Whilst we lost to Manchester City in the cup, there were plenty of positives that we could take and carry into tonight’s game.
Haaland don’t like it up him
In the games I have seen Erling Haaland struggle in this season – and there have not been many – he has had a defender stick right to him.
Against us in the Cup, it was firstly Rob Holding and then William Saiba. He barely got a sniff.
Haaland is a fantastic finisher and comes alive in the box. But he does not have a little trick to get the better of a touch tight defender. He reminds me a lot of Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Likewise, he is not great at laying it off to team mates.
If a defender is tight to you, you should be looking to draw in your opponent before laying it off to a team mate in more space. Harry Kane is fantastic at this. As was Olivier Giroud. Haaland doesn’t have the “quick lay off” in his locker.
Like in the Cup, we need someone to be tight to Haaland to restrict him. This then frustrates him. And if that player gets booked, Mikel Arteta needs to not be afraid of making a change.
Martinelli / Trossard axis
Man City’s full backs are a threat going forward. But they can also be got at in defence.
Trossard gave Rico Lewis a torrid time in the Cup game. And then Gabriel Martinelli came on and further increased the intensity.
Knowing that they will only play 65/30 minutes each will lead to the pair not needing to pace themselves as much. And then as one tires, the other comes on.
This will no only keep Man City’s right back pinned back for 90 minutes, but also provide a fantastic attacking outlet for us to go on and score.
No Lokonga, more Partey
We massively missed Thomas Partey when he went off at half time with a rib injury. The difference between Partey and Albert Sambi Lokonga is the biggest positional drop off at the club right now.
A fit and ready Partey makes a huge difference to the team
Strength of XIs
In the Cup, Man City basically played their strongest XI.
Ben White, William Saliba, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli were all missing from the starting l line up. That is half of our strongest outfield players.
All 5 are set to start tonight against Man City. If a 50/50 1st/2nd XI can dominate the champions on their patch, what can our strongest team do at home?
The Cup game showed we can compete with City. Now we just need the 3 points.
In the North-West of England right now, there is only one young English midfielders name on everyones lips. Charlie Patino.
Arsenal fans have been speaking about the young midfielder for a few years.
In his sole start for the club – in last seasons FA Cup defeat to Nottingham Forest – he looked like a boy playing a mans game.
Technically gifted, the then 18-year-old looked like he still needed to do a lot of physical growing if he was going to fulfil his potential.
Like with many players looking to make the transition from talented youth team player to senior pro, Patino needed first team game time. Something he could not get at Arsenal (although some fans were oddly calling him to be playing in the first team despite clearly not being ready).
The club decided to loan him out to Championship side Blackpool this season, and Patino has flourished in the seaside town.
He has been one of the few shining lights for The Tangerines, who 22nd in the Championship at the time of writing.
And as if by design, 12 months after he was subtistuted in that 3rd round defeat to Nottingham Forest, he was back facing them in the FA Cup putting in a match winning performance.
His ability on the ball has never been in question. where he has grown whilst on loan is in physicality and defensive output.
Against Nottingham Forest, no player on the pitch made more successful tackles (4) than Patino, and he won more aerial duels (4) than any other Blackpool teammate. Not bad for someone considered more of a creative than defensive player.
And this was not a one off.
He has played deeper during his team fot Blackpool, often as the most defensive midfielder in the team. And Blackpool fans have not stopped talking about his defensive contributions. His physical development has been immense.
No english teenager has made more interceptions in Europe this season than Charlie Patino (27).
He also sits just one behind Jude Bellingham on goal involvements (4). 🔥
Patino is turning into more of a Xavi Alonso / Andrea Pirlo defensive midfielder (rather than a Thomas Partey replacement). And this means exciting things for Arsenal.
Mikel Arteta plays with a single defensive midfielder, and then two 8s ahead of him – Granit Xhaka and Martin Odegaard providing a good balance between defence and attack.
Left footed, 6ft, classy passer of the ball – short and loan, able to operate in tight spaces with an increased defensive awareness and physicality. The cool kids would probably call him a Granit Xhaka re-gen.
And he is turning exactly into that.
If Xhaka is the sourcerer, Patino is on the right track to be his apprentice.
At 30-years-old, Xhaka is playing the best football of his career.
No longer considered a liability, someone we need to sell, his leadership has been key to our rise to top of the league. Talk of Youri Tielemans to come in and repalce him has been eradicated.
He has 1-year left on his contract, with Arsenal having the option to extend by a further year. That will take Xhaka through the next two seasons. He will be just shy of his 33rd birthday.
At the same time, we have just triggered a 2-year extension in Patino’s contract, also taking him through to 2025. We now need to tie him down to a longer deal.
And to do that, we need to show Patino his path through to the Arsenal first team.
He would have been frustrated during the World Cup seeing former team mates Jude Beillingham, Jamal Musiala and Yunus Musah perform so well for their countries. I am sure this would have turned his head whilst his Arsenal career had seemingly stalled.
But there is a clear and obvious path for him to the Arsenal first team, as long as he keeps his head down and continues to improve all aspects of his game.
By the time Xhaka’s contract with us runs down in 2025, Patino will still be just 21. That gives him 2-seasons in and around the Arsenal first team, learning from Xhaka, from Partey, from Odegaard and more.
Over that two-year period, he will get enough game time as Arsenal will play 50+ games a season and continue his development. And then if he has shown he is good enough, he will become the heir to Xhaka’s spot in the team.
It will probably be a year of him playing second fiddle, coming off the bench and getting cup games. Then in the second year he should be competing with Xhaka for a starting spot.
