LOAD PAIN
Arsenal gear up for their first and only Champions League game of the week against Monaco, the team that birthed Arsène Wenger and Thierry Henry.
I loved Monaco growing up. They had some fancy players, they played on a car park, against the backdrop of unbelievable wealth. For such a small club, they’ve had an outsized impact on the football landscape. Weah, Kylian, Falcao, Trezeguet, Tigana, Deschamps, Hoddle, Bernardo, Fabinho, Petit, and Djorkaeff… I mean, that is a dazzling line-up. Amazing to think how this plucky small tax haven could be such a pull for generational talents.
They currently sit 3rd in Ligue 1, on the same points as second-placed Marseille. They’re also on the same 10 points as Arsenal in the Super League table. Three points for either team takes them closer to the promised land of 17 points, which should be good for qualification.
This Monaco team has some good players, but I think the best of them went to Milan last summer (Fofana). Right now, their stars are Maghnes Akliouche, a right winger with some decent output, Aleksandr Golovin, an experienced attacking midfielder, and Denis Zakaria, who flopped at Brighton. Eliesse Ben Seghir is a left winger of fleet-footed nature who is young, fast, and loves a banger from distance. There’s also Folarin Balogun, who has lost relevance since moving for a massive fee.
This is a team we should be able to deal with, but as is always the case in the Champions League, nothing is a given. For this squad of young players, showing off against Arsenal is the chance to get noticed by the richest scouts in the world. If we go there thinking the game is won, we’ll get beaten, just like what happened against RC Lens last season.
We’re dealing with a lot of injuries. It was quite painful listening to Arteta sounding a little defeated in the presser. He basically said injuries are exacerbated in this period because, with fewer options, you put more load on fewer players. The Unreliables are proving to be unreliable right when we need them. We’re literally down to Kieran Tierney playing his first game since August 6, 2023, when he landed 14 minutes in the Community Shield. The breakage in defence is beyond a joke at this point, but it is what it is, and we have to work through it.
The question for Mikel is: how comfortable is he in the Champions League? We need seven points from three games. Zagreb (a) and Girona (h) are the next games. Can we afford to take a chance tomorrow if we want to auto-qualify? Maybe not. Would Arteta risk the extra game? Who knows…
The Everton game is a must-win at the weekend. They’ve had a nice mid-December rest and a week to plan a ghastly deep block against us. Going into that game without fresh players is a nightmare scenario. But… it is what it is.
No Partey, presumably because he can’t hack playing right back, means we’re going to have another brand-new defence of Tierney, Kiwior, Saliba, and Timber. Our midfield should have some strength with Merino, Declan, and Ødegaard. Then our front three is Saka, Kai, and… what difference does it make?
We’re nearly at the mid-point of the month. Legs will feel heavy. The mood might be down. But if we want to get something out of the season, we have to pull something out of the bag and get the season going again. Fulham was a good performance; the result wasn’t. We need to use Monaco to find a way.
OK, short one today, that’s all I’ve got for you!
See you in the comments. x