Tonight’s game is absolutely massive. A win tonight would keep us hot on the heels of a Chelsea side that is struggling for form. They’ll be without the likes of Essien, Drogba and Mikel, who are arguably more affected that any other side in the league… except maybe Portsmouth, but we have heard confirmation that none of their players will go until after this game (Dindane, Belhaj, Yebda and Kanu), which means we’ll have to fight them mano-a-mano…
Ex-Sp*rs player Kevin-Prince Boateng, who is resembling some of his finest form we’ve seen is spewing out the fighting talk:
“Arsenal are one of the best teams in the world, so we have to be focused and concentrated against the teams around us and switch it on 100 per cent. The thing with us is that we know we have to get a result every weekend because it’s so hard to get out of the bottom three and we’re bottom. We have to get it right against Arsenal and win games, we just have to get some points. We can’t always come of the pitch without even one point.”
He’s got one thing right, we are one of the best teams in the world… but Pompey are root bottom and we’ve got Arshavin, Nasri and Eduardo as well as fit again Tomas Rosicky, whom I believe is included in the squad…
The line up should be:
Almunia
Eboue – Gallas – Vermaelen – Traore
Song – Ramsey
Walcott – Diaby – Arshavin
Eduardo
With a bench of Fabianski, Silvestre, Sagna, Nasri, Eastmond, Vela and Wilshere… But somehow I think that the above line up isn’t quite right – surely Nasri would have to feature somewhere – after all, he has been playing well recently… maybe it will be Nasri instead of Ramsey in this line up – but if it is, you’ve got to start to wonder what Ramsey has to do to get into the team don’t you?
Arsene has been in the press talking about the game tomorrow and had this to say about the injury situation…
“Rosicky I would say will be fit for Portsmouth or for West Ham [in the FA Cup on Sunday]. But Bendtner is three weeks away from returning. He had a hernia surgery and should be back from that already but he had a groin problem as well. The groin problem looks to last longer so they [the medical staff] say to me it will be three weeks.”
…and also touched on Diaby’s current role and impact.
“He has played many games since the beginning of the season. He looks to grow in stature and now he is dominant in the fight and he scores goals. What is very interesting in this shape [4-3-3] is that Diaby and Fabregas can both score goals. We have not one but two players who come out from deep and are good runners as well. They can come from deep positions and score goals.”
Interesting stuff from the manager and we’ve seen Diaby starting to “come good” and show some form now, something which we weren’t sure about… and the 4-3-3 does suit him, knowing he has two players behind him to clear up – in fact, my good old friend, Bob, always used to say Song was only in the team to clean up Diaby’s mess, but now it looks like both players are making names for themselves.
So, the game kicks off at 7.45pm tonight and is on Sky Sports 1. Tune in, support, and for those going down to Fratton Park in the rain, I salute you – cheer the team and may the best team win (and may the best team be us…)….
Back later for Match Day Live…
