None of us expected anything from last night, I don’t think, so I’d be surprised if most of the Gooners were watching City’s motorcade match against Palace.
The hope that I draw from the overall result is twofold:
- Palace players ALREADY have one eye on their Europa Conference League final after the Premier League ends.
- I saw a post from a journalist on social media that Glasner had made a comment about Glasner linking City’s rotation last night, as they prepared for the cup final this weekend, to their own preparation for their own cup final.
On the second point, if they turn against us, he would be well within his rights to cite last night’s game, so that’s my first hope for us, that we get a rotating Palace team with one eye on the final and certainly not looking to stretch for that extra ball, or do that extra sprint. Some of the post-match stuff I read last night was that it was a bit too easy for City throughout. Hopefully that holds true next week in the final game of the season.
But who am I kidding? Palace will be 100% better in their final game of the season and I expect it to be nervous, worrying, nerve-wracking and nerve-wracking for everyone involved at The Arsenal. It’s just the way we do things. Nothing is easy.
Now back to Arsenal, and as our game is on Monday night it seems a bit odd to start looking towards Burnley. I’ll do my usual stuff looking at their recent performance, what the data is telling us, how I think they might play, but it seems a little too early to start thinking about that, doesn’t it? I mean, OF COURSE we all are thought about it, but it seems a little strange to me to obsessively look at every piece of information about a game that’s not even in this calendar week and still has four full days to go. There’s also the whole ‘Burnley are down’ thing, which becomes an unknown factor, but also makes you wonder if any of the analysis is worth it. They will be a little depressed, they know their time in this division is coming to an end, their fate is sealed. But does that give them any extra freedom to just say “fuck it, let’s do it”?
If they do, then it looks like this could be a very interesting play, as it would leave a lot of space for Arsenal to potentially profit quite a bit. Or is there an element of ‘professional pride, lads, let’s block the crap out of this game and see if we can frustrate Arsenal’? This certainly needs to be taken into consideration. Wolves did the same to the Emirates in December. Burnley could very well look to follow the same model.
It almost feels like the overall season data sets that currently exist are irrelevant, based on my assumptions above. I guess the only real data points you can take into account are the Leeds game which they lost 3-1 at Elland Road and the Villa game at home which they drew 2-2. I just had a quick look at the Leeds game and watched a quick recap of the match, and by all accounts Leeds beat Burnley. Some of the defense was also a bit hit or miss. So this is a positive sign. In the home game against Villa, Villa dominated possession, scored an early goal, got it back and took the lead, only for Burnley to equalize. But it was a very “Emery-end of season” game. Villa clearly had their eyes on a European prize and some of the defenders and goalkeepers on both fronts were rather poor quality. Dubravka sends balls into the center of the six yard box, front post corners snap, feeds a ball from the goalkeeper to Watkins for his straight goal, all that kind of play I can definitely do on Monday night!
Arteta will speak to the media tomorrow and we’ll have an update on team news, but what I’m hoping for today is some news of players looking good in training, maybe the odd snapshot from the training pitch, and then some sort of positivity on Timber’s availability. We now know, thankfully, that Ben White doesn’t need surgery, which is great for him, but I still suspect it will keep him from playing next month. Does that leave open the possibility of him getting on the plane to England? I hope so. That would be a great story for a guy who has dealt with so many injuries over the past two seasons. He’s had his end-of-season run of games taken away and his potential impact on a title race, he’s had a potential start in the Champions League final taken away, so having him move to the States would be a nice little bonus for us Arsenal fans, and certainly for him.
Okay, I’ll leave it there today, I think. I’ll be back tomorrow with a more detailed look at Burnley’s season, as well as how their fans, and the pundits, view it.
Catch you all then.
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