The next 5: Page 8 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

The next 5

Bernard Woolley

I think 8-10 points from those 5 would be considered a good return, all things considered. Of course, the big variable between now and then is in what shape players (both ours and our rivals') return from the World Cup.

Sicario

Two schools of thought:

1) Biggest concern with the break is that it significantly halts our momentum which as we know not always easy to build.
2) Gives the players and staff a mental re-set. Take stock of what we’ve done. It’s been a record breaking amount of games we’ve played in a short period of time so you can argue it’s best to have a break when you are at top.

Also let’s say if Brazil lose the final, what state will Jesus/Martinelli be in? We all saw what happened to Arshavin’s form when Russia failed to qualify for WC 2010. Don’t think he played well for us again.

Having said that, the opposite could happen. Imagine having returning players in the squad that come back as world champions half way though the season. Their momentum will be unreal for rest of season, would be on such a high.

goon

Burnwinter wrote:
Decent time to reboot this thread, as we are not going to play until Christmas, and after our next five, the season should be half over in terms of fixtures.

At the moment this is the line-up, and you'd have to say that if we came away from this with a perfect record, it would be surprising and it would be completely impossible to contain the hype.

Boxing Day West Ham (H)
New Year's Eve Brighton (A)
3 January Newcastle (H)
14 January Spurs (A)
21 January United (H)

We could definitely win all of those, but …

Hard one to call as we have no idea what state we'll be when we come back, don't exactly get to ease ourselves back into it either, they're all potential banana skins.

I reckon it could be as low as 9 but hoping we'll get at least 10-12. The good news for us is that City have the below in their next 6 games, so we may have some room to slip up.

Leeds (a)
Everton (h)
Chelsea (a)
United (a)
Wolves (h)
Tottenham (a)

RocktheCasbah

Of all our next five to come, I think the games I'm currently most worried about are the Brighton away and Newcastle at home ones. I think they'll be tough games to negotiate in such close proximity, though I would always back us at home.

I'm sure the fear will come nearer the time in regards to Spurs and United, but Spurs have not exactly been formidable at home this season and we are clearly a much better side than we were in May, so I think we can get at least a point there. And West Ham home feels quite a kind reintroduction to the Premier League.

Qwiss

I think 9 points would be good from that. Any more and it'd be excellent. Obviously losing 2 games in 5 would scare us all but if we could recover after that and win the games we should then 9 from that 5 isn't bad at all.

MistaT

Newcastle at home will be challenging, but not nearly the test Chelsea just had at their ground. You could tell that Howe and team were fully committed to decreeing their place ahead of Chelsea in that game. The final 5 minutes of that game were wild.

Burnwinter

Think our players will be well up for it against Newcastle, correspondingly.

Reckon if we can win the first two matches back, we'll have our tails up again. Brighton away might be the hardest of the lot, even. If we go into that home game against Newcastle still five points or more clear at the top of the league and injury free, I predict we'll roll over them.

Clrnc

[Twitter]

I'm going for 13 points.

RocktheCasbah

Clrnc wrote:
[Twitter]

I'm going for 13 points.

50 points after 19 games? That'd be incredible.

TambourineMan

We'd need 13 from the next 5 not 6 to be on 50 points after 19.

RocktheCasbah

Ah yeah, I hadn't clocked there was six games in that sequence. But 50 points from 20 games would still be incredible, no?

Coombs

Brighton, Tottenham, and sadly, Newcastle, are the fixtures that worry me from that list.

Clrnc

RocktheCasbah wrote:
Ah yeah, I hadn't clocked there was six games in that sequence. But 50 points from 20 games would still be incredible, no?

Looking at the way we grind out points I won't be surprised if we reached that, and we also probably need that kind of pace to win the league as we will drop points in the 2nd half when tough games come

Claudius

Arterta needs to keep them focused as long as possible. My fear is that City are playing like shit. They still haven’t figured out how to play with a target man. You can see from the number of touches he gets. He will do 15 or 20 touches and leave with a brace. They do a lot more crossing than before - highest crossing team in league actually. So they’re quite different. Adapting. At some point, they’ll understand how to be effective. Fortunately for us, Haaland and Pep are alone over the World Cup, so they can’t improve during the next six weeks.

Qwiss

RocktheCasbah wrote:
Ah yeah, I hadn't clocked there was six games in that sequence.

Oh yeah me too when I said 9 points would be good.

Putting a 6 game run in the 5 game thread is bad form.

goon

Claudius wrote:
Arterta needs to keep them focused as long as possible. My fear is that City are playing like shit. They still haven’t figured out how to play with a target man. You can see from the number of touches he gets. He will do 15 or 20 touches and leave with a brace. They do a lot more crossing than before - highest crossing team in league actually. So they’re quite different. Adapting. At some point, they’ll understand how to be effective. Fortunately for us, Haaland and Pep are alone over the World Cup, so they can’t improve during the next six weeks.

They're not getting enough creativity out of Bernardo and Gundogun at the moment so they're over committing with numbers in and around the box. I can't believe how far forward Rhodri has been getting, playing 1-2s into the opposition box. It's making them really easy to pick off on the counter.

banduan

it's a nasty run of matches. Only Hammers are a shout for easy 3 points.

Claudius

banduan wrote:
it's a nasty run of matches. Only Hammers are a shout for easy 3 points.

we are top of the table having beaten everyone we saw bar United and Southampton. Arteta is nobody's bitch.

Tam

The difficulty won't be in the individual matches, I'm confident we could win any of them on any given day, but the bunched up nature of so many dangerous teams in a short span of time. It's a huge test for Arteta in facing the potential challenges of missing key players for even just a week within that month period, or instantly reacting to poor performances/losses to go again next time around in big games, never mind managing the post World Cup situation.

It may even be the fact these are big games is enough motivation to pull the team through and it's the following February games against lesser teams where we need to be mindful of mentality and focus.

QuincyAbeyie

Claudius wrote:
banduan wrote:
it's a nasty run of matches. Only Hammers are a shout for easy 3 points.

we are top of the table having beaten everyone we saw bar United and Southampton. Arteta is nobody's bitch.

Not sure how you got that from banduan's post. Like Tam says, the accumulation of matches where we are favorites, but not favorites by far is likely to result in dropped points. It's basic probability: if we have 60% of winning each match individually we are favorites in every match but will likely win only 60% of them (please don't get hung up in the specific number itself).

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