I suppose this has to start with a bit of a *boilk* – some post-show school-night pints/bourbons definitely have an effect.
Anyway, we had our Arsecast Extra live recording last night at Union Chapel and all seemed to go well. It’s hard to know exactly, but nobody threw things at the stage so I’m taking that as a good sign.
James and I were joined by Amy Lawrence and Philippe Auclair to chat about the Chelsea game, Arsenal, Arsene, Mesut Ozil and loads more, and it was an interesting experience to do it in front of a live audience. We did our Q&A in the second part with questions from people in attendance and I suppose if there’s one slight disappointment we never got a ‘Would you rather?’ question.
I suppose I should take some of the blame as I asked for those questions to come later, but by the time later came around we’d been yabbering for ages and had to wrap things up. But anyway, it was fun stuff overall and I believe everything recorded properly so the podcast will be available later on today when I get back to Dublin and get things edited together.
Now, onto the other stuff and of course we’re now heading into an Interlull which means Arsenal news will be at something of a premium over the next ten days or so. There’s not much point reliving what happened on Sunday unless somebody makes a kind of Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat mash-up of the Arsene Wenger – Jose Mourinho shoving thing which results in the ‘Finish him!’ and lots of fake blood and possibly some limbs going tither and yon, but that seems like a lot of work (much as I’d like to see it happen).
Wojciech Szczesny has been trying to put Chelsea and the start to the season into some context, and it was something we touched on last night in the podcast. He says:
We’ve had a tough run so far. But I’d like to think that our start has been solid, not as good as we expected from ourselves but I believe that, after the international break, we can push on and get more points.
When you look at the run of games we have between now and Christmas, many of them are very winnable. When we return after the Interlull we’ve got Hull at home, followed by Sunderland (A), Burnley (H), Swansea (A), Man Utd (H), West Brom (A), Southampton (H), Stoke (A), Newcastle (H), Liverpool (A), QPR (H), and West Ham (A) takes us until the end of 2014.
Twelve games from which we really should be looking at a serious points haul if we want to consider ourselves title challengers – even if that main prize looks beyond us already. But as we’ve seen ourselves, and when other teams do it, momentum is such a valuable thing in football. If we can get motoring and get some points/performances under our belt then it should make the second half of the season very interesting indeed.
With some Champions League games in there that we should definitely be winning, we have a chance to alter the mood considerably. There’s no disguising the start to the season has been underwhelming, to say the least, but it is still early days and that, I suppose, is something to cling to.
Meanwhile, Jack Wilshere has been talking about his season and says that playing on a regular basic is what he’s needed:
I said at the start of the season that it was going to take some time to get back to my best. Ever since my first injury, it’s always taken a run of games – probably between five and 10 – to get back to my best. Some players are different, some players come back and are at their best straight away. But some need a run of games and I’m one of those players.
With Aaron Ramsey out injured for the next while, at least, that run of games is likely to continue as long as he stays fit, and I think it’s obvious that the manager wants to give him every chance to establish himself in the team. I think his form has fluctuated – he was outstanding against Man City, for example, but hasn’t quite imposed himself on other games in the same way.
However, if his fitness holds up, and so far he’s been encouragingly robust this season despite some fairly nasty looking moments, I’m convinced that he’ll become more and more influential. Keep fingers crossed he comes through this Interlull, then we’ve got that non-Death Run to see what he can really do.
Right, that’s that for now. More later when I get back to Dublin and can get the Arsecast Extra uploaded.
Until then.
