Blog Archives
Stoke Preview: Team News, Injury Updates and Predicted Lineups
Britannia: A bogey stadium for the Gunners
The Britannia Stadium has been in a bogey stadium for the Gunners in recent years, with Arsene Wenger’s side getting just one league victory in the stadium in the past 25 years. Stoke have lost just one of their seven league games at the Britannia Stadium against Arsenal (W4 D2 L1).
Arsenal also beat Stoke at the Britannia in the 2010 FA Cup but it would also be forever remembered as the day Ryan Shawcross almost ended Aaron Ramsey’s career. Ramsey has grown from strength to strength since that incident, but Arsenal fans never hide their contempt for Shawcross anytime the sides meet.
Hughes is unbeaten on home soil as an opposition coach against Arsene Wenger in his last seven league matches (W5 D2), spread across five different clubs. Overall at home his record in the league versus Wenger is (W6 D2 L2).
With Manchester City hitting top gear with that victory over Crystal Palace, Arsenal will know that a victory over Stoke will be very important for their title dreams. They have dropped down to third, a point behind the league leaders, Leicester, but level on points with Man City with a lesser goal difference. The Gunners would have been comfortable before this match if they had won Liverpool at Anfield but they got a sucker punch from Joe Allen late on.
Arsenal Team News
Arsene Wenger will have to make a decision on the availability of Alexis Sanchez for the game. The Chilean had not featured since aggravating a hamstring injury in November but he was pictured training with his teammates, which means he can be available for selection. However, he ruled Tomas Rosicky out, stating that the Czech midfielder would need some Under-21 games to get a hang of things.
New signing, Mohamed Elneny, is available for selection as well, and it’s down to Wenger to decide if he’s going to start against Stoke. The boss says that Egyptian fans can be proud of their import because he’s odds on to make a good name for himself in the Premier League. Down the years, players like Mido, Hossam Ghaly, Ahmed Elmohammady, Amr Zaki and more recently, Mohamed Salah have all come to the Premier League and contributed well to their respective teams, so I expect Elneny to follow suite.
Arsenal Injury / Suspension News
Jack Wilshere (ankle), Danny Welbeck (knee), Francis Coquelin (knee), Alexis Sanchez (hamstring), Santi Cazorla (knee), David Ospina (groin), Tomas Rosicky (lack of match fitness)
Arsenal Predicted Lineup
Stoke Team News
Sensational winger, Xherdan Shaqiri, has suffered a hamstring injury that would rule him out from today’s game and Marko Arnautovic was withdrawn from the Norwich game as a precaution from a hamstring scare. He would face a late fitness test today to ascertain whether he will be fit for the game.
The Gunners would have to watch out for Jon Walters that has finally found his scoring boots again. After going on a drought of nine games without a goal, he has scored in his last three games for the Potters.
Stoke Injury / Suspension News
Shay Given (knee), Geoff Cameron (ankle), Marc Muniesa (ankle), Xherdan Shaqiri (hamstring)
Stoke Predicted Lineup
Team Form
Arsenal
- Last Five Games: L W W W D
- Last Result: Liverpool 3 (Firmino 10′, 19′, Allen 90′) – Arsenal 3 (Ramsey 14′, Giroud 25′, 55′)
- Leading Goalscorer: Olivier Giroud (18)
Stoke
- Last Five Games: L W L L W
- Last Result: Stoke 3 (Walters 49′, Joselu 67′, Bennett 0.g. 78′)– Norwich 1 (Howson 56′)
- Leading Goalscorer: Marko Arnautovic, Jonathan Walters (7)
Gooner Daily predicts a 3 – 2 win.
Sayonara.
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Stoke Preview: Team News, Injury Updates and Predicted Lineups
I hope he breaks his scoring duck today
*removes cobwebs from blog*
That was quite a break. With the paucity of things happening at the club coupled with some international football, I decided to take a mini break from writing about the club but real football is back, so here I am.
The best news about the international break was that there were no further casualties but there was the sad news that Jack Wilshere suffered a setback and would be out for quite some time. The two players we thought were going to recover after the international break and add something to the side are still nursing injuries. Oh well!
