Rowe in Covid period
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Image: Confirmed Arsenal team to take on Crystal Palace

LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 09: Emile Smith Rowe of Arsenal celebrates with teammates (L-R) Bukayo Saka, Cedric Soares and Alexandre Lacazette after scoring their sides first goal during the FA Cup Third Round match between Arsenal and Newcastle United at Emirates Stadium on January 09, 2021 in London, England. The match will be played without fans, behind closed doors as a Covid-19 precaution. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

The team’s are out for Arsenal’s clash with Crystal Palace at the Emirates this evening, as the Gunners look to break back into the top 10 of the table.

Arsenal dropped as low as 15th thanks to a disastrous run of results, but have been on the up since Christmas with four straight wins in all competitions.

A win will not be enough to see them return to the top half of the table however, but a win by three goals, or by at least two goals whilst scoring four would see them move above West Ham.

What are your score predictions after seeing the line-ups?

Patrick

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116 Comments

      2. So this coach can’t maintain his winning team? So when are you going to finish with your experimentations,

  4. Balance lines up. Would have prefer Mari/Gabriel to partner David/Holding.

    I hope Tierney isnt injured.

    Go arsenal. Make us proud tonight. My prediction is 3-1 win for us

  5. Ceballos doesn’t fill me with confidence. Largely because I have grown a personal dislike of him. However I will be happy if we get a decent performance from him.

  6. Tierney is unfit, so I hope Maitland-Niles could surprise Palace by cutting inside and shoot from the left flank

    1. Arteta’s left overload tactic would likely not work well since Xhaka is the only left-footed player in the back

    2. Arteta owes you no explanation whatsoever regardless the result.
      Tierney’s been rested for having a muscle strain.
      Sue up there says Mari has a tight calf.
      Gabriel just got back.
      I don’t know what it is you expected with those players injured.
      Some of you fans just like picking on the coach no matter what

  12. I really don’t know why Arteta played Tierney against Newcastle when we have other options, I pray we don’t drop point today.

      1. Not always been like that mate..
        It was brought in after the clash of heads between Luiz and Jimenez in d wolves game because of the concussion subs that is yet to take full effect.
        It normally used to be 7 subs

  15. Not the team I hoped for! No Tierney is a massive loss. No Partey either and why LUIZ BUT NEITHER MARI NOR GABRIEL, GOD ONLY KNOWS! Thankfully no Willian or Pepe though, which is a bonus!

    1. He’s passing over the top might be the reason. MA might want to try using Luiz’s accurate long balls to the flanks like the Leicester game. Along with Granit, Luiz can help the left overload tactic with accurate balls. Defensively I think both the wingers will help the full backs to deal with palace’s wingers. I think Holding and Luiz would be fine today. 2-1 to Arsenal.

    2. Mari has a tight calf and Tierney has muscle tightness. Gabriel I assume is still suffering the after effects of Covid.
      Willian is suffering from being absolute crap and Pepé from trying to figure out what his right foot is for.

  16. Will definitely blame arteta If we loss this cos i don’t understand why holding and Luiz are being paired together when we Gabriel who’s fully fit

  19. Tierney needs a rest, should’ve been rested against Newcastle and AMN fill in but water under the bridge now….

    Also Spurs dropping down the table like normal also makes me happy…

    If we win here by 1 goal difference we still stay where we are and everybody above us will still have at least 1 game in hand….that makes this game extremely important! If we lose this then we are points and games behind

  20. Some very strange selections, for me some should not have played Newcastle and played today but it seems to be the other way round. Win and i will forgive, lose and big questions will be asked.

  21. Offensively in confident, defensively not so much…

    Teirney needed a rest anyway, Mari has played well but Luiz & Holding should be fine it’s the wing backs I worry about today along with Cabellos is there!!

  22. I think we will have a proper post-match explanation on why Tierney and Mari are not in the team.

    My confidence has dropped a little as these 2 players are not in the line-up. The balance has been tampered with.
    Hopefully, we outscore Palace and win the match.

  23. I see a draw or lost if we not quickly change formation.

    Why let Kolas go if we only have Tierny? Here we go now with Niles forced to play there. if not fit, be saka!

    We have 6 CBs, 2 RB but 1 LB in Tierny, of course he will end up on flanl after playong him every games.

