Ok then, after a relatively quiet week it all kicks off again today against Stoke.

Their season is more or less complete, they’re in no danger of relegation but you can be quite sure they’ll be up for this one today. Their fans don’t like us very much after we hurt their feelings by being upset that one of their players smashed Aaron Ramsey’s leg in two. And I think it’s fair to say we’re not exactly well disposed to them, their cap wearing, goblin prince manager, the long throws and their playing style which is part football, part American football, part non-erotic wrestling.

Still, it’s a style which has worked well for them. They’re a big team and they like to let others know they’re a big team. Physical intimidation is hardly a part of the game that the aesthetes cherish but each team plays to their strengths and their strength is, quite literally, their strength. There’s no point in us complaining about it once it doesn’t cross the line from strength to dirty, we’ve got be able to cope with that.

I would hope there’s a bit more willingness to do that with this team than with others in seasons past. We’ve seemed a bit cowed by their long balls and long throws but at the back in particular I think we’re a much stronger unit than we have been. You will not find Sagna, Koscielny or Vermaelen shirking any physical confrontation, Song and Rosicky can get stuck in in midfield, van Persie likes that side of the game (it appeals to his dark side) while Wojciech Szczesny will be a key player today.

Without being overly critical, I think it would be reasonable enough to say that neither Lukasz Fabianski or Manuel Almunia were the kind of dominant goalkeeper we’ve had in the past, like Seaman or Lehmann. The big Pole has the presence that’s required on trips like today’s and the manager is looking for him to play a part.

Here’s a great stat: Szczesny has dealt with 98.5% of all the crosses he’s come for this season and, ahead of today’s impending aerial bombardment, Arsene says this is something he’s been working on:

We encourage him to do that and that means he can come out for even more balls. Because he is successful you want him to be audacious on that side of his game because he can be really good.

The timing of his crosses is good and we will encourage him to do it. That will be needed at Stoke.

However, while there’s definitely got to be some focus on countering Stoke and what they do, we also have to concentrate on our own game and hoping we can click from an attacking point of view. Last weekend we struggled against a Chelsea team which looked to defend and hit us on the break, and given the way Stoke view us you can be quite sure that they’ll lack for nothing in the defensive department. They will get stuck in.

Let’s hope that the two awards will have re-energised Robin van Persie somewhat, he’s looked a little fatigued in recent games, while a Tomas Rosicky who hasn’t spent all week sick might have the kind of edge in midfield that will be required. I think Benayoun will come into the team on the left hand side of the front three while I’d be very much inclined to play Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right.

I know I’ve been espousing caution with him as the expectation levels grow far beyond his actual readiness for the first team, but I just think today is going to be a very ‘English’ game and I think it’d suit him better than Gervinho. Still, that’s one for the boss to think about and it wouldn’t surprise me too much if the Ivorian got the nod.

We have three games left this season, this is probably, on paper at least, the most difficult of them. The Brittania has not been the happiest hunting ground for us. The only time we’ve won there since they returned to the top flight was the night Shawcross broke Ramsey’s leg, so the memories aren’t the happiest either. However, it’s all in our hands. The top three, changing our record at Stoke, all of it.

We have to want it today, we can’t let ourselves get bullied. If they start, we’ve got to fight back. Simple as that. And if we do that then I think our football is of sufficient quality to get us the goals we need to get three points. It’s a week in which football has disappointed us with Chelsea in the Champions League final, but I can’t quite express how much I dislike Stoke and how painful losing to them is.

Let’s hope the boys are well and truly up for this today and come back to London with three points and our grip on third place tightened.

—

In other news, Arsene Wenger has hinted that Steve Bould might take over from Pat Rice when he retires this summer. Interestingly, Bouldly hinted he didn’t really want the job not so long ago, and if the grapevine is anything to go by there are other former players of that era in the mix. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Also, some worrying stuff from Arsene about Jack Wilshere, his recovery from injury and his unhappiness with Stuart Pearce. What it highlights, for me at least, is that Pearce is using Wilshere to try and make a point which is as cack-handed as it gets. His focus should be on what’s best for Jack Wilshere instead of attempting to assert his authority as an international ‘boss’. He ought to remember he’s a glorified care-taker and if he can’t see why Wilshere’s return to football needs to be properly managed then he has no business doing the job he’s doing.

Right, that’s just about that. If you can’t see the game later there’ll be live blog coverage which keeps you up to date with every kick, throw, half-nelson etc. Check back later for a post with more details or bookmark the default live blog page.

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Ok then, breakfast, more coffee and we’ll await the 3pm kick off. Until then.

