GAME DAY BLOG: LEICESTER CITY (A)

BIG DAY. BIG GAME. MUST WIN.

Just a quick one for the Leicester game.

Mikel Arteta is BULLISH about our prospects. He doesn't want to hear any of the defeatist behavior from people giving up. It seems like he's going to use this moment to galvanize his players. The man is ALL-IN on our chances.

That's what you want from your manager.

What you don’t want it to hear him trying to convince himself and the world that if you don't train as hard as he makes the players train, you actually get more problems, because that is some top-shelf nonsense that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Kai Havertz's injury most certainly wasn't how that ITK account framed it, but the training sessions dropped in Dubai weren't a necessity to prevent muscle atrophy, and to lose your only striker to an ‘unfortunate incident’ is negligent.

My confidence in Arteta’s ability to learn from his errors has been severely shaken this season - he has a dated view on player fitness and he's not taking responsibility for the countless injuries he's accrued. He's going pure Arsène Wenger when he blamed hair pills for our injuries way back when. Broken players, in the main, are down to how he prepares them. Blaming luck, with the knowledge and tech these elite clubs have, is unacceptable.

... and let's just point to Liverpool. They have an older squad that plays as intensely as Arsenal, and they have had significantly fewer injuries than us all season. Slot actually sees performance as one of his superpowers in availability. This is him in October after signing new fitness coaches:

"We also have experience of this. My performance staff that worked with me [at Feyenoord] and the ones who are already here have this experience.

"At my former club we have shown that players are capable of playing 50-60 games – although at a different level because the Eredivisie is a different level to the Premier League.

"That is why it is so important for us to have the input of the ones [performance staff] who already have worked for this club. This combination of knowledge should hopefully lead to keeping the players as fit as they can and able to play so many minutes."

"I saw a list of players who have played the most minutes this season and Virgil van Dijk was fourth so hopefully he can keep doing this and the combination of the ones I brought in [performance staff] and the ones that are still here hopefully is going to help us a lot."

Arteta doesn't think of fitness in the same way as he does about set-piece coaching. It's just not a priority. If it was, we wouldn't have seen Saka in so many games after the Euros. We wouldn't have seen Odegaard gassed in January. Martinelli wouldn't have started against Newcastle. Kai wouldn't have been broken in an 'unfortunate incident' in Dubai.

I am not angry, I'm just disappointed. But if you think that means I'm giving up, you are deeply mistaken.

Arsenal has to get through 5 Premier League games and 2 Champions League games before we see Bukayo and Martinelli back in the starting 11. Arteta didn't sound too keen on Sterling but he did say 'you see what I have to work with.'

'We've been playing without a striker all season.'

Which is a little mean, but I hear the comment. I think we'll see Trossard on the left, Ethan on the right, and Sterling through the middle. I'm not sure we have many alternatives. Willy Saliba apparently put his name in the mixer, but Arteta kind of laughed it off. But did he know Dion Dublin could play striker AND centre-back? Probably not. I think Declan would be a good striker. He's very fast, he's press resistant, and he is a general menace. But, you might laugh that off.

To be honest, I don't really care what happens, I just need Arsenal slimming the Premier League gap from 7 to 4. Put that pressure back on Liverpool who have Aston Villa in their next game. Clocking points before them will start to make them twitch.

Ok, short one. Get yourself in the comments. Let's enjoy the game. The AOP crew will be going LIVE after the game. Subscribe now for FREE and make sure you're there in the mixer.