Match Day Thread Sheffield United vs Arsenal - Matchday Thread

Sheeeeeesh we are cooking.

5-0 played some great stuff - its funny you know the commentary will be all about how bad Sheffield are but they said that about QPR, West Ham, Burnley and Newcastle.

Would be quite happy if Arteta rested Saka and Odegaard for the second half.

 

Got your wish with Saka. Fabio Vieira comes on for him.

 

Superb wing play from Martinelli there. Won a corner all by himself.

 

6-0! What a finish from White! Weaker foot, too.

Really good build-up from us too. Great pass from Jorginho and lovely control and lay-off from Havertz. This is like a training ground game.

 

Martinelli gone down injured. He’s hobbling on one foot. Hope it’s not as serious as it looks, but he’s been kicked and dragged a lot in this game. We’re 6-0 up, so no point aggravating the risk.

Thankfully it looks like Cedric, Partey and Jesus are coming on, so that’ll be welcome changes.

 

Rice coming off for Trossard. Good to see a lot of the big guns getting rest early (mostly on our own terms).

 

Why didn’t Jesus shoot? He had a clear sight on goal.

 

That would have been lovely by Jesus.

 

Superb

 

FT. 6-0.

Another ruthless and brutal display where we totally blitz the opposition. Our GD increase is a joke.

You can tell we took our foot off the gas in the second half, but I’m glad we were professional enough to keep the clean sheet and win the ball back within 5 seconds every time we lost it. It sometimes goes under the radar, but OOP, we’re just so, so good.

Hopefully Saka and Martinelli’s knocks aren’t too serious, but it was great to see injured players back getting minutes.

Onto Brentford at home on Saturday and a chance to put some real pressure on City/Liverpool before they play on the weekend.

Great stuff

 

Crazy how much better we've been since the Dubai trip.

 

81% posession

 

This is absolutely insane for a CB

 

Arteta said that Saka was feeling unwell and Martinelli just had a cut - so both should be fine for Brentford.

 

SkySports did a bit on wether we were the best defensive team in Europe right now.

The crazy thing about that is we don't even have a particularly defensive system or style of play.

 

One thing which has improved (massively) is Arteta's squad utilisation. He is actually subbing players off early and not running them into the ground. Obviously it helps that we're usually so comfortably in the lead, but there were games previously where we were also leading games with healthy leads and he would barely use the bench unless there was 5 minutes left. Now he's doing a good job of rotating.

Vieira looked lively when he came on and had a few good attacking actions.
Partey looked quite rusty in the first few minutes, but got a feel for the game and looked more comfortable after about 10 minutes.
Cedric was....well, Cedric.
Trossard helped us retain possession well and delivered a few dangerous crosses into the box.
Jesus did look threatening, but he was being too elaborate and needed to either release the ball quickly or shoot. That moment where he was through on goal and decided to square it (when Havertz wasn't even free), instead of taking the shot on, demonstrates why he's not a natural striker.

I'm still a bit worried about our defensive depth currently - with Timber, Tomiyasu and Zinchenko all out (our only defender on the bench was Cedric) - so I'm hoping we'll see an even stronger bench come Saturday because we need players back to fitness as April/May is going to be a packed schedule. These players will need minutes to get back into the groove before that busy period.

 

Tomiyasu and Zinchenko are expected to return to the squad in time for Brentford.
Jurrien Timber cant be too far away as well.

If we start:

Martinelli-----------Havertz--------------Saka
----Rice---------Jorginho------Odegaard----
Kiwior-----Gabriel-----Saliba-------White
--------------------Raya--------------------------

We could potentially have:

Jesus, Trossard, Viera, Partey, Smith Rowe, Tomiyasu, Zinchenko, Ramsdale ..as our bench!