Morning all,
hope we find you well this morning. It’s getting cold, isn’t it? Winter is coming. Boooo. All eyes these next couple of days will be on the game against Sp*rs. They’ll be much more optimistic going into the game now that they have Nintendo’s new spokesman as their manager while we’ll be feeling confident after two good wins.
The new manager effect is interesting. Players are going to give a little bit extra, they’ll do the hard work they wouldn’t do for the old manager because he played them out of position or brought them all the way to Italy then didn’t even put them in the squad. Obviously that makes life a little bit more difficult for us but ultimately we have to focus on our own game and not theirs. Robin van Persie isn’t that interested in the appointment of the new man at the Lane. When asked if he thought Redknapp could turn things around with Sp*rs he said:
I don’t know and I honestly don’t care.
Splendid. He wasn’t downplaying the importance of the fixture though, going on to say:
The game against Tottenham is one on its own and it’s a big one, irrespective of where they are in the table.
And that is the truth. It’s a cliché but form goes out the window is games like this. They’ll be desperate to turn it around and get their season back on track. There’s no better way for them to do that than to beat us and Redknapp will be drilling that into them this week on the training ground.
On the other hand though we’ve got to win to keep up with things at the top of the table and Arsenal fans will recall the last time we played them they beat us 5-1 in the Carling Cup. Not a pleasant memory I know but I hope that someone like Pat Rice, who would understand the rivalry better than most of the current players, is letting them know how much that hurt the fans and that they need to make up for it tomorrow night.
Some might say this is just another three points if you win, but it’s not. It’s a gold-plated, caviar on the side, sexy time with Angelina Jolie three points. Sure, it might only be three points when you look at the table but when you think about those three points it makes you feel all warm and tingly. Three points won against Sp*rs are a better three points than those won against somebody more or less irrelevant, like Blackburn for example.
Perhaps Sunday’s win against West Ham showed a bit of the character we’ve been missing in some games this season. We looked focussed and disciplined throughout and Theo Walcott reckons it shows Arsenal can do the ‘dirty stuff’. I’m not so sure about the dirty stuff but it showed we can scrap a win from a game it looks like we might not get the three points from, so from that point of view it was very encouraging. Make no mistake, they are going to go hell for leather tomorrow night. The tackles will be flying and we’ve got to be ready for it.
There’ll be some interesting stuff going on with one or two Sp*rs players. Of course Rat-faced chav will be back and he’ll get the kind of welcome he deserves, no doubt. Luka Modric is another interesting one – he was originally going to come as part of a package deal with Eduardo, I’m told, but Zagreb bottled that one, unwilling to sell the two fans favourites in one go. Of course things have gone terribly wrong for him since and maybe this game will have a bit of added spice for him.
On our side we’ve got Adebayor, who’s got that wonderful scoring record against them, and with Cesc yet to start really firing this season what better game for him to get a goal. Or two. Or five.
We’ll get fuller team news throughout today and we can do that in tomorrow’s blog. For now though, breakfast. And then out into the nippy morning for some necessary errands. Stupid errands making me cold.
Till tomorrow.