I’m not much of a betting man really. From time to time I’ll get a tip and throw a couple of quid on it, win a few quid back, then fritter that few quid away betting on stuff I really have no clue about. But I’m sorry now I didn’t have a pop on both Spanish clubs going out of the Champions League this week. I’d have said the odds would have pretty generous.

Last night it was Madrid’s turn and after a great first half the away goals rule stifled the second, and extra time, and then penalties. And if there was ever an illustration of how much of a penalty shoot-out is in the mind you saw it last night. Professional footballers, paid tens of thousands a week to do nothing else but kick a football, turned into hungover, Sunday League hackers.

Nueur made good saves from Ronaldo and Kaka but Munich made it easy for Casillas with two of the worst penalties you’ll ever seen, before Sergio Ramos, a man with all the mental strength of Timmaaaahh blasted his over the bar to more or less send Bayern into the final. Is it wrong to expect players to do better? Penalties aren’t really that difficult and the reason there’s pressure is because they’re at the very top of the game. Which is why they’re paid so much, these guys are supposed to be able to cope with that.

Look, we’ve had our share of penalty misery down the years but if I were a manager and one of my players hoofed one over the bar like that to cost us a place in the Champions League final I’d box his ears. To those who say ‘Well, at least he had the balls to take one’, that’s what he’s fucking well paid to do. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t also box the ears of strikers who stood by or refused, but still. Bayern’s penalties were slightly less shit and so they went through. Great drama, I guess, and shoot-outs are always fun for the neutral, but let’s not pretend it was a classic or anything.

Anyway, it is off-topic I know, and this will be the last mention of the Champions League this season. Unless Bayern win it.

Considering we’ve got a rather important game with Stoke on Saturday it’s pretty quiet in terms of Arsenal news. Arsene is talking about sin-bins in football, an idea which isn’t a bad one at all, but because it would require some thought and intelligence to implement, as well as having to make some changes to an antiquated disciplinary system, is unlikely to happen.

That said, with much talk recently about the triple-whammy punishment in situations like the penalty we got at Wolves it might make sense. Wolves punishment was a penalty against them, a red card for their player and that player then being suspended for the next game, all for the slightest of contact. In these situations maybe a yellow card and 10 minutes in a sin-bin would be more than adequate.

It does seem ridiculously harsh for a relatively trivial offence, particularly when the more serious offences carry a maximum three game ban. Again though, we’re reliant on people who are clearly resistant to any kind of change to make decisions they simply don’t want to make, content to muddle through with things the way they are, burying their heads in the sand until any temporary fuss blows over when the limitations of the current system are exposed.

What’s that about late, studs-up challenges to the knee which could be punished retrospectively? Can’t quite remember? You need to quit living in the past old chap. We’ve all moved on now.

Speaking of discipline, The Sun reports that Arsene Wenger has decided against appealing his ban for racism match-fixing corruption bribery tapping-up players bringing the game into disreptute speaking to, and about, a referee. Perhaps he just thinks it’s more trouble than it’s worth, given the fact you’re dealing with idiots who consider what he did was worse than racist chanting. And who would blame him?

UEFA continue to be soft on things which really need a firm hand, yet their schoolmarm approach to trivial matters mean they undermine themselves. There’s no real harm in being strict when it comes to applying the rules, but when the rules themselves are nonsense then it does nothing to provide a solution to of any of the issues the game has. Everyone who has been through school will know that strictness only works if combined with fairness. When you’ve got a seemingly arbitrary system of punishments which makes light of the worst offences then you don’t solve any problems, you just create more.

Meanwhile, two of our on loan players talk about their futures. Both Carlos Vela and Nicklas Bendtner were considered surplus to requirements last summer and nobody had any real complaints. In hindsight, considering the contributions of both Chamakh and Park, we might have done better to hold onto them, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. The first successful fortune-teller/football manager hybrid will be the most successful man ever.

Bendtner says he doesn’t think he’d sign with Sunderland even if they offered him a deal. Which I doubt they will anyway, so he’s got the Euros as a nice big shop window, while Carlos Vela is quite sanguine about his prospects, admitting Arsenal have a right to get some money for him but he says:

The decision is Wenger’s. If he says he’ll sell me, then I’ll have to find another team for next season. If he says that I’ll stay then I’ll need to speak to him and ask him to let me go because it’s clear my intention is not to go back.

He’s having a good time in Spain, 11 goals this season, which might well help us get a decent price for a player who I think we have to accept is never going to do it in England. Some will say he didn’t have the chances at Arsenal to prove himself, I think he had plenty and perhaps with more application on the training ground he’d have had even more.

