I was only ever in Scotland once in my life. Apparently I was about 2. I remember nothing about it, of course, as it was a holiday and I was on the piss. Baby-Buckfast is a wonderful invention. Farley’s Rusks up there are actually pieces of pavement painted beige.
It will be Arsenal’s first competitive match against Celtic although the teams have met a fair number of times down the years for friendlies and testimonials. All the talk this morning is of the atmosphere the Celtic fans will generate and with Arsenal’s away fans always in good voice it should be quite the cauldron of noise.
Arsene Wenger has no worries about his team’s ability to cope with it though, saying:
Scotland is always a very special atmosphere, a special noise in the stands. But we have played everywhere in Europe and we can deal with that. It will be down to us and how well we play. We don’t go into this game with fear. We go with respect for Celtic, but we know it is a very important game for us and we want to come home with a positive result.
In terms of the team news there are doubts over Cesc Fabregas (hamstring), Denilson (groin) and Bacary Sagna (hair). Of the three it seems Cesc is most likely to play and with Diaby back in the squad he could fill in for Denilson while Eboue can play at right back if Sagna doesn’t make it. However, there’s no Theo Walcott as the back injury he went away on international duty with did not respond well to a fitness test. The manager hinting the national side might have dealt with it better but there’s not much we can do about it now.
There’s not a lot to say about how we should approach the game. Champions League qualification is vital for both sides, there’ll be no holding back, and with Celtic the underdogs they’ll feel they can have a right go without having that much to lose. I’ve mentioned the scalps they’ve taken at home previously but if we can find our rhythm like we did against Everton then there’s no reason why we can’t come home with a good result.
It’s also worth remembering that whatever happens tonight it’s only half-time and I don’t think this is a tie that will be settled by tonight’s game. Should be fun though, I am looking forward to this.
In other news AW reckons there could well be a European Super League inside the next ten years. Whether it’s an extension of the existing Champions League remains to be seen but I’ve always been a bit dubious about something like this. If it comes at the expense of the domestic league then I think it’s probably a bad idea, as is a cartel of clubs ensuring their place in any such league, so there’s plenty of thinking to be done on it yet. And as it’s not going to happen today or tomorrow I can forget about it for now.
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas has joined Blackpool on loan for a month. It’ll be interesting to see where they play him as nobody at Arsenal seems to have any idea of his best position at this moment in time.
And that’s about that. I think I’ll have a sneaky fiver on Arshavin for the first goal tonight. Fingers crossed we can carry on where we left off against Everton.
Till tomorrow.
