december 8th
10.25 – “…they were committed. In the end they wanted it more.”
Arsene Wenger talks about yesterday’s defeat at Old Trafford. Maybe they had revenge on their minds, maybe they knew that a 9 point gap would be too much to make up. whatever it was, it begs the question why the Arsenal players weren’t as commited, weren’t as prepared to make the tackles, to work together as a team. Didn’t the Arsenal players realise that a 9 point gap would have gone a long way to help retain the title? I dunno, I’m still a bit shellshocked by yesterday’s performance.
Rami Shaaban will be out for 3 weeks with a thigh strain, so undoubtedly David Seaman will come back into the side for the game against Valencia. Stuart Taylor showed enough yesterday to suggest that his game has improved a great deal since his run in the side last season, which is good news, because for many of us, Seamo’s time has well and truly passed now.
Arsene Wenger wants revenge against Valencia on Tuesday. You do get the feeling that this season the focus is well and truly on winning the Champions League, at times at the expense of domestic results. This debate has gone on for a while over on the forum, and to be honest, I’m still more interested in winning the Premiership. The sight of Fernando Hierro or Roberto Ayala lifting the big cup wouldn’t bother me really, the idea of Roy Keane or Hyppia or god forbid, Desailly lifting the Premiership trophy makes me want to vomit.
If we want to make an all out effort to win the Champions League, then it should come after we’ve proved ourselves good enough to retain our league title. If the balance of power has shifted in the English game, as AW claimed after we won the title in May, we must win the league again this season to justify that.
And as for Pascal Cygan, he’s an Andy Linighan, a Grimandi, a Colin Pates. A decent player, who’s just not quite good enough to be first 11 material at Arsenal. I’ll leave it at that.
Nobody has yet graced us with a match report of yesterday’s game (no surprises there really), but don’t forget you’re free to write your own report after every game on the match reports forum.
