Today I sit in the room of the groom as we prepare him for the big day US style. It’s about midnight here which means that it’s about 4am back home. In 8 hours everyone will either be at the game or watching /listening to the game and I’ll be attempting to find an Irish pub somewhere in the vicinity of Long Island.
Tomorrow’s game will be a very exciting game indeed – it always is when Sp*rs come to town. Team news sees a host of players injured with Tomas Rosicky and Theo Walcott both out as well Carlos Vela and Jack Wilshere. Fabianksi got injured in the last game and he will be out for about 3 weeks. The team will most probably be:
Almunia
Sagna – Gallas – Vermaelen – Clichy
Song – Diaby
Eboue – Cesc – Arshavin
Van Persie
The boss spoke before the game and said:
“I always look forward to big games,” he said. “But we are in a strong position in the League and, above the derby, what is more important for me is to win the game because we want to win the title.
“I do not consider too much that we play Tottenham. I consider we can take three points to be in a stronger position in the League. That’s much more important.”
Talking about the 4-4 draw at the Emirates last season, the boss continued:
“It’s difficult to know what the impact was,” said the Frenchman on Friday with a little more circumspection. “It was a big disappointment but overall I think we played well.
“At that time they had just changed the manager. Harry Redknapp was in one of his first games and Tottenham were like one of those teams who had a new manager, they kept going and kept going and they did well to come back.
“It took us some time to recover from that and you suffer more when you think you have won the game and the team comes back.
“It was like at West Ham last week I suppose. But at the end of the day we can say we didn’t deserve to win at Fulham [earlier this season] and we won. We got a draw at West Ham when we should have won. That’s part of the game. What is important is that we win the game tomorrow.”
And the boss also took time out to speak about whether Tottenham are a big club and whether they are bigger than Arsenal…
“How do you measure the dimension of a club?” Wenger asked himself. “Success, exactly.
“So if you look at success historically they have a lot of work to do. We have been 12 consecutive years in the Champions League so once they have done that they can say, of course, that they are similar.
“You can never say they’ll never bridge the gap. They have the potential, and the supporters. They are a big club. But what comes next is the consistency of achievement. At the moment nobody would deny that Arsenal is in front of them.”
It’s a very diplomatic answer from the boss. He really doesn’t want Sp*rs to have any success and tomorrow he will hope to put one nail in their coffin… Come on you Gooners!
