Morning. Or is it evening? I don’t really know as it’s perpetually dark in this corner of middle earth and this weekend has seen exactly 8 hours of sleep in total. Ideal preparation for a long working week and a visit to the shitbags tonight.
Dev covered tonight’s match yesterday, so I won’t cover old ground except to say this is absolutely vital. It’s not season defining as some mugs will have you believe, it’s just one game in a season of 38. But in terms of the psychological boost it would give us, beating those horrible wankers in their own garden… well, its immeasurable isn’t it. Hopefully Samir Nasri will score 3, and on his hat trick take of his snood and swing it around his head. I want Arsenal to take Evra’s comments and shit them out on him.
I think there is a little bit of uncertainty around the team – RVP is back and there must be a temptation to play him in such a big game. But Chamakh has been brilliant value (LOL) so far this season, he’s got a great scoring record and he hands us something that we’ve not taken to Old Trafford for some time – a forward who is good in the air. Ade and Bendtner were/are tall, but neither of them were Tim Cahill exactly. Against United I can’t help but feel we really need to mix it up, use the long ball into the box, use the wings to cross in, but keep the ball on the floor also, play around them like we can so well. Arsenal now have plans B and C, it would be a shame not to use them from kick off.
Anyway, even the goalkeeper isn’t sure at this stage – the excellent Young Guns blog sums up todays news:
The Sun newspaper claims Łukasz has failed to prove his fitness and Wenger will instead hand a baptism of fire to Szczęsny. The claims are backed up by a suggestion Wojciech made on his Twitter page, claiming he is “prepared for Rooney”. The 20-year-old has played three times for Arsenal, all in the Carling Cup, and has three clean sheets.
Szczęsny really has an opportunity to back up the noise surrounding him, and from seeing his three performances so far, I have no doubt he will be totally unfazed if he’s given a chance. There is still a slight doubt about Fabianski. He’s not really done much wrong in this current run in the team, but there is still a real fear he might explode when United fans sing songs about him decorating their council houses – culminating in him punching the ball into his own net before crying and shitting his pants. Equally he might be incredible, and score a goal from a goal kick. With Fabianski you can never tell. It’s like Polish roulette.
Goalkeeping howlers very much the subject of the moment, did anyone watch Hilarious Gomes yesterday? Drogba kicked the ball at him, it hit him scare in the chest and went in the goal. I still, after seeing replays from 100 angles, can’t work out how Gomes let it in. He had his entire body behind the ball. He’s another goalkeeper that looks great, makes excellent saves and then has a howler. Although the big flappy bellend did save Drogba’s penalty, costing my fantasy league captain 10 points.
Tevez is off – or not. He wants out, City say no, he says yes, City say “here Carlos have a large wad of cash”. It’s like the live episode of Coronation Street except with a bit of drama and intrigue. About the same number or arseholes though. Great stuff really. Any man who signs a 5 year contract for shit loads of cash, to become the highest paid footballer at his club and likely the country, really needs to think “I put myself in this position”. He hated Manchester when he left United, did he magically think signing for City would improve Manchester? He comes across as a bit of a melon. He refused to play for Corinthians, when he played at West Ham he got all uppity and said he’d “never forgive West Ham” for trying to stand in the way of his dream move to United. He was told his contract would be renegotiated at the end of his second season at United, and then half way through the second season moaned about being left out. Now he’s moaning at City. Is it purely brinkmanship? An attempt to consistently wring more cash out of his awesomely talented boots? Or is he just mental? His family live in another country, and I feel sorry for him there, but he’s in this position because of decisions he made, and demanding to leave publicly isn’t really the classiest of things to be doing.
Balotelli had another tantrum at the weekend as well – great to see a real sense of team bonding and togetherness at City. I wonder how long it will be before someone bricks the manager on the side of the pitch after being subbed?
Anyway, the weekend passed me by largely but I did see Bolton’s second goal against Blackburn. Such a fantastic goal, straight from kick off with a brilliant finish on the end, check it out if you can. Sublime football, especially because it sealed a win for 10 man Bolton against the shitpots Blackburn.
