Morning!
As is the way at this time of the year, games are coming thick and fast! Top of the league, we look to build on our recent good form against Wolves.
Gary O’Neil is a fantastic young manager and surely destined for bigger things. His team come into the game as a wounded animal having had yet more VAR decisions go against them last weekend.
On 15 points from 13 games, they could quite easily been on 21 had decisions gone there way. That would have them sitting in 9th, ahead of West Ham and just 1 point behind Brighton and 2 behind Newcastle.
It feels this season that the quality in the Premier League runs deep.
The likes of Aston Villa, Newcastle, Brighton, Brentford, West Ham and Wolves have recruited well and clsoed the gap between them and the “Big 6”. The fact these teams are regularly buying players from Champions League clubs such as Atletico Madrid highlights just how far financially the Premier League is these days.
You always worry about playing on a Wednesday and then Saturday. Luckily for us, both games are at home. Things would have been tricker had we just travelled to Lens and then had to go up north to Wolverhampton.
Games like today are where you need to lean on your squad a little bit. We have a squad of 25 and it is important that we use them. With Luton Town coming up on Tuesday and Aston Villa next Saturday, it will be important to rotate.
Oleksandr Zinchenko and Takehiro Tomiyasu were both taken off at half time on Wednesday as Mikel Arteta swapped out his full backs. Tomiyasu has been brilliant at right back and left back this season.
I think over the next 3 games, Zinchenko, Tomi and Ben White will all play two-games each as Arteta gives each of them a break.
One area where Arteta will not be rotating is our defensive triangle of Gabriel, William Saliba and Declan Rice. They are up there with any defensive trio in world football.
Lens was the first time this season we saw Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli start together. The result was 6 goals from 6 different goal scorers and our best attacking performance of the season.
With Emile Smith Rowe and Fabio Vieira both out until the New Year, Arteta’s rotation options are limited. The quintet above are covered by Leandro Trossard, Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson.
Considering Jesus and Odegaard are both returning from injury, I do think that 5 games in 15 days will be too much for them. Arteta will have to pick and chose which games to give them a rest for. And the same probably goes for the rest of the squad.
Today is probably the easiest of the next 3 games (being at home), so it might the match where Arteta decides to give both Odegaard and Jesus a bit of a break. I can see Nketiah and Trossard starting.
That will give the pair an almost 7 day break before Luton away on Tuesday and that trip to Villa Park. Due to us securing top spot in the Champions League, everyone should miss out on PSV and get a weeks rest.
Luton Town might be a game where Arteta decides to rest one of Saka or Martinelli – with Trossard coming in for whichever misses out. The goal will then be to have the quintent back on the field together for the Aston Villa match.
But it is also easy to fall into that trap of looking too far ahead. We need to focus on today. Get the 3 points and solidify our place at the top of the league.
With other teams not playing, a win will take us 4-points clear. It is nothing to be too excited about considering we have played a game more (note: Tottenham were celebrating their “biggest lead in Premier League history” when they went 5-points clear earlier this season having played one game more).
On Sunday, Tottenham travel to Manchester City, so if we win we will either be extending our league on 2nd place, or extending our lead on 5th. If we end the weekend 7 points ahead of Spurs, I think the media will need to put to be the narrative that they are transformed under the Austalian Harry Redknapp.
Hopeully we are a bit more awake as a fanbase today than Wednesday.
Wednesday’s crowd was odd. It often is for these Champions League games as season ticket holders living outside London tend to stay away. This results in a rise of casual fans getting tickdets from the TX. Mix in the cold weather and us being 5-nil up at half time made for an atmospherically dull 2nd half.
Finally, a reminder that at the Wolves game, Islington Food Bank will have a drop off point on podium level, adjacent to the Tony Adams statue. They will be collecting items from 1pm til kick off. Basic essentials requested, such as baked beans, tinned fish, tinned soup, tinned fish & Pasta.
Please give what you can, and if you can not make the game, consider giving them a small donationL https://islington.foodbank.org.uk.
UTA.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
Nobody will be undroppable. That was why we lost Premiership title last season. Arteta made himself an ‘ 11 player coach’. He doesn’t know how to rotate his squad. Because he got Rice, he doesn’t know how to rotate him and Partey again. Tellong people that Partey is always injured. We don’t believe in such excuses.Forgetting that Rice may be injured in the second week of February if you sell Partey this January. That is the major area where Gaudiola is better. Arteta prefers a poor bench who are only meant for Carabao Cups, waiting for injury to step into Premiership squad. And anytime such players comes in, the club doesn’t perform well, as was the case of Saliba absence last season. He must grow up.
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