It is easy to suggest he and Bendtner would have offered more than Park or Chamakh this season, but then so would Tony Woodcock and Paul Mariner. We had to judge them on what they did last season, not what they might have done this time around.

Right, that’s yer lot. Back tomorrow with an Arsecast.

Morning all,

the great thing about football is that you can choose to ignore the bits you don’t like. So, John Terry, hahahaha. The rest?

*puts fingers in ears*

“Lalalalalala, can’t hear you can’t hear you can’t hear you, lalalalalalala, stop talking, can’t hear you, lalalalala”

I mean, just when you thought you couldn’t dislike Barcelona any more for always trying to nick our players and suckle the DNA directly from their teats, they let something like this happen. They have made me want Mourinho and Cronaldo win the Champions League. I feel dirty and ashamed and I might start self-harming because of it.

If that had been us Messi would have scored that penalty. Twice, probably, such is his record against us, but nooooooo, he had to hit it against the bar and now Ashley Cole is happy. What kind of a sick, twisted world are we living in? One in which we ought to focus on what’s going on with Arsenal and leave that vile monstrosity of a match last night behind us, I reckon.

We’ll start with some interesting stuff from Tomas Rosicky about a change in Arsenal’s style when we lose the ball. He’s praised the versatility of Arteta and Song, but says that pressing from the furthest forward midfield position is crucial when we turn over possession:

If I’m the highest one of the three it means I’m the first to start the pressure. What we’re doing very well at the moment is that, when we lose the ball, we begin pressurising immediately.

The three seconds afterwards are vital and I think we are all aware of that. When the opposition get possession, we’re after them immediately.

When it works it works very well. Rosicky cites the Man City game as an example of how our dominance of possession was brought about by this hard work, and it’s great to see the team actively look to win the ball back so quickly. However, while I’m sure the manager has always stressed the need to get the ball back as soon as possible, it does seem as this is something that was implemented during the course of this season, and it’d make you wonder why we didn’t do it more often.

We’ve spoken many times about the game we played against Chelsea at the Emirates. A 3-1 win was built on harrying and harassing the opposition and seemed to provide a blueprint for the way we should play. Instead, we lapsed back into a more passive style and while you can’t say that was the only reason certain games were lost, it’s frustrating to see a team play with real energy and drive one week due to the quality of the opposition, and seemingly not bother when the opponents weren’t as high profile. If that’s changed permanently then all the better.

Elsewhere Bacary Sagna and Laurent Koscielny talk about their roles at the club.

Sagna:

My goal is to be the best. It’s hard to critique yourself, but I was voted best right side of England twice in four years. This is quite satisfactory. I’ve never asked any questions. I’ve always looked ahead, trying to reach the next level.

Koscielny:

I’ve been here two years. I know the players, the atmosphere and the opposing teams better. I can develop myself well in the field and to give the best for the team. I’m here to grow, helping Arsenal to finish in the top three and play Champions League next season.

It’s pretty amazing to me that doubts remain over both of them when it comes to being selected for France’s squad for Euro 2012. You would do well to find more whole-hearted, committed and consistent players anywhere in Europe. Not to mention the fact that they’re both outstanding defensively. Koscielny has been brilliant all season and Sagna has come back from a broken leg to more or less pick up where he left off (bar a couple of moments but I think some rustiness can be excused).

France’s loss would be our gain, I suppose, but even if they did go they’d be almost the last players who would themselves be affected by nonsense such as ‘tiredness’ and ‘fatigue’ after a summer tournament.

And speaking of summer tournaments, Jack Wilshere has been included in Stuart Pearce’s initial 80 player long-list for the Olympics football tournament. We know that Arsene Wenger does not want him to play, Pearce says:

That’s his opinion. I can’t change his opinion, and it’s not of great concern to me. Will any manager get a veto over who I select? Of course not.

So, I guess we can assume that Pearce will ignore what’s best for the player as he recovers from a year out of the game and picks him for ‘Team GB’. Maybe some competitive football wouldn’t be a bad thing after so long out but I guess the fear most of us have is that, as has happened in the past, any potential knock or injury would be ignored by Pearce and we get a broken player back when the tournament is over. This is because Stuart Pearce is a dick. Just in case you were in any doubt.

Finally, it looks as if Denilson will be coming back to Arsenal (briefly) after the club nixed any prolongation of his loan deal with Sao Paulo. I would suggest that this is because we want to sell him this summer and him spending more time there would prevent that, obviously. I suspect he, along with others like Vela and Bendtner, will be allowed to leave for far less than we might have initially wanted to sell them for.

