The Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta finally managed to get a word in about our opponents tomorrow night, West Ham, once he had managed to field the 1001 questions about Aubameyang and him being stripped of the captaincy.
It is clear that, so far this season, West Ham have been awesome against some very big teams, and fully deserve their place in the Top Four, but even with Arsenal recent reverses, we have still managed to creep up to just two points below our local rivals, and can even overtake them if we can manage to win tomorrow night.
Arteta sounds reasonably confident ahead of the game, and believes the home fans will spur the players on to our fifth home win in a row. This is what he said when he finally got to talk about the Hammers: “For me they are one of the best teams in the league,” he told Arsenal.com “The understanding that they have, the clarity in what they want to do and how much they are able to hurt teams with the way they play has been impressive and they have been really really consistent.
“It’s a big game because of the position they are in, and the position we want to be in. Tomorrow we have the opportunity at home, in front of our people to do that. That would be a big, big boost.
“You can see when the crowd gets behind the team, the moments that [the team] are creating,” he added.
“A really great example was against Southampton, and that’s what the players are talking about right now. They know tomorrow night under the lights they will be right behind the team and they want to please them.”
Obviously Arteta thinks that leaving Aubameyang out of the squad will concentrate his young team’s minds and with the Twelth Man there to back them up, then this couldn’t be a better time to play West Ham….