Archive for March, 2008
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.”
March 20th, 2008
The title race does funny things to people. The effect it had on me last night was alarming, as I found myself willingly cheering the efforts of those two bastions of footballing horror that I mention in the title. Fortunately, I have now fully recovered, and the usual dynamic of mutual hatred can be restored.
B*lton, of course, did us no favours last night, rolling over to Cristiano Ronaldo & Co without so much as a whimper. One suspects they won’t do the same when we face them next weekend. Sp*rs, however, played a full part in a thrilling contest with Chelsea that ended 4-4. All of that now means that Manchester United are now clear of us by three points, with Chelsea a further two points behind. With so many of the big four yet to play each other, there’s a hell of a lot of twists and turns still to come in this title race.
The BBC Predictor is pretty good for trying to work out how the title race might play out. If I’ve learnt anything doing it, it’s that beating Chelsea and United is pretty much imperative if we’re to succeed in this exhausting title race. Sunday could be a momentous day. We have the potential – now we need to go and prove it.
Rumours today link us with French midfielder Loic Perrin – the St Etienne captain and a utility midfielder who never scores. Not one to get the hairs on the back of your neck competing to see whose tallest, but anyhow.
That’s all from me today. A demain.
March 19th, 2008
Stuart Pearce yesterday named his England U-21 squad, with several players surprisingly left out, including Gabriel Agbonlahor, Aaron Lennon, and our very own Theo Walcott. This has led to speculation that Walcott could be on the verge of a return to the full International set-up, with Fabio Capello set to name a provisional 30-man squad on Thursday. Pearce affirmed:
“You never know, there might be one or two names in Fabio’s squad that make you sit up and listen.”
The young winger’s form in recent weeks has taken a real turn for the better, and the confidence boost that a full call-up would give him could be invaluable.
If you read arseblog this morning, you might be in favour of Theo starting ahead of Aleksandr Hleb, who appears to have held a controversial meeting with Inter Milan. The excuse handed out by the agents involved is as follows:
“It’s true that Hleb saw Vigorelli and they went out from the Melia Felix but it’s not true that they went to talk to Inter. They went for an ice-cream. We are sorry that Mr Wenger took it badly and complained because we have a good relationship with him.”
That is pretty much the football equivalent of “I’m sorry Sir, my dog ate it”. I’m sure Arsene will be asked about this on Friday at his weekly press conference, but it sounds like he’s understandably less than delighted. After all the faith he’s shown in Hleb over the past few years, this is no way to be repaid.
Finally, The Sun run a typically intellectual piece on Emmanuel Adebayor’s haircut. No comment.
March 18th, 2008
In the light of this story, I have been flyposting throughout Cataluna, ready to bite the hand clean off any Spanish club foolhardy enough to put in an offer:
We can but hope.
March 17th, 2008
Birmingham (away), Villa (home), Wigan (away), and Boro (home). Four games from which I predicted we could amass twelve points. Instead, we have drawn each of them, scoring only four times and collecting as many points. In the same period, Manchester United and Chelsea have pushed on, with United now topping the table with a game in hand. Our five point lead has vanished.
If we do not win the title, this will have been the sequence where it slipped away. The players are understandably down, and after being Championship favourites just a few weeks ago, this fall from grace will be tough to take. The win in the San Siro had been an anomaly, and is indeed the only victory in our past seven games. This is a severe slump, and one that not even the return of Robin van Persie has been able to alleviate.
The Boro game itself was a horribly predictable affair. An Emmanuel Adebayor goal was controversially ruled offside as we started brightly enough, but some very poor defending from a long ball allowed Jeremie Aliadiere (of all people) to tuck away Boro’s only chance of the game. From then on it was every man behind the ball for Boro as we struggled to break down a resilient defence. Eventually Kolo Toure’s header was bundled over the line in the 84th minute, but in spite of the sending off of Mido for a high lunge on Gael Clichy, we could not find a winner.
It leaves us needing to do very well out of a daunting string of fixtures: Chelsea (away), Bolton (away), three fixtures against Liverpool, then Manchester United (away). Now granted, it’s more important to win those than the previous four, but the chances of pulling that off look very slim on current form.
We need to turn the corner, and fast, or we’re going to skid right off the road.
Next Posts
Previous Posts
