Morning all, welcome to a brand new week. It’s a strange one here because St Patrick’s Day is tomorrow and that’s the one day of the year when Irish people refuse to take a sup of drink. When you consider the task at hand tomorrow evening that’s unfortunate because it feels like we’d all require at least a medium-sized tankard of mead to get us through.
There’s talk of confidence and momentum, and the fact that 3-0 isn’t a ridiculous scoreline has given people hope that we can pull off an amazing escape after the disastrous first leg. “Remember Inter Milan!”, they say, and there’s little doubt that was one of our finest European nights, but it wasn’t the knock-out stages.
Still, there was pressure because, if I recall correctly, we needed to win to be sure of going through and boy-oh-boy did we win well that night. Henry, then Freddie, then Henry again, Edu and then Pires got the goals and it was magical, so I don’t think there’s any harm in having a little dream about tomorrow night.
Realistically though, it’s very, very unlikely. Such a deficit has only been overturned 7 times previously in the Champions League and always when the team trailing from the first leg was playing at home. But what else can we do but go there and give it a try? Mesut Ozil says:
It’s very important to score early, but we will remain patient. We have to score three goals and our aim is to do just that while remaining tight in defence. If we play as we are capable of doing in Monaco, I still believe that we have a real chance to progress.
In football, things that may look unlikely can happen.
While Arsene Wenger says:
We got it wrong in the first game. What you want in life is the chance to put it right. We have the opportunity to put it right and after, no matter what, we will be ready to give everything to do it. We can go there and create something special. I believe that we will have the desire to do it and give absolutely everything to do it.
So, let’s see see. An early goal will certainly give them something to think about it and maybe make them a bit nervous, but it’s still a massive task. Far be it for me to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for this one, but I’m going into it hopeful but realistic. I think we can win the game, but I don’t expect us to go through. If we do manage to pull it off, brilliant, but I’ve pretty much come to terms with our European exit at this point so I’m not going to be too dismayed if Monaco do what I expect them to.
There’s still life in our season anyway with the FA Cup and a Premier League table that’s interesting. Chelsea have a game in hand but we’re only 6 7 points off the top after their 1-1 draw with Southampton yesterday. Again, I’m not investing anything in the idea that we might be capable of catching them up – especially as they have a game in hand – but it’s still an interesting position to be in after the opening part of the season was so disappointing.
The scrap for the top four is proving too much for some with Sp*rs, pasted yesterday at Old Trafford, and Southampton drifting away. Liverpool play Swansea tonight and a win would put them withing 2 points of United in 4th. We obviously still have to play them at home too, so that’s going to be a big one in terms of what we need to achieve between now and the end of the season.
It’s hard to believe there are only 9 games left of the Premier League season. Time flies when you’re having fun/getting older/you have loads of shit to do every day and not enough hours to do it in – delete where appropriate. There’s still a realistic chance of silverware too with the cup, so maybe finding this bit of momentum at this stage is the right time. The key, of course, is keeping it going at the start of next season and throughout the entire campaign.
Anyway, getting ahead of myself a bit there. We should have team news later on with regards to tomorrow. It didn’t look as if we’d picked up any new injuries against West Ham, so hopefully we have a relatively clean bill of health. All the latest on that can be found on Arseblog News throughout the day.
James and I will be recording the Arsecast Extra this morning, so if you have any questions or points of discussion, send them to @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter with the hashtag #arsecastextra.
Right, I’ll go prepare myself for day of abstinence and puritanical restraint, catch you later with the podcast and all that.