The reality of a transfer market in which very few clubs have money to spend and the difficulty we’ve created due to their healthy contracts means we’re going to have to cut our losses with some of them. The suggestion is that Denilson will probably end up in Spain, but I don’t think there’s any future for him at Arsenal.

Right, that’s about that. Apparently the rains are coming here, it’s time to batten down the hatches.

Morning all from a Dublin where summer has arrived. I assume that the absence of torrential rain is a sign of summer. Maybe I’m getting it wrong.

We’ll start today with the news that Robin van Persie’s agent has apparently had a nice cup of tea and a chat with Juventus who would very much like to sign him this summer. None of which is any surprise, nor should it bother any Arsenal fan unduly. It might well be ‘tapping up’ in the strictest sense of the word but it’s also just the way these things happen.

And being brutally honest, the reason Robin has said all along he’s waiting until summer to decide his future isn’t because he’s too busy with Arsenal or ‘concentrating on this season’, it’s to see what his options are and then make up his mind. I would suggest there was a reluctance to commit to Arsenal early because of the shape we were in at the start of the season. Seeing an important player like Cesc leave, seeing a player who thought he was important like Nasri leave, and the fact we didn’t do any business until the end of the transfer window (coinciding with an 8-2 pounding at Old Trafford) would hardly leave any player inclined to sign a new contract.

But beyond that he’ll be 29 when next season kicks off and he knows that realistically this is his last ‘big’ contract, his last chance to make a move to a big European club and play football elsewhere while still in his prime. If his agent has listened to what Juventus have had to say then you can be quite sure his agent will know what’s on the table from all other interested clubs, and given the 18 months van Persie has had, that’s pretty much every major club you can think of.

The only thing a player has to do with a new contract is sign it. His agent/agents/management meet with the club, a deal is agreed, the player signs. The idea that any footballer is ‘too busy’ to make something happen is nonsense, if there was a willingness to sign a new deal then it could all be done pretty efficiently. Robin and his people are waiting to see what others have to offer and, with that information, put themselves in a stronger position with Arsenal when it comes to what we can put forward. That’s just the way it goes.

And if it all sounds a bit negative, it’s not supposed to. I don’t blame Robin for not entering talks this season. We were a shambles in the summer and the early part of the season and if fans were worried then why wouldn’t he be? If other clubs come sniffing around then that’s natural and a consequence of having one of the most highly-talented strikers in the world playing for us. It’s why there were always stories about Vieira, Pires, Henry, Fabregas – the biggest clubs always want the best players. So when you see the inevitable guff about Barcelona, Real Madrid, Man City, Juventus or whoever, don’t stress too much. It’s just the way the business of football operates.

Personally, I’m unsure what he’s going to do but I think in some ways it’s in Arsenal’s hands, more than with previous situations. Firstly, we’ve got to ensure we finish third. Secondly, we’ve got to do some proper business this summer. That means cleaning the decks a bit and adding some real quality to the squad. And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I think Robin wants to win stuff with us. He’s captain, he loves the club (as much as any player can, I guess – not that this has stopped others from leaving though), and I think he’d rather be a part of a truly competitive Arsenal side than go anywhere else.

As I type that it’s hard not to think we’re on familiar territory here but hopefully mistakes of the past have been learned. Others will be able to offer more money but if we free up some of our wage bill and find ourselves more inclined to distribute it evenly (based on importance and performance rather than this vague communist ideal we work to) then I think we can compete in that regard. Ultimately it won’t be about money though, it’ll be about how a player reaching the peak of his career wants to spend those years. And that means it’s down to the manager to convince him, and more importantly demonstrate to him via his transfer business, that Arsenal is a club at which he can achieve success.

Still, que sera, sera, and all that. I’m hopeful Robin will stay – for everything that will entail about the way this season will have finished and what we do when it ends – but I’m not going to worry too much about the newspaper headlines and stories which are going to continue to crop up until the situation is resolved one way or another.

In other news, Manuel Almunia wants to stay. In London. Relax. His contract is up this summer and he’s going to leave the club after eight seasons. What’s interesting is that Lukasz Fabianski also wants out, having seen Wojciech Szczesny overtake him in the pecking order at club and country, while Vito Mannone does not want to return to sit on the bench after playing most of the season for Hull. While people will focus on strengthening forward areas, and perhaps even midfield, we’re going to be left with a bit of a gap in the goalkeeping department and that’s something the manager has to fix.

The young Argentine, Damian Martinez, is highly thought of at the club but perhaps we need a bit more strength in depth than a 20 year old without a first team appearance to his name. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what we do.

Right, that’s yer lot. I’m off to have a cuppa with Barçblog (that’s a blog about bars with a ç in their name, not Barça). Till tomorrow.