So last night’s game almost cancels out our Arsenal defeat from a head to head with City point of view (1 point gain for them but back with us having the chance to be top by the time we play them. Opens the door for Arsenal a bit of course but don’t think that’s a bad thing if we hold our nerve.
On the injuries front, biggest issue is not being able to rotate so much. How we with Mo back, I’m fairly sure the Diaz, Nunez, Jota trio which had been looking so good would have been broken up anyway for Mo to come back in. I’m going to hope Darwin is fine at this point and it’s just Jota who may be out for a longer period. We won’t have 5 amazing options but we still have 4, so should always have a good bench option available still.
Losing Jones would be a blow. But having Endo back has really helped us. He and Mac Allister feel key to how we play now and if those two are around for most games, I feel like we can cope with whoever is the third. And hopefully Szoboszlai will be ok.
Intensity is going to step up now but it will for the others too. After next weekend the League Cup is done so City will have the same kind of schedule as us. Arsenal out of both cups have it slightly easier but I’d expect them to progress in Europe so they’ll have other things to think about as well.
All in all, we’ve done as well as we could have after the Arsenal game. Win our next two and we’ll be top going into the City one and then have a great opportunity to directly damage them.