Team news is the logical place to start this morning and there are no real surprises. Djourou’s absence was confirmed, as yet we don’t know how long he’ll be out for, but Diaby and Eduardo return to add some depth to the squad.
In his pre-match press conference Arsene emphasised our attacking approach to tonight. As I mentioned yesterday with the defence not as strong as it might be it’s a good way to go at things. I can’t imagine it will be all out attack or anything like it, the game is still very tight, but I wonder if we might see a return to a more traditional formation this evening.
In Europe we tend to use a 4-5-1 or a 4-4-1-1, however you want to look at it, but he was pressed about Cesc’s role in the team and said that his deployment behind the striker was probably not going to continue. Against Wigan on Saturday we played better when Denilson went off and Cesc played from a deeper position and I expect that to happen tonight.
I think he’ll go with Song in the middle with Cesc, Nasri and Walcott wide and van Persie and Adebayor up front. Of course I could be completely wrong but if we’re looking to attack and score goals this, to my mind at least, is our best formation to do that. The bench looks strong from an attacking point of view as well, with Eduardo and Bendtner and probably Vela in the mix too.
The manager was also keen to talk up his young team, calling them ‘winners’ and praising them for their focus and hunger since the start of the season. Now, I think we all know why he’s talking the way he is but you can’t look at where we are now without looking at how we got there – and it’s been a struggle at times. To call them ‘winners’ when they haven’t actually won anything yet seems a bit premature but if he’s trying to publicly boost their confidence ahead of what is going to be an extremely intense period then I can understand it.
Now it’s down to them to ensure that he’s not left with egg on his face, that his faith in them is merited. Robert Pires feels our lack of experience may be our downfall, he may have a point, we’ll know at around 9.30 tonight if that was a factor. But the players must know how close they are to achieving something this season, Emmanuel Adebayor spoke about the desire to win trophies, saying:
If you want to be a big club, of course you have to win things. This season we have the chance to do it and just have to take our chances.
Let’s not forget many of this team have reasonable experience already, despite their youth. They lost a Carling Cup final against Chelsea, they came close to knocking out Liverpool in last season’s Champions League, so this isn’t all new to them. There’s got to be a point when they show they’ve learned the painful lessons that came before – tonight is as good a place to start as any.
There’s other stuff about Adebayor talking about how he never wanted to leave Arsenal and how settled he is now. Fine. I don’t think it really merits much discussion at this stage of the season. When there’s so much football to play it serves no real purpose to rehash old stories, whatever spin is being put on them now. The bottom line is that Adebayor has scored three goals since he came back from injury, if we do have ambitions to win things this season then having him fit, hungry and in form is far more important than anything else – particularly as we’ll have all summer to speculate about this, that and the other.
During the press conference one of the journalists asked Arsene about the atmosphere at the Grove as the perception amongst the Villarreal players and fans is that Arsenal fans are a bit quiet, a bit timid. He said:
I would want an intimidating atmosphere and I count on our supporters to be strongly behind the team in a fair way. I am convinced our fans will do that tomorrow.
I don’t know that there was anything particularly special about El Madrigal, it certainly didn’t seem intimidating from where we were, but it’d be brilliant to hear the Grove rocking tonight. It’s a Champions League 1/4 final, what’s not to make noise about?
Tony Adams talks to the Sun and says he expects Arsenal to beat Villarreal but says our defensive frailty will prevent us from winning the Champions League. He goes on to say it’s still his dream to ‘coach’ Arsenal. Is that different from ‘manage’? Because maybe Tony could become a good coach, it’s very hard, after his previous managerial positions, to ever see him in charge of us.
So, plenty to mull over before tonight’s game. I think we’re more than capable of getting the right result but it’s not going to be easy. They a good team with quality players and we can’t afford to play like we did in the first half at Wigan. We need to go out like it’s the second half. Two second halves tonight, please Arsenal.
Dying for this now. Come on you Reds. Till tomorrow.
