Arsenal return to Europa League action with a trip to Greece, taking on Olympiakos at the Karaiskakis Stadium for the 1st leg of their last-32 tie. Mikel Arteta, of course, will oversee his first game on the continental scene.

The Gunners go into this match on the back of an eight-match unbeaten run across all competitions since the turn of the year. Even though half ended in draws, the Gunners will still be in high-spirits following their 4-0 second half razing of Newcastle United in a league encounter this past Sunday.

However, Arteta does not shy away from saying the players still have a long way to go to meet his expectations, while also recognising that they’re moving in the right direction. The progress they have made is something we can all be proud of because it implies that the Spaniards message is filtering through.

We have reached this ’round of 32′ as group F winners, however, with a mixed bag of results. After winning the opening three group games, we went winless in each of their last three (D2, L1). So no doubt Arteta will be hoping we hit some consistency to continue the progression as he targets success in the Cup competitions.

Meanwhile, Olympiakos play their first game in this season’s Europa, after being bumped down from the Champions League. They come into this match on the back of a comfortable 4-0 win themselves this past weekend on the domestic front and will be full of confidence.

Pedro Martins’ side is on a great run of form at the moment, in fact the last time they lost a match was on the 26th November against Tottenham in the CL. They are unbeaten after 24 matches in the Greek Super League (W18, D6); boasting a formidable goalscoring record of 50 league goals with only nine in reply.

They lead PAOK by two points and play them this coming weekend. So while that match will likely take priority with them targeting domestic success, we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking they won’t try advance to the next round of the Europa at our expense. Arteta made no bones about seeing them as tough opponents:

“Papa [Sokratis] has made us even more aware of that, if we had any doubts… He knows everything about Olympiacos, about the country, about the type of fans that we are going to find here.

“I’ve been very aware from the games that I’ve watched about them and their passion, their quality and the atmosphere that we are going to have to be playing in tomorrow. So yes, it’s a difficult trip away from home and we’re going to expect a tough game and we’ve prepared for the game knowing that it’s going to be a difficult challenge.”

Team news

Of the notable absentees from the travelling party are Lucas Torreira, who misses out through illness, and Mesut Özil, him and his wife are expecting their first child – congratulations to Mr and Mrs Özil.

With the Europa providing an alternative route into next season’s Champions League Arteta could have a selection dilemma – does he rotate or pick the strongest XI from those available?

There have been some impressive performance of late though and some on the fringes that have really put their hands up. So whomever gets selected we can be sure deserves it.

Having ended his goal drought on Sunday, Alexandre Lacazette is likely to lead the attack with Eddie Nketiah dropping to the bench.

Mattéo Guendouzi made the flight and could come in the side with Dani Ceballos, who excelled on his return, likely to retain his place with Özil at home.

At the back Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Sead Kolasinac are all in line for recalls, with new signings Pablo Mari also available for selection, while Arteta expect Cédric Soares to step up his recovery in the coming days.

Prediction

The Gunners are favourites to make it through over two legs. However, with home advantage the Greeks will be tough to beat and if we make more than a few changes to the lineup we could find ourselves in for a long night.

Be that as it may, we can expect a hard-fought and very entertaining game with both sides giving it their all. COYG!

@LaboGoon

I’m tempted to say something like that was a game of two halves,but I wont because that would be pathetic, so i’ll say it was a game of one third and two thirds. The first half an hour was none too impressive, but after that, we were well on top.

Arteta set the team up, with his selections, to best combat the deep block in a disjointed game, and it worked. With Xhaka and Dani in the midfield it allowed Ozil to do his Ozil thingamabobs, drifting into space, with a good chance the ball would reach him. And it did. Xhaka did what we have seen him do recently, and played in a hybrid CM/CB/wingback/fullback position, which allows Saka to bomb on and gave Dani more time and space. Xhaka will not get many plaudits, but he had a huge effect on the game.

I keep banging the drum that Ozil has not regressed, and he just needs the team to find him in space, i think that was exactly what happened today. He had a great game.

Ceballos also had a fine game, his passing both penetrative  and accurate. I hope this is the start of a nice little cameo from him that lasts until the end of the season.

I would be mean to not mention Saka, what a talent he is, but as I mentioned, he should say thanks to Xhaka for allowing him the freedom that he took advantage of.

Another player that had a fine game, was Mustafi. He is an exceptional defensive header of the ball. In fact he has been good consistently under Mikel, it’s a shame that he gets no recognition because……. well because he’s Mustafi.

Oh what joy it is to have our Arsenal back. Ok , I know, but it feels like a corner has been turned.

Twitter, blogs, podcasts and “click bait” presenters have changed the face of football support. The more extreme your opinions are, the more aggressive your delivery is, the more successful you will be if your goal is to profit from your supposed support of a football team. Being heard is more important than being informed to many of the new-age fans.

AFTV is both the most unpopular example of this and also the most successful. It doesn’t mater how repulsive the “stars” are, how ridiculous their opinions are, how much damage they do to the club, it’s reputation and standing, as long as enough people subscribe to and follow them, it’s job done. We saw Hector Bellerin point out that it was wrong, for so called fans, to profit from negativity, and what happened? They faked a recording of him slagging off the club, attacked him remorselessly and attempted to turn the fans against him. Their ploy was exposed, but did it matter? No it did not, more people listened , followed and subscribed. Again, job done.

