The Soccer Blog: Bolton - Arsenal Preview

Saturday 23 April 2011

Bolton - Arsenal Preview

Bolton – Arsenal Preview - The Offside - Arsenal blog

« Wenger Ready for the Final Five Games | Home | Bolton – Arsenal PreviewBy: Martin | April 23rd, 2011
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Bolton

Position: 8th, 11-10-11 (43 points, +3 goal differential)

Home Form: 9-5-2 (+12 goal differential)

Recent Form: DWLLW

Last Meeting: Arsenal 4 – Bolton 1 (September 11, 2010)

Back in action tomorrow with a travel to the Reebok to play Bolton.

I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that a sense of malaise has sunk in. I’m watching, I’m cheering for Arsenal, but I have to say I don’t have the same intensity as I did a month or so ago. Sairax has a much better attitude about this than I do, so maybe she should be writing this, but I’m so disappointed by what this team has done the past few months, so disappointed by the fact that we collapsed in the spring again, blowing a legitimate chance at a title for the third time in four years, that I find it hard to muster up some enthusiasm for the run-in this season, because in deepest depths of my stomach, I think it doesn’t matter. We won’t win the league. We will finish higher than 4th. We will talk about how the team has grown this season and how we’re optimistic for next season. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Rooting for Arsenal the last few seasons has all been one big version of “Groundhog Day,” and I, for one, am firmly in the nihilistic “drive a car into an oncoming train just to see what will happen” stage.

So . . . does it matter? Well, I know we’ve talked a lot about “must win” games this season, but I think it’s fair to say that a failure to win tomorrow will eliminate us from the title race in all but the most technical of mathematics. We’re currently 6 points back with 5 to play. Manchester United is playing at home, where they’ve been pretty close to unbeatable this year, against Everton, I certainly don’t think we can count on them to do anything other than win, so we need to beat Bolton just to keep pace. And what of the teams around us? Chelsea is equal on points but ahead on goal differential. They’re home against West Ham, so they’ll likely win. Man City are 8 points back, but with a game in hand, and they’re traveling to Blackburn.

And yet, despite the malaise, despite the overwhelming frustration at this having happened AGAIN, there’s a small part of me that still flickers with hope. A dupe. A schmuck. A mark. A patsy. That part of me is Charlie Brown, and Arsenal is Lucy with that damn football. I can’t resist thinking it — we beat Bolton. Then we have Man United at home next weekend — they’ve been dreadful away from Old Trafford this season, and we beat them at the Emirates. Then we’re just 3 points back, with all the momentum. Then Chelsea still have to play Spurs, they can drop points in that one, and then they play Manchester United, and can take points off them. In the meantime, we beat Stoke, who have one eye on the FA Cup final, then cream Aston Villa at home, and we go into the final day of the season playing Fulham even, very close, or slightly ahead, of the other teams, looking to pull off a miracle.

Obviously if you look at the probability of all of those things happening, it’s slight, but tell me — which of those things really can’t happen? Stranger things have happened, eh?

But thinking this way falls into the trap I was criticizing Wenger, and the team, for in the comments section of Sairax’s post yesterday. I think one of the problems with this team is that they get too concerned with “WINNING TROPHIES” as some sort of abstract concept, and lose sight of how you actually win trophies. You know how you win trophies? By winning matches. It’s that simple. I know that in some way it’s stupid to engage in this sort of armchair psychology, but I really do believe that one of the reasons we’ve had this collapse the past few months is that they’ve been more concerned with the idea of winning trophies than they were with the immediate challenge of, for example, beating Blackburn. And so all they really need to be concerned about right now is beating Bolton. Don’t worry about what other teams are doing, don’t worry about what matches we, or any other team, have coming up. Beat Bolton. Then look at what comes next.

And beating Bolton at the Reebok is going to be no small feat. They have turned into a good team this year. And very good at home. They made it to the FA Cup semifinal. They drew with Manchester United, they beat Spurs, they have nothing to lose, they’ll be looking for another big scalp, and they won’t be afraid of us. And they’ll be looking to make up for the 4-1 beatdown we laid on them earlier this season, although that scoreline definitely flattered us, as it was a really close 2-1 affair until Gary Cahill got sent off, and we scored 2 goals in the last 25 minutes to pad the scoreline a bit.

And these are not the Allardyce/Megson Wanderers. While they still can and do play the long ball forward, they can get it down and play it a little bit, too. They’ve actually got quite a bit of skill, and are pretty entertaining. I have to admit they’ve secretly become my second team this year, I like Owen Coyle and have enjoyed watching them this year. And while their FA Cup semifinal loss to Stoke means they almost certainly won’t qualify for Europe, they’ve had a pretty successful season and are firmly entrenched in mid-table, which is a big improvement when you consider where they were when Megson was fired.