Let’s head straight to the preview shall we?
Arsenal Team News
The only thing at the back of the fans mind today would be, who would score the goals for the Gunners, because they’ve become hard to come by in recent weeks. Arsenal’s home record against Stoke is very impressive with Arsene Wenger’s side recording 11 straight wins against the Potters on home soil. However, the Gunners have failed to score in five of their last six home league games, recording one win, three draws and two defeats. Arsenal’s shot conversion ratio is 5.6% – only Liverpool, with 5.4%, have a lower figure.
There’s great news concerning Wenger’s best defensive duo, Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker as both players are fit for today’s game. Mesut Ozil also played 90 minutes for Germany in midweek so he’s fit to start.
Arsenal Injury / Suspension News
Jack Wilshere (ankle), Tomas Rosicky (knee) and Danny Welbeck (knee)
Arsenal Predicted Lineup
Stoke Team News
Despite the improvement in their overall technical play, Stoke has ensured a very torrid start to the season, losing two and drawing three of their last five games. Their disciplinary record was also questionable as they were on the spotlight for their last performance against West Brom, where they ended the game with just nine men following the red cards brandished to Charlie Adam and Ibrahim Afellay.
Following the summer spending, one would have thought that Stoke’s fortunes would improve this season but it has been a case of a series of heart breaks and near misses for the Stoke faithful. A late Philippe Coutinho strike changed one point to zero for the side and therer were two quickfire draws against Tottenham and Norwich. Then of course, there was the defeat to West Brom a fortnight ago.
I don’t expect Stoke to get anything out of today’s match and the record books aren’t in their favor as well.
Stoke Injury / Suspension News
Ryan Shawcross (back), Peter Odemwingie (hamstring), Glen Johnson (groin), Marko Arnautovic (ankle), Miran Diouf (ankle), Charlie Adam (suspension), Ibrahim Afellay (suspension)
Stoke Predicted Lineup
Team Form
Arsenal
- Last Five Games: W L W D W
- Last Result: Newcastle 0 – Arsenal 1 (Coloccini own goal 52′)
- Leading Goalscorer: Own Goal (2)
Stoke
- Last Five Games: L D D D L
- Last Result: Stoke 0 – West Brom 1 (Rondon 45′)
- Leading Goalscorer: Miram Diouf (2)
Gooner Daily predicts 3 – 0 to the Arsenal
Sayonara.
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Stoke 3 Arsenal 2: Pathetic First Half Display Cost Gunners Dearly
Stoke 3 (Crouch 1′, Bojan 35′, Walters 45′) – Arsenal 2 (Cazorla 67′ pen, Ramsey 70′)
Match Report – Match Highlights – Post-Match Press Conference (via Arsenal.com)
Three wins in a row. Three clean sheets on the bounce. Then ‘this’ happened. Typical Arsenal.
The day started really well as we watched Chelsea continue their unbeaten run against Newcastle. *psyche*. The only record that remains a source of sheer pride to Arsenal fans worldwide was taken so cruelly from the hands of Jose Mourinho and his hordes thanks to their newly found nemesis, Papiss Cisse. As expected, Arsenal fans laughed at the club as Twitter was buzzing with tweets from our faithful. Little did we know that our darling team was going to give us another shit-fest to witness.
Arsenal had fresh injury concerns to contend with as Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal, two of our best defenders by a far mile this season, had fitness issues. This saw Per Mertesacker and Calum Chambers play through the middle thereby handing another chance for young Hector Bellerin. Further up the pitch, Danny Welbeck was having a groin problem so Olivier Giroud spearheaded the attack. Following his great cameo performance against Southampton, better things were expected of the French forward. Little did we know that he was going to have one of those games that would make you want to tear some hair from your head.
From kickoff, yes, kickoff, Stoke launched an attack from the left hand side with Kieran Gibbs going to sleep and Mertesacker caught out of position. Somehow the cross managed to evade Chambers and Bellerin lost his footing. When the ball arrived at Peter Crouch’s feet, Emi Martinez had already committed himself and he laid his arse flat on the turf allowing the lanky forward to score one of the easiest tap ins of his career. 21 seconds gone, Arsenal were already one nil down. shii!
