Preview: Stoke vs Arsenal - Premier League 01.03.2014

It’s hard to believe that it’s now been more than four years since the horrific tackle that first set the pot simmering on this rivalry, but here we are. On each side are contingents of fans who blame the other in heated, intemperate language for an event between two players so young that they may still have been dreaming of their first full shave. Not just the chin and upper lip, mind you, but cheeks as well. However, that’s the storyline as we go into the match—not strategy or tactics or formation, but one split-second that may just define two players’ careers and stain this rivalry for the foreseeable future.

I’m dancing around the particulars because there’s at once so much and also so much less to it than either side has made of it. As heretical as it may be for me to suggest, I doubt that injury—much less the severity of the injury—was on Shawcross’s mind when he went for the tackle. Instead, it strikes me as a horrific accident, one that I’m sure he regrets and relives repeatedly. There’s the “so much less” part. However, in the larger backdrop, one that threatens to take center-stage, we have a morality-play in which one side is irredeemable villain, and the other, incorruptible hero. Who’s who depends on who you ask. Add in some of the older, antiquated notions about the city and the hinterlands, the urbane and the rustic, and the incident becomes fraught with symbolism beyond what either youth could ever have fathomed at the time. Through this lens, Shawcross’s tackle looks to be a deliberate, cold-blooded attack on civility and virtue itself. Once it’s been forged in the flames of that kind of anger, it fuels itself and takes on a life of its own. It may only be extinguished through some kind of public gesture between the two.

As to the match itself, there have been a few changes under manager Mark Hughes. Stoke still plays a rugged style, although the more-jagged edges seem to have been filed down a bit. There’s a bit more of an emphasis on passing, even to the point of seeing Stoke dominate possession from time to time, and they’ve shifted from a 4-5-1 to a 4-2-3-1, but they still struggle to score, and despite their reputation for dogged defense, have conceded 42 goals already—only Cardiff and Fulham have conceded more. With 11 matches to play, they’ll almost certainly exceed last year’s total of 45 goals conceded. Stoke sit only three points above the drop-zone, a point ahead of Crystal Palace and three above Sunderland, each of whom have a game in hand at the moment. They’ll be sure to come out hoping for more than a draw for their own strategic needs, and many of the Potters faithful will be eager for a victory over a foe they see as snobbish dilettantes sipping Chardonnay and nibbling on crudités and whom they suspect of looking down on them as unwashed, brainless orcs.Caricatures aside, Stoke has shown that they can more than hold their own at home: they drew with Man City and beat both Chelsea and Man U. For as part as Arsenal and Stoke may be geographically, statistically, stylistically, or financially, this has become a fixture in which most such considerations go out the window, such is the passion it now arouses on both sides. A planned 67^th minute ovation (to mark Ramsey’s injury) is sure to bring matters to a roiling boil.

LAST 3 meetings

• Arsenal 3-1 Stoke (22.09.2013)
• Arsenal 1-0 Stoke (02.02.2013)
• Stoke 0-0 Arsenal (26.08.2012) 

FACTFILE

• Stoke lead the Prem with 58 yellow cards on the season.
• Arsenal has won just once at the Britannia Stadium since January 1990.
• Olivier Giroud has scored a game-opening goal seven times this season, most in the Prem.

INJURIES

Walcott (knee), Diaby (knee), Källström (back), and Ramsey (thigh) have been ruled out. Monreal (ankle) and Gibbs (gluteus maximus) are doubtful and face late injury tests. Vermaelen is fit as are Koscielny, Wilshere, and Özil.

POSSIBLE STARTING XI

Szczesny; Vermaelen, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Sagna; Flamini, Wilshere; Cazorla, Özil, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Giroud. 

It’s likely to be intense, especially if that 67^th minute sees an unsettled match. However, first-half goals from Giroud and Özil should tamp things down a bit.

Goonersphere's Prediction

Stoke 0-2 Arsenal

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