Football is back
Add comment August 15th, 2009
I might as well be an eight-year-old on Christmas morning for all the excitement in my house today.
I’m staying with my brother at the moment, and being the outstanding young man that he is, he went out to the shops early to buy *all* the papers. I’ve watched Soccer AM, Soccer Saturday is about to kick off, and then it’s ESPN for coverage of our opener at Everton. The only thing that could improve today would be a trip to Goodison Park itself.
It’s going to be a tricky opener, but with a crunch tie against Celtic in midweek to come a good start to the season is vital – especially if Arsene is as serious as he seems about challenging for the league.
I think we’ll see the new system today. Almunia will be in goal, with a back back four of Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen and Clichy ahead of him. Song, Denilson, and Cesc will patroll the centre of midfield, with Arshavin and Bendtner wide of Robin van Persie.
It’s a strongish side on paper, especially when you think it doesn’t include the likes of Rosicky, Eduardo, Nasri, Walcott and more.
There was a time when The Independent’s James Lawton was the scourge of Arsenal, criticising our every move. Now his attitude towards the club and particularly Wenger seems to have mellowed to the point whereby he’s positively positive about us. Reading his words this morning, it’s hard not to feel great about Arsene and his project:
“If Wenger is to be mocked then so is everyone who ever makes a stand on what he believes to be right and wrong, and if there were times this week when he spoke to various newspapers, in the cause of the Great Ormond Street charity, with what some might have deemed excessive flights of his fancy, who could begin to suggest that at the heart of his philosophy there wasn’t one huge piece of granite-like integrity?
It lay in his explanation of why he had turned his back on Real Madrid – and his knowledge of their plans for a vast extension of player recruitment. It was because at Arsenal he had a dream to make a team, not buy one, a team he could nourish and make strong at the inevitable broken places and then in the end gather his players together, especially those who had seen the point of the enterprise and stayed on, and say, “Look, this is what we achieved, this is what we made.” A dreamy ambition, one detached from the realities of oligarch power, American corporate borrowing strategy and Middle Eastern windfall, of course, but one which he refused to surrender when Real came with their blandishments and their budget”.
Arsene has been plain about how important he believes this season to be:
“The team we have now gets there, and by that I mean it wins the championship. At 22 or 23 I think a team is mature enough to deliver and it is a massively important year for our club. I am conscious of that.
I know people have no patience any more but I agreed on a structure at the club that I believed could work, and we are at the period now when we will see whether I was right. To talk of winning the league is an audacious statement but I built this team and I want to deliver.”
The onus is now on the players to show that Arsene’s faith is well-placed.
I can’t wait. Infuriatingly, we have to wait slightly longer than most, with a 5.30pm UK-time kick-off. I’ll be tweeting throughout the day, so pop in and join the chatter.
Cesc wants trophies, Arshavin wants five goals in a game, Eduardo is back.
Football is back.
Come On You Reds.
