december 9th
So all the Champions League qualifiers are sorted, Madrid going through as they arranged a comfortable 3-0 win with Roma, while Liverpool have Steven Gerrard stopping them being total cack and they made it through to the knock-out stages as well.
With all the jiggery-pokery of not playing a team from your own country, the group you just came from and group positions Arsenal will play one of the following: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Porto, Werder Bremen or Bryan Munich. Madrid for me, please. The draw takes place next Friday, December 17th.
Manuel Almunia says he’s not suffering from nerves and he’d be more than ready to add to his catalogue of mistakes play against Chelsea. In a most unscientific poll on the forums I asked who people would prefer to play on Sunday. The results were as follows:
- Lehmann – 87%
- Almunia – 13%
Pretty conclusive, I have to say. Ok, in the short/medium term we’ve got to be looking at bringing in a top keeper to the club. The main problem, as I see it, is that there is no outstanding goalkeeping talent in the game at the moment. Ideally we want to sign somebody in their mid-twenties who can do a job for us for the next 10 years. But ask yourself this, even if you had an unlimited amount of money to spend on a keeper, realistically who would you, and could you, buy? Who is out there that’s so good everyone is talking about them? One for the manager and his scouts to sort out, but at the moment I’m 100% positive that Lehmann is the best keeper we’ve got, he was extremely consistent and important last season and he’s as good as most in the Premiership, therefore he should play. Bob Wilson agrees.
In other news Robert Pires has warned Chelsea that Arsenal will be ready for them on Sunday, Freddie Ljungberg’s migraine may keep him out of Sunday’s top of the table clash and I bought some new shinpads.
Finally for today, Leopold has some thoughts about Arsenal’s current form on the real ANR.
