Arsenal’s makeshift attacking options must do the trick in Prague – Suburban Gooners

Dear morning campers, I hope you are all well on this Champions League match day, during which a visit to Prague is planned for the team for one of today’s first kick-offs.

Firstly, we have to wonder who the hell is going to play up front now, after Big Vik succumbed to a muscle injury, in which Arteta is reportedly unsure how long he will be out for. I think given our luck last season and this season, we could probably be forgiven for thinking the worst and although we have a hurdle to overcome tonight, I wonder when we’re going to take a bloody injury break, because as Arteta pointed out in his press conference when also talking about our game against Crystal Palace over the Christmas period, we now have a wide range of attacking players injured at this stage.

Not the Gyokeres.

No Kai.

No Gabriel Jesus.

Not crazy.

No, Martinelli.

No Odégarard.

Honestly, it’s ridiculous that we’re in a situation where we’ve stocked up to guard against injury, and yet we STILL find ourselves possibly calling on makeshift starting front lines as we enter November. The football gods are really trying their best to test us and what’s also annoying is that in about a month you know everyone will be fit again and we’ll be wondering how we’re going to split playing time.

Fingers crossed it’s just this game and then potentially Sunderland next weekend, which seems all the trickier with Gyokeres also potentially missing out.

As for tonight, it will be Slavia Prague who we have to figure out how to beat, with Arteta admitting they haven’t lost at home in a long time. They are top of their domestic league thanks to such form, but their Champions League form tells a different story, with a draw at home to Bodo/Glimt and a point away to Atalanta, while being comprehensively beaten in Milan against Inter on matchday two of the Champions League. I didn’t watch the match highlights, but I did check out the formations and how they played against each of their opponents in the Champions League and I certainly found it interesting, as they never played the same formation twice in the admittedly small sample size that I looked at. Google aligned them in 3-5-2 against Bodo, in 4-5-1 against Inter and in 4-3-3 against Atalanta. Whether or not this means they will look to move on to something different tonight remains to be seen, but it does mean there could be some thinking to do for Arteta. Likewise, there is perhaps little thought to be done, because while on paper the formations can be very different when handed to UEFA officials, the spaces occupied by the players can very often be very similar whether you are in a 4-5-1 or a 4-3-3, so I may be talking about a bunch of old blocks here.

What Arsenal need to do is make sure we control possession and are not in transition. The good thing about Champions League matches is that teams are used to winning and being the dominant forces in their respective leagues, so they don’t usually come to a football match expecting to camp in their own half. Sometimes that’s how the game can go, but it usually doesn’t go that way. So I don’t think we’ll see Slavia Prague block us tonight. I think they’re going to try to open up the space a little bit and if that happens, then we’ll have to be able to take advantage of it.

What Arteta does in the top three will, I think, be the biggest question mark. With all of the players mentioned above out, I think it limits our options significantly, and Zubimendi’s absence means we’ll see a rotation further back on the pitch and, as a result, I think this team could have more than a whiff of last week’s Carabao Cup team. I think he’ll start Raya in goal, I suspect one of Gabriel or Saliba will come in and another will drop to the bench, then I wonder if he’ll think about rotating one of our full backs? I suspect we might see Norgaard, but because of that I think despite Rice wearing a yellow and it could be dangerous if he takes one when we play Bayern after the international break, I think Arteta will bring him onto the pitch, along with Eze too. Then of the top three, I think he goes with the same three that finished the game on Saturday. It will therefore be Trossard, Merino and Saka in attack. And this attack must certainly be capable of posing a bigger threat than the second half against Burnley. Part of that could have been the state of the game and we’re happy to collect all three points by stopping any kind of football against the Clarets, but tonight we need to see more.

This means, I think, that we will also have to see a different style in our attack, because although we have learned to exploit the strengths of Gyokeres and his running in the channels and in balls behind, Merino simply won’t do it tonight if he starts. He’ll step in and connect with his fellow midfielders, he’ll be an aerial threat in the box, but he’s not going to put up the kind of yards that Big Vik does. The creativity of the approach could therefore require Trossard and/or Saka to make more central runs if Merino intervenes at times. The good news is that I think both of those players are capable of it and Trossard in particular has been in good form, so that’s certainly positive.

It’s three wins from three and zero goals conceded in the Champions League at present, with the possibility of setting a new club record (I think) with another clean sheet tonight. It’s incredible, but it’s the other end of the pitch where we need to focus and if we can do that then I think we’re getting closer to the point where automatic qualification for the next round is within our reach. I’ve said previously that 15/16 points would probably be enough and a win tonight would take us to 12. That would be huge in the context of our season, because given that there are eight games you have to play in this damn big league format, if you win your next two (which includes this win against Bayern), then you might find yourself able to rotate for the final two games at least, at a time when the season is very congested indeed.

Those are permutations for another day, but for today it’s just about finding a way to win away to keep our momentum going. Hopefully the boys will make it.

See you tomorrow for a post-match review.