Arsenal vs Burnley Preview, Line up and Predicted score by KJ
It’s a bit odd to go a full week without football in between but Arsenal were knocked out of the League Cup fairly early by Southampton and were afforded a week’s rest. It’s a blessing in disguise really considering the multitude of injuries we have at the moment.
We are still a very disjointed team and this has affected us quite negatively in the smaller games against Leicester, Hull and Tottenham. There was no relentlessness in the way we attacked or created chances against teams that largely sat back. This is down to the fact that we aren’t a properly coherent team yet and I don’t know when we’ll “click”.
Cazorla, Ramsey and Oxlade-Chamberlain (in the absence of Wilshere) will need to step up massively against Burnley as these games are won by good work by the midfield. Winning the ball back and playing precise balls to the forwards. Our defence is in still quite a bit of a mess but with Arteta back, I’m not as worried as I was when we had Flamini starting.
Line up:
Szczesny
Chambers – Mertesacker – Monreal – Gibbs
Arteta
Sanchez – Ramsey – Chamberlain – Cazorla
Welbeck
Chambers will seriously need to up his game if we’re going to survive without Debuchy. He is looking really rigid but Burnley is a good chance to gain some attacking confidence.
Monreal has been surprisingly decent at centre back and I can’t see Burnley testing him too much.
Arteta will hopefully intelligently shield the back 4 as well as dictating the pace of the game. His ball retention will hopefully allow us to take the sting out of the game after we score or possibly concede.
Like I said before, we need to see Ramsey and The Ox really penetrating the opposition with good passing and movement.
This game shouldn’t be difficult at all but considering things are a bit iffy performance wise, I could see this ending as a tight 1-0 to the Gunners.