Happy Friday to you all and we’ll start with Cesc. Nothing like a bit of early morning Cesc, is there? After Sparta Prague’s attempts to wind us up and kick us off the park the other night the midfielder has been speaking about his challenge on ‘hard man’ Repka who had to go off injured. Some papers reported that Cesc was mocking the former West Ham man as he went off but he denied taking pleasure in anyone else’s pain, saying:
It is true, maybe I was a bit late. But he did the same before and sometimes it happens to you. Of course, I am sorry for him.”He came back on and then started insulting me and I said ‘OK, well don’t’. He was saying Czech words which I do not understand. Maybe Tomas can translate for me.
This season we have the football quality and the physical quality. We are a different team with a different spirit.
I am very encouraged at the way the side was able to cope with not just a physical team but a dirty team and in the past we might have suffered a bit at this kind of treatment. It’s a good sign that we just got on with our football and played the game. As well as that when someone like Repka, whose reputation in football is of someone who kicks ankles more than the ball, says what he said before the game then he can have no complaints when a bit of rough stuff is dished back out to him. Let’s hope he’s not looking for revenge in the return leg because he’s psycho enough to really try and cause someone damage.
Cesc also talks about getting off the mark this season early, but if you remember he did the same last time around and then went a long, long time without another goal. I quite fancy him to get a good number this time around and while he might be more interested in assists I think goals will become his crystal meth and he’ll be slamming them in all over the place.
Gael Clichy has also lauded the new spirit in the camp and the refusal of the boys to be cowed by these sort of tactics.
Tomas Rosicky is hoping he can have more of an impact this season, saying:
I feel that if I can stay injury free, then I can be an important player for Arsenal. Last season, whenever I felt great, I got injured which was difficult for me. Now I feel okay again and we know that we have to score from midfield more.
There’s no doubt the midfield have done that thus far. Two from Hleb (mop my shocked brow) and once from Cesc in the four we’ve scored so far but I don’t think there’s an Arsenal fan who doesn’t want to see more from Tomas. He’s exciting, he can score some great goals but like an epileptic we only see it in fits and starts. There’s no doubting his talent and maybe the wide left role doesn’t quite suit him but he’s intelligent enough to adapt and make a better go of it than he has up to now.
Ahead of Sunday’s game against Blackburn the early team news is that we’ll be without Gilberto, Adebayor and Diaby but Eduardo could make his first start while Denilson has recovered and should, hopefully, take Alex Song’s place in the squad. Emmanuel Eboue has a little knock as well and going by his past record a little knock could mean anything from 1 game to 2 months. With more strikers back in the squad you’d have to think Hleb will move back to the right hand side which will allow Robin van Persie more support and leave him less isolated. He’s done a lot of hard work in a fairly unfamiliar role so it’ll be nice to see him playing his ‘real’ game. Plus he really likes scoring against Blackburn.
Now, time for the Arsecast.
In this week’s Arsecast there’s a very low-fi blogchat with the Man from East Lower, the Man in the Bar isn’t feeling well and there’s more guff, insolence and vulgarity. The bet of the week, with thanks to BlueSq is back and this week, if you fancy it, it’s:
The goal scoring machine Alexander Hleb to score at any time and Arsenal to win at 6/1 – if you don’t have a BlueSq account click here to sign up.
As always the Arsecast is brought to you by OleOle.com
To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes – click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (14mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
[audio:http://arseblog.com/podcasts/arsecast_episode40.mp3]And there you go. Enjoy. Have a good Friday and I shall blog at you tomorrow.
