Morning folks.  It’s matchday again! After a ten day hiatus, The Arsenal are back, the nerves are back, the trepidation remains and the trip to Leicester – whilst ordinarily I’d see it as an opportunity to potentially rack up some goals given their position and form – that is fraught with concern given our attacking predicment right now.

No Saka. No Jesus. No Martinelli. No Havertz. That’s quite a list of attackers missing asnd as I said in my open letter to Trossard yesterday, there’s a lot resting on a small number of players’ shoulders. And with the seven point gap between us and Liverpool there for all to see, much like all season has felt like, this is a ‘lose and it’s probably all over’ kind of game. Heck, even a draw and it’t probably all done, so Arteta and Arsenal need to find a way of keeping this game a shut out in our defence, whilst findings goals from our forward line – however they may come.

Leicester’s form is hardly sparkling though. Other than the surprise victory at The Scum, they’ve lost away in the FA Cup to United, they’ve lost 4-0 away at Everton, 2-0 at home to Fulham, 2-0 at home to Palace, 2-1 away to Villa and 2-0 at home to City. I did my usual check up on their fans and where their heads are at and they:

  • Hate the owner
  • Aren’t inspired by Ruud van Nistlerooy
  • Aren’t particularly attached to this group of players

As I’ve just mentioned, ordinarily I’d be feeling confident given those results and the way in which Leicester have struggled this season, but the Premier League can be a bit of a bastard at times and it always has a habit of throwing up strange results. And Leicester fans will still have memories of a couple of decent wins against us in recent times, along with Jamie Vardy who is still there, will play today and regardless of his age has still scored goals this season and has still got that annoyingly good record against us. Saliba and Gabriel have to keep him quiet today.

As for some of the statistical numbers (which I often look at to try to find some hope ahead of games like this), what I’ve been able to dig out is:

  • Leicester average just under one goal a game at home in the league, but they’re conceding an average of two per game
  • They have the lowest xG of any team in the division – so they’re not creating many high quality chances
  • They have taken the second least amount of shots in the league and they have the lowest number of shots on target of any team – which backs up the low xG stat
  • They’ve faced the third most shots on target this season at 139 – only Brentford and Southampton are worse
  • They have the highest number of blocks in the league – 334.

So on that last stat, it looks like they will be aiming to flood their own defensive third and get as many bodies in between the ball and the goal as possible.

Their ‘keeper tends to go long with kicks and also throws, because they’ve attempted the fifth most (kicks long) and third most (throws) in the league, so there will probably be a bit of an aerial battle for our lads at times. They also face the second most crosses of any team in the league; the football analysts at clubs have clearly decided that there is a weakness in their full back positions. That means that Sterling and Nwaneri have an important role to play today, I suspect, so I want to seem both of them making the most of any potential opportunities they get.

I also think that there is a responsibility of the midfielders to find those players in space too. So for me that is Odegaard and Rice playing as the two eights and with our front line so depleted as it is, you do wonder if the onus on more creative and attacking arrivals in to the box is going to need to be shared around a bit more. That means Rice and Odegaard impacting in the final third more and whilst Odegaard knows how to spot a pass, his goalscoring has definitely been off up to this point. That has to change from now.

Leicester will look to the likes of Decordova Reid and the incredibly fouly Jordan Ayew to get the better of us in the wide positions. I am fully expecting Ayew’s immunity to be punished for repeated fouling to go on (I think that’s happened three times in the last four or five years when we’ve been up against teams he’s played for), so whether it’s Lewis-Skelly or Timber, we need to be ready for his antics. UPDATE: I’ve just read that Vardy might be injured today, so that would mean Patson Daka would play. He’s barely featured this season and whilst he picked up an injury in August until November, he’s been fit since then so clearly Ruud doesn’t really fancy him and has been playing Vardy instead. Daka has one goal this season but you wouldn’t bet against – given how Arsenal can sometimes be the team that breathes life into sides where there was none previously – him getting one today. He’s got more pace than Vardy, he’ll look to run channels, but what we need to see is Saliba and Gabriel pocketing him and keeping him quiet.

And if they do, if we surpress the shots of Leicester and give them basically nothing to cheer about, then the onus becomes on whether we can break the deadlock on their goal. I think after the double attacking blow of the last week and a bit has come out there’s a bit of fingernail chewing from Arsenal fans on how we’re going to bag goals, but we have a good team, we still have some very talented players and as Arteta said in his press conference yesterday, it is up to him and them to embrace this latest challenge as an exciting one that they have to solve.

Amanda and I will be going live straight after the whistle to give our thoughts so if you fancy joining us you can do so here.

Other than that, I’ll be back tomorrow for a match preview debrief.