Morning Folks,
I’ll keep it brief today as my fellow WOA writer, JAT, will be filling in for me with a super-duper Chelsea Preview and Arsene press conference reaction tomorrow…
We’re approximately 48 hours (well, it depends when you read this) away from the Chelsea game and to be frankly honest, this game is a very big game for us. At the moment, after just six games, we’re 4 points off the top – of course, it could have been just one if not for the WBA “blip”. If we fail to get a result at Stamford Bridge, we’d be 7 points off the top after 7 games and it would be a big mountain to climb so early in the season – of course the title isn’t over after 7 games, but I wouldn’t like us to go that far behind Chelsea so early on.
So, basically, we need a result. A draw isn’t the end of the world, and of course would be a good result. But a win would be priceless. Arsene confirmed that both Almunia and Cesc are doubtful for the game and with an elbow injury keeping out Almunia, it’s unlikely that he’d return by Sunday.
Arsene said this yesterday:
“I don’t know [about Cesc]” said Wenger. “It looks a 50:50 but a 50:50 balancing on the negative side. I will find out on Saturday morning. [Almunia] is even more difficult. He has not been in a regular training session. So I will see. Vermaelen – no. Abou Diaby has an 80 per cent chance to be involved. I am not sure if he will be completely 100 per cent but it is 100 per cent he will be in the squad. Nicklas Bendtner (groin) should be available after the international break and Aaron Ramsey (leg) is progressing very well.”
Apparently Cesc has been training so that’s really good news. We know that a fit Cesc is a mainstay of the squad, but should be risk an unfit Cesc, a 60% Cesc in such a big game or any game – with the potential to be re-injured much higher. It happened at Aston Villa and again at Barcelona last season.
The bad news, of course, is that Diaby could feature, which for many fans is worrying considering his outing against WBA, which in my eyes, was a massive contribute to us losing the game…
Arsene has a press conference later, so no doubt I’ll be tweeting away for the rest of the day…
As mentioned earlier, today’s blog is a very quick one… and that’s it for today – JAT will be back tomorrow to give you a bumper blog!
