Arsenal takes on Man Utd still looking for their first win under Mikel Arteta.
The Spaniard has helped the team overall, but the defence still let them down in their game against Chelsea.
Manchester United come here on a good run of form and with attackers who are scoring regularly at the moment.
Both Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford will surely provide a big test for Arsenal’s defence in this game with their pace and trickery, so it could be a busy day at the back for the Gunners.
Arsenal built on their fine performance against Bournemouth when they faced Chelsea last weekend. Although they lost that game late on, the result was simply cruel as they deserved at least a point for their efforts.
Bukayo Saka did well on the left and he should continue in that position here as both Kieran Tierney and Sead Kolasinac are still out injured.
Callum Chambers was injured in the game against Chelsea and he will most likely miss this game.
Chambers’ absence gives room for Shkodran Mustafi to start in central defence.
David Luiz should partner Mustafi here again, their second-half combination in the last game was nervy, but hopefully, Arteta and his team will have worked with them over the last few days drilling into them the basics of the game.
Hector Bellerin is fit again, but I think Arteta will stick with Ainsley Maitland-Niles as the right-back for this game.
So here is the back four I anticipate seeing Arteta field today.
Saka
Mustafi
Luiz
Maitland-Niles
My biggest worry is the combination of Luiz and Mustafi at centre back and I doubt I am alone in that opinion.
Arteta doesn’t have much choice, because Sokratis is too sluggish for EPL, Mavropanos couldn’t even mark the slow Benteke and Holding is still unfit
Mustafi is erratic, but he rarely gets injured and his defending stats are the best among our CBs’ in 2018/2019 season. I hope Saliba is not as injury-prone as the others
That’s the worst part,Saliba is injury prone… check the number of matches he has played this season
Please don’t start nelson…….pepe ought to start ahead of Nelson..
He actually did well against Chelsea. I’d drop Laca, put Nelson at LW, Pepe at RW, and Auba down the middle.
Plz no Nelson plzzzzz
Three managers all dropped Pepe, they can’t all be wrong can they? Pepe only does well against poor teams. When he comes up against good teams, he losses possession himself trying to go past players and leaving the ball. People overate him because our squad is so poor, it makes him look like a good player
Pepe was a good player before he came to Arsenal. He has not suddenly become this bad.
Pepe was the most dispossessed player in league 1 last season (110 times)
You are 100% that Pepe is the modern day version of Gervinho. I wish Lille take him back and pay us £20m and cancel the future instalments as well! We should never have bought him and in fact we did not need that type of player (lazy style)!
The summer window gone should have instead have seen Koulibally, Ndidi and Carassco come in plus 2 x full backs (both RB and LB) but not Tierney!
Oh well we have to do with what we have now and get these players working better and then looking to sell and replace them next window!
Gervinho 😂 In other words you’re saying we should have kept Iwobi?! 😆
No way Sue, sorry but all 3 are absolute cr*p sh*te players that conned clubs for a living! Pepe couldn’t take a snail on and he will not make it I am afraid!
Watch how Brighton plays against Chelsea…This is the spirit which Arsenal lost long way back…
I wrote in a previous post that I never expected to be worrying about what the Brightons and Villas of this world would be doing in the league. The way things are going we need the team to show the spirit of Brighton that you refer to tonight or we shall really be in the do do.
Yes I can’t believe we made chelshit look so good at the Emirates. Majority of this team is not even championship quality
Chelsea are garbage. It showed how bad we were. They didn’t even have one clear chance against us and still won. Even the winner could’ve been prevented at halfway line or even next to the goal by Mustafi, Saka or Leno, neither of them did.
Glad Brighton scored!
Sue, WHY ARE YOU GLAD? BRIGHTON ARE ONE OF OUR RIVALS NOW IN THE RELEGATION FIGHT. Chelsea are not and are out of sight of us. So many fans just react but do not think! A realist would be looking at teams below and around us, NOT above.
🙄
Arteta should use proper left back from our Academy rather than experimenting with Saka as a backup. Saka may be quick but defending is not natural for him.
And Arteta should spend time working with Mavropanos who have shown potential before injury.
Bellerin is still not fit, not appeared in any training photos recently. Holding not match fit, possibly on the bench. Sokratis still out due to head injury protocol. Then just to round things off, both Mustafi & Saka missed training yesterday.
Could be AMN-Mavropanos-Luiz-(who knows at LB).
I think the players are more concerned about showing up than showing a fight.
I can’t believe how much this players are paid to serve us shIt week in week out.
I pray they are up for a fight against united.
OT.. Grealish was MOTM.. it was between him & Mings!! The 2 I want!! Can we just go and buy them now please?! 😁
Brighton midfield terrorised Chelsea.. Pick all of them…Their bad luck cost 3 points for them..
Not the defence I want to see, but nowt we can do about it!
Just hope they all have a great game. And Kolasinac – please hurry back!!
Kolasinac is rubbish. People only see his attacking, defensively he is all over the place, both positionally and when tackling.
In wasn’t talking about his ability 😉
*I (not in!!!)
There are very interesting English players in the league and Championship:
Dunk, Coady, Kalvin Phillips, Bowen, Grealish, Cash, Lundstram, Cantwell, Aarons..
But we shun English players for some reason. Remember when Cahill was available for 7m? Wenger deemed that too much and Cahill went on to give Chelsea 7 good,years.
Agreed, Dunk of Brighton, Aarons and Lewis of Norwich and Tarkowski of Burnley would be my choice of EPL experienced back 4! I reckon that would cost us in the region of £100m max for all 4 combined. I would sell Papa, Luiz, Mustafi, Kolasenic and probably Chambers (too slow for this league) which would bring in over £100m fee income.
One thing for certain, we will run out of steam by 60 mins. Utd will hit us on counter, even if they are losing. We are the only club that don’t seem to have the ‘boss bounce’. Watford lost v Liverpool but now on a good run, Ancelotti 2 wins. Maybe even Moyes will get his first win before Arteta.
Arsenal has become just like any other team.gone are the days you would like forward to Arsenal match with excitement
Too many threads on this site. It’s getting silly. It’s like ADHD for threads. Slow down.
Regarding the United game I see the same problem. They will bide their time and unless we get a couple of goals early will hit us later. Not confident at all.
Sean, annoying though it is with the constant thread changes , the reason is simple; money for the site . I posted to this effect last week and neither Admin came on to deny that is the true reason that we have so many threads. They could not, in all honestly deny it, since it is true. This site is a business and makes money from constant threads, as worldly wise fans well know. Pretty well no business anywhere is run for its customers benefit. They are, nearly all, run to make money. REALITY!
I was surprised Christmas/New Year weren’t acknowledged on here this time.
THESE MAY WELL BE THE PLAYERS HE WILL PICK IN DEFENCE, but we will not have a defence, whoever is picked. AFC just does NOT have a defence of any sort . NOT ONE THAT CAN TRUTHFULLY BE CALLED A “DEFENCE”. That is the sad but true fact and the state we are in.