Morning all, a big, big game on the agenda today.
Roma is now done and dusted. It was prestigious, it was glamorous, but it’s time to swap the Spaghetti alle Vongole for the bread and butter of the league. A win today against Blackburn would, temporarily at least, see us move back into the top four.
Villa play Sp*rs tomorrow and I think it’s the first time in over 6 weeks that we play before them. So it’s a chance to put a bit of pressure on Martin O’Neill’s side.
There’s not much in the way of team news. Eduardo is out as we know, apart from that everyone from the Roma trip is fit and available although Arsene Wenger said there were some tired muscles (pronounced muskels, heh).
Even with the best teams we had winning games after a Champions League game in midweek always provided a bit of an extra challenge so I’m not expecting an easy game at all today. The manager says he expects Blackburn to come and try and frustrate us and we know well how Allardyce’s teams operate. They’ll be tight at the back, get plenty of men behind the ball and be as physical a side as we’ve faced all season.
So we’ve got to try and find a way through as well as giving as good as we get in the tackle. They’ve got some dangerous players too, they can’t be written off as just a bunch of cloggers because in Roque Santa Cruz, Benny McCarthy (heh, Benny), David Dunn (the man with the largest head in the world) and Jason Roberts they have players who can score goals. You’d expect them to be particularly strong from set-pieces so we’re going to have to be on our toes.
We need to ensure that the importance of the game is hammered home to the players. There should be no lack of motivation here. Roma was a fantastic result, well done, but it’s over and the most important game is always the next game.
Andrei Arshavin is 6-1 for first goalscorer, I might just have a little punt on that.
In the light of the unshocking revelation that Kolo Toure and William Gallas don’t get on, the manager said players don’t need to be friends to play football together. At his pre-game press conference he said:
To be professional is to do what it takes for your team to be successful, no more than that. It does not mean that you go to paradise together. The most important thing is the big players respect the game. They put that respect for the game at a higher level than any other situation – if the game needs me to give you the ball now, even if I do not like you, then I give you the ball.
Which is exactly what you’d expect him to say but you just have to wonder about the whole situation from a long term point of view. To have two of the senior players at the club be so publicly at odds with each other isn’t a healthy situation.
Every time something happens at the centre of defence people will point fingers and ask questions. Even when playing with guys you do like ‘discussions’ about mistakes or goals conceded can get quite fraught so when you have two players who obviously don’t get on then that can escalate or get blown out of proportion.
For now, with both of them playing better than they were, the right thing to say is that you don’t have to be friends, but come next August I would be very, very surprised of one of them hadn’t gone elsewhere during the summer.
Meanwhile Kolo talks about the penalty shoot-out and what lies ahead for the rest of the season.
The manager revealed that both Adebayor, and more importantly, Cesc, would be fit and available for selection after the international break. After today’s game we have Hull on St Patrick’s Day, then Newcastle on the Saturday, then an international break. We return with a home game against Man City and the captain could be back for that, which would be fantastic.
Right, that’s yer lot. I’ve got to go coz some bloke is coming to dig up my garden. I found a treasure map, see, and we’re after … well … we’re just digging it up a bit.
Up the Arse today! More tomorrow.
