Arsenal v Palace Preview: Three Months Wait is Over, Our Strongest Attack is Back
The purpose of these post is a pre-game analysis, so I’m not supposed to say (much) about our recent elimination from the Europa League. So I will be brief – albeit many of you know that is mission impossible for me.
We lost games this season. Fortunately not too many – 6 altogether – and we did that with the A+ team (Saka, Martinelli, Ode – against Manchester United or Everton), the A- team (with Trossard, Nketiah, Jorginho – against Man City 2x and Sporting), and with our B team (Hein, Soares, Elneny, Lokonga, Vieira, Marquinhos, Holding, Tomi) against Brighton and PSV. So it happens. Not particularly big deals. It’s unpleasant, but we have to move on.
What we shouldn’t do is to create false explanations to justify those. And there are 2 untrue excuses going around in Arsenal communities. First, that our squad is too thin to fight in 2 competitions. Firstly it’s not. We have capable backup-guys (maybe apart from Kiwior and Vieira, who still have to prove themselves) in every position. We shouldn’t confuse Tierney, Jorginho, Tomiyasu, Trossard or Smith-Rowe with our earlier generation of squad players like Sokratis, Coquelin, Kolasinac or Willock. And we did quite alright until this Thursday – albeit there is not much to be proud of in our domestic cup runs – plus we’ll practically have the same squad (+ Rice/Caiceido/SMS/Neves) to stand strong in the PL, the CL and the cups next season. It is deep enough – if we can keep the majority fit. Secondly, don’t fool ourselves that Arteta didn’t want to win the tie. If he wouldn’t, then Turner, Tierney, ESR, Holding and Kiwior would have started, and the first 4 penalties wouldn’t have been taken by our best attacking players. We tried and we failed, fair and square.
With that said, let’s forget the narrative that we have 11 finals left to play. We have negligible chance to win them all, and apart from our sure loss in the Etihad we will likely lose points against Liverpool, Chelsea and Newcastle. We have to do our very best – and hope that City will lose points in the same fashion – but the boys are doing their best on a constant basis anyway, regardless of the league position or our exposure in other competitions.
So I wouldn’t talk about finals – at least before 29/04. And definitely not on hosting Crystal Palace. We defeated them on the road in the first round, and we became better while they are sinking at the moment (they are sitting at the bottom of the form-table based on the last 12 games). This and the home support should result in a comfortable win: my prediction Arsenal 4 – 0 Crystal Palace.
Obviously, that doesn’t mean that we should take this game lightly. That would be unsportsmanlike, and probably counter-intuitive, as the boys have to demonstrate that the Sporting-fiasco was merely a glitch, and they are in full control again. Joachim Andersen is their best player this season, but despite his height and passing confidence, he is no real threat to Ramsdale, as he scored only a single goal in the last 1.6 season. And this is their Achilles-tendon: they seem to struggle creating dangerous situation in the opponent’s box. Zaha is Palace’s top scorer with 6, while Olise and Eze are capable of creating some chances. But if we manage to neutralize the trio, then we are in for another clean sheet, even though Arsenal is famous for individual errors; one of the few weaknesses Arteta couldn’t get rid of our portfolio yet. Which happened in almost all our defeats this season, but this should be a topic of a different post.
Supporting their impotent attack they have a quite capable defensive line. In their last 10 games they conceded a mere 9 goals, and only Manchester United managed to hit them twice. Andersen’s merits were already mentioned, however I think Guehi is a perfectly average defender. Doucouré is a hardcore DM, but the Malian is a card magnet, and will likely get booked today, too. But their major concern should be the goalkeeper, as Johnstone is out on a long-term injury, and Guaita is doubtful; so there is some chance that 19-year-old Joe Whitworth will stand between the sticks again – hence is my prediction of such a confident victory. And the lack of Patrick Vieira.
Because I almost forget to mention, that after the winless streak of 11 games – their last victory happened in 2022 the longest such run in the PL – the club fired Arsenal’s former legend from the bridge. It may have seemed more logical to make a call on the manager’s position after this game during the upcoming international break, but Palace are potentially sparing Vieira further embarrassment in this incredibly difficult fixture. Anyway, as far as I know they didn’t appoint a successor yet, so hopefully the Sean Dyche effect will not apply today. That should give the boys some confidence, but we have won our last 5 PL games, so the odds are on our side big time.
That’s undisputed, even though our last 3 meetings with CP in the Emirates all ended draws. But it is history, and in the current season Arsenal have picked up 32 points in the Emirates, only City (34) have picked up more on home soil in the league this PL campaign. Crystal Palace have only scored nine goals away from home in the league this season, only three teams have scored fewer – I expect to see little to no pressure on the Holding-Gabriel partnership.
By the way, line-up. The team had some unfortunate injuries, so I expect White going back to RB and Holding retaining his role from Thursday. Party and Xhaka should be our main engine today, and I predict the return of the lethal quartet of Odegaard, Saka, Martinelli and Jesus after a 3 months break. So apart from Saliba we will play with our strongest XI, hence my optimism to continue scoring 3+ goals as happened in 8 games from our last 13 PL matches.
Currently we played the same number of games as reigning champions Manchester City. But since they have played in the FA Cup yesterday (winning impressively by 6:0) we will go into the interlull with a game more, so it would be intimidating to extend the lead at the top of the Premier League to 8 points. Which has limited relevance to be honest as after the inevitable loss in the Etihad and completing their game in hand it’s still only 2 points, but maybe it can inflict some psychological damage, who knows…
We will be playing against a mirror formation of 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3 with Stuart Atwell officiating, who was the referee when we defeated Wolves at the Molineux Stadium by 2:0 with Odegaard’s double. Palace have conceded 34 goals in the PL this season, with 17 (50%) in the last 30 minutes. Despite our Thursday game might still be in the legs, with proper substitutions and game management we have a good chance to exploit their seemingly short stamina.
Let’s go and see the boys erasing the bitter memory of Thursday’s loss on penalties in the first-ever senior competitive shoot-out to be held at Emirates Stadium. I hope I’m not being too optimistic, and definitely not jinxing it, but if we manage to break the dam early in the first half and the goals keep raining, the margin could be even bigger than my prediction above.
