Man Utd preview + Andrea Berta/Sporting Director

Morning all.

It’s a big game today as we travel to Old Trafford. Even with Man Utd where they are, there’s enough history and stature to make this an important one, and Mikel Arteta will be looking for this team to follow up on Tuesday’s 7-1 win over PSV.

It’s hard to imagine there’ll be anything radically different about today’s starting XI, although he may have a think about left-back after Myles Lewis-Skelly’s escape in Eindhoven. One school of thought might suggest it’s prudent to keep him out of the spotlight a bit when the focus on the disciplinary side of things is as hot as it is right at this moment. Another would be you show your faith in a young player who has performed well, and demonstrate that you trust him by selecting him for a big fixture like this one.

Another aspect might be that in the absence of so many forwards, Riccardo Calafiori becomes a credible attacking option from the bench. Even if you bring him on as a nominal left-back replacement, he’s got the ability to pop up in areas that can cause the opposition problems. I think I’m pretty comfortable with whatever decision the manager makes in that regard.

Beyond that, it’s difficult to see how we change anything else. Martin Odegaard, Declan Rice, Ethan Nwaneri, Leandro Trossard and Mikel Merino all contributed with goals and assists in the Champions League in midweek, so the message will be pretty simple: more of that please. Whether we’re afforded the kind of space PSV allowed us is another question though, and I’d be very surprised if that was the case.

There’s no question this is a United side that is really struggling this season, but as we found out in the FA Cup game in January, they’re not a pushover. How much you want to put that down to them being difficult and us being well below par on the day is up to you, but they’ll go into this game knowing they got a result against us not too long ago. They held Liverpool to a draw in January too, came from 2-0 down to draw with Everton recently, and beat Ipswich with ten men despite their goalkeeper doing his best to throw the game.

So, they’re not good, but that doesn’t mean this will be easy. A three at the back formation, with wing-backs who drop back to make it a five will likely be hard to break down, and that’s a challenge. I feel like midfield, where they have quality in the shape of Bruno Fernandes but not much else, could be key. If Rice and Odegaard can dominate in there, then we can cause them problems.

Arteta says:

There’s a history of that at the football club – the players they have, the club that they have. Watching the game last night against Real Sociedad, it became very clear that they’re very capable of putting a really strong performance in and beat you on the day. We know the difficulty of the match and that’s what we’re preparing for.

Hopefully that win against PSV has opened the floodgates a bit in terms of goalscoring, confidence is a hell of a thing in football, and we should bring some of that into today’s proceedings. I also feel like we’ve overdue a goal from a set-piece, something that was very useful in the home game against United back in December, so hopefully Nicolas Jover can pick up a goal bonus on Monday morning.

As ever you can join us later for live blog coverage, plus you’ll get the match report, goal clips, reaction, player ratings and much more over on Arseblog News.

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Ahead of our game, Arsenal Women are in FA Cup quarter-final action against Liverpool. Tim has a full preview of the game, including details of how you can watch, over on Arseblog News.

And finally for today, David Ornstein has reported in The Athletic (£) that Andrea Berta is set to become Arsenal’s new Sporting Director. The former Atletico Madrid man is set to sign a contract, and take up the role ahead of what is a vitally important summer for the club. More considered thoughts on this over the next few days, but I think it’s positive that the decision has been made, and he is available to start his new job pretty much straight away – giving him a good run-in to the summer. There’s a lot to do!

Right, I’ll leave it there for now. Catch you later for the game.

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