The One Piece of Motivation We Need To Beat Chelsea
Add comment March 22nd, 2008
Imagine how good it would feel to make Cashley look and feel like this:
That is a truly lovely image. If it’s witnessed again tomorrow, I will be over the moon. Never mind the fact that Cole should be nowhere near a football pitch after a truly horrendous tackle on Spurs’ Alan Hutton in midweek. Avram Grant has defended Cole by comparing his conduct to that of Emmanuel Eboue, who injured John Terry in an innocuous challenge several months back. Attempting to compare the two is a waste of time – Eboue’s eyes were (for once) fixed firmly on the ball, whilst Cole’s challenge was a malicious result of losing his temper.
There’s no new team news of any note – Tomas Rosicky is still out with some kind of hamstring-based plague, whilst young midfield pair Abou Diaby and Denilson are also unavailable. One imagines that the same side that began against Boro will line up on Sunday, but Theo Walcott could be pushing for a start after a week in which he turned 19 and got a deserved call-up to the provisional England squad.
Aleksandr Hleb is expected to start, in spite of ‘Ice cream’ gate. Although Arsene dealt with the situation with typically good humour, his annoyance is palpable. If Hleb were to score on Sunday (a possibility which would make pigs flying appear a near-certainty), one would expect a certain degree of apologetic badge-kissing. Such is football these days.
I’ll finish with the Churchillian defiance that Arsene ended his press-conference with. It certainly puts you in good spirits regarding tomorrow’s titanic game. More in the morning:
“We’ve got the strength of character to win the title, believe me. That’s my belief, my firm belief and at the game on Sunday you will see. Since the first day of the season I have said that I believe in this team. Come back in May and we will speak about it then. There’s always a first time and, until you win, people have doubts about you and they’re questioning you. But the strong ones keep going.”
