💎 Scoring against Arsenal is a mammoth task. Attempting to overcome their excellence, both offensive and defensive, is a mammoth task. Contending with them physically, & yourself psychologically, whilst they bring nearly all of your attacks to nothingness, is a mammoth task.

However, of all the teams that exist, Palace have one of the better chances of achieving that task. I’m writing this is not only for the ARS vs CRY game. Rather so that it can act as a rough blueprint, to assess the likelihood of Arsenal conceding in any given game.

There are four primary phases Arsenal will be in defensively: - Man to man high press - 442 mid-block - 442 low-block - Defensive Transition All of these are done to an EXTREMELY high level (maybe best in the world).

You won't really catch them being "far too open", or "poorly structured", or with "numeric disadvantages (often)". They are too good. So you can safely assume you will battle with them, whilst they are in one of the four phases above, being executed to an EXTREMELY high level.

Below I will discuss Palace against all of those four phases. In terms of the blueprint I discussed earlier: In future games, you can think about whether or not the opposition really has the tools to hurt Arsenal in any of those phases, using the analysis below, and your own.

🍀 The last thing to add, is that whilst all four phases are very, very, very challenging to score against them in, and require IMMENSE skill - you can always use the pearl, that is luck. It is a POWERFUL thing. If the opposition are in a good run of form, things seem to be

- Man to man high press One of the best in Europe. Coached to such a level, I'm confident you can only truly appreciate it from within (Arteta, his coaching staff and the players). All the intricacies! Their players work rates are one thing. Their players duelling

- 442 mid-block Arguably the toughest challenge. There aren't really superlatives to describe how good this block is. Just ask Mr Berge. Again, superior players, and to a lesser extent coaching. Individual moments (maybe multiple), exquisite combinations, leveraging quick

- 442 low-block The likelihood of a team being good enough to actually pin them here, for a noteworthy period of time, is quite minimal. The ball is closer to the goal, as opposed to when Arsenal are in a mid-block. So the opposition's likelihood of scoring significantly

- Defensive Transition Whilst a huge task, it's the route to scoring that's most accessible. Which is expected considering how football has shifted. It's still a huge task, even though teams are built to primarily in cases to exploit this phase of the game, because in

💎 Tijjani Reijnders Analysis - Fast & Furious I've spoken about this quite a bit on my YouTube channel this season. Reijnders is really going to profit when the game is more basketball like (up and down quickly, as opposed to slower paced, for those who haven't watched),

💎 Chelsea Assets - JP, Enzo, Reece, etc. Joao Pedro: Manchester United - Red Card early on Brighton - Red Card fairly early on, and sub-optimal attacking conditions Liverpool - Not 100% fit, and it's Liverpool, even with the form Nottingham Forest - Very sub-optimal

Reece James & Marc Cucurella: The system has changed from last season, and early this, in order to platform Reece's/Malo's strengths and utility better. As opposed to the typical 3-1-6 with one FB acting as a wide CB and the other as part of the midfield essentially. The

Josh Acheampong & Trevor Chalobah: The latter is close to nailed in my opinion, and good for DEFCON. Good from set pieces as well, and only £5.1m. Due to structural reasons, I prefer to have other defenders in FPL, but very justifiable pick. Josh has competition at CCB with

Enzo Fernandez: High floor option with all his routes to points. Fixtures are great. Fairly affordable. Expect him to play ~ 75 minutes against Sunderland. (Far more undecided on the penalty taker now, him vs JP, just know it can go either way) Slightly concerned about the

💎 Guiu & Kroupi Jr. - Start? Buy? Maresca has alluded to his preference for having a more traditional, box dominating #9 against deeper blocks. Hence his team selection against West Ham in Gameweek 2. So Marc Guiu could start, and with his half time substitution against Ajax,

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Additionally, if you enjoyed the analysis, consider: - Following myself - Liking & Retweeting the first tweet of the thread Thank you! Have a terrific weekend, and good luck this Gameweek. ❤️

@FPL_JianBatra Who would you start Sels or Dubravka? Saw Forest kept a clean sheet against Porto and won.

@FPL_JianBatra My question is: Is it better to get 3 good attackers or 5 good midfielders? Guiu/Kroupi allows Saka AND Bruno (then Gakpo come GW12). Guiu/Kroupi will be benched most of the time in a 3-5-2/4-4-2 every week.

@FPL_JianBatra Great thread 👏

@FPL_JianBatra @BigManBakar Nice thread bro! Enjoyed reading it, especially about the Arsenal defence.

@FPL_JianBatra Do you like Gyokeres + Guehi + Sarr —> Eli Kroup Jr, Timber + Gakpo?

@FPL_JianBatra Really missed your threads here, Jian 😌 Very compact thread as always 👏🏽 Kindly follow back too 🙏