | 7pm
Wednesday, December 30: Fulham (A) | 7.30pm
They are quite honestly LOVING Arsenal for the Sunday games this coming December. Global demand for The Arsenal must be through the roof this season; they obviously caught wind that we’d ditched the set-piece goals, and now it’s safe to come out for the saucy joga bonito ball.
The big game I have on my mind is that Arsenal vs Man U game. One would suspect it’ll be Hürzeler’s United by the time we get round to them, but regardless, it’s a sexy game just before we tuck into an extremely festive week.
My main concern through December is that we’ll probably still be in the League Cup, we’ll be having a big old showdown with Real Madrid in the Champions League… It’s all quite heavy during that month, and if we’re not in good shape injury-wise, it’ll be nightmarish. Brentford, Spurs, Palace and Fulham away are terrible fixtures for Arsenal… it’s a full squad kind of month.
A lot of the post-game chatter was focused on Arteta’s conviction on Noni.
“We’ve seen a different Noni since the international break, and that’s what we need. A player with such a conviction, with quality, being decisive because he can deliver like that.”
Some speculate that he was offering this as the counter to Eze, which is probably not far from the truth. It’s hard to work out what Arteta thought he was getting with Eze. He was known for drifting in and out of games, he’s never been that intense, and everyone knew he was a chill kind of player. It’s not Arteta’s cup of tea and you do wonder what the future holds for a player who is 28 years old right now. I’m not sure he’s ever going to offer what we need on the left and can we really see him keeping Odegaard out of the team for any length of time? I do also wonder if Mikel will be looking at Dowman to pick up some of the 10 coverage if Odegaard gets injured this season.
Our spare parts this season are all players in their prime. Viktor, Zubi, and Eze are the types that want to play, and you wonder how long they’ll stick it out as periphery players, knowing they could be starting for plenty of big clubs around Europe if they pushed for exits. It’s clear Arsenal need to move on players, £700k a week of wages is probably not where we want to be with impactor subs… so we’ll see how that all pans out in January.
Quite interesting to look at some of the players we didn’t sign at the moment. José Mourinho suggested that he might have pushed for a move to Arsenal if he was getting the abuse Vini Jnr gets. The Brazilian is having a rough time this season, fans are speculating that he’s a different player, not buying that the old Vini Jnr would have done that to his chin. He has 1 goal to his name so far this season, diabolical for a player who’d usually be on 10 by now. Dodged bullet? I think so… those final contracts can really take the wind out of careers.
We can start getting excited for the Bayern game, they could be without Neuer… and Musiala and Olise are both missing. They’re still very good, regardless, but missing the big guns against a team as good as us is going to hurt them.
Short one today. I’ll have a more robust match review for you tomorrow. I’m on the road today, heading to Columbus. Should be a fun drive! See you tomorrow. x