Morning all, and what an exciting morning it is as we face up to AC Roma away in the Champions League. With Chelsea and Liverpool going through last night (Liverpool, I’ll grudgingly admit, in some style) it keeps up the English representation in the competition. I really don’t understand why as a player you’d want to be anywhere but the Premiership at this point, unless you’re really addicted to constant sunshine. Or Tottenham try to buy you. If things carry on in this vein we could be left with an all-English semi-final, and what larks that would be. Although I’d like Barcelona to still be around, as long as they’re the Barcelona that’s starting to crumble rather than the comically imperious Barcelona of earlier this season
Hopefully we’ll get at them tonight and go for the magic away goal which would all but guarantee our progress, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Arsene employ a 4-5-1 kind of a set-up, perhaps with one of the strikers playing in the hole. It also remains to be seen whether or not he’ll risk starting Eddie and Theo, or leave them on the bench to wreak havoc later on. I wouldn’t mind seeing Alex Song starting, giving him the chance to capitalise on the form he found on Sunday, but I don’t know if Arsene would back him for such an important game.
My team:
Almunia
Sagna Toure Gallas Clichy
Walcott Song Denilson Nasri
Van Persie Eduardo
But I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bendtner start because he’s big and awkward, although personally I’m not sure this is as important in this context as being good at football, given that it’s, you know, a football match. We’ll see.
Anyway, with Roma lacking lots of their best players, and in intermittent form, I’m very optimistic about our chances tonight. The Champions League brings out the best in us, and we’re in good nick at the moment anyway.
In the meantime, don’t forget to enter our brand-new Phillosophy Football competition to win a Herbert Chapman t-shirt! Simply send the answer to the following question to admin@philosophyfootball.com, together with your name, address and t-shirt size: What was the formation that Herbert Chapman pioneered while he was at Arsenal? There’s five to be given away, and we’ll be announcing the winners at the end of the month.
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Tags: ac roma, Arsenal, Arsene Wenger, herbert chapman, philosophy football
March 11th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I want to make one small tweak to your formation and go with Gibbs. While Clichy has the experience, Gibbs has the current form. I’ve been impressed with his performances this season and watching the Burnley game, Gibbs can go forward as well as Clichy – he’s actually a fairly good dribbler – it may just not be in his nature yet to do so. Arry can have Armand Traore, we have Keiran Gibbs. I really wish Arshavin wasn’t cup tied though because with the extensive Roma missing in action list, particularly De Rossi and Perotta, Arshavin’s speed and diligence could wreak havoc on a depleted Roma team.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Hi WC, good to hear from you.
I agree that Gibbs looks promising but I wouldn’t risk him on an away draw against Roma, however strong our position looks. We’ve seen before how the youth team can dominate lower division sides, but against the big boys they look out of their depth. It’s the same reason I think Wenger might be reluctant to go with the Song/Denilson pairing, even though he’s short of options…
December 9th, 2011 at 1:56 am
I