    Luiz is a bad sign, have ceballos to protect him even more so.

    I hope Rowe in middle will provide us more attacking in order to balance this lack of defense in center..

  24. Good lineup. Maybe Luiz is the one who helps Granit with the left overload tactic? He has good passing and I see him today spraying the ball to the full backs and wingers like the Leicester game. Hope we win.
    COYG!

  26. Zaha diving all over like usual. Can’t believe so many people would like to see this serial cheat at our club.

    2. Maitland-Niles can’t dribble as good as Tierney through the left touchline, because his stronger foot is the right one

    1. Wha has ceballos done please? enough of this craps please, passing ball back all the and slowing down the flow of the game

  35. If Ozil and Pepe had put in the type of performance we are seeing here from ESR snd Saka they would be getting slaughtered in these comments. Palace looking a far more accomplished side than we do. Leno yet again keeping us in the game

    1. It’s not as bad as Ozil.
      And they don’t do it every other game like that guy. So there’s no need to cry

      1. Not crying PAL just stating an obvious fact. They have done Nothing. Same as Laca and Aubamayang. Cant fault Xhaka and Ceballos as they are moving the ball forward. The creativity isn’t there and these two are meant to be the ones providing it.

    2. Things can o ly get better in the 2nd half as that was awful. Again too many passes going backwards, it needs some of the so called senior players to come to the party for once

  37. Another 45 of awful uncreative football … how many times is this going to happen … anyone who thinks smith Rowe is the next big thing needs psychiatric treatment … another average academy product

  40. Fantastic frenetic first half of football played at 100 mph. So much to enjoy and we even saw Xhaka make about six tackles.
    Hard to call who will win but looking forward to second half.

  41. Palace outplaying us.
    It was bound to happen.
    14th place here we come!
    Three wins in a row & we stayed right where we were before it

  42. Arteta focused on the right side since we lost Tierney and Mari, but the Gunners aren’t familiar with the new flow yet. Hodgson’s long ball tactic is lame, but Benteke is really dangerous with his aerial dominance and strength

    The team really need Tierney and Mari. Because both of them aren’t even on the bench, I think Arteta would move Saka to the LB position later and bring Pepe in for the RW position

    1. Brilliant suggestion yet again GOT!

      How about we change to a back three, bring on Pepe and put Saka at LWB, take out Niles, bring on Pepe. We are not moving the ball quickly enough at all.

  43. @Admin -why does it take ages for you to approve my comments? This is not the first time my comments will ‘await approval’ until the comment would become stale. I’d like to know if there’s something I’m doing wrong. Cheers

    1. If the username or email address is even slightly different to your old comments you will be moderated. Like a newbie…..

  44. Pretty frustrating if you ask me. ESR has not been brilliant but then again hasn’t done much wrong either. Having both Auba and Lacazette in the team is like playing with ten men. Also feel Luiz is holding on to the ball too long which just slows things down.

  45. C’palace tactic working so far, me miss attacking football of the leftside and Bellerin, damn! that was the perfect pass to open the scoring you mess up

  46. We haven’t been able to get that final ball correct. I hope that improves in the second half. Impressive from Ceballos and Xhaka, and AMN has been a little laggong in that Left back role, but he is playing in a flat back four and not in the comfortbale 3 4 3 where he was an awesome counterattacking, defensive lwb. Anyway I hope we improve in the second half.
    COYG!

  48. Thank God i stayed away from my TV set cos the way you guys describe the first half I think i would have been pissed if i had watched it

  49. I’m Sure You All Still Not Seeing Bellerin’s Plenty Input To Our Attacks From The Right

    Tierney’s On Good Form Now, Yet I Believe Bellerin’s Influence To Our Attack From The Right Is Still Stronger Than He’s From The Left

    Smith-Rowe Not Biting
    Laca Has Been A Minus 1 All Half, Maybe He’s Playing A Different Role

  50. Mari isn’t injured if we play him Arsenal need to play his former club £900k just arsenal being tight again and another dodgy contract deal

  51. It good Xhaka is making tackles, but he should stop giving away dangerous freekicks. Palace are trying to capitalize on his fouls.

