The Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta saw his much-depleted and unfit team easily beaten by Liverpool, and although he is well aware that the Gunners must bounce back and take all three points from Burnley tomorrow, he knows he will not have many more players to choose from to get our Top Four chase back on track.
Obviously the midfield is our weakest position at the moment with Granit Xhaka being joined by Thomas Partey on the naughty step after a needless red card against Jurgen Klopp’s team, and of course Mo Elneny is still with Egypt at AFCON, which leaves Albert Lokonga as our only recognised senior midfielder left in the squad.
Another disadvantage for Arsenal is that Burnley’s last game was on the 8th of January and will be fully rested, while Arsenal have played 3 matches since then, and with few options for Arteta to rotate means that fatigue is definitely starting to come into play.
Regarding the players that Arteta will have available for Sunday, the boss told Arsenal.com: “We have to go day by day.”
“There are different reasons why [our players] are not here with us and I will assess it.
“The thing is they all want to be involved as quickly as possible but some of them couldn’t be here and hopefully, we haven’t lost anybody else for Sunday.
“We are here to win football matches and that’s the pressure. We know the amount of matches that we’re going to have to win if we want to be there but you can’t look too far ahead.
“A lot has happened in recent weeks, it’s been extremely difficult to manage the squad and the team because we’ve lost a lot of players and we have to re-unite, we have to win on Sunday and look from there because then we have a window and hopefully we can get some players back.”
Arteta is very well aware that this is a must-win game if we are going to stay in the hunt for the Top Four, and whichever team he puts out, I’m reasonably confident we can beat the team at the bottom of the table, don’t you?
Watch Mikel Arteta talk about Arsenal v Burnley and the pressure on the race for Top Four
Holding should be good enough to start as center half in this game therefore ben white plays at central midfield alongside lokonga
The Birnley game is not easy by any stretch of imagination. That said, I would prefer a 3 man midfield comprising ASL, Ben White/Chambers and Odegard which would allow Ode to play a bit upfront in his favourite position to create goal scoring chances. Birnley is a physical team and is good at dead ball situations so we must be focussed and be good in the press and create as many chances as possible. On paper we should be able to beat them but we must play well.
PATS PERTINENT POINT ABOUT OUR PLAYERS HAVING PLAYED OF NECESSITY, IN SOME CASES THOUGH NOT PROPERLY MATCH FIT, WHILE BURNLEY ARE FULLY RESTED, IS A REALISTIC ONE. A hard fought win by just one goal , possibly 2-1, is my forecast.
5-0 would of course be wonderful, BUT it is not the realistic forecast, unless, as some are on here , you are a fantasist or dreamer.
I ALWAYS prefer realism .
That is Arteta and Edu’s problem. They have been doing away with players without replacement. They don’t know their jobs. We will soon see Arteta sweating by the line. Very unprepared and be telling the defenders to be playing for time shamelessly. That’s his style when he has lost hope and confidence.
We’ve played 3 games in 21 days, I think we are fully rested as well.worst management of players I’ve ever seen at a top club.
Does anyone know how much revenue we’ve brought in from player sales under Arteta?
Tomorrow will be our FIFTH game in the 23 days of January…
can’t we at least wait until the end of the game to start making excuses???
😂😂👍