Can The Gunners Feelgood Factor Do For Leicester?
Apr 25th, 2017 by 'holic
Still basking in the afterglow of Sunday? I know I am, but the players have no time to reflect on just what they achieved on Sunday as they prepare for the visit of the champions, Leicester City, on Wednesday.
When the Foxes came calling last season the match had even more significance than this season. We were notionally still in the title chase and our last gasp Danny Welbeck winner provoked huge celebrations around the Grove.
Three days after beating Manchester City with a determined but gruelling performance there may be players who are in need of a rest. Aaron Ramsey might be one who might appreciate not being asked to play twice in a week having not long returned from his latest injury. Olivier Giroud is another who might make way, for either Danny Welbeck or a fresh Theo Walcott.
Arsene Wenger would not reveal his formation in the pre-match press conference although he conceded that going with the back three again was a possibility. It is interesting that the players responded to changes of system against Southampton in the FA Cup (4-3-3) and the last two matches (a very flexible 3-4-3). It is also noticeable that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has played extremely well in his two different roles in those set-ups.
Leicester players haven’t covered themselves in glory this season and are thought to have been behind the downfall of Claudio Ranieri, who led them to Premier League jubilation last season. Under his replacement, Craig Shakespeare, they have won five of their last seven league matches. Even so they are just six points clear of the relegation zone so we can expect them to put up a considerable fight. The Champions League quarter-finalists will be without Morgan, Slimani, and Mendy but a familiar foe, Huth, returns after suspension.
The ‘holic pound
So unfortunate was I not to collect a tidy profit on Sunday due to the 90 minutes rule that I am keeping faith in a 2-1 win for the Gunners. A repeat of last season’s scoreline is favourite with the bookies too, so shop around to get 8/1.
For those who are going the weather forecast makes for grim reading. Wrap up in some waterproof and warm clothing. Winter is briefly returning. Today we have had everything here in the west. Sunshine, rain, hail, sleet, snow and high winds. I’ll be hoping to find a half decent stream to follow the action. Good luck if you are in the same boat as me.
Have a great Wednesday, ‘holics.
62 Responses to “Can The Gunners Feelgood Factor Do For Leicester?”
Best bit of this Chelsea game so far has been the adverts.
2 is the new number 1.
Alternative facts are so … liberating. Or something.
Three of the four champions league places?
2-4 is like winning three trophies.
Sounds like poor weather is forecast for the game. Maybe Cech can score a goal with clever use of those high winds, though.
she
Hard luck with the 90 minute rule on ‘holic pound. No such restrictions with the punts on this side of the pond. Chalk it up as a moral victory!
Unusually tasteful move in this day and age for Ajax to rename their stadium after an individual rather than a corporation.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/39713144
I’m away in Belfast tomorrow so will miss this but I can sense a feelgood atmosphere starting to developmwhich will really grow if we win our next two matches. It will be tough tomorriw but 2-1 looks about right to me
Recent history is with the ‘Holic pound. We have won our last three home league games against Leicester City by the score of 2-1, and five of the last eight.
A historical note: The first 2-1 home win was recorded by Woolwich Arsenal against Leicester Fosse in April 1897. The goals were scored by ‘Big Sandy’ Alex Caie, who would die in a railway accident in Massachusetts in the United States in 1914, and fellow Scot James Brock, who would be sold to the Isle of Wight side, Cowes of the Southern League Division Two Southwest for the princely sum of £30 the following year. Caie had a brief Arsenal career, just eight games, but scored four goals. The team against Leicester that day comprised nine Scotsmen and two Englishmen both from north of the Trent.
Cheers Holic,
I’ll be there tomorrow with a ticket for Erin as well.
After your weather warning, we’ll be hoping NOT to find a stream down the Hornsey Road. ?? ?
Personally, the Leicester “dream” – assuming we couldn’t win the title ourselves – ended for me when we played them at the Emirates. A horrible, niggly team that put in some nasty tackles, wasted a lot of time, won a penalty with a self inflicted trip off a trailing leg through Vardy, and Mahrez failed with a similar attempt in the second half.
I have to say, knowing how you love transfer tittle tattle, that I wouldn’t be terribly upset to hear we might be looking at Casper Schmeichel in the summer. Cech seems to have lost a bit of something this season and Saturday’s attempt to stop Aguero’s goal was worrying.
I do like Martinez, but with Ospina off in the summer, I wouldn’t mind a goalkeeping No1 and No2 of Schmeichel and Martinez.
That should have put paid to that then !
