A fairly routine 2-0 home win over Brentford allowed Arsenal to maintain their 5 point lead over Manchester City (who struggled, by the way, to a bonkers 5-4 win at Fulham the previous evening; hanging on for dear life at the end having been 5-1 up - how they can entertain thoughts of winning the title whilst leaking goals at the rate they are, I really don't know).
Spare a thought for Chelsea, though. Having 'gallantly' held on for a 1-1 draw against Arsenal on Sunday, they succumbed to an atrocious 3-1 defeat at lowly Leeds. The gap between Arsenal and Chelsea is now 9 points, and it's in-form Aston Villa - who I'll discuss later on - who have moved into third place in the table.
Mikel Arteta took the opportunity - much needed in this run of games every 3-4 days all the way through into the New Year - to rotate, with Jurrien Timber, Eberiche Eze and Bukayo Saka all benched. The injury list continues to mount on a sort of revolving door basis; the roll call for this one was Saliba, Gabriel, Trossard and Havertz, with plenty of others slowly making their way back to fitness.
Interestingly, it did look like Brentford manager Andrews had 'taken a view', much like others used to do when facing Manchester City a few years ago, and had himself chosen to rest both his best player, Damsgaard, and his top scorer Igor Thiago for this one. It's Tottenham for them at the weekend, so I get it. It's worth pointing out that Brentford are a really big side! - what I mean here is that they have some really tall and well-built players in their ranks. Ajer is a man-mountain, and Van Den Berg (which aptly itself translates as 'from the mountain') is very much that also. Add Kayode and Thiago himself (built like Jean-Phillipe Mateta) and they have some real physical specimens amongst them. Andrews, a former set piece coach himself, will have had plans...
It wasn't long before Arsenal took the lead. It had been fairly even early on, with Brentford winning a series of corners, but a clever flick from Madueke for the overlapping Ben White, a sumptuous cross, and their was 'makeshift striker' Mikel Merino in exactly the right spot to head into the ground and over the line. Out of necessity, Arteta's decision to move Merino further forward has been critical for the development of the group; especially in the continued absence of Jesus, Havertz and, recently, Gyokeres too. An absolute revelation.
Brentford's only really clear-cut opportunity of the game came from a corner on 21 minutes; Schade's bullet header from 10 yards out was brilliantly turned onto the crossbar and away by a full-stretch David Raya.
Apart from that, he frankly had little to do. However, there are concerns ahead of him - Mosquera went down injured late in the half and had to be replaced by Timber, and that makes three injuries in the same area of the pitch in a same way as there were earlier in the season in the forward line. We thought that Arteta had built an awesome squad; but by golly he's going to need to really tap into it if this goes on. Timber - who we'd been hoping may get the night off - dropped into central defence; and performed superbly.
On the hour, Andrews brought on the cavalry - Henderson, Damsgaard and Thiago - and Arteta quickly responded with a series of substitutions that if anything made his team stronger; Saka and Eze replacing Madueke and Martinelli. From then on it was pretty much one-way traffic, to be frank, with Brentford unable to rouse themselves and Starboy himself getting on the score sheet in injury time; having missed two presentable chances in the interim.
There were a couple of moments of concern, however. Hincapie and Thiago clashed heads - I could hear the crack from my seat - but both were OK to continue. Of more concern was the sight of Declan Rice limping off late on - calf, apparently, and he himself played the problem down after the match.
So, as I say, this was pretty routine. But there are a few talking points nonetheless:
Firstly, this was Ben White's best game for the best part of a year. He has been out with injury, and subsequently lost his starting spot to the immaculate Timber, but here we saw the Ben White of old. It was a delight to see the old triumvirate of Saka, Odegaard and White reunited down the right-hand side. I really hope that - seeing as this was White's first full game for a long time - he has enough time to recover for Saturday, as it looks like Timber is going to have to deputise for Mosquera (he himself deputising for Saliba). I really enjoyed White's performance all evening.
On now to Martin Odegaard. We know that it takes him a little while to get back to his best following injury, and there were signs of rustiness here. Interesting to contrast him with Eze; the latter has considerably fewer touches of the ball in that role, but tends to take more risks and be more decisive. A decision for Arteta to make here, and it may well be 'horses for courses'; Odegaard in the tougher games when ball retention is more important perhaps? But it's difficult now to see our captain as an automatic choice.
Our two wingers in this game bear some discussion also. Martinelli is another who takes time to get back into the swing of things, and he certainly looks to have some way to go. Much more of an impact player off the bench for me than a starter. As for Madueke... well, he's a bit of a 'curate's egg', and I can see how he must have maddened the Chelsea fans at times. Unpredictable (as he must surely be for his team-mates as well as us supporters) and full of tricks. Yet his dead ball delivery was poor in this game. Whilst he is sure to have his moments, I'm not sure that one can use the adjective 'consistent' when describing him. As far as these two are concerned, I'm selecting Saka and Trossard ahead of both if I'm picking a team for a Champions League final.
In midfield, despite his notorious strength and stamina I'm pretty sure that Arteta is running the risk of over-playing our Superman, Declan Rice. He is certainly needed for Saturday, but I'd definitely be looking to sit him down for Bruges, Wolves and Palace in the League Cup. There are alternatives he can use - including the under-utilised Norgaard who must have been disappointed not to get onto the pitch against his old club. We're back again to the question of rotation and who Arteta really trusts. It's a long, long season...
Saturday is a big game. Have no doubt about that. Villa are on a long unbeaten run, and have climbed the table quickly after an indifferent start to the season. They are scoring loads of goals, have on of the league's absolute form players in Morgan Rogers; and lest we forget Unai Emery just loves to do a number on Arsenal; he did it last year, you will recall.
Interestingly, Villa are vastly out-performing xG. And score a vastly disproportionate amount of goals from outside the penalty area. Arsenal need to keep them at bay, but I'm sure will get chances at the other end of the pitch - especially with it looking like them being without former Arsenal goalkeeper Emi Martinez for this game. A draw wouldn't be a terrible result, as this would be another difficult venue to cross off the list for the season. Of course, a win would be infinitely preferable! After that, we really need to be in for some hard rotation.
Let's keep our fingers crossed on the injury front, and keep the faith. COYG!
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