The football just keeps coming with Champions League action tomorrow night. There’ll be a press conference and team news today so we can preview the game properly tomorrow.
A win would assure qualification for the knock-out stage of the competition so there’ll be no rest for the main men. Robin van Persie will lead the line again and after two goals against Sp*rs the manager seems to think 25 goals for the season is an achievable target for him. He says:
I don’t want to set targets but why not? If you look at the chances he has had since the start of the season you cannot say he won’t reach 25 goals.
Robin has taken much more responsibility because he is up front. He has committed himself to the club for a long period and he is at an age, 26, where a footballer becomes really efficient, mature and wants to win things.
It’s not hard to see the connection between his improvement in terms of scoring goals and the fact that he’s, you know, not crippled on a near constant basis. I always felt he was a bit unlucky with his injuries. He wasn’t a Michael Owen, for example, whose hamstrings were made of frayed rubber bands. He seemed to pick up a lot of reasonably serious injuries through impact. There was the knee when he played for Holland and he landed funny, the metatarsal after scoring against United, and on top of that a lack of patience which saw him come back a couple of times too early and suffer setbacks as a consequence.
He was fit for the majority of last season and he had his best ever return. If he stays fit again for the bulk of this term then there’s no reason why he can’t do better. It’s clear now he’s getting used to the new role he’s been asked to play, he says himself he’s found a balance which allows him to be more efficient, and while Match of the Day spend their time asking which of Torres, Rooney or Drogba is the best striker in the Premier League, I’m quite content to watch Robin bang the goals in without the hype. He’s got to ensure that the efficiency he’s found lasts the duration of the season but to me there’s no doubt he’s got the potential to become the kind of goalscorer a top club needs.
Meanwhile Andrei Arshavin says that the win over Sp*rs shows Arsenal have put the blip of West Ham behind them. He says:
What I liked in this game is that at half-time were were sure we could end as winners. We were not nervous. There was a sense that the opponents couldn’t equalise and that we wouldn’t lose our lead.
Quite why there wasn’t that sense at Upton Park is something you’d have to ask the little Russian. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with him on Saturday. He seems to be off the pace in recent games and perhaps we could expect a little more from him. When I saw him last in the flesh against Boro last season he was so fascinating to watch. He communicated, told players where to put the ball, where to go to receive it, and generally put in a good shift. Against Sp*rs there wasn’t much of that, if any at all.
I know he’s the kind of player who can give you something out of nothing, and I’m not criticising here, merely observing, but perhaps there’s just a bit too much nothing at the moment and not enough something. Maybe he’s carrying a bit of a knock, which would explain things a bit, but there’s also the sense that fitness is not exactly his strong point and that’s an area he could improve. Anyway, hopefully it’s just a little bit of a lull and things will pick up as the season progresses. He might be just pacing himself so he can last till May. What with his fitness and that.
Kieran Gibbs, rather prematurely tipped for England by Arsene Wenger I thought, has spoken about that and how nice to see a footballer with his head screwed firmly on his shoulders. He says he can’t even begin to think about England until he does more for Arsenal. Refreshing and intelligent. Maybe it’s the intelligence that’s refreshing. It’s why Almunia’s repeated comments about playing for England never really sat right with me. It was all newspaper hype really and he should have just concentrated on doing well for Arsenal instead of getting sucked into tripe like that.
Stan Kroenke has had his chequebook out again. The American has bought another 427 shares taking his overall shareholding to 29.6%, edging ever closer to that mythical 29.9% which would require him to make an offer for all the shares. On the new purchase the Arsenal Supporters Trust say:
The AST’s own assessment of today’s development is that a takeover is not imminent and that today’s purchase is the consolidation of an existing position.
And I’d agree with that although you have to think the closer he gets to the 29.9% the more likely it is that something will happen. But just because he has that shareholding doesn’t mean others are under any obligation to sell to him, so unless there’s some serious dialogue going on behind the scenes about willingness to sell to Kroenke I can’t see any takeover happening in the near future.
In other news Emmanuel Eboue says he’d play for PSG if they made an offer for him next summer while Abou Diaby talks Champions League.
Arsenal reserves lost their first game of the season, a 2-0 ‘home’ defeat by Portsmouth.
And that’s that. A full preview of the game against AZ tomorrow, any breaking team news during the day will probably be Twittered, if that’s your thing.
Have a good one.
