While Arsene Wenger and everyone else connected to Arsenal is hoping to see the sort of performance from the Gunners at Carrow Road this weekend that has become just about par for the course in the Premier League this season, the Norwich manager Alex Neil is clearly hoping that we have another game like the one away to West Brom last weekend.
That trip to the Hawthorns produced just a third defeat of the season and the only one since the opening day loss to West Ham that was down to the deficiencies of the Arsenal team rather than the obvious failings of a certain Mr Mike Dean.
And while our back four and the new keeper Petr Cech have done very well in stopping the opponents from scoring, our success so far this season has been mainly based upon the ability of top quality Gunners like Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez to make the breakthrough at the other end.
This is what has been worrying the Norwich boss, as revealed in a Sky Sports report.
He said, “Arsenal will want to put points on the board. They have had a good season and are the hardest attacking team to stop.”
The Gunners have the joint best away scoring record in the division and only three clubs have conceded more goals than Norwich so far so Neil has good reason to be worried. At least he will not surprised at the way we approach the match though, as he has been with some of our rivals.
He went on, “We will be regarded as one of the smaller teams in the league. But even when so-called bigger teams come to our place, they have been happy to sit behind the ball, soak up pressure and hit you on the counter attack and that sort of surprised me.
“You would have thought that some of them would have come here and tried to impose themselves, go toe-to-toe but that has not been the case and has been quite surprising.”
Don’t worry Alex there will be no surprises on Sunday as Arsenal will be going for goals from the kick off. But will our attack prove as difficult as the Norwich manager fears?
For most of the first half of the season, we have had a excellent defense. Not just due to Cech, Bellerin, Koscielny, Mertsacker and Monreal but also Coquelin
Coquelin out for 3 months is a GREAT loss for us. We must hope Arteta and Flamini are able to do a decent job for three months because the DM position is the important link between defense and attack. It’s a very important position
Other than that with Ramsey, OX, Walcott coming back our offense should be back to normal soon.
This is another week where it’s possible for our rivals to lose points: Man City v Southampton and Leicester vs United. So we need to concentrate 100% on winning so that if they do mess up we can take advantage
Norwich will be tough for several reasons like it being an away match, still have players injured, pressure to win the match and be close to the PL leader.
But I believe we will come out of the match with 3 points baby please
You don’t need to arsenal an invitation to attack you Mr. Norwich. But don’t dare complain when the damage has been done on your mighty norwich. Our loss against westbrom was undeserved but its just like a wake up call to us. #COYG let’s go on a winning streak.
*TO GIVE ARSENAL
Come on gunners! We bounced back in the championsleague on tuesday, now lets bounce back in the league with victory over norwich and secure all 3points! Coyg!
Can we get victory over norwich? YES we can! Coyg!