Morning all, not long now till kick off in the FA Cup 4th round against Stoke. We’ve been over pretty much everything with regards to this game. The team, the resting, the injuries, the choices the manager has had to make and everything else, so there’s not much left to say.
Stoke will be right up for it knowing they won’t have to face too many of the big boys. For our lot it’s a chance to show there’s some depth to this squad and for some of the youngsters to stake a claim to a place in the squad as the season progresses. Even with the full team it would have been no walkover. Stoke are a big, physical side who cause most teams they play plenty of problems. If, as suggested, Sol Campbell makes his second Arsenal debut (is that even possible?) he’s going to have a difficult return to top class football.
It’d be nice too to see the forwards produce something, Carlos Vela and Theo Walcott in particular. Theo needs a game to show that he’s over his injury problems and to gain some confidence, while Vela’s contribution this season has been minimal, doing little to suggest at this stage the new contract was worth it. To be fair to him he hasn’t had many chances, mostly restricted to late substitute appearances, but even then he’s hardly made any kind of impact at all. It’d good to see him turn up and cause their defence problems today, because we know he’s capable of it, we just haven’t seen it this season and it’s about time now.
So fingers crossed. You want to win every game you play and even if the FA Cup is third on our list of priorities it doesn’t mean we should dismiss it. A couple of bad refereeing decisions in the Champions League, for example, and all of a sudden it becomes a great deal more important. And it’d be nice to win today and hear Tony Pulis ‘moaning like a drain’, the baseball cap wearing fanny. Come on the Arsenal.
Looking around the Sunday newspapers and the News of the World carries a story about William Gallas and how the boss thinks he’ll stay now even though he did think he’d leave. Although, he says:
I am positive about him staying but you never know – someone may come in and he is free to talk to clubs now.
Personally I’d be surprised if he stayed, to be honest. Which is probably as good as sign as you’ll ever get that he’s going to sign a new deal. And speaking of Gallas, Manuel Almunia has hailed the Frenchman and new partner Thomas Vermaelen, extolling their respective virtues. He claims to ‘know’ Gallas despite his difficult character but given the way they sometimes look like complete strangers on the pitch, especially when the ball is anywhere near our 6 yard line, I’d have my doubts about that. Almunia also singles out Chelsea as more of a threat to our title chances than United. Personally I think the biggest threat to our title chances is ourselves. We need to start racking up some clean sheets in the league if we really want to win it. Anyway, we can start worrying about the league again tomorrow.
The People carries a rather ludicrous story about Rafa Benitez offering us Ryan Babel. He’s desperate to unload the Dutchman and was looking for a cash deal although they say a swap involving Fran Merida, who can leave on a free in the summer, is also on the cards. It sounds as likely as a Carlos Vela hat-trick today.
Also in The People quotes from Arsene Wenger about Jack Wilshere going on loan to Bolton. Or not going to Bolton as the case might be. And while I can certainly see merit in the young man going out and playing somewhere, it’s hard to reconcile that with our injury list.
The Telegraph rather spuriously links us with Crystal Palace forward Victor Moses with not much to back it up. Again this is a most unlikely occurrence although I do like the player’s name, it’s quite cool. I’m not a religious man at all but a series of biblical named signings would be most amusing. I shall wait for the day when Arsenal sign Abraham-Zebedee Barnabas, Damascus Calvary and Lazarus O’Toole.
Everton have confirmed the loan deal taking Philippe Senderos to Merseyside for the rest of the season.
And that’s about that. Time for some pork powered breakfast, a read of the papers, then the match. Till tomorrow.
