Nicklas Bendtner is not my favourite ever Arsenal player that is for sure. I don’t think his touch is good enough, work rate is not a patch on Giroud and even Chamakh before him but reading comments on Twitter and comments sections saying how they don’t want Bendtner anywhere near the squad misses the point for me. We are currently light in attack and I’d take someone of Bendtner’s experience as back up instead of moving Theo Walcott ‘out of position’ and then needing to find someone to offer what Theo does from the right. I wonder if Arsene is contemplating a defensive switch to try and freshen up his squad, even if the West Brom game coming up. Bringing in Monreal for Gibbs who was superb in France in midweek is an option but given the fact that we may need Gibbs’ attacking quality going forward, Arsene may stick rather than twist. Hoping that legs hold up.

Our last match at the Emirates stadium seems like bloody ages ago. We beat some mediocre team called Tottenham and since then we have been treated to more ridiculous international matches followed by away trips to Sunderland and Marseille. Six glorious points, five goals scored, two goals conceded and a whopping club record ten away victories in a row. All very fun and enjoyable numbers, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I had a sense of concern when I thought of playing at home and I wondered where that concern was coming from so I looked back over our last ten home matches to coincide with our ten straight away wins.

The results are less convincing.

Here are the last ten home results

Granted there were some tougher opponents in that list and the Blackburn defeat contained a mixed bag of players but there is still an inconsistency about our home matches and this has been the case for a while I think.

I think there are a few reasons why we are not as consistent as we should be at home. One of those reasons I believe is how both teams set up. Our counter attacking game has been superb away from home this season as demonstrated at Fulham for example. We rarely get the same space at the Emirates because most teams go away from home to defend first, especially against top four opposition.

Arsene Wenger has often spoke of the players playing with the handbrake at home which I believe could be another way of saying that the atmosphere tends to suffocate the players. It is usually in the games against opposition where we are expected to win.

Also last season we had an attack that were still working out how to play together in Arsene’s way. It is harder to do so when space has been removed. This is no longer an issue and I believe we will see improved results at home because of this. Our combination play, especially since the arrival of Özil has improved considerably from this time last season. If you don’t believe me, go back and watch the Sunderland game at home or the Stoke City match away. The understanding and movement is at least another level above and there is plenty to come from our squad. I am hoping to see us get back to playing some really exciting football in a few months time.

Our opponents Stoke City will test the quality of our football this afternoon. They ground out a 0-0 draw against Manchester City last week at the Britannia Stadium. Interestingly Stoke City restricted money bags City to only 3 shots on target in the 90 minutes. Surprising considering the fact that City spent a lot of money and did all their business early in the window.

It looks like Mark Hughes is building from the back. Concentrating on keeping goals out before working on their attack. At least it looks that way from previous results this season. Stoke City have conceded only 2 goals in the first 4 games. Two of those teams were Liverpool and Manchester City, so they have done well in that respect.

According to Sky Sports, their line up against City went something like this

Begovic
Cameron Shawcross Huth Pieters
N’Zonzi Wilson
Walters Adam Etherington
Jones

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Walters was to be replaced by someone like Palacios against us to make them even more defensive.

Right that is just about enough of talking about that lot. It looks like part of the cavalry will come riding in to save our bench at least. Mikel Arteta is back and should take his place on the bench. A fully fit and purring Arteta would have been useful for this type of opponent but I reckon the game has come too early for him. I imagine Arsene will want to introduce him at some point before his start against West Brom in midweek. The biggest shock is the return of the newly bearded one, Nicklas Bendtner. He should also be starting in midweek so as with Arteta, Arsene will want Bendtner to get some sort of minutes before Tuesday depending on the score and situation I guess.

Nicklas Bendtner is not my favourite ever Arsenal player that is for sure. I don’t think his touch is good enough, work rate is not a patch on Giroud and even Chamakh before him but reading comments on Twitter and blog comment sections saying how they don’t want Bendtner anywhere near the squad misses the point for me. We are currently light in attack and I’d take someone of Bendtner’s experience as back up instead of moving Theo Walcott ‘out of position’ and then needing to find someone to offer what Theo does from the right. Basically a like for like replacement for Giroud is better than changing around working parts elsewhere.

I was wondering if Arsene could be contemplating a defensive switch to try and freshen up his squad, even with the West Brom game coming up. Bringing in Monreal for Gibbs who was superb in France in midweek is an option but given the fact that we may need Gibbs’ attacking quality going forward, Arsene may stick rather than twist. Hoping that legs hold up.

The midfield and attack are likely to be the same as in France.

Mean Lean’s Predicted Line Up:

The Arsenal bench is looking much better now given the return of Arteta and perhaps Bendtner and Viviano. Below is what potentially our bench could look like.

Considering that Cazorla, Rosicky, Chamberlain, Podolski and Sanogo are all injured, I wouldn’t say our bench is too shabby.

What I’d love to see is some more of that first half performance at Sunderland but at an even quicker tempo. If we can do that then a defensive minded Stoke City will be breached. Well that is the hope anyway. I am interested to see how many runs forward Aaron Ramsey makes into the box. Is his recent flurry of goals just down to confidence or is he pushing to score as often as he can?

Needless to say, I like everyone else is excited to watch Mesut Özil make his home debut on a perfect pitch with Wilshere and Ramsey rotating around him playing little 1-2s around the opposition penalty area. I am hoping to see yet more progress from Wilshere who has looked sharp in an Arsenal shirt over these last few games.

An early Arsenal goal would be just bliss, followed by Aaron Ramsey sticking the ball through Shawcross’ legs and scoring our 2nd. Then the floodgates can open on Mark Hughes’ and his dirty ‘they don’t like it up em’ style. Let us not forget some of the treatment dished out to us in the past with his Blackburn Rovers teams of old. Studs, elbows, rotational fouling. The works.

Let us grab the win we need and get back to the top of the table.