A resurgent 3-1 will do nicely tomorrow with a glimpse of our old swagger emerging in front of that newly rock solid defence.
Ahem …… ?
Summer Schmeichel in the casper.
Idiot wind.
The Isle of Wight had a football team? I don’t remember that but I like the idea – I had a couple of great holidays there in my teens ( a long time ago ) and the reference brought back some good memories – thanks Ned.
What happened to the usual moaners in the last drinks – perhaps the thought of AW having another game to take charge of was too much for them to enjoy another trip to Wemberley?
Here’s to finding a way to upset the Chavs – maybe they’ll do us a favour and let Terry play for one last hurrah?
Leicester – pffft – 2-0 no problem.
UTA.
Nice preview Guvna.
I’m making up for missing the home games against Shitteh and Wet Spam by staying up for this one.
Like Trev @13, I have sour memories of the stunts Lesta pulled last season and expect nothing better tomorrow. I hope that we have enough fresh legs with heads containing the same resolve and willing application to reproduce Sunday’s invigorating performance and result by teaching these foxes a lesson.
Schmeichel? I agree about Cech being on the downward slope but what about Szczezny or even Hart? Kasper is no Peter.
Go win, Arsenal.
Agree bath, I’m surprised Hart is held in such small regard by his club and could be a snip in these absurdist transfer fee times. Especially if $iteh throw huge amounts at Alexis.
But since his arrival I have viewed Emiliano as our eventual #1 and have seen nothing since to change that opinion.
I hope AW doesn’t go with a back 3 against Lesser. That was fine against Middlish and we got away with it when $iteh didn’t start with 2 wingers, but it’s fraught with danger against the speed of Mahrez and Vardy.
I also hope Theo doesn’t get stuck with the CF role, that ship surely foundered ages ago. For once in his life I want to see Theo and OG starting together for a change. That’s happened maybe once or twice only in the past two seasons (Ned?), but was very successful prior to that.
Ox certainly deserves to retain his place in the side, but how about in place of Mesut? He would bring some much needed oomph to the attack, imo. And if not Ox then let’s have Rambo at #10. Give Özil something to think about in his contract negotiations – regarding which I note there is little or no interest in signing him by any other European clubs.
Whatever we do I see tonight’s game as a very slippery banana which could easily bring us down and, worse, put us in quite the wrong mood for the weekend where we need to do our bit to frustrate the neighbours’ title hopes.
Good preview GH and hit the nail
on the head with the question of
whether tis better to rest or not.
The wing backs have a lot of ground
to cover and I’d be tempted to rest
Nacho tonight. The Ox too but
changing both wing backs doesn’t
seem wise just now. Kieran & Belly
are both available and I’d play one
of them.
The formation is the other question.
Leicester will play on the break
I suppose and keeping 3 centre backs
to cover Vardy, Mahrez et al. is
better i think. Hopefully Kos has
recovered as he is key for us.
Plus continuity with the new system
is important now we’ve actually won
2 in a row, I wouldn’t want to confuse
the players, the poor little lambs.
A clean sheet as we become more
used to 3 CBs and a 2/3-0 win would
do very nicely.
Playing 3 CBs means NOT playing 2 dedicated FBs, Osaka, so we are one player short at the back to cope with the speed Leicester have on the wings. I’d rather see the conventional 4-man back line allowing FBs to guard against swift counters.
I mean, given the defensive problems we’ve had all year how is having less defenders the answer against teams set up like Leicester?
I see your point Chris and it is a fair one. It’s just that on the evidence of this season we know that our FBs get caught forward, especially against teams that sit and hit us on the counter. Therefore, the reality is that we
end up with 2 CBs and maybe a DM (probably Xhaka who’s not the quickest) trying to defend counters while our full backs race back in vain.
Given that, and the fact that we’ve changed the system and won the last two, I would go with 3 CBs again.
One of those two wins was against Middlesborough who have scored less goals this season than any team in the 4 divisions, and with the second we were lucky in that they left their best winger on the bench, but still scored on the counter with none of our 3 CBs within cooee.
I’d love to have an extra player to bolster our attack, but scoring goals isn’t our biggest problem, preventing the opposition scoring is.
All fair too Chris. But…..
Firstly, the system is new and I’d hope we wouldn’t make the same mistake of leaving Nacho isolated. Secondly, Shitty’s attack was much superior to Boro’s and apart from that mistake we defended a little better than recently, still looked susceptible in the air at times but having the 2 full backs won’t help there. Finally, the players are up after winning a big game and so why confuse them by changing things round again.
