It's been a while since we last played at The Lane. When we kick off, it will have been two weeks and two days since we last played a home game. That's a long time in football, so what's happened in Bladesworld (now THERE is a good theme park name) since our loss to Liverpool?
Watford was the venue for our next Premier League clash and it's fair to say that The Hornets have had a bit of a hangover since their FA Cup final loss to Man City (they even lost 8-0 to them a few weeks before we rolled into town). It's probably the first game since we came back up that we were expected to win so did we? No. No we didn't. In fact, if it wasn't for the heroics of Dean Henderson we would have probably ended up losing this game 2-0. Hendo made two incredible saves that more than made up for his costly error against Liverpool and was rewarded with a call up to the England national squad! First of all, big congratulations to Dean, it's been a long time coming in all honesty and hopefully this is the first of many call ups! Whilst we're on the subject of international call ups, many other Blades players were out and about representing their respective nations during the break. John Fleck made his long awaited debut for Scotland. Callum Robinson, Enda Stevens and John Egan represented Ireland with Egan winning man of the match in The Shamrock's clash with Georgia. Mo Besic was also away representing Bosnia so well done lads, you've done yourself and the club proud. Now then, onto the Arsenal. Arsenal are an interesting proposition of a team. At times, they can be pretty average and can be liable to throw away results in matches they are expected to win. In others, they can be almost unstoppable with a team that is full to the brim with world class talent. In the past five matches The Gunners have won four and drew one with results against Nottingham Forest and Standard Liege producing nine goals with none conceded. The other side of this coin however is the league. Although they have beaten Aston Villa and Bournemouth, they haven't beaten them convincingly with the result against Villa only coming thanks to two late goals from Calum Chambers and Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. The victory against Bournemouth was also far from easy with Arsenal only having two shots on target all game, the same as their opponents. In between these two victories was a draw with an Man United team that have been far from convincing this season. However, despite the way that they are winning Arsenal seem to be able to know how to get the job done and find wins when a draw or loss seems inevitable. So who are the danger men for the Gunnarsarus worshippers? (Have you seen that mascot?) The obvious answer to the question is Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. The Gabonese hitman has carried on his rich vein of goalscoring since his move from Dortmund in January 2018, getting 39 goals in 57 games and so far this season he's got 7 in 8. His pace is frightening so Egan, Bash and Jack will need to be on top form to keep him quiet. Alongside Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette could be coming back from his injury and that's another headache for the United backline to think about. Much like his strike partner, Lacazette has taken to the Premier League like a duck to water with 29 goals in 70 games and is another player who is pretty nippy. I've not even had to mention club record signing Nicolas Pepe yet and he's another one who, you guessed it, is nippy. I hope our backline have been given Sonic shoes that make them quicker because they will probably need them. How does this play out then? Well, I think it all depends on keeping the potent strikers of Arsenal quiet. If we can do that, we have a good chance of catching them on the counter because as much as David Luiz has achieved in his career, he's a bit of a bomb scare at the back and if we can exploit his defensive frailties, we could get some chances to score. It's a big match Blades, let's get behind the boys and cheer them on to victory. Until next ti- hold on, it's a night match isn't it? Does... Does that mean the light show is going to be back? OH FOR GODS SAKE!
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AuthorHi my name is John and i will be giving my thoughts on the blades matches and all blades related news in this section Archives
November 2022
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