Arsenal must start fast and smart against Wolves

Arsenal will be playing Wolves on Thursday and will have to produce a smart showing against the somewhat surprising side who finds themselves in the top half of the Premier League table with Arsenal, albeit a few positions off.

While the Gunners have been much, much better since their terrible August beginning, they have lost some inconvenient points that they, perhaps, did not need to lose at all.

They have drawn matches that have left us scratching our heads, and they have played up, far above competition shortly thereafter. It does not always make much sense with Arsenal, but it does seemingly keep going and improving along the way.

Wolves, however, will be no easy task, as they have proven themselves this year to be as tough and as gritty a team as ever. Nuno Espirito Santo is gone, and Bruno Lage has taken this Wolves side to eighth position, just two spots and two points off of the Gunners right now.

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Arsenal will have to come out fast and hot, not only for the rest of the season, but to simply fend off a better than understood Wolves side that do not care that few pundits thought they would be able to challenge for any European competition at all this year.

Aaron Ramsdale said after the last match before the most recent international break – a scoreless draw to Burnley that capped a January that featured two draws, three losses and two postponements – that the team would build momentum after they returned from this break.

Well, now is then, as it were, and this team, without any reinforcements out of the winter window that just closed, and, indeed, without a number of players that Gooners have grown accustomed to speaking about, this team must start out hot and remain hot, with lots of youth and doses of experience along the way.

Gabriel Martinelli will be finding himself as a number nine at times during the second half of this season, I just know it – can feel it – and I would not be surprised if that began at some point in this match. To be sure, it is a load on him, as was written recently. No disrespect to Alexandre Lacazette, but he has not shown great efficacy this season and Martinelli is a real problem with his speed and finishing instincts.

While he stretches the field from the wing, there are other dynamic players on this team that can do that as well, and will leave him as a speedy and decisive number nine that any centre-back would have nightmares thinking about marking for 90′. Doing this, furthermore, will allow for all four of boss Mikel Arteta’s dangerboys – Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Emile Smith Rowe and Gabriel Martinelli – to play in attacking positions.

Doing so will also allow Arteta to play his defense with four and two behind those attacking players, which will leave Arsenal in positive positions to defend when the opposition counters, as well as to find outlets to those young men when the time comes to make a team like Wolves pay for getting a bit greedy in their own attack.

Arsenal, with the help of Odegaard, must get on the ball for this game, so that they can get on the ball for the matches ahead, which will not be easy by any stretch of the imagination. While there are, at this point, many matches that have been postponed, both previously as well as in the future, the gambit definitely includes two matches against Wolves, and a rematch against opening day shock winners Brentford this month.

Should none of the postponed matches against the likes of Tottenham, Liverpool and Chelsea be made up this month, the schedule will only become more difficult in those months of March, April and May. For the Gunners, it is really a pick-your-poison type affair, where, one way or another, things are going to get unfortunate and uncomfortable for this team. How they respond, whenever they will have to, will be a measure of their character and growth as a club this season.

On the other hand, things could go sour should Arsenal not be able to click on all of the cylinders that are necessary. This is always a risk, and this young Arsenal team is prone to make mistakes out of a lack of experience, not because of a lack of desire or what have you. How things will play out will be determined, but if Arsenal can get the momentum going early, it might not be able to be stopped for weeks.