Big big game this weekend as Arsenal take on the Bullwinkles of Watford. I know that fans of the Northwest London club will try to tell you that it’s a “hart” or some nonsense but that is a cartoon moose if I ever saw one.
Anyway, the Bullwinkles will be looking to pull a rabbit out of their hat on Sunday and they might just do it, thanks to new boss Quique Flores.
Flores and Emery have faced off 7 times in the past and Emery has only won once. Emery’s record is 1-3-3 in those games, which took place both in the Spanish Liga and in the Europa League.
For most of their meetings, Flores was manager of Atletico Madrid and Emery was manager of Valencia. These two teams were kind of incredible. Flores had Aguero, Reyes, Forlan, and David de Gea and Emery’s Valencia was packed with talent too. He had David Villa, David Silva, Juan Mata, Ever Banega, and Jordi Alba.
One match I watched between these two managers was in the Europa League in April 2010. It was a wild, open, game which Atleti won after a 2-2 draw because of the away goals rule. Emery’s Valencia tried to attack in the opening 15 minutes or so and might have even taken the lead early on but fluffed their chances. After that the game settled into a defensive contest (which is one of Flores’ specialties) until Forlan scored in the 58th minute. From there on out Emery’s side had to go for goals.
Emery did some strange things in that match: took off Mata when they were down a goal and brought on Vicente. He also brought on Zigic late in the game and went straight route one. Many of you might remember Zigic as the big oaf who helped Birmingham beat Arsenal in the League Cup final.
Quique also beat Emery a few weeks later, this time 4-1 in the League. I wasn’t able to find video of that match.
If we look at the underlying stats (expected goals) Watford and Arsenal are essentially the same team. Arsenal have taken 58 shots, Watford 55. The big difference is that Watford have only scored 2 goals so far this season, underperforming by about 3 goals (xG), while Arsenal have scored 6, overperforming by about 1 goal.
Watford’s main problem is that they can’t seem to get the ball to their forwards, or at least they can’t get them the ball in good areas. Deulofeu shoots a lot but the xG on his shots is just 0.53 and Will Hughes is the only player to get a big chance this season for them. They are slow, ponderous, and not very fun to watch. Not a surprise that they fired the old manager but a bit of a surprise that they brought in Flores.
Flores likes to set up defensively and I expect that he will try to hit Arsenal on the counter in this game. It would normally be a problem for a manager who is just taking over a club but Flores actually has almost his entire defense still at Watford from 4 years ago when he was manager the first time. So, I expect to see Arsenal invited to attack.
That could be a problem for Unai because his attack plans are so reliant on overlapping fullbacks. When he was at Valencia he played the same way he does now and what Flores did to counter was essentially play a back six (two holding mids) and a front four. He invited the Valencia fullbacks to attack and then would hit on the counter. Time and again his Atletico side found themselves in huge spaces and Valencia would panic defensively as a result of the overloads. Penalties, defensive errors, massive tracts of field to plow into, sound familiar?
That said, there’s a huge difference between Troy Deeney and Diego Forlan and Deulofeu and Aguero. I would hope that Arsenal’s DMs and whatnot could stop them. No guarantees however if we play Luiz and Sokratis together who are a bit hard to watch. Kind of like a horror film where someone is suspended above a death machine and you can never tell when the rope is going to snap.
I think the Arsenal team selects itself: Torreira was ruled out of international duty because of an injury and Xhaka may be injured. I would love to see Guendouzi and Willock get a chance. Willock is Arsenal’s most mobile midfielder and he’s got a good bit of muscle on him as well. Ceballos also deserves a start and I love the idea of him in the top of the diamond.
Up top I’d play Auba, Laca, and Pepe every game I could. And in fullbacks, I guess it’s still A M-N and Kolasinac for now. Bellerin is still handsome boy modeling (rehab) and Tierney isn’t ready yet. Holding is ready to go and I might even consider taking a punt on him over Sokratis though, that could backfire if he gets stomped on by Deeney.
The match could also see the return of Danny Welbeck. In fact, I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t play at some point. Flores could use a speedy forward and I think he will want to also try to get something off corners. Welbeck could be a threat there. We can’t forget how much he likes to score against his former clubs!
If we measure by budget, history, the players available, etc Arsenal should win this match easily. I remember the days when we would go away to clubs like Watford and beat them 3-1. Actually that wasn’t too long ago, August 2016. So, I don’t know why I feel nervous about this result. I shouldn’t be. Ok, I’ve convinced myself. This will be an easy win.
