november 2nd
We’ll start this morning with injury news. We all know Sol Campbell is out of tonight’s game against Panathinaikos but joining him on the sidelines is Edu who has a calf strain. That’ll mean a Vieira – Cesc partnership in midfield. It also emerged that Gilberto is suffering badly with a back problem and will be out until February.
José is fit despite fears he’d broken his finger but we’ll have to see what the boss does in terms of the team tonight. I’d certainly bring Pires back in, but out on the left. This idea of playing him as the second striker in European games is a bad one. It doesn’t work. He’s a great player on the left. Up front I’d be tempted to go with either José or van Persie and as I type this I have the most incredible sensation of Deja Vu. Weird.
I’d give Dennis a rest. He did 90 against United, 90 against Southampton and he looks just a little off the pace. Maybe that’s tiredness or maybe he just needs games to click back into gear. However, Reyes is more direct and offers more of a goal threat. I’d imagine van Persie, despite showing the boss he’s got goals in him in the last week, will start on the bench but he’s going to be pressing for a first team place in the coming weeks. I have no doubts about that.
The boss is well aware of the pressure and expectation for this game. He says “Some of the criticism of my team has been harsh, but expectation is very high and I can agree with that. The requested level is for us to win the Champions League.”
Meanwhile Patrick Vieira says Arsenal won’t be put off by the Greeks strong physical play. “Physically they are a really strong side, but we can respond to that as we´re quite strong as well. We´re not afraid if we play against a team that tries to press us as we can respond.”
The reserves were in action last night against Watford and a first half hat-trick from Arturo Lupoli gave us a 3-2 win. The young Italian has now scored something like 2,395 goals since he joined the club in the summer.
It’ll be down t’pub for the match later. Let’s hope it’s a fun European night and not one of those nights.
