Wednesday, December 29th, 2010 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does
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By Phil Gregory
With renewed confidence for our title tilt after a comfortable win over Chelsea, it’s off to Wigan after a mere day’s rest for the Arsenal. The Christmas fixture list is crazy at the best of times, but a single day between games is just plain daft. It is clear as day that we will be forced to rotate our squad just to avoid inevitable muscle injuries: it is simply not possible for a top sportsman to perform and remain fit with such a short amount of rest.
No doubt Wenger will be annoyed at how the fixtures have fallen, by playing a day earlier than us Wigan have had twice as much time to rest between the games than we have had. The same unfortunately applies to Birmingham for the following match too, though after last night we’ll forgive them the misdeed.
There’s nothing we can do about such things, and while it’s not ideal, there are other things going in our favour during this crush of fixtures. With both Wigan and Birmingham being smaller sides than us, with correspondingly smaller squads, we have the ability to rotate a lot more than they do. Even if they’ve had longer out resting, we can bring entirely fresh legs into the team and not suffer too much of a drop in quality.
As for the Chelsea game, not much more can be said. It was an outstanding team performance, with the only real concern being the brief wobble we had when Chelsea pulled one back. We dominated the midfield and were shown to be unperturbed by a few hard challenges from Chelsea. Once their traditional physical approach had proven to be futile, Chelsea didn’t seem to have much else to offer, looking flat in midfield and lacking potency up front.
It has to be top marks for Wenger for that game, really. There were a couple of surprises in the team selection, with Djourou and Theo coming in and doing superbly. Walcott was a big part of the second-half goals, but also did a great job defending from the front and pinning Cole back. When you compared the bench we had to Chelsea’s, you sensed that if we could deal with the eleven they had out on the pitch, they wouldn’t have much ability to change things up, and so it proved.
Big wins such as those count the same as any other win, so it is vital we follow it up with three points from the DW Stadium. Wigan are one of five sides that are in with a real chance of getting relegated in my eyes (the bottom five, bar Villa instead of Birmingham), so we’ll be in for a battle. There are ghosts to exorcise after the capitulation at the DW last season; the less said about that game the better.
Given the expected rotation of the side, predicting the line-up will likely prove to be a bit of a wild goose chase. However:
Fabianski
Sagna Djourou Koscielny Clichy
Song Denilson
Rosicky
Nasri Chamakh Arshavin
I’m expecting the back five to remain the same as the Chelsea game. Eboue in for Sagna is our usual defensive rotation, but given the changes further forward I imagine Wenger will want to keep the defensive unit constant if at all possible. Similarly, I don’t see both Wilshere and Song being rested, with Denilson coming in for the former.
Rosicky replaces the suspended Fabregas, who looked back to his best on Monday night.
I’ve also gone for Arshavin in for Walcott here, which mightn’t be the most popular of decisions given how he played against Chelsea. However, Theo came in and performed well in a specific set-up, looking to pin back Cole and/or exploit the space behind him. Wigan will surely play a deep line against us, and lacking space to run in behind, Theo might under-perform. Arshavin’s ability to produce searching passes, as well as his general link-up play will be much more important for us.
Van Persie, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of player that in a perfect world I’d want starting this game, given his creativity. Chamakh would work well coming off the bench to get on the end of crosses if we needed a plan B. Given the lack of a rest between these two fixtures,I simply don’t want any gambles with Van Persie’s fitness to be taken.
Nasri stays in despite covering a lot of ground on Monday. The Frenchman can be indefatigable and given how he’s been playing I think Wenger will want him on the pitch.
Wigan aren’t a side that should be troubling us, but given the turnaround last season we have to be cautious. There’s always a risk that you can be surprised during the Christmas fixtures, with the lack of time between games causing some players to turn in sub-par performances. With the Mancs dropping points last night, a scrappy 1-0 to the Arsenal will do me fine for tonight.
There was no injury news on Arsenal.com at the time of writing, so I’m hoping no news is good news and the squad is more or less the same that beat Chelsea.
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