You might think we would have learned, but no, hell no! We then saw the most moronic of them set up their own Youtube channels , some even broadcasting live from the front seat of their cars, they then get a huge following and make even more profit.

As if that isn’t bad enough, but we regularly see TalkSport radio, the biggest sports radio station in the world, going to these most uninformed and objectionable profiteers, for their opinion on matters they are hugely unqualified to give, it’s a joke.

Think about every “famous” blogger, podcaster and Youtuber ,then think of why they became well known. Almost every one of them are negative extremists. Are they known for their understanding of Arsenal, it’s business model, the players or the tactics? No, they are known for their attacks on almost all things Arsenal. Some are just outright rude and aggressive while others hide behind humour and snide analysis, but all have one common thread, they prey on negative feelings.

The question is, are these people driven by popular opinion, or do they drive popular opinion towards a place where they become the stars of the prevailing opinion? Let us not forget that popular opinion had us improving if we could just get rid of Arsene Wenger, it had Emery doing a great job and Raul was “the Don” ! Make no mistake, these people are looking for ways to attract attention and make a profit, the profit might be in direct £ or a surge in their own profile, but looking they are.

Recently, while having a discussion abut Mesut Ozil, I used names like Arteta, Wenger, Pep and Jose, to back up my opinion, the rebuttal expert witness they drew upon to counter me was “Clive from Arsenal Vision” , the justification for using this colossus of football knowledge was that because people paid to listen to him, he must have a valid opinion. This is where we are.

Currently , most people are behind Arteta, but make no mistake, as soon as some of these “fans” see a profit in turning against him, they will. The problem is that those of us that are still on board will give them the oxygen they desire by highlighting their negativity on social media. We have seen the backlash against AFTV and they have recognised the problem by pretending to be positive. But it won’t last because all the profit is in negativity.

Good day everyone.

There is no getting away from it, that was a disappointing result and a disappointing performance, we can almost taste the collective disappointment in the air.

Since Mikel rocked up there has been a swell of optimism running  through the club, from management to players to fans. The results haven’t been great but most can see an improvement in performances both individually and collectively from the players. So we went to Burnley and we expected a win and a good performance. Our disappointment comes from the levels of expectation we ourselves created. Had Emery still been in charged we would not have had the same levels of expectation, so the disappointment would be less. As Andrey Arshavin once famously said “Your expectations are your problems”. 

The problem with putting forward excuses, is that people dismiss them even when they are valid mitigation.Well for me there were good excuses why we didn’t play very well.  I say”very well” because in fact we did not play badly, actually for periods we were reasonably good, given the conditions. So lets look at the conditions for a moment.

The pitch was left with the grass long which clearly favours a less technical team. Therefore immediately we have to accept the technical side of the game will take a knock. And before people start shouting “it’s the same for both” it’s not, the more technical side loses more advantage because they have more to lose.

I felt that Arteta picked Guendouzi over Torreira partly because of the conditions and that Burnley mostly bypass the midfield, so he wanted a ball carrier rather than a shield. Unfortunately young Matteo had a game that he didn’t carry the ball well or progress it well with his passing. The problem was then made worse when Xhaka had to move from midfield to leftback, leaving us with Guendouzi and Torreira in the centre, a combination that has never worked.

One of the tactics seemed to be for Aubameyang to move more central allowing space for Saka to run into, a tactic that was working well until Saka literally got smashed out of the game. We lost our best CM ,who moved to LB and our best wide attacking threat. A double whammy.

The loss of Xhaka in CM immediately means Ozil becomes less effective  because he doesn’t receive the ball as often and in as good positions. More on Ozil latter.

Move up front and we had Lacazette, badly out of form, Aubameyang not at his best on the day and Martinelli playing on the side that suits him less. Their collective hold up play was poor. Perhaps on reflection Mikel will feel he got the selection wrong, but no one was complaining when the team was announced, it looked to most that it was the right starting three.

There has been a lot of moaning about Ozil’s performance, something that I seriously can’t understand. “Mesut Özil made the most ball recoveries, created the most chances, completed the most final third passes, succeeded the most dribbles and made the most interceptions of any Arsenal player when he was on the pitch.” I don’t know what more people want from him, he can’t pass the ball to himself so he is relying on the other players to either give it  back to him or do something decent with it, well on the whole they didn’t. He doesn’t have a playstation controller so he can move the others into good space and he cant make them pass the ball better. Ozil is definitely not the problem in this team.

On the bright side we look much better defensively, Mustafi didn’t put a foot wrong and play really well, Luiz looks a good player again and Hector is looking better with every minute he gets under his belt.

I have always said that we need a balanced MF, and I feel that the best one is Xhaka, Torreira and Ozil, but if circumstanced dictate that this trio is unavailable we struggle. Well circumstances did just that yesterday.

