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All eyes on Saka

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo I didn’t really touch too much on comments in the wake of the United game about Bukayo Saka, made by Arteta, when asked about him. But I suspect just to re-iterate the situation he’ll definitely be asked about the forward today in his press conference. Mikel’s comments on Sunday were that his progress was good and said that the club are positive that he’d be back ‘in a few weeks’ after the international break. Gut feel is that we’ll get another couple of questions and whilst he won’t rule anything in or out, you have to hope that for the Fulham game at the beginning of April, he might have a place in the squad.

Given the season is more about securing Champions League for the remainder of it, the fact we have Fulham on the Tuesday night, then Everton on the Saturday, you’d hope that’s enough to stage his comeback with maybe 15 minutes against the Cottagers, then 45 against Everton. Why am I literally mapping out precise minutes? Well, we all know what lies beyond those two matches, which is the small matter of the Spanish giants Real.

The reality of the situation is probably that we won’t see a fully fit and firing Saka in that game, even if he does get those minutes in that timespan. He’ll have been out for three-and-a-half months by that time and his match fitness won’t be great. You can get him in training, you can putting him through drills and get him doing sprints all day long on the training ground, but it doesn’t prepare you for an elite game in the Champions League. It does make me wonder whether the club might – if he’s fully fit and there are no problems with his hamstring – get a behind-closed doors game going. The benefit of having Watford training next door is that you can shout over the fence and get them to come over, so if it’s a case of getting minutes in those legs, then that’s what Arsenal should be looking at after this weekend’s game against the Chavs.

We need to be mindful of thinking the attacking woes will end with his arrival though. He will undoubtedly be a massive difference, but we’re still going to come up against disgusting low blocks and much like before Saka’s injury, we’re still going to struggle to break them down like we have all season. The solve for that has to come in the summer but for us what we need to do is not see Saka as a panacea; he ain’t coming in and suddenly turning us in to a free scoring side like last season. It just isn’t going to happen. Odegaard’s form has been off and as our only major creative player who can spot those passes and thread the eye of those defensive needles, we’ve not been able to count on him like previous seasons, with nobody else stepping up to take the burden. It’s what has made this season so difficult and it is something that simply must be addressed in the summer. If Odegaard isn’t working we need something else. Maybe next season that can be Nwaneri from deeper, but I still feel like we need a through ball expert; a bit of a ‘triangle pass’ master (little PlayStation reference for you all there).

That match will be Arteta’s focus though and as I mentioned yesterday, he’s 100% going to be asked about the title again, I’m sure of it. He’ll bat away the question and say he is never giving up. But I remember in that first season we challenged for the title and fell away, he said the same before we lost away at Forest to pretty much secure it – the players on the pitch that day knew that the jig was up and everyone who watched that game could tell too. It’s that spark, you see, it just goes. It felt like that on Sunday; there’s was no level of urgency and desperation that you usual see when it’s all on the line. Those Arsenal players tried, they worked hard and I’m not accusing them of not wanting it or trying, but deep down, psychologically, you know that it’s done and there’s just that little edge that isn’t there.

Anyway, what we do still need to do is get back to winning ways and you have to hope we have the mindset and approach on Sunday to do it. Chelsea are a bit of a mixed bag this season and they seem to win a few and then lose a few, so we don’t know what sort of side Maresca is going to put out on Sunday. We know the names that might be there, but the approach and whether they are any good might change, so whilst we can start to analyse how they might set up against us it’s only really when the first kick is made that we’ll find out how this game is going to go.

Hopefully not as bad as in my dream last night. I dreamt that we lost at Brentford to a scabby free kick goal and as a result of that goal I ripped out a radiator and cucked it out of my window in rage. I then left the house and walked for hours, only to find a Spanish gym (in England – all the signs were in Spanish) and David Raya doing a warm down. I’m six foot two inches but he was seven foot and I said “unlucky” to him as he was stretching but he didn’t look at me and I scowled at him. I must apologies to him if I ever see him – it wasn’t his fault for the goal at all.

That aside, we’ll start to get an idea on team news at some stage today and Arteta will no doubt sing the praises of Maresca as he does with all teams. So we won’t learn anything new but, much like how I kicked off today’s blog, my big hope is that he gives us just a wee bit more information on the Saka situation. That’s probably the most we could ask for from his intel today.

And that’s probably all I’m going to go with today. I’m offski on holiday later on so service might be a little disrupted as I’ll be in different time zones, but I’ll, make some time to pen some pre-match thoughts at some stage over the next 36 hours.

Have a good one and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

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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.