So Wojciech Szczesny is dropped, then. Is it because of the smoking? Is it because his dad was mean about Per Mertesacker? Or is it because he’s been a walking accident for a little while, now. Your call. It’s probably too early to work out if David Ospina is a significantly better option, but the Colombian (whose sister, incidentally, is a volleyball player married to James Rodriguez, fact fans) is at least worth a go in nets. Elsewhere Mesut Özil is back and on the bench, and it’s perhaps slightly surprising that Theo Walcott doesn’t get a start, given that he looked promising, if a bit rusty against Hull in the cup.
For Stoke, new signing Philipp Wollscheid goes straight into the starting XI, about whom Hughes said this week: “He’s up to speed in my view and having seen him in training this week he looks in good shape. He’s an option. It’s big decision to throw him in the deep end against a team the quality of Arsenal, but he’s an option.”
Team news
Arsenal
Ospina; Debuchy, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal; Coquelin, Cazorla; Oxlade-Chamberlain, Rosicky, Alexis; Giroud. Subs: Szczesny, Bellerin, Flamini, Ramsey, Ozil, Campbell, Walcott
Stoke City
Begovic; Cameron, Wollscheid, Shawcross, Pieters; Nzonzi, Whelan; Arnautovic, Bojan, Walters; Crouch. Subs: Butland, Muniesa, Ireland, Wilson, Moses, Adam, Sidwell.
Referee: Jon Moss (Sunderland)
Let’s talk about smoking. Well, sort of. Let’s talk about the faintly ludicrous image of Arsène Wenger selling cigarettes on some sort of street corner, flogging a carton of Luckys to make a decent score and push a tribute up to Paulie, then when he gets pinched, learning the two most important lessons in life: never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.
Rare images of the young Arsene Wenger’s early career pic.twitter.com/xBm7R55lIG
— Michael Moruzzi (@Regista_Michael) January 10, 2015
Now we’ve got that out of the way, we can discuss football. What to do with Arsenal? For every limp, collapse-like-a-flan-in-a-cupboard defeat they suffer, there’s always an encouraging, hey-perhaps-this-isn’t-quite-so-bad-we’ve-actually-got-some-decent-players-here-and-Alexis-is-just-smashing win to make some people blart ‘CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?’ and a few desperately optimistic souls think that everything is going to be OK again. This is beautifully encapsulated in their last two results – the defensively abject defeat to Southampton in the league, then the casual saunter to victory over Hull in the FA Cup.
The simple truth is that, now they theoretically have some money to spend, basically all of their problems come from Wenger, his approach to defending, how he organises the team, who he buys and his theory of how football should be played. Of course if Arsenal are happy existing, doing reasonably well, finishing in the top four and qualifying for the knockout rounds of the Champions League every year but never actually winning either competition, then grand. Go for it. Do what you like.
Anyway, here’s Paul Doyle with a more considered and lengthy dissection of Wenger’s problems, specifically at the back:
Wenger is looking for one this month to bolster a defence that has leaked too many goals this season, undermining his team’s title aspirations. Yet irrespective of Wenger’s ruminations about the times we live in, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that a substantive cause of his team’s vulnerability has been inexcusably shoddy individual and collective performances from players who should be capable of better. In other words, it has often seemed like Arsenal’s coaching and attitude – and, in fairness, injuries – are more to blame than external forces.
Still Wenger believes that his current crop of defenders are improving. “I think we are not far, we are getting there,” he said.
On Sunday Wenger’s side will have an ideal opportunity to prove that because Stoke visit the Emirates. Five weeks ago at the Britannia, Mark Hughes’s side inflicted a painful defeat by exposing basic organisational and mental failings in the Arsenal defence, in which two young players were given little useful support by the experienced Per Mertesacker, whose performances this season have been so erratic that, according to Szczesny’s father, Maciej, even the goalkeeper has been made to look bad.
So what of Stoke? One usually thinks of them as Arsenal’s bête noire, but not away from home. They haven’t won at the Emirates or Highbury since 1981, 12 visits later in which they haven’t even managed a draw, let alone victory. So on that basis one might think their chances of doing anything useful today are slim, but their recent form suggest they are certainly capable of causing some problems. There have lost one in their last six, and that was to Chelsea, in which time they have picked up good and encouraging results against Manchester United, Everton and, well, Arsenal.
You also think of Stoke as a physical team who bully their opponents, particularly a diddy old team like Arsenal, but the largely joyless vessel that is Mark Hughes doesn’t think so. He said this week:
The rivalry raises its head every time we play Arsenal and I’m sick of it. It all goes back to an incident five years ago. Goodness me – a lot of water’s passed under the bridge since then. There are other angles that can be emphasised. The last time we met we played exceptionally well. But some people after the game would use certain terms to explain why we beat them on the day.
Terms like intimidation, and that we ‘bullied’ them out of the result. That wasn’t the case, for the first 60 or 70 minutes we played them off the park. We were the ones that played the best football – that means getting the ball down, pass and move, and create chances. That wasn’t really reflected.
Bully’s the wrong word, it’s a lazy term. It’s the easy one to label us with. It has other connotations. I’d use ‘competitive’, there’s a difference. People have seen that we have a Plan A and a Plan B.
Well, there you go. What can’t be denied is that these two do not like each other, thus in theory we should be in for a decent affair. It’s on.
Kick-off: 1.30pm
Nick will be here shortly…
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Arsenal v Stoke City: Premier League – live!
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