It’s match day, it’s a Saturday kick off, it’s Wolves away and it’s a game that the pundits are all universally saying that it’ll be a comfortable Arsenal win. Merse is saying 3-0, that Jones Knows fella on Sky Sports is saying 3-0, Sutton says 2-0, Lawro says 2-0 and Sports Mole is giving us a 3-1 victory.

I hate it when everyone is unanimous. Because it never ends up that way.

Wolves do ship goals though. They’ve conceded 51 this season in 22 games – that’s an average of 2.3 goals conceded per game and is the worst in the league behind Southampton. They have a defence that could get them relegated, were it not for an attack which clearly props them up from being in the bottom three, for as much as Wolves concede goals, they do bag more than their league position suggests. IN goals scored in the league they are 12th and have scored more than West Ham, Man  United, Palace, Leicester, Ipswich, Everton and Southampton. They’ve scored 32 goals this season and given all the transfer chatter has been around Mattehus Cunha this last week, you all know where I’m going with the next paragraph.

He is their big danger man. He’s scored 10 goals from the wide left position this season and accounts for a third of the goals Wolves have scored this season. Strand Larsen is next with seven and so those two between them will be our biggest defensive headache today. Cunha will be the dribbler, the man who wants to run at us with the ball at his feet and he’ll test the likes of Timber and hopefully Saliba if he’s fit. Strand Larsen will be their big, physical, six foot three inches centre forward who will hold up play, look to bring others in, wait for those balls in to the box so he can compete with the likes of Gabriel and possibly Saliba.

If Saliba isn’t fit, then I’d stick with Kiwior at right centre half for this game; it’s not ideal, he does have at least one mistake in him every game, but in the main against Zagreb he performed well other than his error which ended up not leading to anything. There’s an option for Calafiori to come in and play centre half, but I guess it depends how ready he is. I read somewhere that on Tuesday before the Zagreb game he’d only had about 20 minutes training, so he’ll have only have had another two days training before today’s game and given his injuries this season, I suspect Arteta will be cautious.

So I think the back line will look similar to Wednesday night, with the possibility of MLS coming in for Zinchenko if he’s passed fit. In midfield Rice was on fire in midweek so I think he starts, but I also think Partey will play in at six, so it’ll be Partey, Rice and Odegaard I’d wager. Then up top I think the first choice front three will be given the nod. Well, the most available first choice front three – Trossard, Martinelli and Havertz up top. The benefit of the game being so comfortable was that Kai was able to come off on 74 minutes and so too did Zinchenko for KT, so even if MLS isn’t fully fit we can still play the Ukrainian at left back, because I think we’re going to be spending more time in Wolves half this afternoon. They will pose threat on the counter and on that left hand side they will encourage Semedo to get forward and support Sarabia, but their approach will be long ball football and so you’d hope that Gabriel will be mopping up if the ball transitions and Zinchenko is further up the pitch.

Wolves give away a fair few fouls, so we should expect a physical game today, but what I like about this Arsenal squad is that we aren’t afraid to match up physicality with physicality. Rice, Partey, Kai, Gabriel, hopefully Saliba, Timber – these are all guys that love a battle and a duel and tyhat’s what I want us to show to a Wolves side whose last win in the league came on Boxing Day against a Man United side down to ten men after Fernandes was sent off in the beginning of the second half. Even down to ten men United still had the same amount of possession and more shots than the hosts. I watched the highlights from the goal and the first one Wolves scored was a shocker – Cunha scoring from a corner and Onana all over the place. The second one was in stoppage time and a lump up field as United had sent everyone up in search for the equaliser, so it was a bit of a tap in. I spoke to a Chelsea fan at work yesterday about Wolves and he seemed to think they were very open defensively and gave Chelsea a lot of chances – we have to hope that they give us plenty of opportunities and are also as open as they looked. I just watched the game and the scorers of the first two goals were unlikely – Tosin and Cucurella. Madueke got the third and interestingly, it looked like it was all from set piece positions, so whether that plays in to our hands or not, we’ll have to see.

In the context of the season and any dwindling hopes of a league title attempt though, this is a ‘non-negotiable’ win. Liverpool will be hammering Ipswich at home this weekend, so anything other than a win and it absolutely will be all over for any title hopes. So we need to be at it, at them, up for it and take our chances. The beginning of the month saw us profligate, unlucky (teams scoring with basically their only chances), but there’s been some green shoots that we are taking our chances, so I am hopeful that today we can do what is required and get over the line.

Let’s hope we’ve got enough for the three points. I’ll be back with Amanda and James tomorrow morning to talk through the game on the Same Old Arsenal podcast, so if you fancy joining us, we’ll be there from about 9.30am UK time here.