Friday 12 September 2014

Man City (H)

After a rather tedious International break we return to league action tomorrow with a huge game against Manchester City. It's one of those "season defining" games early on that the press bang on about and in our case with good reason. Last season we took just 5 points against the top 3 sides in the league. We lost all of the away matches against them conceding 17 in the process. Tomorrow represents a chance to build some much needed confidence going into the next spell of the campaign.

We have suffered one casualty over the last two weeks, one Aaron Ramsey which is far from ideal going into this huge clash but the rest of the side are fit to play. We have Gibbs returning along with Arteta meaning that the side will take a familiar shape in my opinion with new boy Danny Welbeck leading the line. Sanchez, Ozil and Cazorla should slot in behind him with Wilshere and Arteta in the gap. City are without Stefan Jovetic who has tweaked a hamstring, that aside they are essentially at full strength and no doubt Toure and Fernandinho will bully our midfield so it could be a tough day for them all round. 

Tomorrow will be a tough day for us all round but this City side have weaknesses as we exposed in the Community Shield and more recently Stoke exposed as they beat them 1-0 at the Etihad. What concerns me though is that we have struggled to find any rhythm in any of our matches so far and if City turn up and play like they can we'll get ripped apart based on displays in recent weeks. We need to stay switched on at the back an make the most of our newly acquired pace going forward. New boy Welbeck will be out to impress and especially against old foes City.

Tomorrow is our first big test of the season and make no mistake a loss will have the media all over us like flies should we not take anything from the game. A draw is not a disaster but it's not ideal. We need to ensure that we put on a good performance tomorrow an that we get a good result to boot. Only time will tell.

Until tomorrow COYG!

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Leicester + Deadline Day

After a sunny few days in Spain I'm back and annoyingly we've not hit the International break although that may be a blessing in disguise. On Sunday we played out a 1-1 draw with Leicester away on what proved to a thoroughly frustrating afternoon.

After just 20 minutes we took the lead through Alexis Sanchez with his first Premier League goal and his second Arsenal goal following his crucial finish against Besiktas. Cazorla picked the ball up on the edge of the box and scooped it over the defence to Sanogo who through a complete fluke somehow found Sanchez who smashed it past the keeper and defenders. As we looked to build on out lead Koscielny clashed heads and was rushed back on sporting a rather interesting piece of headgear. This decision proved costly bearing in mind it was a head injury. Leicester broke and the defence was at sixes and sevens allowing a simple header past SZCZ. 

The rest of the game was utterly frustrating with Arsenal struggling to get any fluidity going. There were some particularly poor performances from Sanogo who I'll come to in a bit and Ramsey who was definitely off. Chambers who replaced Koscielny almost instantly after the equaliser played well in general but showed a moment of inexperience as instead of standing his man up went sliding in and allowed the player to simply drag it back across him only to shoot into the side netting. SZCZ made a huge save in the second half one on one and we simply failed to create anything.

The frustration on social media was clear to see as people called upon the manager to buy a striker after Sanogo's poor showing. I hate to put a young player down but he's clearly not ready for the step up to lead the line and I can't help but feel he needs to clear his head and get some game time in the so called "lesser" competitions. 

As deadline day began fans were horrified to learn that Arsene Wenger had flown to Rome to referee a charity match. As the day wore on, news of Arsenal moves was non-existant until out of the blue Danny Welbeck was having a medical with us and the move was confirmed for around £16m. I'm not sure what to make of him as a player but United fans were particularly disappointed with the move. His work rate is evident and I do think with the right service when we get going that he could bang a few in for us.

However much more worrying was our lack of movement for a centre half. We are currently just one injury away from being worse than bare bones. Quite how we can go into a season with 6 fit first team defenders is beyond mind boggling. Chambers is the only senior (at age 19) stand in we have. Following that we have nobody. Arguably the player who was most likely to make the step up Ignasi Miquel has been sold, leaving us from either a) a makeshift back four with possibly the likes of Flamini in there or b) promoting a youngster.

I refuse to believe there was nobody available for the manager to sign and we are taking a huge gamble from now until January banking out our defence staying fit which let's face it we don't have the best track record of doing. However it's done now and this is our team so we may as well get behind them and see where we end up. I'll be back next week with a preview of the City game. Until then.