Morning all.
It’s West Ham at home this afternoon and Mikel Arteta has a little bit of thinking to do when it comes to his team selection. On paper, the front three that started last week against Leicester remain the only three natural attacking options available to him, but it’s fair to say it didn’t really work.
Leandro Trossard was quieter in the middle than he usually is out wide, and while Ethan Nwaneri caught the eye on the right hand side with his quality, Raheem Sterling caught the eye for the opposite reason. The introduction of Mikel Merino up front was the thing that turned the game our way, and in normal circumstances you’d say he’s done enough to start today’s game.
It is, perhaps, a bit more complicated though. The manager keeps talking about we need Sterling and, regardless of how poor he’s been during his loan spell, that’s true – especially with so many injuries to contend with right now. It’s a stark reality, but it’s not incorrect, and as Lewis pointed out on our Patreon preview podcast, perhaps today is one of the last real chances to start him to see if any life can be breathed into him. I can see the logic to that. You don’t want to rely on him away at Forest, for example, but a goal today – if he could conjure up such a thing – would be very useful.
That said, nothing I’ve seen from Sterling since arrival makes me think today is the day he just bursts into life. I’d love to be wrong, because the more players who can contribute we have available the better, but it really feels like a risk to me in a game we have to win. If he has another 60 dead minutes, doesn’t that make our life more difficult? The flip-side of that though is that if we need to change something late on, I’m even less certain of his ability to be that guy. So if you need something in reserve, is Merino the best option in that sense – because he gives you a different kind of player in the centre-forward position?
All in all, it’s not a great choice for Arteta to have to make, but this is where we are and he has to find a way to make it work. I look at the full back positions and think they could be absolutely crucial. We have two great options on the left with Riccardo Calafiori and Myles Lewis-Skelly, and I think if the latter starts, the former really does give the team some attacking emphasis when he comes on. On the other side, I don’t think Ben White is quite ready to start, but maybe we can get 20-25 minutes out of him, and against some tired legs his overlapping runs might cause West Ham some issues late in the game. In the absence of literal attackers on the bench, maximise the resources in a key area which can still hurt the opposition.
I wonder too if today might be a Jorginho game, with his ability to find passes from deeper areas. Thomas Partey looked tired against Leicester, and there are big games to come, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that change happen in midfield. Beyond that though, there’s not a huge amount for the manager to work with. And, for all the issues with the front three last weekend, I don’t think we got enough of a tune from the players behind them, so there needs to be some improvement there today.
Players like Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard are more than capable of supplementing the attackers with goals themselves, but with just 1 and 2 goals respectively in the Premier League this season, they haven’t really done that yet. Now, with everything that’s going on, would be a great time for them to find their shooting boots.
With Liverpool away at Man City tomorrow, a win today would cut the gap to 5 points and apply just a little pressure on the leaders. Arteta says:
We have to do our job and it’s going to be a tough one against West Ham. If we do that, we’ll be looking at that game on Sunday. With 13 games to go there’s still a lot to play for and you can see how difficult it is for everybody to win football matches, so we need to be there.
I don’t like “ifs” in football or sport. Let’s do what we have to do, and if the “if” comes right, great, but let’s make sure that what is in our hands, we do it.
And that’s the thing – we can only control what happens on the pitch today, so whatever team he picks, whatever decisions he makes about the front three and the rest, let’s hope we find a way to win this game.
Right, let’s leave it there for now. Join us later for live blog coverage, plus you’ll get the match report, goal clips, reaction, player ratings and much more over on Arseblog News.
Come on you reds!
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