Good morning from London. I’d love to tell you I had a wonderful night’s sleep and I feel fresh and ready for the day ahead but that would be a lie, and I’m not going to start lying to you now.
It was one of those nights where sleep just wouldn’t come, my roommate was snoring like a sinus affected rhino and the longer it went on the more I convinced myself I was never going to get any sleep at all. Eventually, mercifully, I nodded off and now here I am with a cup of instant coffee and the Mugsmasher’s clunky old laptop with me.
Don’t expect any links in today’s post, Safari doesn’t seem to like the toolbars so there’s no option to add them in. I’ve done my best to look at what Arsene said yesterday but frankly there’s so much I just don’t know where to start. The team news for today is that Song and Eduardo are back, which is good news. I had thought that if Song was back then he might play him at centre-half but I notice a story on the official site in which the manager explains why he’s not a centre-half, something about not having the reflexes.
Seems odd to me, what with Sylvester being the sort of chap who, if you whacked his knee with a reflex testing hammer, would kick his leg out about 5 minutes later. Also, I’m pretty sure that he’s spoken more than once about Song’s ability to play at centre-half. I have to say I’m worried about Sylvester facing Tevez and Adebayor, to be honest I’d be worried about Sylvester facing sleep-deprived me, but perhaps the protection of Song in midfield will help.
Up front I expect Robin van Persie to start, it’ll be interesting to see where he plays if that’s the case. Does AW move Bendtner out of the central position, where he’s clearly more effective, or play Robin left or right of him? He does play from the right for the Dutch national team so that might well be an option. His presence will certainly add more firepower to the squad but ultimately I think this game is going to come down to who defends best. Both teams are capable of scoring plenty, it’ll be the least worst defence that wins it.
There’s obviously extra spice to this one given what happened at Middle Eastlands earlier in the season. Emmanuel Adebayor’s return to his former club will not be a welcome one, no matter what the manager urges. Fans don’t forget and they definitely don’t forgive easily. Yes, you can be a bigger man and turn the other cheek but, you know, fuck that shit. He’s going to get a roasting and it’ll be thoroughly deserved. The comparison to the welcomes received by Vieira and Kolo Toure (despite sounding like a bit too like your average professional football in his Gallas thoughts) will be marked. Will it inspire him? Pfff, he’s motivated enough already, 60,000 Arsenal fans reminding him he is ginormous cunt won’t make any difference.
Anyway, bottom line for me today is not Adebayor or Paddy or Kolo, it’s about responding to the Wigan shambles. The players have let us down, the manager let us down, they’ve got to go out there and make amends. A win today would practically secure third spot and while sticking one to Stampy McCelebratealot is all part of the fun, the three points are by far the most important thing. Fingers crossed.
Other than that it’s a beautiful day here. The Arseblog 5s take place at noon, the Greens are the defending champions so if you’ll excuse me I need to shower, shave and other sh things and then go retain a trophy.
Until tomorrow.
