Having endured the inevitable United comeback yesterday, there are now 6 points between us and a mentally lacerated Villa with 7 games remaining. We can now justifiably turn our full attention to the Champions’ League – and with some hope I think.
Villarreal away tomorrow night, sans Jens, but with the promise of the chance to burst United’s bloated bubble big-style in the semi-finals. There can be no failure now.
These are not opponents to be underestimated, though, and they will take a bit of beating. In the group stage they held United to 0-0 draws home and away, and they came through their second round by getting the win they needed away at Panathanaikos, no easy place to go.
The superlative Tim Vickery has an excellent profile of their manager and a few of their top players. Definitely worth a read.
They are a club, like Arsenal, which does things a bit differently. One of these things seems to be their commitment to fluid, attacking football, which I hope will mean that we spend the tie launching blistering counter-attacks, rather than simply scrapping in the odd goal from a corner after 180 solid minutes of Islington Shuffling, as is too often the case.
Always more exciting when they attack too, eh? We also seem to defend considerably better against teams who attack, so hopefully Villarreal’s style will bring the best out of our boys and we’ll see a bit of Wengerball.
Speaking of our boys, there’ll be no RvP, no Diaby, no Eduardo and, astonishingly, no Rosicky.
If Arsene was thinking of doing anything other than a 4-5-1, that list could have done some of his decision making for him. He can play Bendtner up top with Ade, or else he can play 4-5-1, (with Bendtner on the wing if he really must).
Having seen Cesc chillin out max on Saturday, basking on the Denilson-Song midfield platform, I’d like to see a similar line-up, with Nasri in for Arshavin if he’s fit. I would expect Theo to start wide right, but wouldn’t be too surprised to see Eboue come in.
Our change in fortunes has seen a remarkable cooling of the raging tide of hatred and vitriol which used to be habitually spewed at Messrs Eboue and Song by certain squawling siblings amongst the internet fraternity. In the bleakest days of this season, I defended our squad and Wenger’s management at a time when the media was telling us that all was lost, and was attacked for being completely uncritical of Wenger. The acid test for my stupidity? “Won’t you criticise Wenger for anything? Do you think Alex Song is a good player?”
Now no-one’s saying that he’s Vieira, or that he’s some sort of club legend, but there seems to be a growing realisation that when he’s on form, he can do a job for us. How times change. Eboue, too, has turned opinion round spectacularly in recent weeks with some strong attacking performances, a few goals and a general avoidance of self-imposed mishap. Perhaps this is because he isn’t getting a starting place very often any more. When it gets to 60 minutes and people start wondering who’s on the bench, some have even been suggesting that (whisper this) perhaps it might be an idea to bring on Eboue.
Amid all the talk of facing up to Bobby Pires, a word, if you will for the forgotten man of Arsenal’s Invincibles, Pascal Cygan, a willing servant of the club during his short spell at Highbury who is still remembered for a number of breathtaking examples of elite-level defending. In fairness, on his day he wasn’t actually that bad and by all accounts he has enjoyed something of a transformation since joining Villarreal. But if it’s not his day tomorrow then we could be in for some fun.
Tags: Alex Song, Arsenal, Arsene Wenger, Jens Lehmann, Pascal Cygan, Villarreal
April 6th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
i think we gonna start with song denilson and fab in the center nasri and eboue in the wings … ade or bendtner to start…
Song is a good player… we all criticised him during the initial few months of this season… i particularly remember the Tottenham match in which he came in as substitute, he was joking around so much it almost gave me a foresight of things to come. And we all know what happened that day!!
Vickery’s article sounds pretty good….
Pires was and will remain an Arsenal man…..i think all gunners will welcome him with our big hearts…:-)
Eboue is improving and i think he will be a force to reckon with in the next few years…inspite of his rickety few months..
cygan will be our chicken for the tie…go gunners!!
April 6th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Whilst your blog can’t be accused of jumping on the Arsene / Arsenal bashing bandwagon of a few months ago, that does not alter the fact that the critisim they got at the time was entirely justified. Granted, they appear to have turned the corner now and I couldn’t be more pleased, but our earlier problems (that wrote off our Prem chancs this season) were triggered last season, with the departure of key players and no replacements. I know we have been the unluckiest Prem side regarding injuries as well, but just think where we’d be now if the resurgence had started just four weeks earlier. Anyway. No point crying over sspilled milk. Up and away you Gunners! Let’s win something!
April 6th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Criticism of players is fine, as is criticism of the manager. And as you say, it wasn’t baseless by any means. While this blog certainly hasn’t been aboard any anti-Arsene bandwagons, we haven’t been afraid to make a point where it needed to be made, the lack of a replacement for Flamini being the obvious one.
The thing is that there is an appropriate tenor for this criticism. A number of Gooners, in my opinion, made fools of themselves by making hysterical, amnesiac attacks on Arsene and the players. These fans seem to believe the alarmism they read in the red-tops every day and hear on SkySports and don’t seem to spend that much time thinking for themselves.
But I think Arsene has earned some trust, and some patience, and that he deserved better from some Arsenal fans this season.