december 6th
A happier Monday morning than in recent weeks although my aching torso might disagree with you.
It’s a big week ahead for the lads, tomorrow sees the make or break game against Rosenborg in the Champions League while the weekend brings Chelsea to Highbury for probably the most important league game of the season so far.
Big decision of the week has to be who’s going to play in goal. The Standard reports that AW has been very impressed with Manuel Almunia in training while Jens Lehmann has declared himself ‘surprised’ at being dropped for the Birmingham game. Nobody doubts Lehmann’s professionalism but it would be easy to get a bit complacent when you start every single game. Even the best professionals need a bit of extra motivation from time to time and perhaps seeing Almunia take his place will do that for Jens. Anyway, that’s one for the boss and making decisions like that is why he’s paid lots of money and I’m not.
It was reported yesterday that last week Arsene Wenger called all the players (Ljungberg and Cesc apart) into his office to tell them performances had to improve. It seemed to do the trick on Saturday. Thierry Henry meanwhile has hit back at the critics who say he’s been poor in recent games, taking a swipe at Alan Hansen who gave him a lot of stick for his performance at Anfield. “People should look at how many games I play during the season and how many of them are bad.”
Patrick Vieira is sad that he’s going to miss out on the games this week and another reason for the boss to get his thinking cap on is the loss of Vieira and Lauren for tomorrow’s game. If it were up to me I think I’d bring Senderos in the centre of defence and move Kolo to right back. Midfield is going to be a problem though but Flamini and Cesc are our only options unless someone like Pires is moved infield. Much as I love Bob he’s not exactly a grafter so that’s another one for the boss to earn his corn with.
Freddie Ljungberg is confident ahead of the Rosenborg game while fellow Swede Sebastian Larsson is hoping to win a new deal at the club. Finally the draw for the third round of the FA Cup was made yesterday and Arsenal will play Stoke City at Highbury.
So that’s that. How was your weekend then?
