Pre-match conference | Team news | Credits: Arsenal.com
Oddly enough, on the eve of this game, I can’t help but go back two seasons ago, when Arsenal played Leicester City around the same day. The result was a draw, for those reminiscent enough to recollect. Alexis Sánchez had bundled home his first ever Premier League goal, but Ulloa cancelled it out shortly after. He was aided, as I recall, by Laurent Koscielny whose injury during the game was patched by what I can only remember as a swimming pool cap (typical Arsenal eh).
The reason for that stalemate – or most of it, rather – lay in our failure to score goals, or sign a striker who offered a genuine alternative to Olivier Giroud. Giroud himself, in the game prior to that 1-1 draw, had broken his foot against Everton (or something of the sort), compounding the pressure on Arsène Wenger to make up for it. He took action on deadline day, as the pressure of expectation increased, by buying Danny Welbeck. And for all his faults in his quality of finishing or whatnot, Welbeck did a fair job helping us cope in the months Giroud found himself on the sidelines, back in 2014.
Welbeck was, with no disrespect to him, a mere short-term and stop-gap solution to the bigger picture. Yes, there were outside hopes that he might follow Daniel Sturridge’s road and flourish as a lone striker, but he picked up Sturridge’s habit for incessant long-term injuries instead, making him hugely unreliable to consider as a messiah in the striker’s role. Hopes for Welbeck to be the next Thierry Henry may not be dead in the water yet, but it’s certainly gasping for breath and choking itself.
What’s more disheartening than having our trusts betrayed in Welbeck is having our trusts betrayed by Wenger. We’re entering the fourth transfer window since the Welbeck project failed, yet the closest we’ve seen to that mistake being rectified is when Wenger signed Takuma Asano. In fact, if you discount Asano as a striker who will play any weighty role for Arsenal this season (a reasonable assumption), Giroud is set to be the first choice striker for Arsenal for the fifth consecutive season. Now, I like Giroud and I think the vitriol against him is unfair, but there’s just no way Giroud is first-choice material for Arsenal. He seemed to come close on occasion, but ultimately, just served as a sticking reminder of not being the real deal. Why then, after it has been apparent that Giroud has hit a brick wall, have the club not acted?
It’s no exaggeration to suggest that goals have been a problem for Arsenal for nearly half a decade. Considering the Wenger teams that have decorated the Premier League in the past, goals were expected to be the last thing as an issue for Arsenal. Yet here we are, witnessing a Wenger team shorn of much of their goalscoring prowess, and only ten or so days to fix it.
Anyhow, there’s nothing Arsène can do about that today. He certainly can’t buy a Karim Benzema in time to start at King’s Power, which means he has to play with the hand he was dealt with (or rather, what he dealt himself). Arsenal have been the only team to beat Leicester twice last Premier League season, so there’s obviously something Wenger has on Claudio Ranieri there. He needs to use it again to ensure that the club makes up for its stuttering start to the season.
Fortunately, Leicester have faced a somewhat underwhelming start to the season themselves. Against Hull, they looked little like the team who took the league by surprise, and for good reason. The momentum is gone, the expectations are reset and crucially, eyes are on them now. They definitely aren’t on crumbling levels, but have well and truly returned from their cloud nine, and perhaps we could take advantage of that.
Our team news, similar to last week, doesn’t make for pretty reading. Petr Cech will start unless his head explodes and his arms fall off in the warm-up (wouldn’t put it past Arsenal). He played a part in Arsenal’s loss to Liverpool himself, and we can only hope that stays as an anomaly, not the beginning of a bad patch.
While Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal will keep their full-back positions, it’s central defence that needs serious reconsideration. Wenger was expected to wrap up Shkordan Mustafi by now, but seeing that he’s no closer to signing the deal than last week, he will have to make do with what he has. What he has, unfunnily enough, are two inexperienced center halves in Calum Chambers and Rob Holding, as well as a dicey Laurent Koscielny waiting in the wings. I didn’t mention it last week, but I was a fan of the decision to rest Koscielny, Mesut Özil and Olivier Giroud. However, I hope Wenger realizes that starting Chambers and Holding again is asking for trouble.
Maybe he can shift Monreal to center half with Chambers and give Kieran Gibbs a game. Maybe he could bring Mathieu Debuchy into the fold somehow. Or maybe he’ll gamble on Koscielny and play him. Knowing Wenger and his itch to bring his trusted lieutenants back into the fold rather quickly, he’ll probably opt for the latter option. You can’t blame him for taking that option in the circumstances, but it would have been much more preferable if we had bought a defender to prevent this entire circumstance altogether.
Granit Xhaka might probably get a game today. It’ll be interesting to see how he does if he starts, since we didn’t get to see much of him in the 4-3 loss to Liverpool, aside from a few Flamini-esque tackles. Either one of Francis Coquelin or Mohammed Elneny will partner him, as Arsène would look to use the midfield to further protect the defence. Owing to Ramsey’s injury, Santi Cazorla will probably be given the playmaker role, to my personal delight.
The utter lack of choice among the forward trio means that Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Alexis Sanchez are guaranteed starts, unless Wenger decides to bring Giroud back into action early, which seems unlikely. It’s frightening, come to think of it, of the paucity of options we have at center forward. We need a center half, sure, but at least we have the numbers to cover in that position. At striker? Giroud, an injury prone Welbeck, and who else? Alexis Sanchez certainly wasn’t ready for the striker role, as validated by last week. He may grow into it as time passes, but I don’t think we have the luxury to give him that.
We need points, and we need them fast. We need to buy players – not just to help get those points, but also to repair the mood of a largely pessimistic Arsenal camp. Frequent failure will not lure Ozil and Sanchez to stick it out, and neither will it attract the top quality this club needs. The only thing that changes that perception, apart from a genuinely competitive manager, is winning football matches. Let’s do that today.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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