Match Day Thread Arsenal vs Luton Town - Matchday Thread

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Venue: Emirates Stadium
KO time: 19:30 BST
Date: Wednesday 3rd April 2024

Overall Record

Wins: 28
Losses: 10
Draws: 11

Last six meetings

Luton Town 3-4 Arsenal
Luton Town 1-0 Arsenal
Arsenal 2-0 Luton Town
Luton Town 1-1 Arsenal
Arsenal 2-0 Luton Town
Luton Town 2-0 Arsenal

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Surely rotation time...

Raya
Tomiyasu
Gabriel
Saliba
Zinchenko
Rice
Partey
Vieira
Smith Rowe
Trossard
Jesus

 

I think we'll see a couple of changes, but I don't think we'll see wholesale changes. I don't think we should completely rotate either because it may ruin the dynamics and chemistry of the team.

Luton are fighting for their lives and have given some of the big sides some tough contests even if they haven't won. I'd rather play a strong side, get the match wrapped up early and then make some early subs. I have a feeling Luton are going to make this a difficult game for us, though.

 

Reports on Twitter/'X' that Luton have apparently got 13 first-team injuries heading into this fixture. By contrast, we've virtually got everyone back bar Timber.

There's absolutely no excuse to not win comfortably tonight, even if we do rotate a little.

 

Ok, these reports are unconfirmed but assuming it’s true, I’m not surprised about Saka. However, I wasn’t expecting the rest . I hope this pays off. It has to.

 

Wow, that is a lot more changes than I expected - ESR starting and Nelson too. Zinchenko coming into the side.

Strong bench.

 

That bench.

Glad hes resting Declan Rice - the guy has had soo many minutes lately.

 

2-0

Smith Rowe has been excellent and Partey looks back to his old self.

 

HT. 2-0.

Good performance, albeit without being outstanding. We’ve obviously been the dominant side, with more chances created, touches in the final third and sustaining pressure by winning the ball back in their half frequently. Ball circulation is good.

Luton have looked slightly threatening on occasion with Townsend and Barkley, but thankfully we’ve reduced their influence pretty well.

I have been a little frustrated with the sloppiness of Zinchenko and the greediness of Trossard, though. And I feel like we should have got one more goal before HT to end it as a contest, but we’re still comfortable with a healthy two-goal cushion.

Partey’s looked very good and Smith Rowe has been excellent. His off the ball movement, link-up play and driving runs in the half spaces are so good. Unlucky to not score, too.

We just need to keep the intensity up, reduce the unforced errors and not let them get a foothold back into the game. We’ll cruise through the second half if we can manage this.

 

Luton's pressing has been impressive and it's brave of them to go man-for-man, but the difficulty is this can be energy sapping - especially against better press-resistant and possession-oriented sides. So if they carry on being so aggressive in the press, we may be able to pick them off.

 

Considering Luton vs Spurs was a pretty close game...

We've rested half our best 11 and are still quite comfortable. Shows how much better we are than our rivals these days.

 

86 mins gone and I haven’t been impressed at all with this second half performance. We’ve allowed Luton to venture into our half too much and control more of the ball, we’ve been wasteful in attacking transitions and we’ve been too methodical when recycling the ball.

I get it’s a rotated side and Luton are fighting for their lives, but this second half has been under par.

 

I can’t tell if this drop off has been intentional or whether it’s due to fatigue. We’re not pressing at all and we’re absorbing pressure.

 

Good shot from Nketiah. Good save from Kaminski.

 

4 mins of added time. Let’s just see this out and get this game done with.

 

FT. 2-0.

Good first half, not so good second half.

I don’t know why the performance dipped as much as it did, but it should have been more comfortable than it was.
Luton to their credit battled hard and caused a few problems without creating too many clear cut opportunities.
Our passing was sloppy and undercooked at times, clearances were a bit naff and we didn’t counter press effectively. We dropped our line and let them come at us. I’m hoping that was strategic rather than due to tiredness.

ESR played well and has shown he may still have a future at the club, but Nelson wasn’t great. It’s difficult because he hasn’t played for ages and it’s his first league start all season, so I can cut him some slack. However, I don’t think he’s done enough to show Arteta should keep him. I guess we’ll see.

Anyway, job done, top of the tree (for now) and onto Brighton away on the weekend

 

Happy with that. Should have scored a third though.

Partey was decent. Smith Rowe had a good game. Rested a lot of key players.

 

Decent result, and one we should have expected.

We were well below par second half, don't know if that's a bit of lack of coherency with rotating or fatigue. But we let Luton have way too much of the ball and if they had scored it would have made for a very different game

Anyway, 3 points in the bag. And hopefully back to a full strength team at Brighton because they will be up for it.

That said, credit to ESR and Nelson who were really good.

 

One player who I did want to talk about - Zinchenko.

Seems like a lot of people online are giving wildly contrasting views on his performance. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

He did some things that were positive. Overall, he kept the ball fairly well, inverted well, played some good progressive passes and helped to create space on that left hand side with his rotations. There was one or two good interceptions I remember, too.

But he also made some silly decisions. Giving the ball away a couple of times unnecessarily under no pressure, playing a hospital ball into our midfield when they're being man-marked causing a turnover in our half, not positioning his body right in 1v1s (Townsend skinned him a few times too easily) and not releasing the ball fast enough when he was in possession. He also doesn't have great spatial awareness in a defensive sense because there was oceans of space down his side and Gabriel (who was monstrous yet again) actually had to come across to bail him out.

He can get away with it against these types of opposition, where they're less likely to punish you due to their lack of quality, but I just don't think the risk of his defensive frailties are worth keeping him as a viable first-team regular option. Either we relegate him as a permanent second/third-choice option at left-back or we sell him in the Summer.