This super Sunday could decide a lot in the top 4 tussle by KM
Hello everybody on this fine Friday. It’s the end of the week and as the weekend approaches the focus is moving back from transfer rumours and the ‘Mourinho to replace Van Gaal’ story to the action that will happen at the weekend.
So on Sunday’s early fixture we’ll be facing this year’s sensation – Leicester. I think that just 14 rounds before the season ends nobody thinks that Leicester will just fall apart now. They play with confidence, they pick up results, they don’t play in Europe and they are the underdog.
It’s a story worthy of a fairytale, but it’s the reality of this league which is well dominated by Leicester’s energetic style and unexpected explosion of talent. They started the season as the comeback kings, but since christmas their defence has been solid and our low scoring attack will have to do a better job than in the last few rounds.
Usually the smaller teams are the party poopers, but this time that has to be us. The entire Leicester squad probably costs little more than we paid for Ozil to assemble, and what I enjoy the most is that it’s a complete mockery of Arsene Wenger’s excuses that you cannot compete if you don’t spend ridiculous money, so we won’t spend any and have an excuse.
Guess what? If we don’t win on Sunday, it’s another egg on his face and it will be a tough game. They beat Liverpool and City in admirable fashion and they will play with high confidence, without having much to lose.
For us on the other hand, it’s the Arsene syndrome again. He’s under mountains of pressure to deliver the league title, with the state the other teams are in, and he’s not doing a very good job of that.
Squad wise I liked the fact the Ox got in front of Campbell and Walcott, because even though none of the above-mentioned is world class, we have competition and we rotate, and at the moment the Ox looks like the best choice.
Other than that pretty much anyone can name the squad that we’ll start. I’m so disappointed we keep on with Flamini and Ramsey since it just doesn’t work. Why did we buy Elneny when he isn’t even on the bench for the games?
Le Coq has returned, but Wenger went back to his usual self, where he is stuck on one starting squad and doesn’t rotate even though the results haven’t been good. Gabriel also looks more like a makeshift defender rather than a true replacement of Per, who is finally paying the price of his mistakes. They’ll be very dangerous on set pieces as City felt first hand.
Hopefully we will not play with fear this time. We need to focus on dominating the game and keeping a clean sheet. Our record when we concede first this year has seen us win only one game in the league – ironically it was against Leicester. One of only two defeats they’ve conceded all season! That’s championship form.
We missed points in quite a few easy games this season and from now on it only gets tougher, but this is classic Arsene for you. Will he do another great escape like in the Champions League or will we watch again a movie we’ve seen so many times before?
Part of the answers will come this Sunday. Until then, enjoy.
Konstantin