Arsenal v Liverpool: the Untold Preview « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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By Phil Gregory
After a controversial opening-day draw with Newcastle, Liverpool travel to the Emirates with a squad laden with fairly pricey recent signings. That stands them apart from Arsenal FC, with our biggest outlay being Gervinho at around £10m.
As Wenger argues however, the question is not money of price, but one of quality. I imagine most readers of this blog could have a good go at finding a better player than Henderson somewhere in the world for less than £20million, whilst the £9m fee paid for Charlie Adam is extortionate for a player with limited top flight experience and crucially, only one year remaining on his contract at the time. That fee implies that Charlie Adam, with a hypothetical four years on his deal is worth around £15-20m, which is clearly nonsense.
Buying clubs seem to be overpaying for players nearing the end of their contracts, with figures of £23-25m being quoted for our own Samir Nasri and United’s Ashley Young coming in at £16.5m. Absolute insanity.
Thanks to this outlay however, Liverpool are a side who many are tipping to overtake Arsenal this season. I disagree with that, and don’t even expect them to break the top four. Whilst they may have strengthened in many areas that they needed it – depth in goal, full back, creativity in the middle and options out wide – I don’t feel they have really bought the quality required to break the top four, even with Arsenal potentially shorn of two of our best players this summer. If they don’t break the top four, Dalglish could have spent all his bullets this summer unless the owners can find some cash somewhere. In the meantime, the losses will mount as Financial Fair Play looms.
Let’s move on to the tactical side of the game. Arsenal will be aware of Carroll’s aerial threat, but this can largely be negated be a high defensive line. Even if Carroll does winner headers, he’ll only be doing fairly far away from our box, and thus his goal threat will be limited to set pieces. During the Sunderland game he was fairly poor when shooting, but dominant in the air. If we can keep him away from goal we can negate the usefulness of his aerial threat, as long as we don’t give away foolish free kicks and corners. That said, the pace of Suarez will be a danger if we play a high line, leading me to suspect Dalglish may go 422, with Suarez looking to get on the ball in behind the defence.
Gervinho and Song are suspended for this game, as we all know. The injury list is growing, with Diaby and Wilshere out, as well as the newly wounded Djourou, Gibbs and Traore. Rosicky is a borderline case: he’s not injured, but touch and go, and with his injury record you can understand why the club don’t want to gamble with one of our few remaining central midfield options.
It could be an interesting bench, with Japanese youngster Miyaichi in the squad. Joel Campbell was also announced officially recently, but I’m unsure of his work permit situation. If anybody can offer any information or sources on that front, please post a comment at the end of the article.
Szcznesy
Sagna Koscielny Vermaelen Jenkinson
Frimpong
Ramsey Nasri
Walcott Van Persie Arshavin
There are a few talking points in the team that I’ve put out there. With neither of our recognised left backs available, I’m expecting Jenkinson to come in there. Ideally, you’d put Vermaelen there and bring Squillaci in at centreback but I’d much rather have Vermaelen in the middle up against Carroll. Moreover, new Liverpool signing Henderson had played wide right for Liverpool in their last Premier League game and he wouldn’t pose too much of a threat to Jenkinson going forward, so we might be able to get away with a youngster on the left.
The rest of the defensive unit then picks itself. Vermaelen and Koscielny continue at centreback, Sagna at right back and Szcznesy between the sticks. With Song suspended, Frimpong will surely come in and anchor the midfield. The next three games are huge for the youngster, with a real opportunity to seize a first eleven berth at hand. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of Emmanuel though my main impression from watching him at the Emirates Cup was that his passing and use of the ball could be better. With a weakened midfield for Arsenal, good use of the ball will be key so hopefully Frimpong can keep it tidy.
Further forward, it’s anybody’s guess who will take up the final midfield berth next to Aaron Ramsey. One option would be Henri Lansbury, who could play a hardworking, box to box role in order to allow Ramsey to go further forward. That however, would leave us with a very, very young midfield but that concern is rightly secondary in Wenger’s mind to whether they have the necessary quality to win the game. Nasri is in the squad, so could take the playmaker’s role with Aaron functioning as the slightly deeper central midfielder. The French international was lambasted by fans –myself included – during the Newcastle game so it will be interesting to see how the fans react if he is selected to start. It would be a grave mistake to boo or catcall a player performing in the Arsenal jersey, so hopefully common sense prevails in this case and we get behind all eleven Gunners on the pitch.
Further forward, Walcott plays wide right, Arshavin takes up his place on the opposite flank and Van Persie comes back in after a European suspension left him on the sidelines of our last game. With a weakened midfield, the Dutchman’s creativity could be crucial in this game.
It’s certainly a slightly makeshift line-up but at home, against a Liverpool side who had a poor pre-season and have got off to a slow start this year, we could have enough to get the win. I think it’ll be a fairly scrappy affair, and I hope we nick it 1-0. Another clean sheet? Why not.
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