It is just a few days to the resumption of the English premier league and I am so much in the mood for some thrilling club football, at the Emirates this weekend.
International breaks can be boring and cumbersome and a lot of football fans may be wishing that it is cancelled, or at least played at the very end of a season. Some clubs lose players after an international break, others get back their players in good shape. Arsenal FC in recent years, have been unfortunate to welcome back their players many times with injuries. This time around, we may actually feel the benefit of the international break, as most of our first team players didn’t participate in football games.
While many clubs had several players on international duty, Arsenal were lucky to have more than half of their players not getting involved in football games. We had Rob Holding, Kieran Tierney, Mesut Ozil, Alex Lacazette and Pierre Aubameyang, all to ourselves! They were not involved in football games for their countries and they were told to stay behind to train. Aubameyang went to visit his family members but soon got back to Arsenal to train with the few players who stayed behind. All should be fit and well to face Southampton.
Now, all these players, on a normal day, should form the bulk of our first team, and having them available, should act as a special incentive to play them from the start of our game on Saturday. We need Holding back in our defence, we need Lacazette firing from all angles and we need Tierney starting from the left wing back position.
It is really to cry about, when you feel you have players who can win you games but your coach won’t make use of them just because he wants to prove a point. Emery needs to start all these players this Saturday against Southampton; he needs to stop being cautious in games that we should be firing on all cylinders.
Gooners, would you rather we make use of Emery’s regular first team players or we make use of players who are well rested and raring to go?
Sylvester Kwentua