In today’s blog, an impassioned diatribe on why all football pundits are dicks and why you should send flaming bags of poo to their doors.
I kid, I kid. About the flaming poo part, obviously.
It’s quiet again as we head towards our Anfield trip on Saturday. There’s been no team news, as yet, but there were a couple of little worries towards the end of the Crystal Palace game. Mikel Arteta looked like he picked up a calf problem but after a few minutes limping around seemed to have run it off. The worry, of course, is that he’s had spells out with calf injuries before and with Flamini suspended, Ramsey injured and Wilshere hopeful (but still a bit borderline), that it could well affect the team in a big way.
The absence of Thomas Vermaelen from the Palace squad was also notable, given he’s our only central defensive back-up. I do love me some Mertescienly but they are not machines. To keep them functioning at the highest level we will need to rub them with a poultice made from unicorn tears, fresh mountain dew from the plains of Narnia and Ziggy’s stardust, but also not play them every single minute of every single game.
I’m not advocating any kind of change for the weekend, or even against United in midweek but certainly for the FA Cup. And I think it’s always better to have established back up in case of emergency. Hopefully we’ll get an update on that.
The manager has been talking about the title race, saying:
It is never as simple as everyone predicts it. I said a long time ago that nobody will be absolutely above the others. It will be down to consistency.
Hard to argue, which is why I’ve never been that concerned with the amount of goals City have been scoring. It really doesn’t matter that much as long as we keep winning. You don’t get bonus points for goals scored, although if it gets really tight, and we have to win our final game of the season 43-0, I might have to eat those words.
For now though, we’ve got some points in hand, some games to come against our nearest rivals, and to be where we are at this point of the season with it ‘in our hands’ is a good place to be. I say ‘in our hands’ figuratively, because it’s still a long way out of reach, but you know what I mean.
Meanwhile, Kieran Gibbs backs the manager’s position, telling the Mirror:
There are 14 games left and when you get to this stage it is about being consistent and whoever can perform the best will obviously win the trophy. It is February and we are top of the league so you have to have some kind of confidence to think you can win the league. That is the way we want to look at it.
And admits Arsenal are the outsiders in comparison to big spending Man City and bejewelled Stallion Chelsea:
Going in as the underdogs takes the pressure off, but we are not looking at the odds of winning the Premier League. We just want to win the Premier League.
As I said yesterday, I’m more than happy with the underdog status. There’s hope, but not weight of real expectation that we can go all the way, and I think that probably suits the team. It was interesting how, in the course of something else, I came across this from Amy Lawrence in the 2003-4 season. It was just after the 5-1 win over Inter Milan, and she said:
Sometimes in sport less is more. So Arsenal’s supposed weakness this season – the thin squad that critics predicted would be their downfall – has become their strength. A streamlined operation means everybody feels closely involved all the time. Wenger cannot afford for the out-of-favour to graze with the reserves, or for kids that are suddenly thrust into the fray to be overwhelmed by who they are receiving a pass from. The group has, by necessity, become close knit.
It’s easy enough to draw parallels with this season. It is a relatively small squad, weaker in certain areas than others. For this season’s centre-forward worries, remember that in 2003-4 a young Kolo Toure was thrust into action as a centre-half with an un-fancied Pascal Cygan and an end of era Keown as back-up. There was no real back up for either full back either, a 17 year old Gael Clichy got some games on the left, while the solution for Lauren’s absences was to move Toure over and play Cygan central because, well, the alternative was 19 year old Justin Hoyte.
But there’s sometimes a benefit to having a squad that isn’t chopping and changing every week, where there’s almost a first XI and you can fill in around them. Of course Arsenal don’t have a Thierry Henry this season, a man so good and so at the top of his game that he could make the difference on his own. But they do have a clutch of effective players who can produce in any game, and perhaps that balances it out.
Anyway, we’ll see how it all plays out. The manager meets the press this morning so we’ll have team news and more over on Arseblog News.
Back here tomorrow with an Arsecast (I’m off to hide my mugs before recording). Until then.
