Up For Grabs Now

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.

Also, don’t forget to sign up to the email list below, to get your fresh slice of UpForGrabsNow love direct to your inbox every morning…

A delayed response to the stonking victory over Burnley on Sunday. Of course you’d be quite right if you said that we are a football club of sufficient stature that we oughtn’t be cheering victories over Burnley that emphatically, but the quality of our performance and our otherwise rather rickety season merits us in this instance. It also keeps us alive in the FA Cup, a competition we’ve got a good chance of winning this season, just as long as we can overcome Manchester United, Chelsea, and, er, Hull in the following rounds.

3-0, it was, and it could have been quite a few more had young Theo and Robin shot slightly different. The players involved in the goals were also wonderful statement from Arsene; all new, returning or maligned. The first was an Andrey and Carl incision of a quality that promises wonderful things for the future. A silky pass, a great first touch and then a chipped finish over the keeper. These two haven’t been around long enough to learn the Islington Shuffle, and I’ve rarely been gladder. The second has had a lot of coverage as a thing of pure beauty, and who am I to disagree. After a tentative bit of IS, Alex Song floated in a miraculously surprising ball to Eduardo who smacked it with his heel into the top corner, the sort of finish which were you in the playground you would have to spend a long time justifying as being deliberate. Eduardo isn’t in the playground, and so doesn’t have to justify his sheer technical brilliance.

The third was, as well as being slick and clinical, a goal which made you want to go and check which way round the loo was flushing. LeGal passed the ball forwards to Alex Song whose deft backheel put it in the path of the onrushing Eboue, whose finish was uncharacteristically, wonderfully clinical. Gallas-Song-Eboue-goal; what odds would you have got on that combination before the match, I wonder? Alex Song’s two assists reflected a great performance, and one which left me wondering whether it might not be Denilson who’s most nervous for his place when Cesc gets back. Song is much happier sitting back than the Brazilian, who like most of our midfielders ideally would like to be the Cesc figure. What a difference a good match can make.

So from the despair and despondency of the last few weeks we find ourselves in a position where, with a good performance against Roma tomorrow night, we can find ourselves in strong contention for two trophies and right back in the hunt for fourth place against a collapsing Villa. Great News.

In other Great News, our February Philosophy Football competition has finished- congratulations to our winners Peter Hoodless, Clementina Kyremateng, Clair Lewis Peter McNulty and Cara Taylor, who are now all the proud owners of the Arsenal t-shirts. We are also proud to announce the March competition. Same deal, only this time you can win a stonker of a Herbert Chapman t-shirt from our pals down at PF.

As before, we’ve got 5 to give away, to enter you’ve simply got to answer the following question: what formation did Herbert Chapman pioneer when he was at Arsenal? Full details are here.

Don’t forget to sign into the mailing list below. Until tomorrow, grabbers, where we’ll talk about Roma and all that jazz. Been a good few days for us gooners, hasn’t it?