Wigan host the Arsenal – the preview « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

Arsenal are looking to bounce back from a disappointing home draw versus Fulham in Saturday’s Premier League game against Wigan. There was controversy last season when we trekked up to Wigan, partly refereeing and partly fixture related. If my memory serves, that game was our second in 48 hours, so in order to avoid injuries Wenger rotated virtually the entire team and they came close to grabbing the three points.

According to a reporter in the press conference, apparently Wenger has never taken three points from Roberto Martinez at the DW stadium. Apart from the usually poor pitch, I can’t imagine Wigan benefit much from home advantage, given their overall attendance is relatively low and their fans are fairly quiet (unlike our away lot!) so this is likely just a statistical quirk. I don’t think such things will bother Wenger much in the build up to this game: Wigan are second bottom in the league to date, and with good reason. They’ve lost some good players in recent seasons and have never really seemed to replace them. That’s not entirely Wigan and Martinez’s fault with the club strapped for cash, but it bodes well for Arsène ending that apparent DW hoodoo.

In terms of injury news, we’re doing okay at the moment. Apart from Jack with his long term ankle problem, Diaby has had one of those niggly injuries that happen after a lengthy layoff while Rosicky is also out of this weekend’s game. The Carling Cup squad came out unscathed, though our dear old Samir Nasri nearly didn’t. Fortunately for the Frenchman that his dispute with Frimpong didn’t go much further than words – I know who my money would’ve been on in any brawl.

Szcznesy

Koscielny Mertesacker Vermaelen Santos

Song Arteta

Ramsey

Walcott Van Persie Gervinho

I doubt there’ll be any real surprises in the team that Wenger sends out. Coming after a Carling Cup game, he’ll have a fresh squad to pick from as virtually all of the midweek squad were substitutes and fringe players. The only exception was Koscielny. The Frenchman has played a lot of games already this season, and having been involved in the game against City, Wenger might elect to play Djourou given the latter’s lesser pitch time this season. That said, Koscielny will be likely to get a breather in midweek in the Champions League, so I suspect he may be used in this game.

Apart from that there shouldn’t be any real controversy in the line up I’m expecting. Gervinho started the Fulham game on the bench with Arshavin given the nod ahead of him, but I can’t imagine the Russian’s performance will do anything to keep the Ivorian out of the frame.

There shouldn’t really be anything to trouble us in this game. Even with dropped points in the last game, we’ve rested the first eleven and are performing well at the moment. The team look confident, the defence are solid and apart from spreading the goals around the team a little there’s not much to criticise at the moment.

Given that and a positive RefWatch outlook with Clattenburg (check the article yourself for Dogface’s write-up), this game should be a fairly comfortable 3-0 win for the Arsenal. However I’m slightly more tentative and would be quite happy with a comfortable 2-0 win.

Enjoy the game!