Note to my fellow Boro-thers-in-arms: Above section is meant to be ignored. Just treat it as a mad man's raving. Below part is where the real fun comes.
Win Arsenal?
Optimism is at an all-time high. Or is it? Weirdly enough, the Teesside faithful are quietly confident of an upset. The only catch? Every Le Gooner feels the same towards us as well. Let me just say that our outing against Burnley was a hard done deal. Instead of getting burnt by the away team (which is arguably better than us, form-wise at least), we actually gave Burnley our Teesside burn for a large period of time. Make no mistakes about it, Sean "still not a douche" Dyche was out to win this. A look at his starting XI said it all. You have George "not a Kris" Boyd and Robbie "RoboBrad" Brady out wide with Joey "I have a Joe, I have a baton..." Barton in the central mid. Up front, they have Ashley "not a John" Barnes and Andre "50 Shots of Gray" Gray. If this doesn't look like a strong starting XI, it means you're smarter than José "O Especial" Mourinho, Antonio "Il Bestia" Conte, and Jürgen "Der Kop Kaiser" Klopp combined. In other words, you're a footballing Jew.
Suffice to say, Boro Steve's challenge is very simple, yet so difficult. Sounds like an oxymoron?
His challenge is very simple, it lies in the only thing he needs to set right. Namely, the correct balance between attack and defence. Under Señor, we're always running the risk of playing lopsided football. This is also the reason why this is also very difficult for him to get it right. We're racing against time, we're definitely on borrowed time. If we go down, I suspect the only person happy to bid us goodbye would be Alan "Captain Geordie" Shearer. Under Boro Steve, I truly hope the Teesside burn we gave to Burnley will be a sign of things to come.
As for Arsenal, I believe there's very little for me to say. However, let me try helping out in whatever manner possible. Let's see...
L'avant-garde
Arsène "Le Professeur d'Londres" Wenger will have to make a big call here. He has two choices to make. Will he want to go for pace and aggression? (e.g. Alexis "the smokin' gun" Sánchez) Or will he opt for physique and control? (e.g. Olivier "Le Chevalier d'Londres" Giroud)
What manner of L'avant-garde strategy Le Professeur opt to unleash will define his tactics. Period.
If it's the fast and furious, it means Les Gunners will be out to control the match via a four-man midfield. More specifically two holding mids and Mesut "Der Ottoman Turkish Delight" Özil. And then, there's one wide attacker tasked with holding down play and switching on the tempo in an instance. No such player, you say?
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| Believe it or not, Monsieur has been smiling like this ever since Super Santi signed for Arsenal. |
Note of self-fallacy: Thankfully, I discovered that Santi "El Alquimista" Cazorla is out injured. Not that I'm gloating. Rather, I'm relieved that I nearly made a fool of myself instead of... well, making a fool out of myself.
Les Cavaliers
The interesting part about Les Gunners' attack lies in an evenly spread out offence. What I mean is very simple: The anchoring point can be anywhere across the attacking trio behind the lone striker or the lone striker himself. In order to make this work, however, Monsieur Londres will have to make full use of his attacking wide players. If Boro Steve can guess correctly how his opposite number will play his centre-forward card, it may easily mean half the battle won. More or less, pace and aggression will be there. Question is, how often will they play it fast and furious instead of control and unleash?
L'Unique
There can only be one Special One. And I'm not talking about O Especial since his 90 mins were already over. I'm talking about a German Turk, I'm talking about the Ottoman Turkish Delight. Also known as Der Königsmacher, Özil is all about making kings out of goal scorers. In football, goals win you games. In football, goal difference means nothing without goals. In football, goals make a king like how a dearth of goals makes a pauper. If Özil is the fulcrum of all things offence and goals, it merely means one thing: Les Gunners will have to create tonnes of space for Der Königsmacher to exercise his authority as the core playmaker. Easy or difficult? It depends on the distance between the lone centre-forward and the two holding mids. It also depends on the distance between one wide attacker and the other. At the same time, there has to be one holding mid tasked with playing the ball forward, be it a 20 yard pass or 10 yard simple pass. We cannot afford to let this guy operate 15 yards behind the lone striker. If we do that, we die. Either we force him back or we force him out. Positionally speaking ofc.
Will this be Mission Impossibru?
I don't want to create any sense of false dawn here. Period. Probability merely means a long shot from what is absolute. What I can do, however, is to give Boro Steve some advice here.
1. Mind the fullbacks, our defensive width is arguably our Achilles heel. Our 16 million GBP man is out due to that loan rule restriction while I'm not sure whether our BFF leftback can be fit enough to match them pace for pace for the full 90 mins (not to mention surviving a few knocks or a Shawcross challenge). Les Gunners will be out to attack us down the flank. Worse come to worse, they will just tell their fullbacks to overlap and bomb us like a pair of B-2 Stealth Bombers.
2. Can we do a Big Uncle Sam? Laugh at him if you like, but there's nothing funny behind Big Uncle Sam dishing out the Fat Sam treatment last time round. Les Gunners were outmuscled, therefore they ended up getting outfought (not mention as well getting outrun like hell as well). Les Gunners were trampled by a 10 tonne XI. Period. More specifically, it's the space between their holding six and attacking four. And it has got nothing to do with that disastrous pass which may have cost Les Gunners a loss worth a whopping 35 million quids (NOT literally speaking ofc).
3. We can do decently well when it comes to holding down the ball. But what about going forward? Technically, we're better than some of the teams above us, believe it or not. Against the masters of cavalier football, we're nothing. If we can't gun forward fast enough, it means we must still try emulating Big Uncle Sam even though chances are that we can't reach that kind of 10 tonne XI level. Big Uncle Sam opted for two supersonic wingers against Les Gunners in the form of Wilfried "fried by his pace" Zaha and Andros "not a Stuart" Townsend. Monsieur Wenger will be telling his lads that we have nothing like that kind of players. And guess what? He's right if truly so.
4. If we can't do a thing on the attacking width, it means our central midfield area will be where the battle shall be won or lost. We cannot afford to let them breach the middle 3rd because they will exploit our defensive width like a pack of wolves chasing after a lagging deer. We must defend our defensive width at all costs (minus unwanted injury to our BFF St George ofc). We must be fast and decisive in playing the ball from the centre. We must be fast and aggressive in breaking up play and running box to box.
And above all, passing accuracy will mean a great deal for us. Make or break for us, to be exact.
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