I don’t quite know how this passed me by, but there’s a round of international friendlies this week which means many of our players have jetted off to be with their national sides.
It means Arsene is left with just Arteta, Flamini, Sanogo and some cones for training this week as we try and pick up the pieces of the Stoke defeat at the weekend. Indeed, it’s hardly ideal preparation for an FA Cup game that kicks off at 12.45 on Saturday afternoon.
The players won’t be back until Thursday. They’ll be assessed for injuries/strains/aches and then he’ll get one session with them on Friday. The good thing is that it’s a home game at least and that there’s no travel involved.
Despite the defeat in Mordor, the manager isn’t throwing in the towel in terms of the title, and has pointed to our end season runs in times past as evidence that we can keep things going. Although we’ve been liable to have a ‘blip’ in spring, we have tended to finish well. He says:
Look at our results in the crucial points of the season and you will be surprised. Somebody says something that is not checked at all and everybody repeats it and it becomes an opinion even if the facts don’t show it. Our end of season has always been very strong.
I suppose that’s true, to an extent, but there are other factors involved in that. For example, being knocked out of Europe gives us more time to prepare for the weekend’s games, and not being in the FA Cup means our fixture list isn’t so crowded that we end up suffering from fatigue.
There are those who say we should prioritise the FA Cup, Wenger says:
You do not fight all day only to throw the championship away just because you want to play the FA Cup.
I guess what he’s saying is that it’s not just one thing or the other, but when you look at the games we’ve got coming up it’s easy to think that the FA Cup represents our best chance at a trophy this season. Football is weird, and anything can happen in Munich, but it’s a long-shot to think we’re going to go there and strike lightning twice. I’m not saying we shouldn’t give it a go – of course we should – but when it comes to this Saturday we have to start the best team possible and, only after that, can we think about the Champions League.
The manager always says the next game is the most important and we’re in to full one game at a time territory here. We’ve got to keep fighting in the Premier League and it’s a title race this season that has had many twists and turns. There could easily be a few more between now and May and if we can keep pace with, and take some points off, the teams ahead of us then who knows what might happen.
On that, Jack Wilshere says:
The good thing is that this month we play all the teams at the top. If we win those games, we can be up there. We’ve got to keep going to the end. Anything can happen in this league as you’ve seen this weekend and in previous weeks.
Yet, like a win in Munich, it’s a much more difficult task than winning two games to get to a cup final. Everton are going to be difficult this weekend, but we’re much more likely to beat them at home than we are to take 9 points from away games at Chelsea and Sp*rs and a home game with Man City. That seems obvious to me. I’m not saying we can’t do both, but in terms of having something tangible at the end of this season, we can’t afford to take the cup anything less than completely seriously.
No doubt this is something that we can focus on throughout the week or as the game gets closer this weekend, but in the meantime we have to hope that we come through these internationals with a clean bill of health. There are a couple of players for whom we have little back-up and any injury would be seriously detrimental to our season. It feels like walking a tightrope in some regards.
Not a lot else going on this morning so just a reminder that myself and @gunnerblog will be recording the Arsecast Extra this morning. As always we’ll be fielding some of your questions sent to use via Twitter. If you’ve got anything you’d like us to cover, send them to @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter with the hashtag #arsecastextra, and we’ll do our best to get to as many of them as possible.
It should be done and dusted to give you some lunchtime listening, so check back for a new post around then.
Until then.