I can already see it. Welbeck and Luiz goes up for the same ball from a Watford corner kick, they both miss but while falling Welbeck somehow buttresses his junk on the ball to send it to the top corner.
apparently Troy Deeney is out inured.
LOl. yep.
Excellent use of junk buttressing. A classic reference here.
Ha, thanks. Yes it’s a classic and needs to be brought back from time to time.
Torreira was on the bench for the match against the US, so I’d assume that means that if he had an injury, it was pretty minor.
And this seems to me a good match to play Ozil, especially if they are sitting deep and we need to break them down.
Shouldn’t there be a hornet instead of a moose in there somewhere if that’s going to be your nickname?
Anywho, ……Welbeck will play for sure , if the old and trusted go and see what you can do against your old teammates holds . Especially if Troy cojones Deeney Is still out and not available to elbow anyone just to see if they’re up for it.
Who knew tough guys get knee injuries too?
I think Arsenal win this one comfortably.
I’m a bit sad for us and Welbeck that it didn’t work out. From United to Arsenal to…Watford?
I detest most Man U players but not him. A proper professional and a thoroughly class act.
“clubs like Watford” – hopefully you mean a smaller club than Arsenal, but a wonderfully well run club with a passionate fan base long heralded for it’s inclusive nature. A team whose existence adds to the unique nature of football in this country. We will of course welcome Arsenal to Watford. For me, 40+ years a Watford fan, we are in that time about 30th best club in the land. To have a seat at the top table, and this is the 5th year in a row, is huge for us. Clearly we are not in the Premier League by chance. We are in a pickle this season but we remain ambitious, deeply respectful of all opposition, and we will of course, try and beat you – something we’ve done rather more often than most have expected. Sorry about that. Good luck for the season.
classy comment there, buttress. good luck with your season (except when you play arsenal).
p.s. i’ll trade you doucoure for granit xhaka.
+1
Also, take away Troy Deeney and there’s absolutely nothing to dislike about Watford .
I guess there’s got to be at least one dcik head on each club.
HA! Fair play! I was being a “bell end” as you say. Appreciate the opposing and well written rebut.
“Up top I’d play Auba, Laca, and Pepe every game I could.”
This. You have to flog that stallion until it’s at a full gallop. 4-3-3 and play those three up top, no monkeying around Emery.
Give it a few more games together and opposing teams will be petrified of playing that front three.
just supposing that watford ain’t in london, it’s in moosefordshire then the badge makes sense.
Needing a distraction at work, I looked into this. Actually, Watford did have a hornet on their crest from 1959 to 1978, after which time they replaced it with the fallow deer’s head you see now. A ‘hart’ (from ‘heorot’, the Anglo-Saxon word for deer, and keen readers of Beowulf will see a connection) is an appropriate symbol for a club hailing from HERTfordshire. If you look up images for a male red fallow deer, you’ll see that their antlers do indeed resemble those of a moose. But moose are not native to England. I love moose. They are terrifying to encounter, though.
damn, bro. appreciate the work.
I seent a moose up close once.
1) They are ginormous
2) They are almost always angry at people near them
Also, for the record, I was being silly. We have had this Moose/Hart discussion on here before. Probably last year. I just think that their weird crest looks like Bullwinkle is all. Also, the reason for putting Bullwinkle on their crest is funny. Like imagine if Arsenal’s nickname was the Gunners but instead of a cannon on the crest we put like a compass or something (for North London, get it?).
Thanks for the post Tim
We talked about Lacazette in a post a couple of days ago and losing him to an ankle injury is a blow. I have high hopes for Pepe but as of today we only have 2 players on the squad who have been good at scoring goals this season and we just lost 1 of them who so far accounts for 33% of our goal scoring firepower this season. Hopefully Pepe will step up.
I believe in Pepe!
We talked a lot about passes completed and dribbling skill and chances created when discussed buying a winger before we bought Pepe in the offseason. However the thing this squad needs most is a 3rd goal scorer. Last season we only had 2 players in the squad who were a legitimate threat to score a goal in any game. It worked because Aubu won the golden boot and Lacazette chipped in with mid teens. However, we would have been hosed if we had lost either one of those players for any length of time. Moving to England and having to justify a $72M transfer fee already puts a lot of pressure on Pepe and this adds another layer of pressure. Hopefully he can step up.