Hello there, hope you had a fine weekend and aren’t too grumpified this Monday morning.
The weekend’s Premier League games have been interesting, I have to say. We quietly and efficiently got on with the job of beating Blackburn and left all the drama to the others. United were hapless against Liverpool and had Vidic sent off eventually – I thought his first challenge was a straight red, as was his second as he had no intention of playing the ball. John Terry showed his class again by rugby tackling the Citeh player then taunting the fans as he made his way off the park. England captain indeed. Sp*rs lie bottom of the table, Hull City are heading for the Champions League, and Newcastle are an absolute shambles.
Meanwhile we’ve responded fantastically to the Fulham defeat and while there’s still some work to do it has been very encouraging to see that response. This week the focus will be on the Champions League and Dinamo Kiev. I think the days of Kiev being a real danger are long gone. There is no Rebrov-Shevchenko partnership anymore and they struggled to get past Drogheda in the final qualifying round. Provided we keep our concentration and work hard then it’s a game we should win. More on that to come during the week.
Emmanuel Adebayor got his first league goals of the season on Saturday but says it’s all about the team. He says:
People kept asking me when I was going to score my first goal in the league this season. But I told them it is more important that the team wins. We showed good character at Blackburn and that will help our confidence.
I think at this point we have to forget our cuckolding during the summer and as I’ve always said scoring goals and winning games for us is what will repair the relationship with the fans. I did wonder why he took the penalty though. Perhaps himself and van Persie will take it in turns so keepers are kept guessing. I suppose we’ll find out next time there’s a penalty.
Theo is, as expected, keeping his feet on the ground after his England hat-trick. He set up the first goal for Robin on Saturday but showed he’s still got a bit to learn when he shot wide a few minutes later, when perhaps a simple square ball to Eboue would have created a second. I don’t blame him for shooting though, he’s obviously confident but he’s just got to get that decision making right, which will come with time. He’s not paying any attention to any of the hype though, saying:
I haven’t read anything in the papers (about Croatia) even though I know it’s good. I leave that to my parents. I try to keep my feet on the ground. I’ve had a lot of pressure thrown at me from a young age so all this now doesn’t really bother me at all. I’ve got some brilliant people around me at Arsenal and it’s going really well at the moment.
With injuries to Nasri and probably Eboue he’s going to have plenty of chances to do his stuff. There’s also a doubt over Gael Clichy ahead of Wednesday’s game which could see Mikael Silvestre make his debut at left-back. He says the boss wants him to play more in the centre of defence but with Traore on loan and Kieran Gibbs still very young he’s the obvious candidate if Clichy doesn’t make it. I’m not sure that he’s sufficiently different to Gallas or Toure in the middle though to address the issues we have there but we’ll see in time, I suppose.
Beyond all that not much happening yet this week. There’s plenty of football to come though and we should have a better idea of the state of the squad for the Kiev game in tomorrow’s blog. Until then.
