Welcome Gooners, to another edition of WIITW!

Here’s the post ahead of the midweek 2-0 win at Southampton.

On Saturday evening, we got to Stoke City. J.R.R Tolkien once said “There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world.” One has to wonder whether the great writer was referring to Stoke-on-Trent on matchday when he uttered those ominous words…

The Managers

Arsenal

Arsene Wenger usually has his press conference early on Friday morning but there’s no sign of it yet. There are, however, some quotes from him on Arsenal.com this morning.

On our history with Stoke: “Traditionally, there is a fierce rivalry and they had always a very direct game against us. Overall, I must say as well that they have had good teams. Stoke are now regular participants in the Premier League for years, and that means that anybody who goes there is in trouble.”

On our finish to the season: “We have to show character again. We know we have to play to win games, so let’s keep the focus on the way we want to play and on our team spirit. You can see the team is together, fights and is ready for it and we have to recover physically and see how everybody is for Saturday.”

Stoke City

Mark Hughes has gone head-to-head with Arsene Wenger 26 times before in all competitions – more than any other manager the Welshman has faced. Wenger has the advantage with 14 wins to 8. Stoke are the fifth club he’s led against Arsenal, following Blackburn, Man City, Fulham and QPR.

While Hughes has never so much as gotten a point away to Arsenal in the Premier League, he’s lost just twice at home to the Gunners as a manager – both in his Blackburn days. The former Man United, Chelsea and Barcelona player is unbeaten in his last eight home matches against Arsenal.

January 2007 was the last time Arsenal won away to a Mark Hughes side. It was a 2-0 win at Ewood Park, featuring this terrific goal from Thierry Henry (one of his last in his initial spell at Arsenal). The Gunners won a League Cup game at Blackburn in December 2007 but have no win away to a Hughes team since then.

How’s your form?

Arsenal

The Gunners have been on a decent run since the beginning of April, winning five of the last eight Premier League games. A late push for the Top Four and an FA Cup Final on the horizon, it could yet be a very good finish to the season. A victory on Saturday would be just our fourth League win away from home in 2017 – but it would be a third in the last four away matches!

Last 5 (all comps): WWLWW

P: 35 W: 20 D: 6 L: 9 F: 68 A: 42 Pts: 66 Pos: 5th

Stoke City

The Potters are on a pretty bad run of form lately – just two wins in their last ten League games and they’ve scored only nine goals in that run. Only two teams outside the bottom three (Burnley and Watford) have scored fewer goals than Stoke this season. The four teams above Arsenal in the League have all won at Stoke this season – Spurs and Man City both put four past Mark Hughes’ side at the bet365 Stadium.

Last 5: LWLDD

P: 36 W: 10 D: 11 L:15 F: 39 A:52 Pts: 41 Pos: 13th

Team News

Arsenal

Laurent Koscielny could return for the match on Saturday. He picked up a calf injury last week against Man United and wasn’t risked for the trip to Southampton on Wednesday. Wenger said “He’s got a small chance. He’s not far. He practised on Tuesday but it was risky to play him at Southampton.”

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain went off in the first half on Wednesday and will more than likely miss the clash with Stoke. According to the boss, “It’s a minor hamstring problem. It was tight, but it was more fatigue.”

Stoke City

Stoke have no real injury concerns apart from long-term absentees. The main headache for Mark Hughes is choosing which of his out-of-form strikers to put up top. Saido Berahino has recovered from an illness that kept him on the bench at Bournemouth last week.

The Potters front men have hit just four goals between them in the last eight games. Mame Diouf is the latest striker to score for Stoke – he got their second goal in the 2-2 with Bournemouth.

Peter Crouch and Jon Walters both have a decent record against Arsenal. Crouch hasn’t scored since their win over Hull last month while Walters last goals came in consecutive home defeats to Liverpool and Chelsea.

Head-to-Head

Arsenal and Stoke City have clashed 104 times before. The Gunners have 55 wins compared to just 25 for Stoke. There have been 24 draws.

They first met in a Division One match in 1904 at the Manor Ground in Plumstead. Woolwich Arsenal won it 2-1.

Arsenal didn’t win any of the first six trips to Stoke, losing four of them. Our first win there came in September 1935 – Cliff Bastin scored twice in a 3-0 victory.

Of the 25 defeats Arsenal have suffered to Stoke, just five of them came at home – and none since 1981. Our struggles away to Stoke far precede Wenger v Pulis, Rory Delap’s long throws and Charlie “he’s just an old school, classic British midfielder” Adam.

