German Shepherds are smart dogs but asking one, nay, imploring one, to get up and do 1000 words on the North London derby seems to be beyond them. Either that or he’s too smart to indulge me. Anyway:
*boilk* (and I blame the Mugsmasher for giving me so much wine I could only play FIFA with one eye and thus lost both games).
So, here we are with a late kick-off against Sp*rs and we’ll be looking for a similar kind of performance to that of last weekend against Aston Villa. In terms of the team I think it will be the same except for Alexis coming in for Alex, and the same system with Ozil central and Ramsey playing much close to Mikel Arteta.
The only time I’ve seen Sp*rs this season was when they got absolutely humped by Liverpool so on that basis, and a quick look at their recent results, suggests they won’t be coming into this game full of confidence, but as we know a derby game doesn’t really take all those factors into consideration. They will be trying to win and everything, the uppity gimpthreshers.
The importance of the game goes beyond the three points, as they say, something that is ingrained into the players, as Mathieu Flamini reveals. He spoke about his first derby, saying:
I’d just moved here. I was a young boy and I was already impressed by the speed of the Premier League, but I remember Pat Rice telling me, ‘Wait until you play Sp*rs, then you will see what a real game is’.
It’s the kind of game where you have to commit 100 per cent. If it’s half-hearted it won’t work. You have to put your life on the pitch for the fans. You have to give everything for them.
Certainly his re-introduction to Arsenal in last season’s home game against them was an illustration of that, but as I said yesterday, I don’t think there’ll be a single Arsenal player out there today who isn’t fully aware of the importance of this fixture. If you can’t get fired up for this game then you might as well pack it in and become one of those people who brings people around one of those awful about-town rickshaw bicycles (why do people go in them?!).
Meanwhile, the boss has backed Aaron Ramsey despite his form being not at its best this season. The Welsh Jesus has scored three times this season, but there are elements to his game which aren’t really working. When you see him clump a simple cross-field pass out for a corner to the opposition, you know something’s not quite right, but Arsene’s reckons he’s on track, saying:
He is back now. He had a little moment when he was not at his best but that can happen. I am fully confident that he is back. Yes sometimes [he may have been trying too hard]. I believe he felt a bit more pressure to score. You always have to come back to basics. What is my job? Midfielder, win the ball and give a good pass.
I think the position where he’s further back in the midfield is his best one. It’s natural when a guy goes on a goalscoring spree like he did that you might look for him to play higher up the pitch, but part of what made him so effective was the way he’d burst from deep and arrive at just the right time. I don’t think it thwarts his attacking style at all, and if he can just be a bit more careful with the ball at times then he’ll find his form again without any hassle.
Even so, if you look at the Villa game, he still completed 84% of his passes and, bar a couple, most of the ones he gave away were forward passes in their half trying to make things happen. It’s normal for form to fluctuate, but the thing that I always liked about Ramsey was the fact that even when he didn’t play well he always wanted the ball, rather than hiding in plain sight like some players do. I wouldn’t bet against him for a goal today.
Beyond that not much else going on bar the usual pre-game waffle about how it’s more than just three points but how three points are the most important thing. And yes, it is one of the games of the season but how we get three points is pretty unimportant to me once we do. It would be lovely to pummel them, for us to Diaby them like they were John Terry’s glass chin, but if it’s a scrappy bobbler than goes in off someone’s arse then I’m all for that – providing we come out on top at the end of the 90.
For an aural look ahead to the game, check out this week’s Arsecast with Adrian Clarke during which the topic of Arsenal and this game comes up. If you can’t see the game later for some reason, remember you can follow it on our live blog. Check back later for all the details or bookmark our default live blog page and updates will begin automatically.
And if you fancy a flutter, Paddy Power are offering new accounts a rather tasty price of 5/1 for Arsenal to win – register here if that floats your boat.
Right, coffee, breakfast, dog walking, then waiting around all day for the game. Catch you later.