What he needs to do is keep his head down and keep working on his game.
His transition from creative to defensive midfielder shows he is a smart player with a willingness to learn. That is always a fantastic starting point for any young player.
Hopefully he can continue to play well for Blackpool, remain fit, and kick on further.
Fabio Vieira is a “like for like” replacement for Odegaard. Patino can become that for Xhaka. And just like that we have squad depth in both the 8 positions without the need for further investment.
Onwards and upwards with Arteta’s red and white army.
Keenos
‘It’s fine that people hate us. It’s part of our history.’
This is our best chance of winning the league since 2016. But if our top stars do not wake up, we could throw away the opportunity to be champions.
Let’s start with the incompotent refereeing in the 1-1 draw v Brentford.
There equaliser should not have stood, with the PGMOL coming out and admitting their officials messed up.
The PGMOL have admitted that it was 'human error' which lead to VAR not fully investigating an offside call for Brentford's equaliser against Arsenal. pic.twitter.com/YrKRKaqggz
There were actually mutiple reasons the goal should have been disallowed, starting before either of the two offside calls. The first was the foul on Zinchenko as the original free kick was swung in.
Zinchenko was clearly tasked with marking Ivan Toney. But as the ball was put into the box, he was clearly being held by a Brentford player which stopped him challenging for the ball.
This foul gave led to Toney being on his own in the box, able to put the cross in without any pressure.
In the fianl frame, Zinchenko has finally be released by the Brentford player and is back close to Toney, but not close enough.
Had Zinchenko not been fouled in the build up, he would have been on Toney, challenging him in the air in the box. Instead Toney was able to play the ball back across goal with his right foot.
VAR should have picked up on the foul and disallowed the goal.
At the same time, you also have Gabriel being blocked. The player blocking him was comitting two infringements.
The first, he was fouling Gabriel. That foul stopped the Brazilian getting closer to Toney. And secondly he Ethan Pinnock was clearly offside.
By blocking Gabriel, regardless of whether or not it was a foul, he was interfering with play.
VAR should have picked up on either the foul or offside and disallowed the goal.
Then finally, we have the offside prior to Toney putting the ball into the back of the net that was not even checked.
VAR should have picked up on the offside and disallowed the goal.
4 infringements, VAR missed them all, and Arsenal dropped two points.
A draw was probably the right result, and had we have won 1-0 it would have gone in the “champions win when playing poorly” box.
Brentford are a decent outfit. They play to a game plan which is to slow the game down and focus on set pieces.
The blocking at corners and free kicks were by design, not accident. They knew exactly what they were doing in fouling Zinchenko to get Toney free. It is the sort of infringement VAR was bought in to stop.
They have now gone 10 unbeaten. In 7 games against top 6 sides, they have lost just once – to The Arsenal. We got away with a draw but it could have ended worse had Brentford taken their two clear cut first half chances.
We are still top of the league going into the Manchester City game, but to win the league we need to see our stars wake up.
In 2015/16, we were top after 22 games. 5 wins in 15 saw us drop to 4th before we eventually finished 2nd.
Dropping points against the likes of Stoke, Southampton, Swansea, West Ham, Crystal Palace and Sunderland in the second half of the season cost us. Those 5 games were 13 points dropped. We ended up 10 behind Leicester.
We had Everton last weekend and Brentford this. With Manchester City up next before away trips to Aston Villa and Leicester City, we could easily enter a downward spiral similar to what derailed us in 2016.
The last few games, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Martinelli, Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka have all looked off the pace. Not at the races.
You can accomodate one or two of them having a drop off in form, a bar run. But to have all 5 struggling at the same time is costing us points.
For us to win the league, they need to wake themselves back up and get back to the high performance level that they have played at for much of the season.
Trossard has to start against Manchester City, with Martinelli on the bench
Also, Gabriel Jesus can not come back soon enough.
Eddie Nketiah has been fantastic since coming in for him, but we need to re-energise the front line. And Jesus has the infections energy that just brings the best out of those around him.
Jesus would also be an option in the wider positions. We could easily play him wide right, Trossard wide left and Nketiah through the middle. That would give a break to Saka and Martinelli who both look like they are running out of steam.
After the back to back Midlands away day, we face Everton, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Leeds at home – with a trip to Fulham sandwiched between.
This is when I expect Arteta to rotate his front line. Mix and match. Give Saka and Martinelli a break.
In terms of Xhaka, he has been phenomenal this season but has just come off the boil.
We could opt to play Zinchenko further forward, and Kieran Tierney or Takehiro Tomiyasu at left back. That might freshen things up. The option to play Zinchenko instead of Partey is also present.
The Man City game is not one where we should be making wholesale changes. Perhaps just Martinelli for Trossard.
We might blame the officials for the draw against Brentford, but we also did not help ourselves.
Newcastle, Everton and Brentford all played a similar way.
Slow the game down, men behind the ball, look to maximise set pieces. We struggled to break down all 3. The fast, snappy passing was not there.
As we enter the second half of the season, more teams will now sit deep, pack the midfield and deny us space. We need our superstars to re-find their form so that we can break down these teams.
Failure to do so will result in too many dropped points and a repeat of the 2015/16 fall-away.
We are still top of the league. We have won 4 from 7 since coming back from the World Cup. 14 points from a posisible 21.
If we maintain that form between now and the end of the season, we will end up with 85 points. I am not sure that will be enough!
Keep backing the boys and we go again Wednesday.
Keenos
‘It’s fine that people hate us. It’s part of our history.’
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 