Morning all, a quick Saturday round-up for you. Who wants a lengthy round-up anyway?
The team news ahead of tomorrow’s epic crunch battle with the smashers of mugs is that Abou Diaby is probably back. And that’s about it. Nobody else. So no Eduardo, as far as we know. Normally the team news is quite definitive, it’s all a bit up in the air really. But at least Diaby might be back!
The list of absentees is not quite as long as your arm, maybe a double thalidomide arm, but we still go into it without Rosicky, Eboue, Clichy, Gibbs, van Persie and Bendtner. All things considered and people who are supposed be fit being fit I think we’ll go with: Almunia – Sagna – Gallas – Vermaelen – Traore – Song – Cesc – Denilson – Nasri – Arshavin + 1 from Walcott/Vela or even Diaby, if he’s fit.
That final attacking place is the only real question mark, I think. Will he go for the morale improved Vela who has his new contract to help boost his confidence and help forget the misses against Olympiakos? Will he got for Theo who does like to play at Anfield but has, in the past, proved very effective as a sub? Or will he go for Diaby who is quite tall? Decisions, decisions.
Denilson says we’ve got to stop Steven Gerrard to get a result and knows that in the absence of any strikers the goals are going to have to come from elsewhere. He says:
We must stop Gerrard – and also the likes of Lucas and Javier Mascherano to maintain our hopes of victory. We have had many setbacks to our strikers so other people are obliged to step up and help out with goals.
Hopefully he’ll have lubed up his Brazilian ankles to fire a 30 yard swerver past Reina. Obviously Gerrard and Torres are the main Mugsmasher threats, stop them and you go a long way to stopping Liverpool. That’s easier said that done though. We knew stopping Drogba was pretty much the key to a good result against Chelsea and that was, as they said on the internet, a top class, top of the range, epic fail.
Arsene was asked, by a Czech journalist, about Tomas Rosicky in his press conference yesterday. He told the journo that he was hoping to extend Rosicky’s deal and that he was very ‘patient’. The journalist actually sounded surprised that we would be doing that, suggesting that many people back home thought the same due to the amount of time he’s spent out injured. Which is entirely reasonable, I think. I suppose this goes back to an earlier blog this week when we spoke about the number of injury prone players at the club.
Now, let me first say that I think Rosicky is a fantastic player. Creative, hard working, skillful and he adds something to this team, particularly when he plays in midfield. We have a tendency to be a bit sideways, he has the ability to drive us forward which is invaluable. However, there’s no escaping the fact that he is an extremely injury prone player. Even before his serious injury he was liable to miss 3 or 4 games at a time with a pull or a strain or a little niggle and without the consistency of being in the team week in, week out, it’s hard to play your best football.
Arsene talks all the time about how players who have spent long periods out injured suffer when they come back and that’s clearly true. Rosicky, Diaby and Eduardo have all had long periods out with serious injury and the consequences of those are apparent. I can understand the manager wanting to keep a footballer like Rosicky because when he plays he’s an asset. Yet I have to question the wisdom of giving a long term deal to a guy who suffers so regularly and misses so many games. Perhaps the impact of losing a player like Rosicky is being somewhat tempered by the emergence of Aaron Ramsey and if Rosicky is around to play a part when fit, then fine. But surely any deal, in order to give value to the club, must involve some kind of pay as you play clause.
I know it’s not his fault that he’s been injured and I know how frustrating it is for any footballer to miss so much of their career. You can say ‘Well, if I were picking up £60,000 a week, I’d cope’. Money is not really the important factor for the player though. Of course it helps and makes life much easier than any of us would have it, but then isn’t there an onus on the player to show a bit of a loyalty and appreciation to the club that have shown him exactly the same? I’d like nothing more than for Rosicky to remain injury free and a big part of this Arsenal team but I think he’s always going to be a man who struggles with injury and his future at the club should reflect that. Just my tuppenceworth, anyway.
In other news the club have rightly blocked an attempt to have Cesc play for Catalunya against Argentina on Dec 22nd. Given the Christmas schedule in England the idea of him going away to play in a meaningless game like that was absolutely ludicrous.
Arsene talks about transfers, saying:
Ideally, I would just like our injured players back. I always said I would not buy any players if we had no injuries. Let’s not dream. You must be a magician to go out there today and buy a player who can play in the Champions League, who is free and who has top world-class quality.
Given the fact that we are Arsenal the idea of us having no injuries is absolutely ludicrous. I worry about him constantly talking about having to buy players who are top world-class quality. That would only be relevant if every player in our squad was top world-class quality and that is clearly not the case. It sounds like Arsene has got his Scrooge hat on this festive season.
And that’s really about that. I’m off to do stuff which probably involves things and that. Have yourselves a good Saturday, till tomorrow.
