Swansea vs Arsenal PL 15/16

Team news:
Swansea City: Routledge (calf)

Arsenal: Walcott (calf), Oxlade-Chamberlain (hamstring), Ramsey (hamstring), Ospina (shoulder), Arteta (ankle), Wilshere (ankle), Welbeck (knee), Rosicky (knee)

Gary Monk and Arsene Wenger press conferences

Scouting report by Michael Cox

Swansea are one of the few Premier League sides capable of outpassing Arsenal, thanks to their long-standing emphasis upon high-tempo possession play, and this is usually an evenly-contested fixture. Both teams have won two apiece of their four Premier League meetings at Liberty Stadium.

Swansea’s victory over Aston Villa last weekend was, surprisingly, their first since defeating Manchester United back in August, and it seems unlikely Garry Monk will make significant changes ahead of this game.
There’s a familiar face in goal, with ex-Gunner Lukasz Fabianski an ever-present this season. He’s protected well by captain Ashley Williams and Federico Fernandez, two technically accomplished but physical defenders who track opponents tightly. Neil Taylor is a steady left-back, while Kyle Naughton charged forward repeatedly against Villa last weekend, assisting the winning goal.

Monk will probably stick with a central midfield combination featuring the extremely composed, authoritative Ki Sung-Yeung alongside the more dynamic, energetic Jonjo Shelvey. There’s a chance he could add Jack Cork for extra passing quality, although this is unlikely.

Swansea’s front four is exceptional. Gylfi Sigurdsson plays as a No 10 and is a talented creator - and has also hurt Arsenal previously with his free-kicks. On the left, meanwhile, Jefferson Montero started the season in fine form and was superb in this fixture last year by hugging the touchline, as a graphic depicting his dribbles shows.


Right-sided Andre Ayew is tremendously quick and capable of moving inside to become a second striker, while Bafetimbi Gomis will lead the line. He’s an excellent all-round striker who scored the winner at Liberty Stadium and at the Emirates last season, but has a tendency to be caught offside. He’s been flagged 23 times this season - amazingly, that’s 14 times more than any other Premier League player.

Fixtures between Swansea and Arsenal tend to start cautiously before opening out later. From the eight fixtures over the last three seasons, 19 of the 20 goals scored have come after half-time.

Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/20151029/swansea-city-v-arsenal#RGUA1S4blG4R2g2w.99

Stats Zone

Source: Opta

Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/20151029/57426/swansea-city-v-arsenal

A view from the other side:

BLOBBY wrote:We are going to have to seriously up our game to get anything out of this one.
What's the betting we see the diamond and a backs to the wall performance ?
He won't want to commit too much forwards for fear of them hitting us on the break.

Behindthegoal wrote:The poor wee yins are playing TWO games a week! They will be utterly exhausted! Plus Arsene considers us his bogy team. They haven't got a chance of winning.
All we've got to do is work out a way of scoring a goal or two.

Istillmissthevetch wrote:In the last three games we've looked decent for the final 10 - 15 minutes when the midfield has found its shape (OK so it could be other teams have tired) so I think we might be in with a shout IF Monk gets the midfield working as it should.
Get the midfield right and Gomis will have the space he needs to attack and the support he (and it would seem Ayew) thrives on.
At this stage I'd rather play Arsenal than a West Ham or Palace.

PGFwhite wrote:Who's going to be bold and predict a Swans win?

YJBShirts wrote:Defence isn't strong at the moment, and Arsenal are in form. Be hard to us keeping a clean sheet but Arsenal never have it easy down here. I'm going for 1-1....

Bovi wrote:We haven't got a hope in hell

https://thejack.army

Our record at the Liberty is a mixed one - two wins and two losses since they came up - and our record against them in general isn't particularly good, so I expect another difficult game even with their poor form.

It's going to be the same team for the next three games. We need to grind our way through this period, get to the international break, and hopefully get a couple of players back from injury. The fixture list post that break is relatively kind (West Brom, Norwich, Sunderland, Villa and the final two CL games).

I guess the only questions are whether it'll be Mertescielny or Gabriscielny at the back, and who pays RW.

Would love to smash them and take our key players off early to rest up ahead of the Bayern game but I'm expecting a cagey 1-0 or 1-1.

Great job, Urby.

Never looking forward to Swansea, especially away. They always seem to have our number and Monk is a crafty young tactician.

Great work Urban.

Swansea play the same style as us, we lost twice to them last year. Not a fixture I was looking forward with the injuries we have but I think we can get a win with our quality up front.

Need a big game from Giroud and Sanchez.

Watch tomorrow Fabianski will have his best game of life against us.

Wenger said, “I still believe the quickest back will be Alex. Theo might be out of action longer. The gut feeling will be one will be 20 days and one will be a bit longer.

We all knew this was coming.

Thank god for the international break.

El Gunner wrote:Like Raptor said, we will need big games from our top/key players if we want to win.
Can't be thinking about Bayern midweek now, just get in front and see it out, pls don't let it turn into an open game pls.

avatar vs club supported

So Campbell or Debuchy at RW? Or Gibbs at LW and Sanchez on the right?

Campbell RW judging by press conference

Urban


Don't know what to expect from this game. Swansea is always difficult whether at home or away.

No Walcott or Ramsey will hurt us quite a lot.

Let's see who starts at RW

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSpqYw0WwAAwDHj.jpg

Our attacking options on the bench

Save us Özil!
Save us Alexis!

lmao

What position is Iwobi even?

I forgot Campbell still existed

Worse bench since the invincible

Flamini for the insurance goal?

Awful, awful. Swansea deserved a lead. We miss Walcott. Badly.

Giroud save us with a header!

(Because there is no way we will score from open play with this kind of performance)

awful half

We are desperately missing Ramsey.

Joel has been decent though. But we need another passing option.

Worst football I have seen from us.

GET INNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

wasn't a 3-0 scoreline but we took our chances well

2nd half was decent going forward.

Ozil was great but really impressed with Joel. Worked hard and got his goal.

Was so happy for Joel when he scored.

Flapbianski.

Awful first half performance, we could have been two goals down. It's still worrying how bad we are when the opposing team stop us up from playing. Confidence just diminishes. We struggle to string any passes or get any possession of the ball

In the grand scheme of things, when you look at the injury list and whom we played against today. It's still a good result overall, it shows you that this team cannot only play good football but it can also grind out results.

Get In
Fantastic Mesut God bless

were long due such a win over them tbh

Cech and Bellerin with the moment which was turning point of the match
Kos and Nacho Solid

type of games when you need to find other resources when plenty of options missing
so promising
https://i.servimg.com/u/f49/16/79/56/27/mike110.gif

Couldn't watch the second half but daaaayum what happened?

Seems like worth watching it later on arsenal.com

Ozil started dominating