Arsenal vs Swansea (16/17)

Team news:
Arsenal: Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud (toe) and midfielder Aaron Ramsey (hamstring) remain sidelined, but Francis Coquelin is back following a knee injury.

Swansea: For Swansea City Fernando Llorente (knee), the striker, and winger Jefferson Montero (calf) are both doubtful, while Nathan Dyer is definitely out.


MANAGER
Arsenal won’t entirely know what to expect, as Bob Bradley takes charge of Swansea City for the first time, having replaced Francesco Guidolin after their slightly unfortunate 2-1 defeat to Liverpool a fortnight ago.

Bradley, the first American coach in the Premier League, had the international break to familiarise himself with the club, but with plenty of his players away during that period, won’t have been able to drill his philosophy into the entire squad just yet.

FORMATION
Swansea have generally stuck to a 4-2-3-1 system this season, and it would be surprising if Bradley abandoned that - although he became renowned for his 4-2-2-2 formation when in charge of the United States.

At his unveiling, Bradley spoke positively about Swansea’s philosophy of passing football, but he isn’t particularly known as a manager who preaches the importance of possession football, and is more likely to concentrate upon creating a solid defence and getting his team to play quick, direct passes into attack.

STRENGTHS
Swansea boast great passing quality in the central midfield zone. Ki Sung-Yeung is a commanding defensive midfielder who can also prove effective in attack when handed that freedom, while Leon Britton remains one of the most reliable passers in the Premier League, and epitomises the club’s philosophy.

There’s also Jack Cork, another player in that mould, plus Gylfi Sigurdsson, well-known for his long-range strikes and dead-ball expertise.

DANGERMAN
Dynamic box-to-box midfielder Leroy Fer has suffered relegation with both Norwich and QPR, which doesn’t do justice to his all-round ability. The Dutchman has scored four of Swansea’s six league goals this season, and will charge forward dangerously from midfield.

AREAS TO TARGET
Swansea’s problem so far has been the defence, with former coach Guidolin seemingly unsure of his best options at the back. Bradley’s decisions in this respect will be interesting, with a choice between old-school Swansea players familiar with their philosophy, like full-backs Angel Rangel and Neil Taylor, and newer, more dynamic players like Kyle Naughton and Ben Kingsley. That might act as the litmus test for Bradley’s philosophy.

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20161014/scouting-report-arsenal-v-swansea-city

So done with these lot. Can we just spank them for ones?

Swansea have beaten us more than we've beaten them since they came up They're certainly our new bogey team, especially at home.

That's why I feel anxious about this, even with Swansea's poor form and change of manager.

They lack pace though, and I feel that they'll be very defensive given the circumstances. We'll be able to push up without too much worry I think. It's just a matter of breaking them down and be focused on set-pieces.

It'll be interesting to see if Coquelin comes back in for Xhaka, or if he'll be saved for the Champions League. Apart from that I expect it'll be the same team as usual.

It was in games against the likes of Swansea, Southampton, Stoke and West Ham (mid-table basically) that we dropped most of our points last year, so this is an early chance to put that right.

Swansea are a good side and we tend to struggle a bit after the International break so I am not expecting this to be easy. The game has start slowly, struggle then win 2-1 with a goal scored around the 80th minute.

Yea it's a tricky match for sure. This is why I am hoping we play players who weren't really all that involved in internationals.

But Arsene will 100% pick the same side lol

Nice game to start for the Great American Bob Bradley, should be a fairly straightforward three points.

Learned that my brothers girlfriend grew up across the street from Bob and Michael Bradley

Marcus McGuane and Jordi Osei-Tutu trained with the first-team today

No idea who either are. But they have decent names atleast

What happened to our new found depth.

Youngsters train with the first team all the time, usually to fill in for missing players. Osei-Tutu is a fullback, McGuane a midfielder. They were likely making up numbers while our U23s prepared for their match.

El Gunner wrote:What happened to our new found depth.

Giroud and Ramsey are not fit while Lucas is still settling into the team and Ox is garbage at the moment so yeah we don't have much depth at the moment. Since Arsene has sent Jack and Campbell on loan, we will probably need a youngster like Jeff to step up and contribute a bit.

Pivot of Santi and Xhaka looks like someone's in mood.

Double by theo

2-0

Xhaka

2-1

the goal we conceded was disappointing,where is the the professionalism and the maturity ? a more matured team would have kept the ball and seen out the game but we start pulling the tricks and flicks like we were winning 5-0

lol

Good half but a bit careless in defence. Swansea might score another. We should score 2-3 more.

It's a half of mistake, two from Swansea to be exact so we cant complain much.

We were comfortable for most of the half, just what happened in those last 10 mins

Sigurdsson always performs amazingly against us. His set-piece delivery especially always causes problems.

We were comfortable, capitalised on Swansea's mistakes. But that was very poor from Xhaka, who had easy passing options and took an unnecessary risk.

2-1 is an uncomfortable scoreline. Will be a nervy second half.

Koscielny's spent the all game bailing Monreal

Need to kill this off with a goal then bring on Coquelin, this Cazorla-Xhaka combo doesn't look to secure when tested defensively

Get in, what a pass by Alexis

Ozil with a thumping finish. Quality cross from Alexis to set that up.

Walcott should have gotten his hat-trick before that. Iwobi went on a fantastic run to set it up.

Amazing by Ozil

Iwobi has amazing control like Weah.