Results not talk and defending as a unit

There has been a lot of chatter in recent days and Stan Kroenke has spoken with the Telegraph. Obviously he has backed Arsene and who would have expected anything else? What has become clear in recent weeks is that Arsene is under pressure and he has had to change his approach, the flurry of signings including several experienced players on deadline day was a sign of this change.

I care not too much for all the talk, Arsene will now live and die by the results and a massive one will be Sunday at the Lane. There were some encouraging signs against the Greeks in midweek, the back four played well on the whole and we had a decent defensive shape in the second half. I think it is going to be absolutely key that whichever team plays in Sunday, we have a good defensive shape as a team and we make ourselves hard to break down, otherwise things could be dismal.

Personally I would prefer to see a return to a more of a 4-4-2 system but realise this probably won't happen, this would give much more support to the full backs, my idea would be to play both Gibbs and Santos down the left to give us more solidity. If we play 4-3-3 it is vital that the wider players get back to support the full backs sufficiently. It looks like Song will remain at centre back, Coquelin consequently must have a good shout to start in the centre of the midfield as our holding player. I just wonder if the Ox will get a game, it probably depends on whether Theo passes a late fitness test.

Irrespective of the formation we employ, it will be absolutely vital that all our midfielders and forwards help out our defense and that we defend as a solid overall unit. It was clear that this didn't happen in the first half against Olympiakos, we were outnumbered too many times and midfield runners were not tracked well enough. We cannot have passengers in our eleven today, our forwards all need to get involved, epically the wide forwards in assisting the full backs. I hope we can get a result on Sunday, it will be a big test and we need one badly.