Categorized | Arsenal, Champions League

Miracles Abound At Arsenal For The Second Week In A Row

Posted on 07 December 2010. Tags: , , , , ,

Written by: LadyArse on December 7, 2010.on December 10, 2010.

I think it’s safe to say that old age has well and truly set in as I thought our match was tonight. All very disappointing when you realise that not only are Arsenal not playing, but my choice tonight is Man U or the Spuds.

Blurgh.

Miracles abound once again at Arsenal this week with the news that Koscielny, reported as out for up to three weeks, is now fit to play. It’s handy, as Djourou is out with a ‘slight’ thigh injury. Is that the result of playing two games in close proximity? We’ll probably never know.

The good news is that Wenger stressed it was merely a precaution in not playing Djourou and he could have played if they had been willing to take the risk.

More good news in that Eboue comes in to the squad in the place of in the injured Djourou.

I of course, speak sarcastically.

At today’s press conference Wenger spoke about how he expected to win all the games prior to tomorrow night’s match and would have expected to have qualified by now.

Guess you shouldn’t have rotated quite as much huh?

When asked about our defence being crap Wenger was quite bullish in his reply:

“At the moment people focus on our defence but they forget we have the best away record in the league” he also mentioned some stuff about that proving we were solid at the back.

It is a fair point that we are top of the league not because we have the prettiest team but rather because we are currently the best team in the league. If we are so goddamm awful what does that make the 19 teams below us?

I’m not saying we are rock-solid at the back, even I’m not that blind, but points win prizes as a lot of you kept telling me last season, and as long as we keep outscoring the opposition we’ll keep racking up the points.

In some good news Wenger said “Vermaelen will not be out for the whole season.” Then again, he was originally only supposed to be out for one match.

Do our medical staff have even a hint of a clue of how to diagnose injuries? There must be some serious doubt over this.

There were quite a few questions by the media about the man of the moment, Sami Nas, and Wenger was quite keen to play down the importance of relying on one player and emphasis that it is a team game.

“What is important to me is that the team wins” when asked if Nasri could win player of the season, which is a reasonable enough response. After that, Wenger added, if Arsenal players win individual awards then that’s all very well and good.

He has a point. There is no point claiming the awards of Golden Boot, Golden Glove, Player of the Season or even Young player of the Season but failing to win the league or any of the cups.

Wenger also added, regarding Nasri when asked if he could get better:

“What people forget is Henry was already 23 when he came here”

When put in those terms that’s a pretty frightening prospect. When you consider the Henry who arrived with us and the one who left, the improvement was off the scale. Can we see that with Nasri? Why not. There is nothing to say that we won’t see that with most of our young players if they apply themselves in the correct way.

It seems Wenger isn’t that bothered about finishing second in the Champions League group, and while he said ideally you would like to win the group, he also added

“if you want to win it, you have to play against these teams” when asked about the prospect of finishing 2nd in group and getting Real/Barca.”

I say let’s get one of those in the first knock-out round. If we are going to lose to them, let’s do it early so it’s out of the way. If we win, what a boost that would be. Lose? Well, that’s a few unnecessary games out of the way and we can concentrate on the league.

In other news, it is being widely reported that Arsenal will be rewarding Nasri’s superb form with a new bumper contract, worth a rumoured £80,000 per week, putting him on par with the likes of Van Persie and Fabregas. With his current deal due to expire in 2012, the new deal will see him commit himself to the Arsenal until at least 2015.

Great news all around, all we have to do now is wait for the club’s confirmation and we can look forward to see Samir destroy opposition defences for years to come.

And on that note, I’m off. Was expecting to do a match preview today, but given my senility, I’ll have to try and remember to do that tomorrow instead.

Til then, have a good one.

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Interesting from Twitter:

RT @OptaJoe: 5 – Samir Nasri has already hit five more shots in the PL this season (42) than in 2009-10 (37). Menace.

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If you missed it earlier, you can see the All-Time Champions League Table here, and review Arsenal’s current Champions League stats for this campaign here. You can also access overall league and Champions League stats, as well as injuries whenever you want here (the stats are updated after every match, and the injury news updated as soon as I receive the information)
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A blog about the Arsenal, some tshirts too
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  • Hose

    Hey, the medical team sorted out Rosicky. Bendtner is finally saying he’s at his best. I think the last few years have been terra incognita for football with so many games at such a pace, and with better and better athletes but also more and more prima donnas whose game depends on not playing with knocks that it’s been impossible for the medical teams to get players properly diagnosed and back to full fitness. Perhaps it’s really just a question of not rushing them back, which is why Djourou and RvP aren’t being rushed back. We saw what happened with Cesc when he was rushed back, which means we won’t see Ramsey much until next season. Ho hum.

  • http://twitter.com/jopparoad Joppa Road

    Is there a ‘Golden Snood’ award? Leave Eboue alone!

