All the bank holidays and days off are out of the way now, we can get back to normal. It might take me a week or so to dry out but there you go.
The talking has started ahead of tomorrow night’s Champions League 1/4 final second leg against Villarreal at the Grove. Despite the fact we’ve got an away goal there’s no chance of Arsenal sitting back and trying to protect that lead. The boss says:
We want to be decisive but you can only do that if you decide to play in a very positive way. We have scored that away goal so it could have an importance at the end of the day. I don’t believe that we are a team who can play for 0-0, that’s not our natural way.
There’s little doubt the strength in this team, particularly in light of all the injuries, lies at the attacking end of the field so it makes sense to focus on that, I suppose. Our creativity has been helped by the return of Cesc Fabregas. The manager says his break through injury has kept him fresh, saying:
I did think he needed a breather. Maybe it was too long for my taste but it will help him to finish the season strongly.
Look at what he’s done since he came back. Man City, two assists for Adebayor, Villarreal an assist for Adebayor (although he was fairly forthright in saying the big striker did all the work for the goal), Wigan, an assist for Sylvester, and he’s still not what you’d call ‘match sharp’ yet.
To have a player of his quality come back into the team at this stage of the season is fantastic. And along with him Adebayor has had time off and won’t be feeling the effects of game after game. Theo too and Andrei Arshavin is essentially at the start of his season so hopefully those fresh legs can help us achieve things between now and the end of May.
Cesc himself is keen to play his part in keeping the run we’re on going, saying:
It’s quite good what we have done but it is not enough. We want to go all the way. We have said to ourselves we do not want to lose another game before the end of the season and that’s what we will try to do. We have done it during the past few weeks. We just need to keep it going for a few weeks more.
Lofty ambitions but there’s little harm in aiming high. Of course if they achieve that it means silverware and I really think a trophy at the end of the season would be a fantastic thing, not just for the obvious reasons, but for the development and maturity of the team.
But talk of silverware is premature and I’m sure the manager will have them focussed fully on the game tomorrow night. Villarreal are confident even with the injuries they’ve got. Rossi and Nihat are bullish while Marcos Senna, who they will miss a lot, talks a lot of sense as you’d expect from a player of his experience.
They might be on a bad run of form in the domestic league but make no mistake, Villarreal are still a very, very dangerous side.
I wonder about how we’ll line up. There’s no team news as yet so we don’t know about the availability of Diaby or Eduardo and I just wonder if the manager might be tempted to use Sagna at left back and Eboue at right back to add a bit more experience to the back four. Kieran Gibbs struggled against Wigan and while he’ll certainly learn from games like that it might just be a bit too soon to throw him into a Champions League 1/4 final. All the same it’d be no surprise if Wenger did just that.
We should have a team news update in tomorrow’s blog as the pre-match press conference takes place at some stage this morning/afternoon.
There’s some stuff around this morning about Robin van Persie and a new contract but it’s nothing new really. Talks were going on, they’re now on the back burner as the manager wants the players fully focussed on the football, but in an interview with Arsenal TV Online he said he wanted to sign a new deal, the club wanted him to sign a new deal, so everything’s looking positive in that regard.
So there you go. That’ll do for this morning. There’s some decent football on tonight and our Astro Summer League kicks off tonight as well. Hurrah.
More tomorrow.
