Quick Blackburn Preview
4 comments August 28th, 2010
Last season’s game at Blackburn was nightmarish. After taking the lead through a Robin van Persie header, Blackburn turned the tables with their route one tactics, taking every opportunity to launch high balls in to our penalty box. They made Stoke’s approach look like ‘Total Football’.
It was made all the worse by the fact that the man between the sticks was Lukasz Fabianski. The Pole allowed himself to be bullied in to conceding two goals. Today, it’ll be Manuel Almunia who is responsible for withstanding the inevitable onslaught.
This fixture last season took place on Cesc Fabregas’ birthday, but the captain was forced to watch from Barcelona, on crutches. Today, he could earn his first start of the season, with a chance to put things right.
Almunia will play in goal, with Sagna, Koscielny, Vermaelen and Clichy ahead of him. Fabregas will join a midfield three with the power of Diaby and Song behind him. The front trio is harder to call – Chamakh will play, but the rest is, like Blackburn’s approach play, up in the air. Theo Walcott and Tomas Rosicky are the men in form, so perhaps Andrey Arshavin will find himself benched – he wouldn’t be much use against those long balls, anyway.
This is the first of the games that could tell us something new about this season’s team. As Arsene puts it:
“We have more [steel] than a few years ago when I felt we were a bit too immature with this kind of game. But I don’t feel that anymore. I’ll tell my players to be committed and that means dealing with every single challenge.
I feel we have a good opportunity to send a strong message on Saturday.”
Come On You Gunners…