They’re solid at the back — Jaaskelainen is a fine keeper, Gary Cahill has blossomed into an excellent center back, and the rest of their back line is decent enough. It’s a very solid defense. In midfield, they’ll probably play former Arsenal player Fabrice Muamba in a holding role, and probably Martin Petrov alongside in a more offensive role. Chung-Yong Lee, who has always impressed me a lot when he’s played against us in the past, will line up along the right, and he’s terrorized our left-backs in the past so Clichy will need to be careful.

Up front is where I’m really worried, as Bolton will almost certainly play 2 strikers, and they have 3 players up to the task. First is, of course, Kevin Davies, he of the awesome Twitter account, who has been an omnipresent for Bolton for the last few seasons, and if there’s a better player in the world at flicking on the long ball over the top, I haven’t seen him. I’m very worried that this skill could really trouble us, since our backline and goalkeeping are so prone to cock-ups and miscommunications. Joining him could be Johan Elmander, who was rumored to be on his way to Liverpool earlier in the season and who has started more games than any other Bolton player this season and who has 10 goals and 6 assists, very solid totals, for his troubles. But if not it will be Daniel Sturridge, which is probably even more worrisome — the on-loan Chelsea man has Chelsea fans everywhere asking why they shelled out 50 million for Torres, as he’s gotten an astonishing 6 goals in 7 starts since joining up at Bolton. All 3 of those guys could definitely trouble us, and we’ll need a good day from the defense to keep them in check.

In team news for us, the injury news doesn’t appear too bad. Vermaelen and Fabianski are still out. Diaby is injured again, which, unfortunately, isn’t surprising — it’s his calf again, and it just looks like he’ll never be able to stay healthy for more than a few games at a time. Sigh. You really feel for him, too, because the last couple of matches he was really at his best — working hard at both ends of the pitch, making good, aggressive runs with the ball (which very few of our players are willing to do), defending physically to win the ball back when the other team had it, and generally looking dangerous. Wenger said he’s out for tomorrow and “a big doubt” for Manchester United next weekened.

But other than that, we don’t really know. Wenger gave his pre-match press conference on Thursday, which was an off day for the players, so Wenger acknowledged that he wouldn’t see the players again until Friday and there is a chance that some players may have picked up small knocks that keep them out against Bolton. Assuming everyone else is healthy, here’s my best guess at a lineup:

Wojo

Sagna-Djourou-Koscielny-Gibbs

Wilshere-Song

Walcott-Cesc-Nasri

van Persie

Bench: Lehmann, Squillaci, Clichy, Ramsey, Arshavin, Bendtner, Chamakh

Wojo appears to be back, so I don’t see anyone else starting. I think we’ll stick with Sagna on the right, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that Gibbs gets a chance on the left, because Clichy’s played a lot lately, Wenger will want to get him a little bit of a break. I think it’s Djourou and Koscielny at the back as long as they’re healthy (assuming Vermaelen doesn’t come back, which he very well could).

Song will anchor the midfield again, and Wilshere, having been rotated against Spurs, will come back into the squad — hopefully the rest will have done him a little bit of good and he’ll be fresher and more energetic than he has in his last few performances. Cesc will play in the advanced role.

Up front is interesting. I have to think van Persie will start up front, just because he’s been such a reliable goalscorer, particularly on the road. And I’ll stick with the chalk pick of Nasri and Theo to play alongside him, although I have an inkling that Wenger is looking to rotate and give Arshavin a start, so that’s a definite possibility.

Well, that’s about it. Bolton are good, and will be looking to bounce back from a massive disappointment in getting thrashed by Stoke at Wembley in the FA Cup semifinal, and I think they will give us a very tough game. I’ve already talked about what’s at stake, so hopefully we can turn around our recent string of poor results and push on and salvage a measure of respectability out of this season.

Come on Arsenal.

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Category: Arsenal News, Bolton, Fixtures, Premiership, Preview

Tags: Arsenal News, Bolton, Fixtures, Premiership, Preview
Tweet « Wenger Ready for the Final Five Games | Home | Lana W. DawoodDoes anyone know anything about Chamakh? Rumors are that he's heading back to France. ALREADY?! He has been here one damn season and he shipping him off to France and keeping Mr. I'm the best striker in the world....Perry S.The Carling Cup was the Confidence Cup for us. Look at the performance of this team prior to losing that cup and then after losing the cup, its no coincidence...they were damn well counting on that cup and in their heads, that was supposed to be their first taste of glory.SairaxWe should bear in mind that this is usually a tough game for us and it will be difficult tomorrow, especially considering Bolton just had a humiliating defeat to Stoke in the FA Cup that they will want to make up for in front of their home fans.SairaxThat's a really interesting point about the winning trophies thing being an "abstract concept" and them not readying for the immediate challenge. That comes with experience I think. Of course, losing the CC final would have been a massive blow as well.

At the end of the day, I still get a great sense of satisfaction knowing that Arsenal is my team and we're great and I wouldn't want to support any other team because we have a great history and class and we're not scummy United, Spuds, Chelsea or anyone else. We're the Arsenal. Come on you Gunners!blog comments powered by Disqus