Morning all,
hope your day yesterday went swimmingly. We ate lots, drank some wine and beer, ate more, then ate some more. It was all good. A lie-in this morning to top it all off. Nice.
Now though we get back down to business. We have Villa today at 5.15 and it’s a hugely important game. They’re currently three points ahead of us and fighting for that 4th Champions League spot. A win for us today would obviously make things easier but losing would land us in some serious shit.
Arsene Wenger has spoken about how you can’t take European football for granted. He said:
If you look at Europe not many teams have in the last 10 years been in every year. But in Europe this year AC Milan are in the Uefa Cup, they are not in the Champions League. Last year Bayern Munich played in the Uefa Cup, and they are not less prestigious clubs than any of the teams who play in the top four.
But they didn’t die. In sport you have to accept that nothing is guaranteed. Only because we achieve it every year do people think it is guaranteed. It is not guaranteed, it is down to your performances.
All well and good when you look at it from a distance but when you make life more difficult for yourself by reducing the quality of your squad then you can’t not expect fans to be anxious. When you have set such high standards then you get judged on those standards – when you fall below them then you have to expect criticism. I don’t think anybody has ever suggested we have a divine right to be in the top four, only that we haven’t quite used the resources available to us to ensure that it’s not a real struggle like it appears to be this year.
Nevertheless, the manager still isn’t ruling out the title. I can’t fault his optimism or his ambition but at the moment I think we need to focus on a more realistic goal then see where we are in a couple of months. If we can still talk about the title at that stage, however vague the chances might be, then I think most people will be happy.
Villa are a good side, we know that. We were beaten 2-0 at the Grove and they’ll know this is a great opportunity for them to make a real push for Europe. Martin O’Neill is a fantastic motivator and he’s a great ‘team’ manager. By that I mean he is able to make the sum of the parts far greater than any individual but he’s helped by having two or three very good players in his squad. Young and Agbonlahor are the jewels in his crown and we know only too well how they can hurt us.
For our part we’ve got to go there without two of our best players. Cesc, obviously, and Emmanuel Adebayor who will serve his one match suspension today. You assume Bendtner will come in and play the Adebayor role if he’s fit, if not we might see Diaby play in the hole behind van Persie. That would leave us a rather uninspiring midfield but at the moment there’s not much we can do about that.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Aaron Ramsey get a start, to be honest, but for all his talk about the quality of his young players and ‘internal solutions’ the manager seems reluctant to use him in the Premier League right now. To me he’s the closest thing we’ve got to Fabregas in the squad.
The importance of the game is not lost on the players. Samir Nasri says:
I think if we lose to Aston Villa we can say goodbye to our title chances — we have to go there and get a positive result.
I think that’s true and more importantly it would make our Champions League chances even more difficult which, for me, is the main thing at the moment.
However, we showed against Liverpool on Sunday that if we put in the effort and the application we’re not a soft touch by any means. But that level of performance has be there from the first whistle. To be honest, I think if we’d played with that kind of attitude in every game this season we wouldn’t be worrying about losing a CL place, we’d be right in the thick of things at the top of the table. And I don’t think it’s too much to expect that players give everything for 90 minutes once or twice a week.
Anyway, fingers crossed we can get our heads straight and get a performance today – because we’ll need it if we’re going to beat this Villa side.
In other news Cesc talks about his injury and despite being obviously upset about it is quite philosophical. It could have been worse with the doctor saying it might have been 9 months. Eeek.
Bacary Sagna has a little pop at the English press.
And that’s about it. There’s so much leftover we’re going back to the Blogfather’s house today for Christmas Dinner II – The Refattening.
Then the football. Come on Arsenal. More tomorrow.