  52. Am waiting to hear what excuses AMN fans will give for his terrible perfomance tonight.i still think that one of our greatest mistake in the summer was not selling him to wolves for £20m

  53. ESR needs to drop deeper ,a passenger ATM ,Ceballos and Xhaka doing their jobs but still no outlet to our attacking front 4

  54. Xhaka has had a very good game today. Pennywise has been naughty… and we havr lacked the final bite today. Also I guess Bellerin has had a little underwhelming game. Same with AMN.

  56. So many passengers in this team..Summer can come sooner..Lots of deadwood to move on..
    Niles,Pepe,Luis,Sokratis,Mustafi

  58. Two valuable points dropped..
    Crystal palace didn’t even bother and we couldn’t bury them at the Emirates…
    One more year for Arteta before I loose complete faith in him

      1. You have to be a spurs fan .. talking up utter crap to keep them on board and the team in bottom half of table which is where we will end up if xhaka is not offloaded ASAP …

    2. He is just utterly useless … clueless manager leads to clueless football … he’s going nowhere for rest of season but need a new manager in summer … he’s a novice version of emery same mindset same football same outcome

  62. this kinds of game we needed our wingers to open up the defence by taking out 1 or 2 players but we were to cautious, knowing palace came with the purpose of hitting on counter

  63. Pathetic! Can’t even beat a p*ss poor palace team! Winless against that lot in years! Arsenal need signings but again taking forever to do anything! So frustrated 😠

  64. Absolute garbage. Outplayed by a very average palace side, apart from xhaka and leno the rest were awful. No heart or desire in the side with Luiz walking around the pitch like we were winning 5-0 pathetic and shameful and they should donate a weeks wages for conning the fans
    Sell or sack
    Aubameyang
    Pepe
    Willian
    Luiz
    AMN
    It might seem harsh but we have to rebuild so we have to get rid of the deadwood and also strip aubameyang of the captaincy as his performance tonight was a disgrace

  65. So disappointing with this laboured football that just frustrates to the point I want to scream! Even the miss placed passes seem to be getting worse! We need to move on from this basic football ASAP!

  66. No movement let us down real bad. AMN tried but he cannot replace KT in this system. ESR was subdued today and misplaced passes, which our entire forward line did. We almost lost to Tomkin’s header. I hope we get better the next game. And yeah Pepe could not provide the much needed impact. Xhaka motm for me followed by Ceballos and Leno.

  67. Thud! We’ll that was innovative from the manager of the future. Who to blame besides Ozil? Outside of Leno and Holding,where there any good players out there for Arsenal. Pepe really made a difference as well. I have a theory that David Luiz shouldn’t start. Since he came back against Newcastle everything has begun to slow down again. Actually a good result in some ways. Yes Arsenal do need young, energetic reinforcements and this was further proof that some players are just not good enough.

  68. Xhaka Was Surprisingly Awesome

    We Started Opening Them Up In The First 7-8 Minutes Of The 2nd Half But Palace To A Much More Deeper Defense, Looking Only For Counters

    Auba Actually Did Better Today
    Pepe Felt Like The Right Sub But Palace Absolutely Nullified The Tactic

    My Major Complain Is Lacazette Was A Passenger Almost Throughout The Game

  71. Funny Enough, It Felt Like We Were Getting A Rhythm Just Before Niles Was Pulled Off

    The Substitutions Didn’t Impact The Game – Felt Like They Even Reduced Our Understanding Of The Flow Of The Game

    Lacazette Was Starting To Connect With The Young Boys (Saka & Smith)
    Niles Was Beginning To Take Charge Of The Leftside Attack Giving Auba Room To See Where He Could Cause Dangers

    Then As Niles Was Pulled-Off (Which Was A Good Sub Actually) Those Promising Threats We Were Imposing Stopped (As The Sub Also Pulled Saka Further Away From Smith & Laca Making It Easy For Palace To Isolate Them Again)

    1. Kind of got the same Impression.
      Overall, though, unfortunately this is going to happen, you can’t rely on Saka and ESR to win you every game – they’re going to tire physically and mentally. At the moment we don’t look like we’ve got any other options.

  72. I have said this for more than a year . Auba and Laca playing together make the team unbalanced . LEft to me il sell all 3 and that includes Nketiah who doesnt have the presence we need . PAtson Daka will work nicely as we need a well rounded Striker who is a workhorse . Auba is just too one dimensional and LAcazette lacks the height and speed .

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