Afternoon all, and it’s a slightly warmer Wednesday than Tuesday albeit freezing overnight… surely it will be a little colder in Kiev today?
Okay, well how cold? Let’s take a look…
So, 10 degrees, a little colder than average, but should be okay… not in the minus degrees. And who is scared of the weather anyway? Arsene Wenger isn’t scared of the weather, he’s not scared of the stadium, he’s not scared of their mascot or what’s in store.
In fact, what is Arsene scared of…
“We are happy to play football – we are afraid of nobody in the world. But we respect Dynamo Kiev because I feel mainly their strength is that they are very efficient as a team. They are a very hard working team with good discipline, and they can score goals. In that kind of game you want to defend well. But as well we are an attacking team so we are only happy when we score goals. I believe we have learnt that any place in the world is difficult and I believe mentally we can cope with that better now.”
And of course, with Nasri confirmed as not in the squad, Arsene will unleash the young England pretender, Theo Walcott on the Ukrainians. The squad has been confirmed…
1 Manuel ALMUNIA (GK)
3 Bacary SAGNA
4 Cesc FABREGAS
5 Kolo TOURE
10 William GALLAS (c)
11 Robin VAN PERSIE
12 Carlos VELA
14 Theo WALCOTT
15 DENILSON
16 Aaron RAMSEY
17 Alex SONG
19 Jack WILSHERE
20 Johan DJOUROU
21 Lukasz FABIANSKI (GK)
22 Gael CLICHY
25 Emmanuel ADEBAYOR
26 Nicklas BENDTNER
27 Emmanuel EBOUE
Which means the probable line up should be:
| Almunia Goalkeeper |
|||
| Sagna Right Back |
Toure Centre Back |
Gallas Centre Back |
Clichy Left Back |
| Eboue Right Wing |
Song Midfielder |
Cesc Midfielder |
Walcott Left Wing |
| Adebayor Striker |
Bendtner Support Striker |
||
As I said yesterday, I’d expect Van Persie to be rested as well as Denilson, with Bendtner and Song coming in. The bench should comprise of Fabianksi, Silvestre, Djourou, Denilson, Ramsey, Vela and Van Persie.
It should be a cracker of a game tonight and Ade believe the team has real desire to win this competition…
“We have every chance to win the Champions League with Arsenal. I had the chance to be in the final with Monaco, but I was on the bench and I could see all these special things going on. Then with Arsenal, I could not play because I was cup-tied and in my head it was difficult – but now I have a chance to play so there is an argument for me to be more hungry than most of my team-mates. However, I am not the only one. Cesc [Fabregas] and Kolo [Toure] lost in the [2006] final as well and so all these players would like to win it in their career. These are the things that we are going to pin together as brothers and help each other on the pitch and off the pitch and try to achieve something this season.”
Read an interview with Adebayor on the official Arsenal site… it’s quite interesting.
Well, good luck boys, let’s put on a display and get three points on the board tonight!
‘Til tomorrow…]]>
