So deadline day came and went to the disappointment of Gooners everywhere.
For the rest of the season (you just know we won’t buy in January) we basically have no defensive midfielders and are extremely short on quality strikers.
On the bright side we did manage to offload two pieces of deadwood, albeit only on loan.
But I’m not going to talk today about all that or about how we really missed a chance to strengthen the squad into one that can challenge for trophies. Today I’ll be looking into our fixture which away to Liverpool.
This same fixture last season was one of the worst performances by Arsenal where we were completely outplayed by Liverpool but still managed to win thanks to a last gasp peach of a goal. Ironically, (sadly) the goal was beautifully assisted and sublimely finished by the two players that left the club.
But I think today’s game will be completely different than last year’s though.
Looking at our team the good news is that Laurent Koscielny is back in the squad and Wojciech Szczesny is 50/50. We have no fresh injuries and have the benefit of not playing on Thursday over our rivals, whether that plays into our favor remains to be seen.
My predicted Line up:
Szczesny
Jenkinson Koscielny Vermaelen Gibbs
Arteta Coquelin Cazorla
Walcott Giroud Podolski
The first thing you might notice is that I’ve omitted Abou Diaby. While I won’t argue the guy’s undoubted talent, I can’t remember his last good performance for us and not just because he’s injured most of the time but he really does slow our passing game down. He has been unable to shoot on target for a while and generally just frustrates. I’d rather Francis Coquelin come in and protect the defence, giving more attacking freedom to our Spanish magicians.
I would also start with Theo Walcott instead of Gervinho, despite both of them being quite similar in the good and bad parts of their game, I think Walcott is more capable of hitting the target so has more chance of scoring, and god knows how much we need that goal.
Onto Liverpool, and I really don’t know which side will turn up, the one that completely outplayed City for large parts of their game last week or the won that almost blew it in the Europa League against Hearts – either way one thing I do know is they are even lighter than us in attack and can be really profligate in front of goal.
Score Prediction:
Despite our lack of activity in the transfer market, I still think we have what it takes to be mount a challenge and do better than last season, just scoring our first goal of the season would lift a huge weight of our back, and the team can then play without that thought in the back of their heads.
With our new found solidity at the back, Liverpool’s knack for missing chances and the seeming intent of their defenders and goalie for blunders, we might just be able to win this one.
But unfortunately I’m not that optimistic so I’m going to go with a third successive draw, but not a goalless one, 1-1 looks likely.
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