Hello there, Fulham today in a late kick off and a chance to put last season’s debacle behind us. The second game of the season gave us an unseemly taste of what was to come.
I remember later in the season reading some quotes from Robin van Persie about how the team were on the bus afterwards and he was thinking ‘How did that happen? That is not Arsenal’. I’ve tried to find the exact quotes, but can’t. Anyway, that was not Arsenal but it was the Arsenal we got for an extremely damaging period last season.
This season Robin is aware of how important games like today are. He says:
If you look last year, the way Manchester United became champions was against the ‘smaller’ teams. They won against all the teams from 19 to 10. That is why they became champions. So it is very important to win these games.
Last season we had a pretty good record against the other top 4 sides. A win and a draw against United, we beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (I’m forgetting the home game), and two draws against Liverpool, but that period when we lost to Fulham, to Hull, to Stoke, to Man City and Aston Villa is what blew us out of the title race, shattered any confidence we might have had and left us playing catch up until almost the end of the season.
There was a home game against Fulham last season which was almost as painful to watch as well. It came during a series of games where we couldn’t score to save our lives, we drew 0-0 with them on the day and we were awful again. Danny Murphy, who is in the papers today saying we’ve ‘lost the fear factor’ and all that, bossed the midfield and when we should have been bombarding Fulham at the end of the game we couldn’t even get the ball back from them.
So far this season against ‘smaller’ teams we have done a lot better. 4-0 against Portsmouth, 4-0 against Wigan perhaps shows there’s been a change in mindset. That we don’t simply go out expecting to win, we go out knowing we have to perform to get the three points.
Now, I rate Fulham a lot higher than either of those teams, Woy Hodgson has done a great job since he arrived there, but the 6-1 win over Everton shows we can do it against the bigger of the ‘smaller’ teams too. RVP is right, these games are the bread and butter of the title race, if you don’t win them then you’re making life extremely difficult for yourself.
I reckon today’s team, based on who’s fit, might look like this:
Mannone – Sagna – Gallas – Vermaelen – Clichy – Song – Cesc – Rosicky – Arshavin – van Persie – Bendtner
I’ve gone for Rosicky ahead of Diaby although the boss might prefer the Frenchman, which to me is a bit like preferring a lump of charred armadillo to a succulent fillet steak but there you go. With Theo back and hopefully on the bench it does boost our attacking options should we need to change things, with both he and Eduardo a threat.
In other news Robin van Persie talks about ‘exaggerating contact‘ as opposed to diving and also lauds the team spirit at the club, saying:
I really love Arsenal and I want them to succeed. I do feel our team spirit is at a higher level than most other clubs. Other clubs have lots of egos. We have egos here but the whole squad has good egos and good characters. That is not the case at many other clubs.
You can’t help but think he’s highlighting that in the wake of a certain recent departure who he comically calls ‘Mr Adebayor’ in this piece.
He does talk a good game, does Robin. What I’d like to see now are his boots do the talking, his good leg or his chocolate leg matters not a jot to me. It’s goal time, Robin.
Arsene Wenger tries to explain why he didn’t spend the summer profit but really only confuses things. He says:
We sold Kolo and Adebayor but bought Vermaelen. That money is for me. I know how much I have and I am happy with it. But last week we played Wigan. We won 4-0 and on the bench I had Bendtner. Walcott, Arshavin, Nasri, Denilson and Djourou were not playing.
That money is for me? He sounds like an Irish government minister there. And yes we won 4-0 with Bendtner on the bench but we lost two games in Manchester and he played them. How odd. I really think he should stop talking about the money we didn’t spend, I don’t want to hear about it anymore. It’s still a bit of a sore point amongst fans and again I think it’s one of those articles on the official site that doesn’t really do him any favours.
Anyway, it’s all fairly irrelevant so long as the players we do have do the business on the pitch starting today at Fulham. As it’s my birthday today I’m expecting at least 8 goals (Arsenal goals) as a present. Come on lads. Do it for me!
Till tomorrow.
