Good morning, and I hope it’s as beautiful a morning where you are as it is in Dublin, and welcome to the final day of the season.
Is it just me or has this one flown by? I can’t believe it’s all over. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not too unhappy at all to see the back of this season, it just seems to have gone by so quickly.
Opponents on the final day are Stoke, a team that has defied all expectations and stayed in the league quite comfortably. They’re a big, strong physical side, as we found out earlier in the season, and as I said on the Arsecast I’m quite happy to see them stay up. Especially when you consider who might go down. There are better candidates for the drop and fair play to them.
For us it’s a chance to sign off on a positive note. The ideal situation is a decent win, some goals, and the players and fans can say goodbye, wipe the slate clean and then start again next season. Whatever has happened this season, and indeed whatever happens today, I think it’s important that some positivity is taken into the summer.
The players will do their traditional lap of the pitch and I hope the fans and the players can put all the negativity behind them and just enjoy the day for what is. I actually had a dream about it last night and Cesc scored but the stadium was half-empty.
As for the team, it doesn’t really matter, does it? I think he’ll pick as strong a team as possible to try and win the game as well as we can. I can’t imagine us playing 4-5-1 today with van Persie as a lone striker. Perhaps he and Bendtner will start up top, Walcott and Arshavin wide, with Cesc and Denilson/Song in the middle.
They’ve got nothing to play for, nor do we apart from a measure of revenge for what was a painful yet educational defeat at the Brittania Stadium, so it might actually be a decent game. Here’s hoping.
At the other end of the table it’s any two from Newcastle, Hull, Sunderland and Boro. My ideal outcome sees two extremely late Jeremie Aliadiere goals relegate both Hull and Newcastle when they think they’re safe, but I can live with Boro going down if it means vigorously waving goodbye appalling Brown/Horton axis of evil at the KC Stadium.
I did have a laugh with Paul Merson on Soccer Saturday yesterday on Sky talking about the worst thing he’d seen all season. It was Phil Brown’s execrable, embarrassing half-time teamtalk on the pitch when they were being beaten by Man City. On that day he showed that it was all about him, not his team or his players, not his fans or his club, this was the Phil Brown show and his actions since have done little but rubber-stamp that. Seeing him downcast with that stupid little earpiece at the end of today’s games would be very pleasant indeed.
So that’s all to come later and fingers crossed for all the right results. Come on Aliadiere, you have to be good for something.
Looking around at the Sunday stories very quickly and Andrei Arshavin is looking to renegotiate his contract. He says:
I have a problem with my contract. Certain nuances emerged linked to taxation and some other things. As a result, I’m getting less money than I expected. It’s not critical but I still need to put it right.
Easy to fix. Take a chunk of Adebayor’s £80,000 and give it to Andrei. And speaking of the Togonator, he’s off to Man City if the News of the World can be believed. Which is can’t, but maybe we can just wish really hard and it will happen.
Arsene talks about Thierry Henry as an article rather speculatively talks about a return to Arsenal. I can’t really see that happening to be honest. Age is not on his side, Wenger never re-signs players he has let go, and Thierry is part of the past. Glorious past it might be but still the past. Of course he’s got a big game coming up on Wednesday and despite what happened in 2006 I’d really enjoy it if he was the man to score the winner for Barcelona against United.
Right then, we don’t get the sun too often in Dublin so I’m going to sit in and play video games and watch it in awe. Or I might cut the grass.
Enjoy the final day folks, talk to you next season.
