So…injuries, then.
We all know the story by now – Walcott out until Christmas, van Persie out until the sun goes nova, the recent news that the Verminator will miss this match as well. It amazes me at this point that we freak out when these injuries happen. Seriously? You’re an Arsenal supporter and you’re not used to this by now?
At the end of the day, there is enough depth in the squad now where even in a mini-crisis such as this, the team should have enough weapons to see off mid-table shite like Bolton at Ashburton Grove. Besides, it’s not like Bolton don’t have their own problems right now. First and foremost, Jussi Jaaskelainen is serving the first match of his three-game suspension for violent conduct (that said, please don’t get started on how his slap-like-a-girl foul warrants the same suspension as a fucking thug like Ryan Shawcross shattering Aaron Ramsey’s leg), and will be deputized by Adam Bodgan. From the admittedly-little I’ve seen of the young Hungarian, he’s dodgy as fuck AND he looks like Richie Cunningham from Happy Days. Gavin McCann and Sean Davis also miss out due to injury, while Ivan Klasnic faces a late fitness test.
Arsenal will have to depend on Marouane Chamakh more than ever in his short time with us. We may not necessarily need him to score, but his link-up play and threat from set pieces will be vital, particularly against this opposition. The hope is that his presence opens up some room for Cesc Fabregas and Andrei Arshavin to operate – if they have time, they should be able to cause the Trotters’ backup keeper a few problems. Defense will also be an issue without TV5 – we will have the all-French back four of Gael Clichy-Sebastien Squillaci-Laurent Koscielny-Bacary Sagna, who have of course never played together as a unit. Koscielny in particular will need to replicate his second-half performance against Blackburn, where he coped admirably with the aerial bombardment and physicality of their forwards. What we don’t need is a rerun of their goal, where the odious El-Hadji Diouf brushed him aside with imperious ease. Besides, Clichy has been so bad on the defensive end lately (shit, he was even at fault for Belarus’ winner against his France side) that Koscielny may have to bail him out at least once.
As for Squillaci, he should be fine. He’s in the prime age for a defender, he has international experience and he comes to us from a big club. Sure, the Premier League is quicker and more physical than La Liga, but there’s a difference between some 20-year old kid and a guy who’s faced off against Madrid and Cuntalona.
The only other question our end (since I’m assuming we’re playing some variation of 4-2-3-1) is whether Jack Wilshere or Abou Diaby will be the other holding midfielder alongside Alex Song. Each has its upsides and downsides. Wilshere has shown far more willingness to get stuck in and he has the sort of attitude you want for that position, but he was also badly at fault for Liverpool’s goal in the season opener with a terrible giveaway. He’s still young and prone to mistakes. Still, he’s probably preferable given the lazy, ambling style that Diaby brings. He isn’t bad going forward at times, but Arsene may opt to put him in the holding role anyway due to his greater experience (and the fact that Wilshere is capable of magic from time to time).
For the northern monkeys, they are a slightly different prospect from Blackburn. When their Plan A of aerial bombardment didn’t work, the only Plan B they had was bringing even bigger lads up front in the person of central defender Christopher Samba. With Bolton, they do have a few guys who can play a little, most notably American attacking midfielder Stuart Holden. We’ll have to make sure that he doesn’t get too many chances to get space and hit diagonal through-balls to Kevin Davies or Johan Elmander.
More worrying, of course, is those two on set pieces. Without TV5, there isn’t a whole lot of height in our central defense pairing, and I can see them getting a goal or two that way if we’re not careful. The rest of their team pretty much picks itself, with Fabrice Muamba in the holding role flanked by Martin Petrov and Lee Chung-Yong. Their central defense pairing of Gary Cahill and Zat Knight is decent-to-good, so I imagine that width will be of utmost importance. The fullbacks (Gretar Steinsson and Paul Robinson) are beatable, so hopefully that will help pull the CBs out more, leaving some gaps for us to exploit.
Bolton are a decent team, especially compared to much of the dross at the bottom of the table. That said, we’re at home, and they have a 19-year old in goal. If we don’t win this game, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves. I’ll say 3-2 to the good guys.
