Hello everyone and welcome to Arseblog, the serious Arsenal blog where everything should be taken at face value. No jokes around here, that’s for sure. No sir. Nope. Even if I mention something preposterous like orphans being run over on their day out from prison I’m being completely and utterly serious. Just thought I should clear that up before we go any further.
‘Tis the Slaves from Prague tonight (small joke) and the boss is reluctant to change the team too much at the moment, and who can blame him? If it ain’t broke, and all that. That means some players will stay disappointed on the bench but realistically they can’t expect much more. And with a win tonight practically guaranteeing qualification for the knock-out stages it’ll be full strength, I think. The boss says:
Gilberto and Lehmann are certainly not happy, but their attitude in training is certainly spot-on. That’s where you gain more respect. My biggest job is to win the next game, and my players are so professional they will always behave like professionals.
I could make a small quip here about the 70s TV series called ‘The Professionals’ but this is no place for humour. Even though the Prague coach has suggested a positive result for them would be a ‘small miracle‘ AW is warning against complacency, saying:
It’s a difficult and tricky tie because we could think that because we have beaten Sparta Prague we’ll beat Slavia Prague and because we are favourites we will win, but the Champions League competition doesn’t work like that. They have beaten Steaua Bucharest and scored twice in Sevilla so I think it’s a typical, tricky game for us.
And we know first hand how tricky some of these games can be but you have to think that if we can carry on from where we left off against Bolton then the three points are well within our grasp. Eduardo is likely to figure up front with Adebayor again and maybe at this point the Champions League suits him a bit better than the Premier League.
In at the back is William Gallas who says he rediscovered his love for the game during his time out injured. Sitting in the stands and cheering like a fan has made him ‘like a kid again’. That certainly does not mean he’s been playing with lego and ringing people’s doorbells and running away because that would just be silly. He makes the very good point though that this sparkling start to the season and the fine football we play has to be backed up by winning trophies, saying:
We play good football but at the end if you win nothing it is no good. I feel it is very important for us to win something this season.
Quite so. I also feel it’s very important that we win something this season. In fact, it would be nice if we won two things but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
Arsenal confirmed Robin van Persie’s 4-6 week absence yesterday with the manager relieved the injury wasn’t more serious. Looking at the picture of when he injured himself I was sure he’d banjaxed himself really badly. When you remember how inoccuous the incident when Robert Pires did his cruciate ligament I think we can count ourselves lucky he’s only missing a few weeks, albeit important ones.
Transfer news sees us linked with two of Lyon’s stars. A £40m deal for Karim Benzema and Hatim Ben Arfa is being reported in the Sun and at this stage it’s little more than speculation.
And that’s just about it. There’s only time to have a little titter at Sp*rs, who remain firmly in the relegation zone, and to remind you of the Football Manager 2008 competition. You can find details of that on yesterday’s blog.
And there you go. I’m off to spend my day making ridiculous, outlandish statements with a completely straight face. More tomorrow and come on you reeeeeeeds.
