Bank holiday blogging, morning to you all.
It’s all about United from here until 7.45pm tomorrow night. There’ll be a whole pile of analysis, thought, team news, prediction and everything else to wade through.
The manager is bullish, obviously to boost his players confidence, but there’s no doubt he’s as up for this game as any I can remember. He says:
We know we have to score two goals against United and not many teams have done that. We believe we can do it. This is special. This is not The Premier League. If we go 1-0 up then they become under pressure. Score again and they are out.
I believe we can do it. The whole squad believe that.
What is they say about belief? It’s half the battle? Or two-fifth of success? Or 72% of victory? I wouldn’t know, I’m not a statistician.
It’s interesting to hear him talk about our potential line-up. He’s hinting at playing a 4-4-2, saying:
We played 4-4-2 at Portsmouth on Saturday and I think we look more threatening that way. Maybe we will play with two strikers against Manchester United — but the way we line up depends on who is available.
Obviously the fitness of Robin van Persie is the key factor here. If he’s fit then he and Adebayor will play up front, and that’s obviously more dangerous to United than Adebayor on his own and Cesc behind him. It’s also good to hear the manager talk about Cesc when he says:
When Cesc Fabregas plays behind the striker, as he did at Old Trafford last week, the striker looks to be a little isolated.
As everyone has been saying our best players have to play in their best positions. If we play 4-4-2 with van Persie I think we’ve got a chance. If we play the same line-up/formation as we did in the away leg I don’t think we’ll do it. You can’t have players in unfamiliar roles in games as big as this one. And I think we all agree Cesc is far more effective in central midfield.
It’s interesting because in Europe our best games have come playing the 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 formation. At the moment though we don’t really have the personnel to do it so a return to the formation we’re most comfortable with seems the best option. I suspect United are going to line-up the same way as they did at Old Trafford, with the three in midfield and using Rooney and Ronaldo to stretch us wide, so there’ll be a big onus on Samir Nasri and Theo Walcott (who you’d imagine would start in wide positions for us) to get back and help out defensively.
Speaking of Theo he’s in no doubt as the importance of the game, saying:
United is the biggest game of our careers. Everyone is buzzing, we cannot wait and we’re on our own pitch, in front of our own fans. That will be crucial and hopefully we can do it for them because they have been excellent for us.
It shouldn’t be underestimated how much of a role the fans can play tomorrow night as well. That’s something I’ll touch on in tomorrow’s blog, as well as more preview stuff after the pre-match press conferences and what have you.
Meanwhile the boardroom goings-on are beginning to get ugly. It seems it’s Red & White that have asked the Takeover Panel to probe the recent share sales and they’re unhappy at being treated like ‘just any old shareholder’.
You always got the sense that things could get ugly. I mean, I know anything involving Usmanov has got to have a reasonable smattering of ugly to it, what with him being so very fat and ugly, but if he did harbour ambitions at taking over Arsenal fully they’ve been well and truly scuppered by Kroenke’s share purchases.
Despite various statements which said the club and Red and White were maintaining civilised dialogues you always felt it was an us against them situation. Now they’ve set out their stall and I think, unless we’re lucky, we’re going to see boardroom war at Arsenal, which would be a real shame. The AST have issued a statement saying:
The AST regrets that a shareholder has chosen to involve the takeover panel. Their complaint is about protecting shareholder value. We represent Arsenal supporters who own shares as custodians of the club. Our primary interest as shareholders is what is good for Arsenal Football Club rather than trying to make money.
Once again we would urge all of the major shareholders in the club to reflect that Arsenal would be much better off if everyone worked together. It strengthens our resolve to work to increase the number of Arsenal supporters who own shares in Arsenal.
At a time when we should be focussing fully on football it’s a bit painful to see this kind of thing going on. Now, I don’t think for a second that it affects the players or the manager in any way. I’ve never quite understood how anything that happens in the boardroom should affect what happens on the pitch. As long as the players are paid there’s no reason why anything there should unsettle them, so I’m not worried about it from that point of view.
You just worry about how this is going to play out. Usmanov and his cronies love using the press for their own end, they have journalists and writers to help spread their propaganda. To many it’s hilariously transparent (even when some seem to do an about turn to bat for the other side) but Arsenal have always tended to maintain a dignified silence in the face of such trash, so there’s no counter-argument. If they’re going to play this out in public then we have to consider fighting fire with fire.
Anyway, it’s all speculative at the moment but I would not be surprised in the slightest if this was a recurring story during the summer. At least it’d be a break from the players we’re not going to sign. Hahaha (weeps).
So, that should do it for today. It’s all about tomorrow. And tomorrow is just today in the future. Enjoy the bank holiday. Till future today.
