None of us expected anything from last night, I don’t think, so I’ll be surprised if most Gooners watched City’s procession game against Palace.
The hope I’m taking from the overall result is two-fold:
1. Palace players ALREADY having an eye on their Europa Conference League Final after the Premier League has finished.
2. I saw a message from a journalist on the socials that Glasner made a comment about Glasner linking City’s rotation last night, as they prepare for the cup final this weekend, to their own preparation for their own cup final.
On the second point, if they do rotate against us, he’d be well within his rights to cite last night’s game, so that’s my initial hope for us, that we get a rotated Palace team with one eye on the final and certainly not looking to stretch for that extra ball, or make that extra sprint. Some of the post-match stuff I’ve read from last night is that it was a little too easy for City throughout. Let’s hope that is true week after next on the final game of the season.
Who am I kidding though? Palace will 100% be better on their final game of the season and I fully expect it to be nervy, worrisome, hand-wringing, edge-of-the-seat stuff for everyone involved with The Arsenal. It’s just how we do things. Nothing is easy.
Now, back to The Arsenal, annd because our game is on Monday night, it feels a little weird to start looking ahead at Burnley. I’m gonna do my usual stuff where I look at their recent performances, what the data tells us, how I think they might play, but it feels a little too soon to start thinking about it, right? I mean, OF COURSE we’re all _thinking_ about it, but it just kind of feels a little odd to me to be obsessively looking at every single bit of info on a game that isn’t even in this calendar week and still has another four full days ahead of it. There’s also the whole ‘Burnley are down’ thing, which becomes an unknown factor, but also makes you wonder if any of the analysis is worth it. They will be a bit down, they know their time in this division is drawing to a close, their fates are sealed. But does that give them an extra freedom to just say “screw it, let’s have a go”?
If they do, then it feels like it could be a very interesting game indeed, because it would leave plenty of space for Arsenal to potentially profit from quite heavily. Or, is there an element of “professional pride lads, let’s low block the sh\*t out of this game and see if we can frustrate The Arsenal”? That’s certainly got to be a consideration. Wolves did the same at The Emirates in December. Burnley could very well look to follow the same blueprint.
It almost feels as though the overall season data sets that exist right now are kind of irrelevant, based on my hypotheses above. I guess the only real data points you can take into account are the Leeds game they lost 3-1 at Elland Road, and the Villa game at home, which they drew 2-2. I’ve just had a quick look at the Leeds game and watched a quick match recap, and by all accounts, Leeds battered Burnley. Some of the defending was a bit haphazard, too. So that’s a positive sign. In the game at home to Villa, Villa dominated possession, went down to an early goal, clawed it back and went ahead, only for Burnley to equalise. But it was a very ‘Emery -end-of-season’ game. Villa clearly had its eyes on a European prize and some of the defending and goalkeeping on both fronts were pretty shoddy. Dubravka palming balls into the centre of the six-yard box, front post corners flicking in, route one balls from the goalkeeper to Watkins for his straight line running goal, all of that kind of play I can certainly do with on Monday night!
Arteta will take to the media tomorrow and we’ll get an update on the team news, but what I’m hoping for today is news of players looking good in training, maybe the odd training ground snapshot, then some kind of positivity over Timber’s availability. We now know, thankfully, that Ben White doesn’t require surgery, which is great for him, but I still suspect it keeps him out for the next month. Does that leave him open to the possibility of getting on the plane for England? I hope so. It would be a really nice story for a guy who has suffered so many injury setbacks in the last couple of seasons. He’s had his end-of-season run of games and potential impact on a title run-in taken away from him, he’s had a potential start in the Champions League Final taken away from him, so to have him get out to the USA would be a nice little bonus for us Arsenal fans, and certainly for him.
Right, I’m going to leave it there fore today, I think. I’ll be back tomorrow with a more detailed look at Burnley’s season, as well as how their fans are viewing this, and the pundits too.
Catch you all then.