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It’s West Ham at home this evening, a game that could take us back to the top of the table if we win it.
The team news is that there isn’t really any team news. Thomas Partey and Takehiro Tomiyasu are still not ready according to Mikel Arteta, Fabio Vieira and Jurrien Timber are sidelined too with no expectation they’ll be available for a while yet, and Kai Havertz is suspended after picking up his fifth yellow card in the game at Anfield.
As I wrote yesterday, that could present an opportunity for Emile Smith Rowe or Leandro Trossard, and I hope it’s the former. Which is no slight on the Belgium international, but as it stands, Smith Rowe is a name on the squad list more than a player we can count on, and with lots of football still to play this season, it’d be much more useful for us if he were the latter. So, at home against a team who are going to sit deep and challenge us to break them down, what better game for him to start? If not now, then when?
Mikel Arteta spoke about him a couple of weeks ago, saying he’d seen a difference in how Smith Rowe had responded to another injury set-back, and was asked yesterday if he meant physically or mentally. He replied:
Both of them. And I think obviously it wasn’t the first time that that happened. Sometimes it’s not easy to start that process again and go again. When he was getting some momentum and he was looking good, again having to go through that and he did it in a really impressive way.
Now it’s about putting it on the pitch when he gets the opportunity to do that, to perform and make a difference for the team.
Will this evening be that opportunity? I’d like to see it, but if I had to guess right now, I think he’ll probably go with Trossard. We’ll find out an hour before kick-off. Beyond that, I don’t see any changes from the team that drew with Liverpool, and obviously the Declan Rice factor will play a part – at least in the pre-game coverage. We have played West Ham already this…
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Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2023-12-28 06:57:17
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