@LaboGoon rings the bell and we are all aboard

Good day one and all.

Arsenal host West Ham United at the Emirates this afternoon, with both sides still looking for their first Premier League points.

It goes without saying that Unai Emery didn’t got off to the ideal start, but that does come with the strong caveat that the opening fixtures haven’t been ideal either.

The fixtures are about to take a turn for the better though, with the Hammers today and thereafter away trips to Cardiff and Newcastle. Three fixtures that on paper don’t look particularly daunting, so will likely tell us far more about Unai and what he has in mind.

After the discomfort of the past two weeks playing West Ham in front of a vociferous Emirates crowd is perhaps just the tonic we need. They’re a side that failed to turn up in their opening games, conceding 6 goals at the one end of the pitch and scored just 1 at the other – from the penalty spot. So Manuel Pellegrini must be under the cosh a bit because there has been no positives despite spending over £100m during the transfer window, on top of signing Jack Wilshere for free, who say he got a point to prove.

So going into this game we are the obvious favourites given our squad and quality, but things aren’t always that simple. We still have work to do on utilizing Unai’s tactics to the best of our abilities and cannot afford to make any mistakes, especially in these games that do provide some of the easier points to fight for.

While we were second best in the two previous games, there has been some positives to take from defeat, especially at Chelsea last week Saturday. There was a particular spell where we had them at sixes-and-sevens and created clear-cut chances at will, but… had it not been for the lack of a finishing touch we would have returned home with the points.

Hopefully our forwards have their scoring boots on today, notably one Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Although he missed some sitters last week I can imagine he must be licking his chops looking at our run of fixtures. This is a man that scored 120 goals in 144 Bundesliga matches, last season he contributed to an Arsenal goal or assist every 75 minutes. So we got ourselves one hell of a player who just need to open his account this season to burst into life.

What the next few games also provide is an opportunity for our defenders to wrap their heads around this playing out from the back thing. Once we got that sorted, I suspect this team will really kick on!

If West Ham are to cause an upset today, Fabianski and his defenders will need to step up and give a good showing. However, I’m going to stick my neck out here and say our amazing attack may just be a bit too overwhelming for them to cope with…. especially in front of the Emirates faithful.