Before Spurs. Difficult road ahead

The international break has concluded and it’s time to delve into Arsenal’s challenging fixture list.

Injuries, Injuries, injuries

As always, the international break brought with it injuries. This time, we’ve definitively lost Gabriel for 4-8 weeks with additional fitness concerns for Calafiori and Timber. This is certainly unwelcome news. However, we’re in a much better position than we were last year and I believe we can handle these types of more setbacks effectively. I’m confident that this Arsenal has enough quality and desire to not see a noticeable dip in performance. My only concern with Gabriel’s absence is not our defensive solidity, but rather the danger he poses from set pieces. It could be crucial against our London rivals, where set pieces might be an area where we can gain much needed edge.

Actually, of the three injury concerns, Timber is the one I’m most worried about. Post-surgery Ben White hasn’t regained neither the pace nor the stamina he possessed before, and I am in a state where I seriously doubt he can manage to hold up a dangerous winger for the full 90 minutes. On our left side of defence, apart from Gabriel, we have three players who are eager to prove themselves, should have a lot of quality and, except Hincapie, they have shown they can perform for us at the highest level. So, I’m not overly concerned, I believe we’re pretty well covered for now, and even if Calafiori needs to miss a game, we still have enough defensive options to cover for him.

The interesting part is to consider who Arteta might want to pick in Gabriel’s stead. My belief is that since we know Gabriel will be out for at least ten games, and probably more, we need to find and train a new defensive partnership as soon as possible.

One of the simplest solutions Arteta could employ is to just slot in Mosquera and leave the rest of the lineup as untouched as possible. While there’s a good chance this will be Arteta’s approach, given that the Spaniard has played the most minutes at centre-back among our options, including the game at Anfield, I don’t think that’s the ideal path.

Spurs isn’t the only tough game we have this December. It’s not like we can just skip over this match with a temporary stop gap and ponder our new defence later. After Spurs, we face Bayern Munich, Chelsea, and a couple of other challenging Premier League fixtures, so we need to sort out the new defensive setup as soon as possible. This means we need to decide who our left-sided centre-back will be in the new pairing. Currently, there are two options: Hincapie or Calafiori. I think the Italian Stallion would be the best option here. Firstly, he played in this position last season, and he played in this position before joining Arsenal, so he’s the most familiar with the required routines. It might be Hincapie, but I have a feeling that he could contribute more as a left wing-back, running up and down the pitch with unmatched intensity and providing the width for our center-drawn left wingers in the form of Trossard and Eze.

In this scenario, we’re left with two options for left-back: either Myles, who I think would be a good candidate for a North London Derby given to his academy background and understanding of what this fixture means for the fans, or Hincapie, who also looks like a solid option so far.

Mosquera, in my opinion, is the option we should have earmarked for a potential right-back cameo. If Timber can’t play, I don’t trust White for new to handle the winger for the entire 90 minutes, especially considering that in this position, around the 70-minute mark, there’s always a change and a new player comes on to bring a fresh spark of speed and intensity. So, if we need to see out the game, I’d rather see Mosquera at right-back winning those duels and blocking the pathways. Again, I’m not sure if Timber is fully fit, but given he’s looked to have minor problems all season, I still wouldn’t want to have Mosquera as our nailed left-sided centre back, also considering that Saliba might need a break at some point. So, it’s better to have a stable LCB, who won’t be frequently shuffled around depending on the opposition and formation.

Attack - the real concern

What I’m actually more worried about for the upcoming game against Spurs is our attack. All our number nines are out, meaning we’re once again starting with Merino up front. I’ve mentioned this multiple times before: Merino isn’t a particularly difficult opponent for Premier League defenders, as Sunderland has demonstrated. With his lack of blistering pace, defenders like Van de Ven would have ample time to cover and protect the goalkeeper from his shots. So, the danger needs to come from other areas – Saka, our left side, Eze, and perhaps even Declan Rice. The only good injury news we have is that Madueke and Martinelli will most likely be on the bench, which is a massive boost for a game like this. It will be intense, exhausting, with plenty of duels, and it’s incredibly helpful to have two fast attacking options we can unleash towards the end of the game.

I think we are all pretty much aware of how Thomas Frank approaches games. The matches against Brentford were always tough; they boast a compact defence, they try to close down passing lanes, they don’t give space in the middle, they don’t produce a plethora of moments, but they will be dangerous on the counter-attack several times per game. Games with Brentford are often a battle, and this Sunday against Spurs will be no exception. Unfortunately, in this battle, I don’t expect it to be easy for us to score, or to secure more than a one-goal lead. It’s quite likely that by the 70th-minute mark, we’ll still need a goal to claim the victory, and that’s where Gabi and Madueke could be a huge help, especially as Martinelli can deputise at number nine, because I don’t think keeping Merino on for the entire 90 minutes is a good solution. In general, it would be nice to have two attacking set-ups: one in the form of Merino and Trossard who can control the ball and the other in the form of Martinelli, Madueke and potentially Nwaneri that offer lightning fast penetration of the defence. Saka and Eze should be able to operate in both modes.

Tough fixtures upcoming

And we absolutely need to win, because our upcoming fixtures, despite our healthy lead and our excitement before the break, mean the end of the year is going to be truly challenging. Spurs aren’t even the toughest test; the one I’m most worried about is Stamford Bridge. We always struggle there, not just in terms of the result, but also our performance. We struggled against Maresca already, managing to clinch a couple of draws, but it won’t be any easier this time. They have a lot of options they can bring off the bench, and we need to be able to handle those options.

Unfortunately, we’re not in a position where we can consider an away draw a good result. According to Opta:

Based on average position in the current Premier League table, City have the joint-weakest batch of opponents over the next six gamedays.

And they’re just four points behind us. You can see they could easily catch us up and even overtake us during these seven games if we start dropping points. I still can’t get over the fact that the only recent year City were really poor, we handed the league to Liverpool without a fight. And we’d be giving the league away this year if we hadn’t signed eight new players, to be fair, because from last year’s squad, we would be already missing four starters again.

Spurs is a home game, so it’s one where we absolutely need to take all three points if we’re serious about the title. Next up is Bayern and I honestly don’t care much how we perform against them. Both us and Bayern are in a very strong and healthy position in the overall Champions League table, and we will both qualify or get into the top eight regardless of the result at the Emirates. In fact, there are only three teams that have collected 12 points out of 12: us, Bayern, and Inter, whom we’ll also incidentally play against in January.

However, with Inter, the situation is a bit different; they’ve literally played four of their weakest games so far, and now they have us, Liverpool, Atleti, and Borussia Dortmund lined up. We, however, with the home game against Kairat remaining, have a good chance of getting 18 points, which should be enough for direct qualification into the Top 16. That’s why I actually don’t care, even if we were to suffer a defeat. PSG lost last year to us in the group stage, it didn’t stop them from winning the Champions League itself, so it shouldn’t stop us either.

But Spurs is a different story. I think, in his principles, Thomas Frank is quite similar to Arteta. He tries to build a compact defence to control the game; his football isn’t incredibly exciting, but it’s quite efficient if the team is in control of the game, and they demonstrated at the Etihad that they can handle big away fixtures.

At the same time they also don’t have a standout player who can single-handedly win games, which was often a weak spot for us, they don’t have any particularly strong line, whether defence or attack, they are simply a solid team unit. Same as us, but we should actually be a more solid unit. They have quite a few injuries as well, so there is no reason to be too worried about the game. Our open-play goals are still modest, and none of our attacking players is truly raising the roof, but at the same time we have the unstoppable energy of the home crowd that should make the difference on Sunday.

So let’s give them hell!