After the drama of recent weeks concerning Xhaka and Emery’s ongoing spat with Mesut Ozil, we seem to be losing sight of what is actually important, the fact we have a football match today.
We have thrown away leads in the last FOUR matches and Leicester seem to be flying in the league, with a 9-0 victory plus wins over Burnley, Sp*rs and Newcastle recently. They find themselves 3rd in the league a whopping SIX points ahead of us going into the game.
A defeat for Arsenal could even mean the end for Unai Emery following yet another season of what might have been, it feels like we have the squad now but doesn’t feel like the Manager knows what to do with them.
Dani Cabellos is out of the game, and so is Granit Xhaka, see here for why, which leaves our side looking toothless. We’ll be relying on our forwards to win us the game, and have to hope our defenders can improve on what has been a miserable few weeks as an Arsenal fan.
It looks like Emery won’t be giving Nicolas Pepe a rare start in the game, but is more than happy with his efforts to become a regular in the Arsenal starting line-up.
“He is not quite at the level yet to be able to play in every game. I believe, and I have always believed, that he needs to play in order to reach that level, but obviously there are also games when other players deserve to play. I use the players who I think are going to help us most in each moment…”
It remains to be seen who will play in the game, and whether Pepe or Ozil will be anywhere near the starting XI, but what is for sure is we need to win this game or we are in danger of falling down the league table very quickly.