Arsenal travel to Turf Moor tomorrow looking for their second win of the season and their first away from home. It is not a big stadium, with only room for around 20,000 fans, but they are very close to the pitch and very vocal and can be intimidating for visiting players.
Mikel Arteta is well aware how difficult it is to get a result against Burnley, as have drawn in both our last two visits, not to mention the awful defeat they gave us at the Emirates last season.
But the fact is that the Boss knows that another win against another relegation candidate is an imperative to get Arsenal’s season back on the rails ahead of the visit of Tottenham next weekend. “Absolutely, now we have to put a run together.” Arteta told Arsenal.com. “We know how much we need the results, and the performances will lead to that. If we do what we have to do against Burnley, we’ll be much closer to achieving that. We’ve had a good week to prepare for the game. We know what we are facing. The challenge is going to be big, because it’s one of the toughest places to go in the Premier League. We are ready for it.”
Burnley are well known to be a very physical side, as witnessed by Granit Xhaka’s sending off last season, and Arteta is looking to make sure that we can neutralise that this time around. “Obviously it is going to be a completely different game that when we played against Norwich because of their qualities and the game they propose, where they want to take the game to and we will have to avoid it as much as possible and do the opposite thing.”
So, it looks like we could be in for a tough afternoon as Burnley seem to enjoy playing us, but with our new improved Arteta-picked young team, I am confident we will have too much class for the bullies from Burnlet.
COYG!
If the team play ‘naturally’ and are not over-coached on the day, we should have the qualities needed to beat Burnley. My worry is Arteta’s OCD control factor creates a “cloud” over the team. Can we beat Burnley….definitely….we should beat Burnley. Will we beat Burnley? Possibly not, if nervousness, and fear and poor tactics stunt our game. If we play at a high tempo with intensity we will beat them no doubt…..if we go into sideways, backwards, slow mode, we will suffer.
Agree, let the players beat Burnley, they are fighters but not the quality we possess. An easy win should be the order of the day.
Looks like he’s getting his excuses in early.
Be a bit more confident.
Already rehearsing his post match excuses !!
He’s still the Arteta we know.
Hmm – not eactly boosting the confidence of the team, is he?
Of course it’s tough to go to Burnley; they are uncompromising. However, they are far from unbeatable and Arsenal should be more than capable of winning with the right mentality
Pace when passing allied to intesity and desire are VITAL. Pace , more than any other quality and throughout the whole team, can hide a multitude of sins when other qualities are lacking .
Take Liverpools midfield for example; they are nothing special and nowhere near the quality of City or even the present United teams. But their huge and constant PACE, means they overwhelm lesser teams.
PACE,in moving the ball is what we lack and have lacked for all the awful last several years, esp since we lost CAZORLA AND ROSICKY and when such as snail Xhaka appears( and REVEALINGLY, ever since Wenger first bought and played him).
HOW I WISH HE HAD NEVER BOUGHT THAT LUMP.
Pace is easier to adopt when a micro managing manager is not constantly bawling from the sidelines and confusing players
He needs to cease doing this harmful thing and cease it NOW!
Jon, asking MA to stop doing something that has now become a natural behaviour for that person, is not that easy… like you bringing up Xhaka at every opportunity, even when he’s not playing.
Strangely, this was something that MA didn’t do at City, at least not to the extent we see him doing it now – perhaps Pep had control of him, whereas now, he is the main man?
With regards to PACE – we have seen players with an abundance of this gift, who just ran themselves into cul de sacs – Gervinho for example.
What is needed, is a football brain to accompany the speed and, maybe, that is what drove MA bonkers on the sideline with Pepe as another example?
That has now improved for Pepe and I put that partly down to MA’s incessant coaching from the sidelines.
It’s funny how AW was criticised for not being animated, yet both UE and MA are being called out for being the complete opposite!?!?
Funny old game don’t you think?