I make Arteta right when he was in front of the press last week talking about tonight’s game at Brammall Lane against Sheffield United: this will not be easy.

I’ve seen a few Gooners online talking about the need to pick up plenty of goals and continue our good scoring form, but we’re into March and that means it’s crunch time; points are more important than goal difference right now. With Liverpool skanking a win against Forest and United rolling over and having their tummies tickled away to City, as well as Aston Villa and the Scum all picking up wins, it means that anything other than a win tonight and we’ll see a huge dent in our aspirations this season.

Most of the pundits are – as you’d expect – looking at this game as an away banker and the fact that Sheffield United have the worst goal difference (nine worse than Burnley in 19th position) in the league and we have the best, should suggest that Arsenal could feast this evening, but you and I both know that football rarely works out like that and Arteta will I am sure be at pains to point out to his team that they have to earn it. But we are in good form at the moment, the goals have been coming whilst at the back we have been solid, so that gives me a sense of optimism that we could get the job done tonight. It will be a Monday night game under the lights and their fans will be up for it though; they know their team hasn’t really been good this season and they know that they can at least keep the atmosphere a little hot for those visiting Arsenal players. So quietening the crowd by taking control and dominance of the football early on. An early goal will always quieten a home fanbase down, but it isn’t always possible, so sometimes just complete dominance can also have the same effect. We saw that with the Forest game away a few weeks back; Forest were pinned back and tucked in at such a low blog, that their fans started to get frustrated after about 30 minutes. If we can even do that without scoring, then we’ll be on the right track I reckon.

As for the way Sheffield United will set up, I’ve read a couple of reports about how they were unlucky against Wolves in their last game, having created a few chances to score, but that’s been an Achilles heel this season as much as keeping out the goals; they’ve conceded the most in the league but they’ve also scored the least with 22 goals in 26 games. They’ve kept one clean sheet all season and they don’t create loads of high-quality chances. We’ve all seen the stats about how Arsenal don’t give away many high-quality chances so providing there are no individual errors, or early red cards which dramatically change the composition of any match, then you’d fancy us to be getting the points tonight. Almost every stat you look at has Sheffield United lowest in the league; progressive carries, progressive passes, their ‘keeper is the second busiest in the league, whilst also having the third worst shot save percentage. They’ve struggled to create shots with just 233 in the season so far and to put that in to context: Burnley are second worst with 280 and Arsenal have created nearly 200 shots more in the season (we’ve had 431 attempts on goal).

As for how Arteta lines up, I don’t think we’ll see much rotation from the last time we played, because that was over a week ago, so the players will have had plenty of rest and prep time and when you have a team scoring and keeping teams out as much as we have, you want to stick with it for sure. But I think he’ll have a stronger bench today, with Partey coming in along with the likes of Gabriel Jesus, Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith-Rowe. Zinchenko might also make the bench although I guess Arteta might feel like we don’t need to risk it. And in a game like this with an opponent like this, you’d hope that Arteta feels comfortable enough not to push players who he is trying to ease back in so they are fully fit for the run in.

There’s not really a lot more to say about this evening to be honest. We know what we have to do, we have seen what our rivals have done this weekend, the team has to have a professional and composed game face on, then we need to go and get the points. As I said right at the top of today’s blog, I don’t care what the score is and whilst I’d take a cricket score, I’m not naive enough to think that it’s a given; football always has too many variables in it for me to think that this will be a straightforward and easy win. But right now as I tap away at my computer on the Monday morning I am quietly confident that we can get a win and continue our good form.

Back tomorrow with a match review but if you fancy listening in to the team straight after the final whistle at 10pm on the Same Old Arsenal pod, you can do so here.

Catch you peeps tomorrow for a debrief.