Nothing is going to stop me from being optimistic about our future under Arteta, the only question is how distant is that future and what levels of performance are we going to be happy with, because for sure, there will not be the levels of investment that will make us contenders for the league. We simply have to curtail our expectations or else we will be in a constant state of disappointment and anger.

Arsenal travel to Turf Moor this afternoon for their Premier League match against Burnley. As the Gunners look to end a run of three straight league draws, the Clarets will aim to make it three league wins on the bounce.

Good day all. Despite Arsenal still not having lost a league game since the turn of year, the improved performances and positive change in attitude, there’s still this sense that the Mikel Arteta era hasn’t really taken off yet.

I suppose this comes from us being closer to the bottom-three than top-four. It sure doesn’t help that we got our feet stuck in the mid-table mud. Still, this season is no write-off.

Going into this weekends fixtures, we were four points off both Man United and Spurs in 5th and 6th-place respectively. With them having a few tricky games coming up in the next game weeks, this is a good chance for us to reel them in, but we have to start turning draws, which are our main source of dropped points, into wins in order to move up the table.

It goes without saying Mikel started his tenure at a very awkward stage, smack in the middle of a very congested festive run, but things will now start to ease off a bit. With today’s trip followed by three straight home matches against Newcastle, Everton and West Ham, the Spaniard will be well aware that a result at Turf Moor could be key to generate momentum heading into last few months of this campaign.

Look, this team is in a really good place and that performance at Chelsea… followed by the young ones blowing Bournemouth away with a laudable first half display at the Vitality… we have grown in stature of late. And with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang now back in the side things can only get better. Who knows, if we string together a few wins in this next few weeks even 4th-placed Chelsea might start to look over their shoulder.

Burnley won’t roll over though. They had a dismal time since Boxing Day with four straight defeats, and heading into back-to-back matches against Leicester, Man United and Arsenal, there were real concerns they could get sucked into the relegation scrap. But boy didn’t they make some look silly; first they came from behind to beat the Foxes at home, before a 2-0 victory over the Red Devils at Old Trafford. With those games now chalked off, Sean Dyche will feel cocksure that his team can make it three league wins in a row.

I doubt it will even matter that they come into this game on the back of a disappointing FA Cup defeat against Norwich. Because for Dyche the silver lining will be that he can put all his focus on trying to get his side finishing this campaign as high as possible.

Despite some nearly moments the Clarets don’t have the best record against the Gunners though. Our 2-1 win in the reverse fixture back in August was the 11th eleventh straight one over them – a run stretching back to start of the last decade. They sure will be hopeful of beating Arsenal for the first time since 2008.

Team news

Arsenal made defensive additions of Pablo Mari and Cédric Soares this past week and there’s no doubt they should only help our cause, however, we should see them after the winter break.

We are also able to call upon the services of Auba and David Luiz, following their suspensions, with Shkodran Mustafi (ankle) and Sead Kolasinac (thigh) being assessed ahead of the game.

Prediction

Burnley got their season back on track with some promising recent results, but Arsenal are showing a different side to them under Arteta. Also Auba will be eager to get back in the goals, ergo we are favourites to grind out a result to get back in the race for a top-six spot.

As always, we need to remain switched on and got to make the most of our chances. Good luck all. COYG!

@LaboGoon

Good day positivistas,

I wasn’t going to bother with a match report because everyone saw it and most of the talking has been done in the comments already, however, there are a few things I would like to mention on reflection.

The first thing I noticed was the odd position that Xhaka had taken up. He was playing as some sort of leftback/quarterback/centerback hybrid. Now we have recently seen him moving to the left, I thought that was to help out Saka with his defensive duties, but this was something different. It appeared to be his starting position, Saka was mostly in advance of him and Guendouzi was on his own in the DM position, rather than it being a double pivot(get me with the know-it-all jargon), it certainly worked because in the first half Saka and Martinelli were free to run riot down that flank, often with Martinelli moving inside to give Saka acres of space to run into. It was noticeable because Mustaffi keeps pinging long diagonal balls out to our young flying leftback. It worked well , but if we are put under pressure, it will leave us short handed in centre midfield at some points, as it did in the second half where we were not as dominant on the ball. The four players involved in this tactic ,Xhaka, Saka, Martinelli and Mustafi, all have very good games, it worked a treat.

The second thing that struck me was how once again we were not as good second half as we were in the first. There are several possible reasons for this, they include

Perhaps Eddie Howe worked out our tactics and made adjustments at haft time

Maybe we just ran out of gas.

Or, and this is much more likely, Bournemouth started to kick the crap out of us and the referee allowed it. I mean Martinelli, among many others, was assaulted several times, and not only were yellow cards not given, but often it was not even seen a a foul. We were hugely lucky not to suffer some serious injuries. During the first half, the terminally boring BT commentator Steve McManaman actually said, and I quote the prick ” They’re not even kicking the Arsenal players” Until this attitude, and the acceptance of it, is considered unacceptable, we will forever be on the end of it. I might be bias, but I can’t imagine any referee allowing it against either City or Liverpool.

Anyway, it was a good game and we march on into the next round. I love Atreta and his team.