Is the City Ground cursed for Arsenal?
Arsenal will travel to the City Ground tonight to face off against 16th on the table Nottingham Forest as they look to break the City Ground curse, after not being able to beat them away since 2016 in a League Cup match.
Arsenal was on a bad run of games recently until winning 5-0 against Palace and looked to have bounced back from the three losses in a row, but heading to the City Ground has always been a little tricky for us and I’m kind of expecting the same from tonight’s game.
I’m not sure what it is about the City Ground that gets to us, maybe we go there and get a tad complacent and confident, but we always seem to struggle up in Nottingham, .Losing last year 1-0 was a shock defeat for Arsenal and left us all wondering what went wrong. Forest scored early and then set up to play a low block and managed to defend out the rest of the game and walk away with the three points.
They’ve also recently had some decent results at home that were pretty unexpected, beating Manchester United for the first time in decades and they smashed Newcastle away.
There’s no doubt there’s quality throughout the team that can and will punish us if we give them the chance. There’s something about the City Ground that I think makes them play better, maybe it’s just playing at home, in front of your crowd and people, or maybe it’s just the fact that they’re so used to their own pitch and conditions, but it always seems to catch Arsenal out.
Forest has one of the best following in the league and for such a historic club, it means a lot to the people of Nottingham Iit’s rare that you will find anyone born there that doesn’t support either Forest or County and they’re very proud of their football clubs and their city. They bring a lot of atmosphere and passion to every game and will be loud from the very start to the very end. The pressure of a passionate crowd can sometimes get to player’s and hopefully our lads will be able to see that through.
I think the most important thing is we start the game off well and confident, because if they can see out the first 20 minutes, they will grow into the game, and we could be up for quite a challenge. They are without a few key players and that will affect their game plan but with new manager Nuno at the wheel, I think whoever he puts out will be a solid and dangerous side that could cause Arsenal some problems.
Hopefully we can break the curse and get a win at the City Ground because we need it if were wanting to compete for the title this season.
What’s your thoughts Gooners?
Daisy Mae