City flag of Brighton & Hove with white seagull on blue ground flying at Hove Lawns Seafront, Brighton, East Sussex.
Here we go. We have a lot of ground to cover for what was previously and is now even moreso a season-defining fixture. Having dropped points at home to Brighton, we simply have no choice but to go for the smash and grab. Despite the definite absence of Rice and the (probable) absence of Ødegaard, we have to put our noisome neighbors in their place. not because of the rivalry but because we have loftier goals. Let’s join the fray, then, shall we?
Gillett—the worst a man can get…
Jarred Gillett will be overseeing this match, and he’s just about the worst ref for this particular fixture. Away to Tottenham, we’ll be going into a cauldron, and Gillett is not, to put it mildly, the kind of ref to anger the home fans or give the Arsenal any leeway. Most recently, he saw nothing wrong in Wolves’ Mosquera throttling Havertz and then groping Jesus, booking Jesus for his reaction to having been groped. Well, in Gillett’s defense, if Jesus didn’t want to be groped, he shouldn’t have dressed like that. Having said all that, as I’ve always said, the best way to take the ref out of the game is to score early and often. We didn’t do that against Brighton. We did—more or less—against Wolves.
Is Arsenal’s kit…racist?
For most if not quite all of our trip to the seedier side of North London, we’ve worn our home kit—the classic red top with white sleeves and white shorts. However, for this year’s NLD, the PGMOL, in its infinite wisdom, have deemed that our home kit has “too much white” in it, what with the white running down the sides. Beyond that, it doesn’t really depart all that dramatically or historically from any other home kit we’ve worn away to Tottenham. Well, we’ll just have to wear the all-black third kit. Just watch as Tottenham show up for the reverse fixture in their all-whites…and the PGMOL insisting that we wear the third kit again. The PGMOL are nothing if not consistent…
Ødegaard, Ødegaard, wherefore art thou, Ødegaard?
Our skipper picked up a nasty knock while playing for Norway, and the initial prognosis was that he would miss a few weeks, knocking him out of selection against Tottenham, Atalanta, and maybe even Man City. Arteta, however, has been characteristically defiant, insisting that Ødegaard may “need some more tests so let’s see what happens in the next day or so, this afternoon probably, and see what happens with the extent of the injury and how quickly we can get him back. With 48 hours until the game, players could always become available. Let’s see what happens.” This may just be gamesmanship, keeping Postecoglou guessing as to Ødegaard’s availability as he draws up his, um, “tactics.” I don’t see Arteta playing Ødegaard and risking his fitness for the trip to the Etihad.
What’s to be done about this midfield situation?
Rice suspended, Ødegaard injured, Merino injured…what’s Arteta do do? Nwaneri is arguably too green to be thrown in. It would make sense to play Jorginho and Partey as a double-pivot, but where would the creativity come from? One option would be to drop Havertz deeper, a role he played to aplomb for Die Mannschaft during this latest interlull.
This might make more sense than other options such as slotting Trossard, Saka, or Sterling into that role. I don’t love the idea of moving Havertz further from goal, but his creativity and physicality could be crucial.
