Arsenal Vs Wolves Preview

You have to give it Nuno, he’s good at taking the temperature.

With increasingly large swathes of the fanbase frustrated by a rigid, defence-minded approach, he changes things up.

The performance was iffy at times with the team clearly struggling with the adjustment, but they still could have won against a very useful Southampton outfit.

Whether he perseveres with the new shape or reverts to type at the Emirates is fine by me. It’s just good to know he’s prepared to try things a different way.

It also gives Mikel Arteta something else to think about.

Arsenal

Every Arsenal season seems to be the same with early promise giving way to despair around this time of year.

A useful win at Old Trafford aside, things haven’t been going the Gunners way of late with three defeats and then a draw at Elland Road all they have to show from the last five.

Much like Nuno, Arteta has been taking the hits for what’s a perceived an overly cautious approach to team selection and tactics.

That tallies of course with both sides heading into the game having managed just 9 goals each, making them comfortably the lowest scorers from midtable up.

Again, drawing comparisons with our own setup, you look at the players they have at their disposal and more can rightly be expected.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang specifically is as reliable as they come but the Gabon striker just isn’t doing it at present, which is hampering their upward mobility. Is the coach to blame or the player?

Their flight back from Norway following their 3-0 Europa League win at Molde was delayed meaning they’ll only be getting back today, which may prove unhelpful for their preparation.

The home end

Some thoughts lifted from the pre-match thread on the Arsenal Mania fan forum.

Wolves have been fairly unimpressive so far, but Leicester already gave every PL team the template on how to nullify us and with a disciplined team like Wolves I don’t expect that to change. 0-0.

Not looking forward to this match. Both teams struggling for goals. Wolves adjusting to life without Jota. Traore seeing his minutes reduced in the midst of a contract standoff. This has has seen their attack compromised. We already know the story with our attack. Bore draw for me, which wouldn’t be a terrible result against Wolves tbh. 1-1.

Jimenez and Traore this year been off and could be good time for us to play them. their best players this season been Pondoce and Maybe Neto.

We’re due a win in the PL, think we’ll take this 2-0.

I’m not asking for much, just one goal from open play s’il vous plait

Wolves

Well then, everything is on the table – shape and personnel. Personally, I wouldn’t want us to be as open as we were against Southampton in this one so I’d revert to 343 and bring Marcal in for Ait-Nouri.

I’d also be tempted to give Neto a start at the expense of Podence, but I’d definitely be keeping Adama in the side.

Although we’ve only taken a point from the last two matches, we’re back into conceding 0s and 1s since the debacle at West Ham, which is a good sign.

We need more goals obviously and I think the whole team need to share that burden. Neves is overdue, as is a Boly header. Semedo has also threatened a few times, so hopefully it will come together for one or more of these support acts.

Despite all the talk about progressing the style, I don’t see any sign of us suddenly becoming a free-scoring outfit. I don’t mind that, but I do want to see us having a greater share of the game. We can’t keep camping out so deep and for so long away from home.

Last time out

Arsenal were deserving 2-0 winners at Molineux back in July. It was a bit of a chess match but once they went a goal up, they were good value and killed the game late on. I remember Traore had a good chance to equalise but other than that, we were very flat.

I thought we should have won at the Emirates though in what turned out to be a 1-1 draw. We started well, somehow ended up behind and came close to snatching it late on after Raul equalised. 25 shots on goal too.

Predictions

Well done to Paul AD67, Steve, Bedford Lone Wolf, BG, MILDENHALL WOLF, Sea Pigeon, Matt Cook, kiwiwolf, JackoMac, BOG, Rich and AussieWolf who all got a maximum for correctly forecasting 1-1 against the Saints.

An extra pat on the back to MILDENHALL WOLF and Steve who sit at the top of the overall table at the end of Gameweek 9.

As always if you’d like to join in, simply leave your prediction for this game in the comment section below, which is where you’ll find my best guess.

Up The Wolves!

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