    Looking forward to Monday rather than tomorrow night. Its not ideal the way we have gone soft in the Champions League but like I said last year I always want to play the best teams as I feel we can beat them. Not so sure with this group of players.

    FWIW I really think we can go and beat Man U by a good score i.e. win 3-1, 3-0. I thank you.

    • Anonymous

      Evening Joppa, I don’t think we’ll have any problems tomorrow 3-0 ! I’m always more nervous and upset if we lose a Prem game than a CL game. I’ll take the Prem every season ! Even with our defence I think we can get something out of the Man U game but a win I’m not so sure.

      Think over two legs we can take Madrid, but Barca, with our defence, and Song supporting the forwards, oh no, it doesn’t bear thinking about !

  • Curtisreidbarnes

    Eboue is simply to good to eb this clubs bench warmer. Any player who gets 1 game every 10 would regress, and he doesn’t deserve criticism or spiteful comments like you’ve given him here.

    He could quite easily be the starting right back at manchester United at the moment, or many other clubs, but becuase of loyalty he has stayed and I think you and others would do well do remember that, and perhaps value loyalty in football on the few occasions we can still see it.

    • Anonymous

      Have you watched Eboue lately? He most certainly is ‘regressing.’ He is a squad player at most, to say he could easily be first choice for Man United is simply ludicrous.

      • http://twitter.com/jopparoad Joppa Road

        I’m with Curtsreidbarnes…too right.

        • Anonymous

          I don’t say this very often but I’m with LA !

      • Sahil

        I do agree that Eboue can fit into Man Utd right back role ALTHOUGH only because they are such pathetic at that position.

        Rafael da Silva? Wes Brown? Surely Eboue is no worse than either of them.

        And No, I dont think Gary Neville can chase a granny at his age.

        • Sahil

          He is good to have as a squad player. Have a few injuries in midfield? Need to give Sagna a rest? Need a joke or two to keep the dressing room light hearted? Eboue works. (I jest about the last point but it is impossible to not like the guy & Footballistically speaking he is a good back-up)

  • Eirik_kjeks

    You cant judge Eboue by the Wigan performance where he just came back from an injury. He has not been bad lately. He brings a lot of urgency when he runs with his ball close to his feet outside the box. He was great the match before Wigan at Newcastle or something! Cmon he had one bad game!

    So you fancy Oshea in front of him? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HZpUaK_YIo&translated=1

    • Anonymous

      Pretty sure the united fans would say to each other: “would you prefer Eboue!?”

  • Anonymous

    Eboue is a decent back-up, nothing more nothing less

  • Josh_cowlard

    I do not think Eboue is good enough to displace Sanga, Eboue is not a bad player particularly but Sagna is just so much better and is a far more solid defender. He is a funny man yes but he is nothing more than a benchwarmer the amount of mistakes he makes will always hold him back. He does not run or have the pace he seemed to have two seasons ago, also his final ball is not of the quality we require.

  • http://twitter.com/VikramGooner Vikram Kumar

    Vermaleen has really become mystery this season..Tommorow we will play a strong side..So then player do have time to rest but 3 games in 10days might increase injury risk.So if we win the game by HT ( being 2-3 goals up) then we should bring on the subs.
    I believe if we have a fully fit team we can face anybody be it Barca, Real or anybody..If we had fully fit team against Barca last season results could have been different…Atleast thats what I think.

  • Sahil

    Confirmation of Sami’s new deal is on the website. No specifics ofcourse.

    http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/wenger-new-deal-on-the-table-for-nasri

  • Weedonald

    I feel we’ll handle Partizan quite well at the Emirates since our last home performances, while not stunning, have rebuilt some confidence in this team. I watched Manure against Valencia and they were defending almost 60% of the time against a very aggressive and fast team who moved the ball well and missed tons of golden opportunities. Sound familiar?
    Manure at home are a tough nut to crack but they are definitely NOT firing on all cylinders this season and despite a strong defensive capacity (unbeaten so far) Rooney and Babytov don’t seem to be hitting it off too well since the former’s return, leaving them few options in attack. Where they are really strong is in parking the bus when in their own last third, particularly in front of the penalty area. They can defend with a vengeance starting from the half-way line and do have counter-attacking potential so if Arsenal can control the through passes from the Manure midfield and can attack intelligently, they can come away with points.
    Where we are vulnerable is in behind our midfielders, particularly if Song gets caught upfield, our strikers and attacking midfielders fail to track back and our central defenders are forced to leave gaps in the back four. Rooney and Berbatov are capable goalscorers given an opportunity. We can’t give them that and we will need to keep their defenders so busy that they will starve for balls. If Nasri,Chamakh, RVP Rosicky and Wilshere can pressure them, we’ll be able to neutralize any cohesive attacking opportunities and force errors. We will know by Monday whether we can win the big ones as well as being able to grind out the hard wins against lesser opponents. We are always more focused and more driven when we play away, lets hope this is true on Monday!

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