Arsenal v Brentford Wednesday 3rd Dec 730 PM KO

Qwiss

I'd start all of Ode, Saka, Eze and Gyokeres in this.

The player who needs a rest is Zubi BTW. He's played loads. Norgaard vs his old club could be in order.

Pepe LeFrits

Qwiss Norgaard vs his old club could be in order.

Not a bad shout but Timber has played as many minutes as Zubi and I'd be wary of too much rotation in the back line. I'd be more tempted to rotate Merino for Rice I think

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

lorddulaarsenal swap Hincapié and Calafiori. I think the former's rampaging out wide will be useful with Eze tucking in, and Cala is much more commanding at CB.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

P.S. Madueke looks pretty lousy on the left wing, doesn't he?

Qwiss

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert yeah I think Arteta knows it too. He's moved him onto the right in both games since he's been back. If he comes on I like switching Sakas side as he's more two sided currently than Madueke.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Qwiss yeah Saka is much better on the left and he grew up honing his skills on the left side anyway.

Qwiss

Pepe LeFrits yeah we can't rest Timber as much as we should while Gabby is out and not at all if Saliba is still out too.

HomeSteak Win this one and somehow get 1 point vs Villa and we will be ok.

I'm expecting 6 from these 2. Less would be extremely disappointing. Why should we be afraid of Villa?

Phil

Raya
White Saliba Hincapie Cala
Odegaard Norgaard Rice
Madueke Gyokores Martinelli

Sicario2

I know it’s a short turnaround since Sunday but the players must go into this game hurt and angry. Should be pissed off we conceded that last min goal v Sunderland and even more pissed off we couldn’t finish a ten man Chelsea.

Mustn’t feel sorry for ourselves that there are so many games in a short space of time but use this opportunity to increase the distance between us and the chasing pack as they will be feeling the pressure too.

Let’s make those fans of opposition side hand us the title because they simply can’t take us winning it. Let them grovel and sulk and have sour grapes when we keep winning.

Let’s make sure that every rival feels the pain when they drop points as their respective margin of error gets lower.

Let’s fuck Brentford for that cunt ref costing us in the league by not drawing the lines, singing and dancing v us in August 2021 when we had half our team out due to Covid and for not beating them at home last season.

Win, keep the momentum, don’t look back.

HomeSteak

Win this one and somehow get 1 point vs Villa and we will be ok. We have a decent run of games after, also we can just play the bench and kids vs Bruges and that will give us 2 weeks with no mid week games to get fresh.
Chelsea and Liverpool have easy games Wednesday and will make up points on us no doubt if we lose, City play Fulham away, every away game is hard for them for some reason but I feel they will win this one

Burnwinter

We've got something like 8 fixtures in December and only one or two of them we'll want to rotate for, and a lot of the players are either knackered or lacking sharpness.

We could easily drop a few points versus Brentford and Villa.

The first key will be the players' mentality in the face of any setbacks like that, as well as (inevitably it seems) more injuries and refereeing injustices.

The second key will be protecting important players.

Every other club has a torrid run as well now. If we go into the new year where we are now or with a clear lead still in the table at all, we'll be in great shape to take the title.

HomeSteak

Qwiss They are a very good team, away game and all that and we simply don't do that well against them, or against Unai in general(even when he was at Villareal). In the last 5, it's been 2 wins each and a draw so even, but it should not have been even....also they are having a good season, they are only 6 points behind. Form wise, in the last 5 PL games they are the only team better then us and even if we got back in the last 10 PL games, they are only 1 point behind us. So plenty to fear

Add the fact that we always seem to be tired as fuck after mid week games...the Villa game will be very hard. But lets take it one at a time.

Sicario2

HomeSteak I forgot Villa don’t have a midweek game themselves this week.

Anyway like you said. One game at a time.

Qwiss

HomeSteak They are a very good team, away game and all that and we simply don't do that well against them

Like Newcastle and Fulham?

IBL

I wish we could rest Rice

HomeSteak

Sicario2 they do but unlike us they don't seem to be affected. They play on Thursday even. In fact, 5 times it happened that they played Thursday - weekend, won all 5 on the weekend, including some hard ones like Spurs, City or Bournemouth.
Us on the other hand, had 5 european weeks with doubles, we lost points in 3 out of 5 of the weekend games.

But let's look into this after this game.

Tactics

I think we need to rest Rice, Saka, and Timber. This is not to underestimate Brentford but we need to manage the minutes of our key players. Zubi only played 45 minutes the other day, so I'd play him. Hopefully Norgaard can come in for him after 60 minutes and I wouldn't play him against Brugge.

I'd go:

Trossard---Gyokeres---Madueke
------Merino---------Ode
--------------Zubi
Cala--Hincapie--Saliba---White
-------------Raya

I think we need Merino to combat their long throws in the absence of Gabriel

lorddulaarsenal

I’m going to the Villa match on Saturday so I can shout and put off the Villa players.

RocktheCasbah

lorddulaarsenal is it bad that I read that as "pull off the Villa players"?

flobaba

lorddulaarsenal 07:30PM!

Panda

Rotation needed for this but there is a fine line between rotation and losing the rhythm of the team.

I'd go:
Raya
White-Mosquera-Hincapie-Calafiori
Zubi-Merino
Odegaard
Saka-Gyokeres-Eze