The good thing about Arsenal having the weekend off is that it gave us plenty of time to recover from our Catalan hiding. The bad thing is that there’s absolutely nothing of Arsenal interest happening this morning. I realise this won’t last long as the game on Wednesday will provide more than enough to talk about as the day goes on but it doesn’t solve the problem in the short term.
Rather than focussing on Arsenal this morning we’re looking at what’s happened to other teams who have a bearing on how our season might finish.
Sp*rs – dumped out of the FA Cup in extra time by Portsmouth is no real way to prepare for a north London derby. I didn’t see any of it so I can’t comment on their performance but 120 on a pitch that is a horrible joke by all accounts won’t be much good to them. It’s amazing how Wembley cost nearly a billion pounds to build but they went to B&Q to get their grass.
They’ve got Palacios suspended as well as Krancjar injured for Wednesday and heavy hearts to with their heavy legs. They’re 4 points behind Man City with a game in hand so they know that losing to us would pretty much end any chance they’ve got of finishing in the top four. Without the distraction/safety net of the FA Cup final I suspect they’re going to be even more up for this now, whether they’ve got the stamina and character to pick themselves up after a big disappointment remains to be seen.
Man United – held to a 0-0 draw by Demento’s cling-on Walrus looking cunt their season is in danger of imploding. One point from the last six in the league and out of Europe thanks to those typical Germans. We can go above them if we beat Sp*rs on Wednesday. They’ve got a Manchester derby coming up this weekend. And looking a bit further ahead, if the Walrus can motivate his players enough so they don’t present like a cat in heat to United the way they usually do, we’re going to have a tough time at Ewok Park.
Man City – they thumped Birmingham 5-1 and are scoring goals for fun, 14 in their last three league games. Tevez can’t stop scoring, Adebayor got two yesterday and they’ll be looking to consolidate their top four position with a win against their old rivals. Their ability to find the net worries me with our leaky defence but given what happened at their place earlier in the season I think we’ll be seriously fired up for this one.
Ideally you’d want United to take points off them on Saturday so that even if we beat Sp*rs in midweek our local rivals still have some hope of a Champions League place when they play Chelsea later on that evening. It is very much Chelsea’s to lose now and you just get the horrible feeling they’re getting away with things in a way which means luck is on their side.
Howard Webb, supposedly England’s best ref, made two truly awful decisions if you’re a Villa fan, fantastic if you’re Chelsea. Firstly the penalty that wasn’t given in the first half. Utterly wrong. It was almost a rugby tackle. Then there was the John Terry yellow card. Chelsea should be going into the next three games without their captain. His challenge on Milner was atrocious, the Villa player is lucky his leg was slightly off the ground, otherwise it would have been snapped at the knee. The more I watch it the more I cannot believe he didn’t get a red card for it, especially when you see the ref’s position. Either Howard Webb is incompetetent or there’s something more sinsister going on. Either way it deserves investigation.
Once again it shows that the FA and its officials pay only lip service to the welfare of players. That is exactly the kind of challenge we spoke about after Ryan Shawcross broke Aaron Ramsey’s leg. Terry was not in control, studs were up and high, it was thoroughly reckless and Milner is a very lucky man that he’s not ankle to thigh in plaster cast this morning. So instead of Chelsea playing Bolton, Sp*rs and Stoke without their captain he’s free to play. The only thing we can hope for is that there’s a bit of footballing karma and he puts in a trio of displays of Djimi Traore proportions.
So things are beginning to hot up now. The bottom line from our point of view is that we need Chelsea to drop points twice, two draws would do it, while ensuring we’ve got a perfect finish to the season. Five wins out of five still may not be enough but that’s our target.
There are increasing whispers about the involvement of Robin van Persie for the Sp*rs game but nothing concrete yet. I assume Arsene is holding a press conference today or tomorrow and we should get more information then. It would be a bonus to see him involved, even from the bench, but we’ll have to wait and see. Beyond that I don’t think we’re expecting anybody else back and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we don’t have any casualities from last Tuesday – although I’m told Carlos Vela might miss out having misplaced his shinpads.
And that’s about that, hopefully a lot more Arsenal related stuff tomorrow. Having to think about the likes of Terry, Walrus, Adebayor and Sp*rs this early in the morning has left me feeling a bit queasy. Till then.