Noosa@15: Cowes won the Southern League Division Two Southwest division the season Brock joined them, but lost the playoff game for promotion to Division One to the Division Two London division champions, Thames Ironworks, known today as West Ham. There were three Isle of Wight teams in the league: Ryde and Sandown Bay as well as Cowes.
bath@16: Szczesny is having a standout season at Roma. By some measures he is the top ranking keeper across the top five European leagues this season. We could do a lot worse. I don’t know if he would want to come back, though, as there was some bad blood around his original loan, I seem to remember.
Very good, Ned
Thanks for the info Ned – very interesting as always.
UTA.
I would play Theo in the middle tonight AND on Saturday. Not because I’m a fan, but because Giroud offers nothing in that system and Theo is light years better than Welbeck in his movement and certainly in his finishing.
Sunday as well 😉
Hmmm, i think one of the reasons Feo found himself on the bench was a decided lack of movement and creativity as a forward…
Anyways, let’s keep the formation and put in another disciplined effort. Come on you Gunners!
BMBD
That was a different system and he found himself out of the side for Sanchez, if memory serves, when Wenger had the hots for Iwobi. I may be misremembering, but I think Theo had the job, got injured? Sanchez went up top, Iwobi was flavour of the month, Theo got goals from wide again and Iwobi was gone, Sanchez got moved for Giroud and here we are?
I guess we can forget about selling Giroud to Marseille then
Anthony Taylor has been given charge of officiating our FA Cup final against Chelsea.
ksn (32) – are you serious?! Jesus wept…
@32. Mary, Joseph and the archangels too. He will be making his plans now on how best to encourage Costa to elbow our players.
Speaking of which maybe we need to be doing some self-defense practice?
Just off to the train. Think AW may have Hector for the Ox, Mo for Rambo and Iwobi for Ozil who had nothing left in the tank at 120 min on Sunday.
It’s going to be very cold and blustery tonight so am going layered up. Hate Vardy and Co who will be even worse than Pep’s boys at throwing themselves down at every opportunity, Granit, Kos and Gabbie please stay on your feet!
Hoping for another up beat performance, no more excuses, 2-1 to the good guys would be great.
COYRs
The powers that be are totally in favor of video assistant referees if they’re assigning Anthony Taylor to the final. His performance will definitely convince the large viewing audience that it’s essential.
Leaving for the game shortly. Anyone heading for pre match refreshments???
@33 and @34
Our record in matches in which Anthony Taylor has officiated is decent. In the 16 league games we have won 9, drawn 5 and lost 2. We have won every FA Cup (2), League Cup (1) and Community Shield match he has been in charge.
Who’s playing striker tonight? Are we sticking by the 3-4-3?
*sings*
I got no streams
etc
Nothing going on attackwise no real target. LC with best chance so far with Vardy hitting side netting after Alexis giveaway
Cynic,
Arsenal XI: Cech, Gabriel, Koscielny, Monreal, Bellerin, Coquelin, Xhaka, Gibbs, Ozil, Walcott, Alexis.
Good Cech save. Fuchs doing Delap imitation; Arsenal can’t clear.
Hate the lack of streams.
Fuck the Premier League in the hole.
Theo with good effort Schmeichel save. Now close on first corner.
Better….
There is live commentary on the official site, Cynic. Not the same as a stream, very frustrating.
I’ll watch Spurs instead.
There’s been a couple of streams but they die within seconds or give you a pop up that locks the browser window.
Cunts.
Try this stream http://www.nflstream.net/
Or this http://www.eplsite.org/stream3.html
Bad luck, Sanchez hits the bar. Closest we have come to scoring.
Half time 0-0. The effects of Sunday’s 120 mins showing. Apart from the shot, Alexis has been really poor, giving the ball away time and again.
COYG.
Thanks for the links!
Alexis off the crossbar from 20 yds at 45′. It’s the only thing he’s done well; otherwise having a giveaway nightmare. Everyone else is working the handbrake.
Bellerin is looking like a certain TGS….?
Try this for a stream:
http://cricfree.sc/watch/live/arsenal-vs-leicester-city-live-streaming
Danny for Gibbs. Now is the time to get a goal, Danny.
Yes!
Get in!!!
Does not matter how it comes.
?Nacho, Nacho man!….
I wanna be a Nacho man!?
Spuds winning. Sloppy goalkeeping IMO
We showed fight today and deserved the win. Well done boys.
F Leicester… bunch of mutineers.. !
Go! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well done indeed. we showed fight and promise