September 14th
So our Champions League campaign gets underway tonight against FC Thun with the news that Thierry Henry could be out for as long as 6 weeks with his injury. Oh well, what can you except get on with it? No point wailing and crying about it. According to the boss this will give a chance to some of the others to show what they’re made of. He said “I feel it is a good opportunity for the younger players, such as Robin van Persie, Jose Antonio Reyes and Quincy Owusu-Abeyie to show how good they are.”
That’s provided he picks them. With Henry being captain I wonder is the temptation to play Bergkamp to lead the side out a factor but hopefully that won’t be the reason he plays if he does. Maybe Freddie could do the job, Senderos if he’s picked, Sol if he’s picked but maybe Lauren could be the man for it. Who knows? If it were up to me now I’d pick the following team: Almunia (Poom not being considered) – Lauren – Kolo – Senderos – Cole – Freddie – Gilberto – Cesc – Hleb – Reyes – van Persie. I know you can’t take any team in the Champions League for granted but that line-up has surely got the quality to beat the Swiss side with enough on the bench to make a difference if things don’t go to plan.
It’s a perfect opportunity to see how the young players with all the potential and belief the manager has in them do in a game where they’re under pressure because of previous results. Nothing less than a convincing win will do for most people. Still, it could be worse, we might have spent €65m on Baptista, Robinho and Ramos (not to mention another €10m or so on two other players), just lost a league game against a newly promoted side then got spanked 3-0 by a Lyon side that supposedly sold their best player. But spending huge money is the only way to build a team, of course. Robin van Persie should be fit for tonight despite suffering a knock in training after a hefty challenge from Manu Eboue. Arsene Wenger was quick to play down the incident saying he’d told the players to be committed. I’ve always been of the opinion that the current trend for 4-5-1 is for a cunts.
People might dress it up as 4-3-3 but there’s no doubt it’s a terribly defensive formation and I hated seeing us use it in the FA Cup final. It’s horrible to watch and anyone who saw Blackburn v Bolton on Sunday will see tedious and dull it is. The boss is concerned that the more popular this, admittedly effective, formation becomes the worse it will be for football. He says “I am very concerned about the fact that teams are not trying to play, even at home. The attraction of English football has always been the positive attitude, but I feel there is a trend at the moment to play less attractive.” He’s right, in my opinion. So many teams are now just playing for a draw, even at home, in the hope that they’ll sneak a win. Maybe it’s because of the money and teams know that they have so much to lose by dropping out of the Premiership but it is not pretty to watch, ever. Only Chelsea, with the quality they have in their 4-5-1 can make it seem half-decent but the likes of Allardyce and Mark Hughes and the others are making football unwatchable at times. What I have loved most about Wenger’s Arsenal is that we have combined success with fantastic football.
Right, enough. It’s off to work I go then off to the pub later to watch the game because Mrs Blogs has got something on the personal planner. Oh, the hardship.
