Beware the Mackems: The Arsenal head to Sunderland

Happy Friday, boys and girls. I hope wherever you are, you enjoy the end of the working week, or if you still have to work tomorrow anyway, you at least get the ‘Friday vibes’. Not least because The Arsenal play tomorrow.

It’s a trip up to the Stadium of Light to play Sunderland, who last season, when we played them, were certainly in a rich vein of form, specifically on their own patch. I think we remember it all very well; long ball, not dealt with, Ballard slams it home to put them one up. We respond with a Saka goal and a superb Leo finish on 74 minutes, before they score with basically the last kick of the game. A real gut-punch because when you look at the numbers, we really did batter them that day.

But it is a new season, a new opportunity, and an Arsenal team with four wins out of four so far in all competitions will go into tomorrow night’s encounter full of confidence. Is that how the pundits will see it though?

Pretty much, although a few are predicting this to be a tight one, which I could totally see. Sunderland are a tough team at home; they have Xhaka back in that midfield and have a 1-1-1 record in the Premier League so far, with their home win at Fulham the only data point we have for whether their home form will once again make the Stadium of Light a bit of a fortress. But Chris Sutton on the BBC website reckons we’ll do them with a 1-0, as does Lewis Jones on Sky Sports. Sports Mole have been a little more bullish with a 3-1, but if I was to pick the more likely of the two results in Arsenal’s favour, I’d probably opt for that tight one-goal result.

That makes for nervy prep, because whilst we’ve looked imperious so far this season, as we saw with Brobbey’s goal in injury time last November, it only takes one slip-up for an opponent to capitalise in the Premier League. Last season, just before we kicked off against Sunderland we’d not conceded in our previous eight matches in all competitions. It was that period of the season where we were joking that it was annoying when teams even had a shot against us. We go into this game in a similar situation to back then; this time we have recently conceded – against Chelsea – but it’s the xG stats that we’re all looking at, as the Napoli game was another one in which we reduced our opponent to pot shots and speculative efforts from distance. Where that happens, you play the percentages and most of the time teams don’t open you up and don’t score worldies from 25 yards. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Sunderland certainly have players who have the ability to do that tomorrow night, so whilst I would be happy to take my chances and see them have 25-30 yard efforts, I don’t think that we should be too complacent about how we defend in our clusters and recover the ball.

Team news-wise, we’ll find out more from Arteta today, and I’m particularly interested in hearing about Jurrien Timber, because he’s a guy who we really miss, and Ben White can only play so many minutes, you fear. I hope that we get a good update today from the boss on that one.

In terms of how our opponents’ fans are feeling, it’s a mixed bag and clearly their fans are recognising the form we are in. There’s the usual comments about a stoppage time penalty to win it 1-0, one guy suggested they play six at the back against us, but what is nice to see is none of those weird comments from fans of whom we have no natural rivalry with, saying things like “I hate Arsenal more than any other team”. We all know when you’re the champions, when you’re the best team (or have been based on last season) that you’re there to be hated and shot at, but Newcastle, Villa, weirdly Forest fans, etc, have all said some pretty ‘out there’ things in the last year or so that I’ve been snooping on opponent fan forums.

In many ways it is a shame that they are playing their game against AZ ALkmaar on Wednesday next week; it would have been good to see how they fare after a big European night for them next week, then us having to play them, but as the guys oin Sports Mole suggested, Arteta’s rotation of some players, and the depth of the squad, should mean that we can still go into this game relatively fresh. Tzolis can come in for Eze, Kai for Havertz, Calafiori didn’t start in Naples, Saka came off for Noni so he’s hopefully ok, plus there’s one of Myles, Bruno or Zubi who could all play against the Mackems in the engine room of the team. So from a freshness perspective, I’m less worried about that.

We do need to make sure that the profligacy in Naples isn’t carried over in the North East tomorrow though. As I said on the Same Old Arsenal midweek pod we did last night, I do think we should be looking at giving Bruno his first start, given his background as ex-Newcastle captain. It feels like this is the kind of game he would love to be in the trenches for. But team line-ups and tactical thoughts on how this plays out need to be saved for tomorrow, I reckon, when we’ve heard both managers speak.

And so until then, I shall bid you all a fine Friday, and I will catch you all tomorrow ahead of the evening’s big kick off. Enjoy your Friday.

Laters kids.