We’ve played Stoke 17 times in the Premier League. Arsenal have won ten, lost four and drawn three since the Potters returned to the top flight in 2008.

Arsenal have a 100% record at home to Stoke in the Premier League, nine wins out of nine. But we’ve got just one win in eight PL matches at Stoke.

The Gunners have scored in just one of the last four trips to Stoke (in the 3-2 defeat in 2014), but scored in each of the previous four.

Arsenal have scored 22 goals in nine home games against Stoke in the Premier League, scoring more than once on seven occasions. But we’ve gotten just eight goals in eight away games against them.

The away team just tends not to win when these two sides meet. Stoke haven’t won at Arsenal since 1981 (15 games) but the Gunners haven’t a much better record at Stoke since then either. Arsenal have won just three of the last fifteen games there in all competitions.

That’s Interesting

Before moving to the Britannia Stadium (now the bet365 Stadium) in 1997, Stoke played their games at the Victoria Ground. Their home for 119 years, the record attendance at Stoke’s former stadium was set in a First Division match in March 1937. 51,380 fans packed in to watch Stoke and Arsenal play out a 0-0 draw.

The Victoria Ground was also the setting for one of Arsene Wenger’s first matches in English football. He was just a few weeks into the job when he took Arsenal to face Stoke in the League Cup fourth round. The Potters, who were in the First Division (Championship) at the time, held Arsenal to a 1-1 draw. But the Gunners were too strong in the replay and ran out 5-2 winners at Highbury.

Ian Wright scored in that League Cup game in 1996. He’s the most recent Englishman to score for Arsenal at Stoke. The last English player to score a League goal for Arsenal at Stoke was Alan Sunderland way back in 1982.

Arsenal are currently on a run of six games without a win at Stoke. We’ve gone six without a win there twice before but never seven. Both previous runs of six win-less games at Stoke were ended by three-goal victories (3-0 in 1935 and 5-2 in 1950).

Stoke have scored five goals in the last five home games against Arsenal. Jon Walters and Peter Crouch have two each. Nacho Monreal made his Arsenal debut against Stoke at the Emirates in February 2013. These are two largely unrelated points but it gives me an excuse to bring up the uncanny resemblance between Monreal and Crouch.

Lee Dixon and Steve Bould both transferred to Arsenal from Stoke within six months of each other in 1988. Both have previously won Stoke Player of the Year awards. They would go on to win numerous titles, FA Cups and the 1994 UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup at Arsenal. Bould and Dixon made up half of the famous back four that served the Gunners so well for over a decade.

Arsenal played Stoke in an FA Cup fourth round tie back in 2010 and it was an altogether forgettable affair for the Gunners. But the 3-1 loss is notable in that it was the game in which Sol Campbell made his second debut for Arsenal. The veteran defender had left the club for Portsmouth in 2006 and after a brief stint at League Two Notts County, he rejoined Arsenal in January 2010. Injuries at the back meant that he played a bit more than we might have initially expected. Campbell even scored a goal during his return – in a 2-1 Champions League defeat at Porto. (Warning: there’s some prime Flappy-handski goalkeeping in that game that I had totally blocked out from my memory)

A win for Arsenal on Saturday evening would condemn Stoke to their joint-worst home record in the Premier League. The Potters currently have 27 points from their 18 PL games at home this season. Their lowest return since they joined the League in 2008 was also 27 points in the 2009-10 campaign. That’s also the last season Arsenal won at Stoke. Wenger, lads, in the words of the Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise, make it so!

Victory at Stoke would put Arsenal on 30 points from away games in the Premier League this season. Failure to do so would make it just the sixth time in the Wenger era that we’ve failed to secure at least 30 points away from home in the League (the last time was 2009-10, when we got 28 away points). Defeat would leave us on 27 points – the lowest total since the 2005-06 season when Arsenal got just 22 points on the road.

How about some goals?

And that’s that…

So there it is – everything you needed to know ahead of our trip to Stoke tomorrow evening. Kick off is at 5:30pm. Man City will have played Leicester by the time we kick off, so we’ll know exactly what we need in that regard. Liverpool are at West Ham on Sunday. I think we all know three wins from the final three games will be probably be essential for our Champions League chances. Since we’ve known we can’t mathematically catch Spurs, it’s been all about exorcising some other demons we’ve had over the years: Wenger finally beating Mourinho in the League, a first League win at Southampton since 2003. Hopefully we can add a win at Stoke to that list.

I’ll be back in a couple of days to preview the next match – we play relegated Sunderland at the Emirates.

Thanks for reading!