Sunderland v Arsenal Saturday Nov 8th 530 PM

Sicario2

Annoyingly I may have to miss this game as got a wedding to attend (the reception literally starts at 530) ffs

Anyway, if we win and don’t concede it will be 9 in a row and would mean we would be the first English club in top flight history to achieve this.

That’s all well and good but the main thing is getting the 3 points. The clean sheet win record is merely a bonus and we shouldn’t get too obsessed with it at the expense of winning the game.

Sunderland have a good home record and their fans will be up for it but if we can win it will really set us up well given our two main rivals play each other the following day. Win this and then sit back enjoy Sunday and then get our injured players back over the following two weeks to go again post international break.

Glad Zubi will be back for this one. Hopefully Trossard has recovered from his little knock to be able to start this one.

Xhaka v Rice 🍿 will be something to look forward to as well.

COYG

Qwiss

Sicario2 Annoyingly I may have to miss this game as got a wedding to attend (the reception literally starts at 530) ffs

I've sat at a lot of weddings with a phone strategically hidden behind the tables centre piece with a match on it. As long as you're not at the top table its fine.

Sicario2 That’s all well and good but the main thing is getting the 3 points. The clean sheet win record is merely a bonus and we shouldn’t get too obsessed with it at the expense of winning the game.

Yeah I'm starting to worry it's going to become a distraction.

est

Qwiss Yeah I'm starting to worry it's going to become a distraction.

Keeping clean sheets is a distraction that's not going to make us lose games at least. Hopefully it will be a distraction that stops us from conceding an unnecessary equalising goal or a goal that puts us behind.

It's going to end soon enough. Hopefully we'll still be able to win games even when we finally concede.

Burnwinter

Not to downplay this all-comps clean sheet record, but United's league-only 08-09 record of 14 without conceding would be the far greater record to beat. We're a miracle run behind that at the moment.

est

Burnwinter United's league-only 08-09 record of 14 without conceding

Consecutive games?

JazzG

est Yeah they did, crazy run that. They went from mid November to mid/end Feb without conceding a single goal in the league. We'd need to go up to our game against Liverpool in January to beat that record!

Burnwinter

est Yep, a completely wild record that, but there you have it.

est

Burnwinter That's mental!

Gurgen

Couldn't care less about that record, just get 3 points. Considering our injuries and their form, I have no doubt Arteta will turn this into a snooze fest which we win with a second half corner.

Gunner89

Just pump the ball for merino and get the 3 points

USArsenal

While its nice to get the clean sheets (and lets be honest, barely conceding a shot on target), the 3 points is all we're after at this point. With Pool and City playing each other on Sunday, one (or both) of them will be dropping points. Lets get a 9 point gap before that game and see what happens. With any luck, Xhaka will play a stinker against us.

Panda

Team picks itself with the absences:

Raya
Timber-Saliba-Gabriel-Calafiori
Zubi-Rice
Eze
Saka-Merino-Trossard

This feels big with Liverpool and City playing each other. Sat early eve kick off their fans will be well up for it and this will not be an easy game.

I hope we don't underestimate them and that Eze, Saka, Tross, Merino is enough to do the business in attack for us.

If we can win this and Pool and City draw and we get our attackers back after the break I will really start to believe.

Burnwinter

Panda Christ that's a threadbare lineup. Thank God we signed so many because we know how to break them.

MistaT

I’d love an Eze “arrival” game.

Need someone to step forward and dominate a match offensively.

HomeSteak

Considering our next 3 in the league will be very hard this is a must win. Then we add Liverpool vs City at the weekend. Also the next 3 come after an international break & we have Bayern in there as well...yeah.

Sicario2

HomeSteak Bayern game not that critical given we won 4/4. It’s a game mainly for pride (who will go top of the CL group stage).

I do think it’s a must win given the context as well.

RowJimmy

Waiting for a league game where someone doesn't say it's a must win. Suppose when we've wrapped up the title.

Sicario2

RowJimmy every game is relatively must win when you are going for the title. You don’t know what sliding doors effect could occur if you don’t win a game especially when the margins are so fine.

That Newcastle game earlier this season was a must win following Liverpool dropping points. Sat is must win as one of City/Liverpool will drop points.

Stop drowning in the semantics.

Burnwinter

Jimmy's swimming along fine in the semantics the way I see it. 😆

Panda

Burnwinter Yeah I am worried about this game without Gyokeres. If we come through it will be big.

Dom

I've watched a couple of Sunderland matches this season and a few things have struck me. Firstly, they're a short team. Secondly, their coach is obviously a Wenger disciple because their style of play reminds me a lot of Arsenal's 07/08 team - it's not an approach that's common these days and I've found them enjoyable to watch. Lastly, their recruitment team/scouts are bordering on geniuses because I think they've got too much quality to go down and will be a goal threat against anyone in the league.

This is going to be a lot tougher than the Burnley match and we need to make the height difference between the two teams count.

Tactics

Dom Are they as attack minded vs the big boys?

I watched them against Chelsea and they looked compact and difficult to break down. Their shape was similar to Palace's without the ball: a 5-4-1. They forced Chelsea wide and immediately double or triple marked the winger who was forced to either pass it back or sideways. The ball frequently got circulated back to the centre and to the other wing, and crosses eventually came in which were easily dealt with.

We have struggled against such tactics before but maybe they'll be more open/attacking at home. I think this is another match where we'll likely have to rely on set pieces for the opening goal. I keep worrying that our set pieces would fail us and we'll fire blank just like so many times (relative to our rivals) last season. However we keep scoring the opening goal from them, I have got no issues with that but is it really sustainable though??

Gotta say I am nervous going into this as I see it as a potential banana skin. But then I felt the same way against Burnley last week....