Imagine a world without coffee. It would be a truly dark and terrible place. When I was a younger chap I had a mate whose mother refused to buy coffee for some reason but insisted they drink chicory. I would imagine that is not at all pleasant. Like having beef stew but without beef and with chunks of gopher instead.
Moving on there’s Carling Cup action tonight against them old Mugsmashers who will be riding high after their weekend win against United. That win means that they are not in ‘the worst crisis evah!!’ and instead are ‘right back in the title race!!’. What kind of a team Benitez puts out will be interesting. He can’t really afford to risk any of his good players and traditionally he’s used the Carling Cup in the same way as we have, playing youngsters, but without the same success.
From our point of view it looks like it’ll be a pretty strong line-up. There’s experience at the back with Senderos and Sylvester, Fabianski returns in goal (damn you ‘holic for getting to the Pole position gag before I did), Samir Nasri is back for his first start since breaking his leg in pre-season training while Eduardo and Bendtner will return from their little knocks to get back to match sharpness. Unfortunately there’s no Jack Wilshere who misses out with an ankle injury.
The return of Nasri is a welcome one, although where exactly he’s going to fit into this team remains to be seen. Personally I’d see him as part of the midfield three. With Song the holding midfielder you have Cesc + 1 and he can certainly do that job, as well as being part of the front three in one of the wide positions if necessary. However, Arsene says:
Basically, I can play him where he is needed. I would say more in the defensive role, but because he can dribble he can play on the flanks.
Nasri has pace and he can play in a role that is half a winger, a dropped winger who will come in sometimes, can go wide, so of course it has to be balanced maybe with a striker on the other side sometimes.
Clear as mud, right? I’ve read that about 10 times now and I still don’t really know what it means. I know we used him in a defensive midfield role last season but I’m not sure he’s suited for it. He’s a clever player with quick feet who can finish well and to me it’s obvious we’d get the best out of him further up the pitch. It’s down to him, however, to make a position his own and the quality he brings to midfield is no bad thing at all.
Perhaps the manager’s thinking regarding Nasri as part of the midfield three is being influenced by the development of Aaron Ramsey. The young Welshman is very much in the manager’s thoughts, as he says:
He is really pushing hard – and the other midfielders have a lot of work to keep him out of the side because he is getting very close. He has made a big improvement compared to last year, when he still looked a little bit like a youth player, but now he looks like a [first-team] player.
Ramsey will play tonight and get another chance to impress. I’ve got to agree with the boss, he really does look a much different player this season than last. Physically he looks much stronger, he’s better on the ball and he’s really got a chance to become a more regular part of the first team. With AW also singing the praises of Fran Merida, who should also play tonight, there’s certainly going to be a serious amount of competition for places in the Arsenal midfield if the youngsters keep developing the way they have.
There are perhaps one or two older players, and I mean ‘older’ relatively, who must know they haven’t really taken the chances they’ve been given in the first team and who will be rather worried about the kind of progress Ramsey, in particular, is making. And rightly so. The manager also talks about Sanchez Watt pushing on to challenge the strikers at the club.
Maybe there’s an element of the manager talking up the young players to motivate them, perhaps there’s an element of talking them up to let the more established players know they’ve got hungry youngsters looking to take their place – whatever his thinking it seems like a while since we’ve had this kind of situation at the club and competition for places is always a good thing.
With a big, big game coming up at the weekend the Carling Cup is always fun to watch. While we all want the ‘youngsters’ to perform there’s no real pressure, which is often reflected in the freedom of our performance. I’m looking forward to tonight.
And that’s really about that. For those of you who have been asking about the Arseblog iPhone app it is still being reviewed by Apple so hopefully we’ll have some news on that in the next few days. I’ll keep you updated.
I’ve also been trying out the official Arsenal app which is pretty good, I have to say. There’s the news feed from the official site in handy iPhone style, highlights of games which worked perfectly for me over wifi but were a bit temperamental over 3G as well as handy stuff like fixtures, the league table, ticketing info and galleries of pictures which can be saved as desktops etc (the goal clips are streamed though, you can’t save them to the phone). Overall a success, I say.
And finally a reminder about the Emirates Airline competition to win one of three pairs of club level tickets for Saturday’s game against Sp*rs. If you haven’t already entered, and it appears that most of you have, click here for all the details.
Right then, I’ve got to see a man about some t-shirts. Have a good one, here’s a smashing of the ‘smashers tonight and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