The Gunners did well to see if they could respond to the massive disappointment and they should have had an equalizer when Bellerin used his raw reserves of pace to get to a ball that was on the brink of going out of play and he managed to provide a cross that came straight to Giroud. It was the kind of cross you’d expect the big forward to kill off but he somehow managed to miss the target when it seemed easier to score. If the game was tied at 1-1, it would have changed the outcome of the contest but you know how cruel football is. You have to take you chances or you’d be punished.
Phil Beardsley was given a chance to let one rip from distance but Martinez failed to handle a shot that came straight at him. Luckily, he has his defenders to clear the ball to safety because had Crouch been the first person on the rebound, it would have been a very embarrassing moment for a keeper that had looked so assured in recent weeks. There were a few half chances for the Gunners with Santi Cazorla blasting another shot wide. I’d also learned from the game that Arsenal has played 110 corners and it has only yielded one goal, with 106 or so defended by the opposition at the near post. That’s just terrible.
Stoke upped the ante with Miram Diouf heading a ball that was saved by Martinez but the offside flag came to the goalie’s rescue. Stoke extended their lead when Gibbs and Mertesacker went to sleep again on the left hand side with a cross evading both of them and coming straight to Bojan Krkic’s feet. The young Spaniard placed the ball past Martinez with the goalie on the prowl. If you think conceding two goals to Stoke wasn’t bad enough, Arsenal shot themselves on the foot yet again at the stroke of halftime as another array of shitty defending saw Jonathan Walters blasting the ball into the roof of the net to make it 3-0.
It’s also worth noting that Stoke smothered the Gunners anytime they had the ball and Alexis Sanchez was a player that was marked tightly. However, he created a moment of sheer individual brilliance when he took on the entire Stoke defense and even dribbled the goalie only for his effort to smash the post. Arsene Wenger put Giroud out of his misery by summoning Lukas Podolski but every Arsenal fan was utterly shocked when Bojan made mince meat of the defense before firing the ball in to make it four for Stoke but the ref ruled out the goal for offside.
From then onwards, it was all Arsenal. Wenger made a tactical switch by replacing Bellerin with Flamini and dropping Ramsey to the holding role with Welbeck coming in to support the attack thereby changing the entire dynamic of the team. It was Flamini that made a rear foray forward before he was clipped by some bloke in the box leaving the ref no choice but to award a penalty. Up stepped Cazorla, a player that had not scored in 27 Premier League games (since January) to sidefoot the ball past Asmir Begovic to make it 3-1. As expected the keeper acted by a cuntly cunt when he failed to release the ball. Three minutes later, Ramsey showed off his great technique to blast Sanchez’ corner into the net to make it 3-2. Two players that goals were hard to come by suddenly found their shooting boots to put Arsenal on the brink of an unlikely comeback.
Just when things were looking good for the Gunners as they pinned Stoke to the edge of the wall, Chambers decided to show off his naivety and inexperience by getting himself sent off for grabbing a player. That act took the winds off the sails to the team and from there on I knew that the game was as good as over. It’s moments like this, you take stock and wonder why a 19-year-old would be playing consistently for a team like Arsenal. Don’t get me wrong, Chambers has been great since he joined but times without number, his inexperience has gotten the better of him on many occasions.
In the end it was not to be as the Gunners dropped points yet again to a team that they should have beaten on paper. Yes, the Britannia is a hard place to come and play football but Stoke had lost in that stadium to Leicester, Burnley and Aston Villa. Those that watched the game can also attest to the fact that their goals came from lapses in concentration from the Arsenal rearguard, it’s not like they tore the defense apart with some ‘great football’.
This is a great concern for me and everyone connected with the club. These lads never seem to learn anything as they continue to make the same mistakes on a consistent basis. It’s rather unfortunate to see things pan out this way but we have to move forward and hope for the best.
It’s Galatasaray up next. I hope we don’t cock up in Turkey.
Sayonara
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