WHEN I interviewed Martin Odegaard for TV on Monday, he asked me what advice I’d give to Arsenal for Wednesday’s game at Manchester City.
My answer was two words: “Don’t lose.”
If Arsenal can do that, the title race is still open.
If not, it’s all over.
I’d love nothing more than to see a boring 0-0 draw but I can guarantee that’s not going to happen because Arsenal only know one way to play — and that’s s**t or bust.
George Graham would call it gung-ho football and would absolutely hate this stuff.
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It’s so exciting for the neutrals but Arsenal fans like me are watching every game from behind the sofa.
Every time Arsenal have won league titles, it’s been when they’ve got the right balance between defence and attack. This current team doesn’t have that balance.
Mikel Arteta never sends them out to keep a clean sheet — it’s very Arsene Wenger and I don’t think that will ever change with him.
I don’t think he has a Plan B, so on Wednesday night they’ll go to the Etihad and try to outplay the best team in Europe and probably not be good enough.
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Mikel has modelled everything on what his mate Pep Guardiola has done and, as a result, Arsenal are City Lite.
But you can’t win the title by copying a better version because Pep has more resources in his arsenal than Arsenal.
The depth of City’s squad is scary. They played their B team in the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday and still won 3-0.
And every time they make changes, their squad players come in and deliver. But Arsenal have been relying on the same core of players every week and you can’t expect them to keep delivering.
Odegaard, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Thomas Partey have been incredible all season — but when Arsenal played a couple of their B team against Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League, they got turned over.
So unless Arsenal are going to outspend Man City in the transfer market, they have to try something different.
When we went to Liverpool needing a last-day win to be champions in 1989, we played with five at the back, two holding midfield players and made keeping a clean sheet our absolute priority.
And it worked. We won 2-0 and the rest is history.
But that’s the kind of stuff which Arteta will never do, so this is a game which could finish up 3-2 or 4-3 either way.
City aren’t invincible. They were ripped apart down their left flank by Bayern Munich last week and even Tottenham took them to the cleaners a couple of months ago.
But they’ve got loads of Premier League-winning experience, while Arsenal only have Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, neither of whom were at the heart of City’s team before their Emirates move.
So now there’s a nervousness which crept into Arsenal’s game in Friday’s 3-3 draw with struggling Southampton.
At 2-0 down, Zinchenko calls all the players into a huddle. What was that all about?
If you’ve got something to say, you do it in the dressing room before the game, not in the middle of the match. That’s just for show.
And I hate it when I see the manager and the players waving their arms about trying to get the crowd going.
You do that by doing your job, chasing lost causes, clearing up, not making mistakes, and being defensively solid.
Arsenal just need to go back to basics — but they have no basics to go back to. They score a lot of goals but they also concede a lot.
There’s no one going, ‘Oi, what are you doing, stay here? Do not move, Ramsdale, don’t do that, stick it up the pitch’.
A third of all goals come from set-plays and we saw Arsenal concede from another corner last Friday.
I’ve no idea what the set-piece coach is supposed to be doing because it should be down to the players to take responsibility and sort it out, not someone pointing from the touchline.
All of which brings us to Erling Haaland — and obviously I’m worried about Arsenal being without William Saliba.
Haaland is a real throwback to a bygone age but, like Alan Shearer and Michael Owen, he’s a guy who gets on the end of the stuff but doesn’t create chances.
I’m more worried about Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish, Bernardo Silva and Riyad Mahrez because they’re the guys who dictate possession.
I can see the two centre-backs having a real battle with Haaland on Wednesday night and Rob Holding will relish that.
But City will have the majority of possession and create chances, so Haaland will get away at least once and, if he does, he’ll probably score.
I would have loved to play against him. He’d be just my cup of tea because it would have been so easy for me.
I’d relish that battle, like I did with Shearer. When you’re up against a striker like that, you get them working off the ball so they’re knackered when they get possession.
The best tackle in the world is anticipation and interception. I would make sure that I got the ball before he even touched it.
The only player I ever had to stick really close to was Duncan Ferguson, because if I gave him a run and a jump his leap was incredible.
It was a bit like being a sumo wrestler. The smaller guy has to use the weight of his opponent against him.
So I would get right into Duncan’s belly and make sure he couldn’t jump. It wasn’t about me clearing the ball away, it was making sure he couldn’t get his head to it.
If you get into a physical fight with Haaland, you’re probably going to lose.
So if the ball is coming up to him or it’s crossed to him at the near post, you get in front of him at all times.
And if you’re in doubt, you just whack him up in the air.
But you only do that on the halfway line in the 95th minute when you’re 2-0 up. You definitely don’t do it anywhere near your own area.
Let’s just hope Arsenal are in that comfortable position on Wednesday night.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
